First time poster, although I’ve been interested in making/playing text adventure games on and off for quite a while. Never thought to look for a forum though, for some reason.
Anyways, I wrote a very small demo with a few mechanics I’m trying out in Twine, namely some kind of inventory and active item management subsystem that makes Twine games more similar to parser IF. The idea is that (similar to Disco Elysium) you can equip items or skills which unlock new options in the same situation, similar to parser games where you can “use X on Y” to solve puzzles. I’ve also worked switching items into the “time passing” parts of the game, so rifling through your bags can have consequences if you’re in a time-intensive situation like combat.
The setting of the game is that you’re a counter-paranormal freelance contractor in 2023 Britain, dealing with a small case of a haunting in a run-down hotel. Please let me know if you find this interesting!
It plays fine (browser), but the UI either appears as a small text area at the top of the screen or full screen - which works fine, but it is a bit annoying.
Harlowe is great to author Twine stories with. I really like the syntax and structure of the language.
The first thing I liked about your game is the colour scheme. It reminded me of an old Palm Pilot type display; feels retro for a digital experience.
I did run into a bug, but what I did play feels pretty smooth. I like the inventory system you made and I think the equipping feature makes it feel more immersive. I feel like it’s an adventure instead of a choice-based story. I think you’re definitely on the right path. I didn’t make it to any ending though, nor did I enter any combat of sorts. Fix the bug and I’ll give it another go.
Hey, thanks for trying it out! I think the bug happens on Chrome under some conditions (probably something to do with blocking cookies/adblockers), so it might be resolved if you try it on Chrome incognito/firefox? As it stands I can’t replicate the bug on Firefox.
Thanks for playing! That’s probably due to how I set it up on itch.io, I’ll likely have a more developed version hosted on my website which will make the UI better.
I have encountered the “I can’t call …whatever this is” message several times with Firefox (102.13.0esr). (I remember it trying to pick up the postcard and the book, but I think there were other instances too.)
Thanks for letting me know. As far as I can investigate the problem is custom macros not working properly for some reason (the source becomes {} instead of the custom macro, leading to the “I can’t call… whatever this is”). I will try to upload a version onto my website and see if the bug occurs there.
