The Pilgrimage: A post-post-apocalyptic hangover odyssey

Hullo!

My name is Nick Brakespear, and I was deranged enough to write a text adventure from scratch in a desperate bid to actually gain a bit of an audience for the novels I’ve been writing. I hope it’s acceptable to post a custom engine game here.

I would be indebted to you (not literally though - I’m a starving author and can offer you nothing in return) if you might take the time to play through the demo for my in-development game and give me some feedback - which you can thrust in my direction here on this forum, or via an email address listed in the demo itself.

I’d assume most people here will have played more text adventures than I have, so if there are any issues with my game’s actual core design, I’d appreciate your expert opinions on the matter.

PREMISE:

One thousand years ago, the Earth was destroyed.
Mankind now sails a burning sea - an accretion disc;
a whirlpool of fire, born of the tears of a dying sun.

But that’s not important right now.
What’s important is that you woke up in the pub with a massive hangover;
that the landlord claims you owe him money…
…and that you don’t have any.

Oh, and the police think you murdered someone.

Welcome to The Pilgrimage:
An interactive [mis]adventure by a novelist you’ve never heard of.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  • The game was written in .Net, using WPF for its interface. So for the less technically-minded, that means it should run on any version of Windows post-XP (XP users will need to download the .Net Framework). If you’re on a post-XP version of Windows, and it doesn’t work, let me know.

  • AV software might find the demo suspicious. Just a pitfall of indie development I’m afraid - not really sure what I can do about that.

  • The game features a short list of standard verbs, and a noun-based go command (rather than compass direction grid-layout, the world is defined by logical connections between areas, such as doors, doorways and signposts, which are all highlighted in red when using the default colour theme). I did this for the sake of streamlining, so the player can spend more time moving through diverse scenery and narrative content than backtracking through a dungeon-like expanse of rooms. If I receive sufficient feedback that more verbs are needed (if people really, really desperately want an “eat” command for example), I can add new verbs pretty easily… but I’d rather not add a verb that’s only used twice in the entire game.

  • Reading the novels should not be a requirement of enjoying the game. If you feel like the world-building is going a bit over your head (if I’ve introduced too many terms that aren’t explained), let me know - this is something I’ll continue to work on during development.

LINKS:

Game “trailer”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6IP761cnBc

IndieDB page:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/the-pilgrimage1

Dropbox download (in case there are problems downloading from IndieDB):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7885274/Pilgrimage_DEMO.exe

I don’t mind trying. What kind of info do you want…do you want playthrough printouts, critiques on the manner, or etc?

Just general design feedback would be great - I’m in the process of rewriting the narrative itself in a slightly different style (experimenting with third person past tense).

So… for one thing, it’d be great to get people confirming that it actually runs. Would also be nice to know if anyone managed to get stuck, if they steamrolled through it or actually explored, if I was too subtle about anything. There’s a rudimentary puzzle at the start involving retrieving some belongings scattered around the starting area, but it’s possible to leave without solving this - it’s also possible to run out of time before solving this. But I have no idea if I’ve given people enough time with that.

Doesn’t need to be a hugely detailed analysis… just a simple “I played it, I reached the end, I didn’t think it was terrible” sort of thing would be great.