Escape the Wumpus
As part of a huge game I don’t spent a lot of time working on, I’ve made a re-implementation of Hunt the Wumpus with some design changes that turn it, I think, into a nice little tactical game. Perhaps I release it as a stand-alone piece? Perhaps a submission for IF Comp 2027? Who knows. What really blew my mind, as I was re-implementing the original map, is that the dodecahedron is topologically identical to a far more easily imagined space of three concentric rings! It’s logical once you see it, but suddenly I had a way to make navigation much more intuitive.
I don’t think Escape the Wumpus uses the dodecahedral map. It does have numbered rooms, but not all of them have three exits, and the loops that exist don’t seem to be of the right size. There is a hint of bats, there are pits, and I suppose there is a wumpus (although I didn’t get to it). The overall atmosphere of the game is more whimsical and forgiving, with a recycling theme: several of the puzzles involve sorting through trash and taking out the stuff that can be recycled.
Play mostly consists of mapping the dungeon, which is chaotic but not too big. There are a few simple puzzles of the ‘pick something up here, then use it there’ variety. One trigger was a bit strange: I visited a location with the trolley, nothing happened, and then when I entered that very same location from another direction I was suddenly grabbing new items and putting them into the trolley. No idea what was going on there.
The most difficult puzzle I found involved the coloured potions. Reading a book gave me the hint I needed; I brewed the indicated potion; drank it; was able to go through an exit that was so far inaccessble… and then:
Ending a game with no save feature with a sudden death that requires restarting, and then claiming that you ‘tried to stop me’ – a lie, since I literally just unlocked this exit by drinking the potion then clicked on it once – that’s not very sympathetic game design. It feels mean and undeserved. At the moment, I’m not intrigued enough to restart, but perhaps this will change in the future, once my grumpiness has worn off.