After many months and the help of dozens of people, my sci-fi Inform 7 game Never Gives Up Her Dead has finished alpha testing (version 63!) and has moved on to the final beta!
My target date for release is December 22nd. I don’t mind going later, but I definitely won’t release earlier!
Edit: It is now released!
All of the individual areas have been more or less thoroughly tested. I still have one or two reports out on the loose that will be trickling in, but I want to move away from content additions and into final checks.
So, I’m asking people to help go through the game. My goal is to check off all of the following boxes:
| Area | Length (in moves) | Theme/vibe | Difficulty | Tester 1 | Tester 2 | Tester 3 | Additional (if any) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intro | 30 | exploration, party | 1/10 | X | X | X | 6 |
| Haunted House | 200 | classic movie monsters, psychology | 4/10 | X | X | X | 1 |
| Murder train | 200 | murder mystery…on a train | 2/10 | X | X | X | 1 |
| Wax museum | 200 | escape room | 7/10 | X | X | X | 4 |
| Horror caves | 200 | spells, fear | 7/10 | X | X | X | 1 |
| Robot combat | 200 | commanding npcs, cooking | 9/10 | X | X | X | 1 |
| Cabin in Forest | 200 | journal pages, woodworking | 3/10 | X | X | X | 2 |
| Zoo | 200 | animal puzzles | 4/10 | X | X | X | 2 |
| Monuments | 200 | math, physics | 8/10 | X | X | X | 2 |
| Rift tool | 250 | one room, limited parser | 10/10 | X | X | X | |
| Story climax | 70 | Museum, party | 1/10 | X | X | X | 1 |
| Endings 1a/1b | 100 | Machinery | 5/10 | X | X | X | |
| Ending 2 | 100 | Escape, rope | 5/10 | X | X | X | |
| Full playthrough | 2000+ | N/A | N/A | X | – | – | – |
So, every time someone finishes an area and sends in a transcript and/or bug reports, I’ll mark that column with an X. I’ll use a question mark for transcripts in progress. I’ll release the game once the following conditions are met:
-Every area has 3 X’s
-At least one tester has played the whole game
-The date is at least 12/22/23
Of course, it’s possible that not enough people will be able or willing to be testers. If that’s the case, I’ll just keep the game ‘on the shelf’ until that’s possible. If three testers were willing to play the whole game, that would fill up all the X’s at once!
I’d love to have people test more than one area, because the biggest thing that past playtesters have missed is interconnectivity. Only 1 or two testers have ever played more than one area at a time, and weird stuff may happen when items from one are brought into another.
Thanks for everyone that’s helped! Instead of giving out walkthroughs, I’ll make a thread for hints, since the puzzles will be the same in the final release and having a public thread could be useful.
This is an open beta: you don’t need permission to join. Everyone can access the game file at:
To reach the area you chose to test, download the following txt guide:
GettingStarted.txt (1.7 KB)
A hint thread is here:
Thanks! I hope it is an enjoyable experience.
(Note: Due to the public nature of the test, it’s possible some transcripts or bug reports might be submitted that aren’t rigorous, i.e. ‘I didn’t find anything wrong’ or just following a walkthrough. I might not put an X for those).
