I started playing Somewhere Somewhen two weeks ago.
-Sudden unexplained transportation to another realm? Check.
-Mysterious McGuffin to save alien race from Bad Guy? Check.
-Gratuitous decoding-puzzle in first room? Check.
I was steamed up and ready for some oldschool puzzling for puzzling’s sake. Then I found a horseshoe that wasn’t there and an untakeable rope. Bah. I quit.
I wanted to give it another go before voting closes. Apparently you have to TAKE {thing} FROM {whatever it’s in}. Combine this with the fact that X {thing} returns “You don’t see any {thing} here.” and I think my first QUIT was very understandable.
EDIT: I got a little carried away and emphasized the frustration that caused me to QUIT the first time. I’m playing it now with my parser-expectations adjusted and my own heads-up in mind. As @ChristopherMerriner points out below, it is indeed a homebrew oldschool puzzler worth exploring.
I feel bound to defend this somewhat as I tested the game and have had some contact with the author. It is certainly a difficult game and there is a level of stubbornness to the parser that might put off many players. However, the game has been hand-built in QB64 with some care and attention, the author has put a lot of time and effort into it and concessions have been made to lower the bar to entry (there are full hints and a complete walkthrough on the game page).
It would be sad if your heads up put people off playing it at all. Even if some players don’t like it, it does at least deserve to be looked at and I know the author would appreciate feedback.
I was frustrated with the same parsing issues (particularly the need to GET something FROM container), but I’d struck the same issue with one or two of the other games. Once I’d tweaked to that, it was plain sailing.
In all fairness, it was clearly explained in the help if you thought to type HELP and read it. When you stop and think about it, it does actually make sense. I think we’ve just been spoiled by the more lenient handling of containers used by Inform et al.
Once I got into it, I was enjoying the game, but it became clear that this was going to be a BIG game. I think there are seven “sections” and I believe I’ve finished the first two. I had to stop at that point or I would have run out of time to play all the other games.
I normally like to play a game to completion before I rate it, but for this one (and also ‘The Faeries of Haelstowne’), I’ll have to rate it on what I’ve played so far.
My irritability baseline must have been in the red already. I don’t normally do this kind of impulsive quitting. I poke around, try other wordings and eventually I try HELP or ABOUT.
But hey, let bygones be bygones. Now, I’m merrily TAKEing stuff FROM other stuff on my grand tour of the big oldschool castle/dungeon/alien spa-retreat.
I was frustrated with the same parsing issues (particularly the need to GET something FROM container), but I’d struck the same issue with one or two of the other games. Once I’d tweaked to that, it was plain sailing.
As the author I’m well aware of the GET [item] FROM [container] problem, but it’s just the way I structured my parser routine from the start (nearly forty years ago) and as it’s built in to the game structure I’m pretty well obliged to keep it (unless I were to start all over again completely from scratch). I did emphasise strongly in the intro that players should type HELP at the beginning and pay particular attention to the method of getting things from containers.
In mitigation I’d point out that it is possible to define function keys with pre-set text, and the game comes with F1 being set to “GET ALL FROM IT”. Thus if you examine something and find it contains an item, all you have to do is hit F1.
Just goes to show that I jumped to conclusions way too soon. Sorry about the undeserved frustro-QUIT the first time I played your game. With the extra HELP in mind, I’m enjoying the game now.
Just goes to show that I jumped to conclusions way too soon. Sorry about the undeserved frustro-QUIT the first time I played your game. With the extra HELP in mind, I’m enjoying the game now.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but in addition to the function keys (which are fully editable) there are also [SHIFT]+F-key and [ALT]+F-key definitions (which are, however, not editable). The values of all these can be shown by entering the commands KEYS, SHIFTKEYS and ALTKEYS. Many of these built-in commands can be used to make entries a lot easier.
I’ve compiled and uploaded a new version in which the availability of F1 for ‘GET ALL FROM IT’ is specifically mentioned in the HELP info. The various changes I’ve made since 10th June can be seen by entering the command INFO.
I have to to confess that when I played it through I didn’t use any of the function keys or shortcuts, being content to type GET X FROM CONTAINER (or whatever) in full. That’s the sort of plodding game player I am.
For the more hasty adventurer, however, I’m sure these in-built shortcuts are a godsend.
Wow! I didn’t know about the F-keys. That is really cool. I enjoyed the game even without that.
I’d be interested in reading full devlog notes. I noticed you posted one. But I’ll already revisit Somewhere Somewhen just to try that feature out.
I do enjoy typing in the commands, but some days, I just want to take a few shortcuts. So I enjoy seeing what people do to allow shortcuts. In Inform it’s mainly a stripped-down parser, but people have been quite inventive with homebrew systems! Sometimes seeing even one small thing I came to accept as an Inform programmer challenged by a new system is neat. When it’s big like this, well, extra neat.
It’s really quite amazing how many people don’t know about the programmable function keys as it’s fully described in the HELP info within the game, and when it is first run players are strongly advised to type HELP. It wasn’t really all that difficult to program.
As I said in response to another post, I more or less make up my games as I go along, with no preconceived objective, ideas or map. In consequence I don’t have any development details, although if you download the latest version and type INFO you will see what tweaks have been made since 10th June.
Ah … I’ve been on the other side of this. Where I’ve said “Ok, type HELP.” Unfortunately, people look for the immediate help they know about, e.g. what verbs to use, and they probably don’t consider, hey, here are some neat shortcuts. Plus – I think we all want a bit of immersion, and reading the help puts a dent in it. It’s best practice as a player to prepare and check out the meta-commands, but so many of us dive right in.
I know I have trouble using neat new shortcuts even when they are there and logically make sense. It might be a regex trick, or it might just be a key combination to do something quicker. Whenever we get something new, for better or worse, it takes time to adjust.
And I suspect a lot of parser game players, even those actively looking for a new experience, just zone out advice with F1/F2/F3 etc. because “hey, that’s not part of the parser.” We think of the old Apple keyboard or whatever, and it didn’t have those newfangled F# keys.
So we just have to be pushed more than we care to admit, even when a simple reading of the help file would’ve saved a lot of time and energy.
I know it’s perfectly natural for me to mash buttons to find shortcuts in a new app, but I guess I don’t think of a text adventure as an app per se. Maybe I should. It’s been interesting to see what parts of modern GUI practice and user-friendliness text adventures or interpreters take beyond just the Player’s Bill of Rights, to make the whole experience smoother.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. I know a lot of times I’m just grateful for something new and don’t really look into it to find the really good stuff. I suspect others have that, too.