Meta games? Find the way to play and then you get a “Victory!” screen?
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Thanks, Nils!
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This was actually an idea one of my friends has on the back burner. The game is trying to get the game to run at all.
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Alright so not sure if this is the right place to ask, but has anyone else finished Red Door Yellow Door? I’m stuck at the part with the man in the basement, where after I exhaust all my dialogue options, I’m trapped in the initial conversation but can’t say anything to get out of it. Every number gives me [There is no choice corresponding to that number.] and >look gives me the same dialogue for "How did you know it was me?" / "I'd know my little girl anywhere." over and over. Think this might be a bug, I’ll ping @OverThinking just in case?
(Really fun game otherwise. I’m completely biased since my own seed got used, but ‘explore a surreal dream world with ominous rules!’ is the kind of thing I adore. The fact that my actual dreams are tied into it makes it even better.)
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I think I ran into that bug – I think it comes about from trying to UNTIE MAN in the middle of the conversation so what worked for me was using undo or reloading to when I entered the basement, then finishing the conversation before doing anything else.
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Oop! That’s a bug I thought I’d worked out. Do you happen to have a transcript of the commands leading up to it?
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Nils, thanks for stepping in with the explanation! I was trying to futz with my Linux emulator and hoping it was the same with the Mac.
My idea was just to look for “python” as an executable and go to the command line and type python wor.py.
It’s neat to see people discussing so many games so early.
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It really has been nice! I think that it was a nice coincidence that we accidentally had way fewer entries (due I think to the transfer) but simultaneously had a bunch of high quality games entered, so there’s few enough that people can get to them but then each one is rewarding.
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Spring Thing!
Really looking forward to getting into this year’s games. I’ll have some time off over Easter so hopefully I’ll be posting some thoughts in a few days’ time …
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Might it be possible to link any maps or walkthroughs for games at the bottom of their entry sheets, beside play online / on itch etc? They are in the individual ZIP downloads of feelies, but even if playing online it can be extremely helpful to know that a walkthrough or map exists, and to be able to find it easily. I think the games that might apply re this are at least Marie Waits and I Am Prey. Repeat the Ending also has some extra useful bits, but they are at least linked from the play online page.
Also Stygian Dreams doesn’t currently have a download link, though yes the gblorb is available through the play online page. [just reread the earlier messages re this one. Ok fair enough 
]
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Oh yeah, the Prey Survival Guide is kinda essential, because the game isn’t a standard parser, and the guide explains the new mechanics. I can post a download for that (and the map) in a thread, if anyone wants me to. (Unless the proposed solution gets implemented instead, which would work, too)
EDIT: It’s been fixed, lol. Thanks, Brian!
For what it’s worth, if you need a map, there’s also an in-game one, which was added for screen-reader users. It opens and closes with the MAP command.
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I tried this on my Mac, but because I have both Python 2 and Python 3 installed I had to use pip3 to update the Python 3 installation to get this thing to work. So not straightforward. I probably should know what I’m doing better re Python - I have written code in it (albeit just one singular very complex genealogy reconstitution program!). But yup. It may not work as nicely as we’d like for folks. Then again other Mac users may have much simpler Python installations! At least the program does run now 
And with some colour.
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Those two games now have their feelies linked from their listing (I am Prey and Marie Waits).
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Thank you very much!
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Yep! Stygian Dreams is online only as i was also experimenting with real time image generation in the early stages, and then i sort of stuck with vorple to the end, since changing everything to pure glulx would’ve taken forever.
Most if not all resources go through the extension, so Gargoyle would give a, uh, rather bare rendition of the game.I should’ve added that bit in the description as well, good point!
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Can someone walk me through the etiquette of (or just help with) adding a game listing to IFDB?
This is for The Mamertine, one of the entries in the Back Garden of this year’s Spring Thing.
There are two pages that can be linked to the game: the Spring Thing one and one on itch.io. Which one do I put for the ‘Web site’ and for the ‘Play online’ button (I’ve never actually figured out how to make a ‘Play Online’ button either)?
If you look on the author’s itch.io page, there is also a previous playable demo built with the same engine that The Mamertine seems to adapted from — should that go in ‘Cross-References’?
There is also the question of the genre — I put it as ‘Escape Room’ for now, since it doesn’t seem to match up with any of the pre-existing genres, but I don’t know accurate or useful it is, for the game to be tagged with that genre — if anyone else can think of a better one, please let me know or feel free to edit it as you wish — and also the Zarfian Forgiveness Rating — I played the game twice and couldn’t figure out whether there was any ‘death’ endings, it’s all a bit confusing — so, again, if anyone else has played/plays it later on and arrives at some determinable conclusion, let me know or edit the page yourself.
Thanks!
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Also — is there a reasoning behind why people might save their reviews for post-comp, e.g. on IFDB? I’m new to most of this, so I don’t know and am trying to decide what to do with my own reviews.
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Some users prefer to wait after the voting has ended to share their thoughts (in case their reviews would sway the voting process for other people) or because they have much longer reviews in mind (and publish a shortened version on the Forum).
Or they are Brian, running the competition, but still wanting to review the games.
Edit: If you feel comfortable continuing posting your reviews on the forum, I think you should continue sharing your thoughts here
You can always edit them and publish them on the IFDB later.
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As an addendum, there are rules for what participating authors can and can’t say about other games while the comp is running. Some authors will choose to embargo their reviews until after the competition is over just in case.
(They’re not very strict rules and I’ve never seen anyone actually fall afoul of them, it’s just the principle of the thing. And of course there’s no such restrictions on people who haven’t entered a game.)
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The IFDB page for Spring Thing 2023 is up!
I’ve added the games that are already up on the site to the comp. page. Will add more when I have the time / as I play through them, one by one. Feel free to get them up yourselves!
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