Ehh… That’s not really a thing for me. My issue is that I’m not really a writer. I prefer writing engines and such. And so I did write an engine, and I wanted to get a bit of spotlight on it, maybe, but that means writing content which I’m not very comfortable with.
AFAIK, people have always enjoyed the things I write, but it always feels so embarrassing to do and I really struggle with it. I think it falls under the same issue I have of deleting social media posts after posting them, if it makes sense.
Anyway, not to turn this into a therapy session. I’m going to try to suck it up and release something next year.
For what it’s worth, I’m looking at the demo on your profile, and the engine looks really good – it’s a really nice, crisp, clean presentation. The writing is also good and clear – it does a good job of showing off what the engine is capable of, and it’s a nice story in its own right, with a good sense of place and characters. Nothing wrong with keeping it in the oven if it’s not quite finished, but there’s nothing at all to be embarrassed by here.
(One tiny note is that your link color is really similar to your text color – the in-passage links are a little hard for me to see. A shade or two darker would help them pop.)
Regarding the the link color, I intentionally made them similar to the text color because I dislike when the links are really blatant and distracting (like Harlowe’s default color scheme in Twine). But in hindsight, it’s probably not very good for those with poor vision. I didn’t really take that into account since I didn’t even intend to release the game originally… I’ll have to maybe fudge with that some.
I wrote the bulk of it in April through June, on the weekends. I made a point to start early as I was learning inform 6. Then a lot of testing and fixes in the last two weeks.
It almost seems that varying the text brightness/contrast works better than varying the hue. Red seems to be the most common problem color, so if the variation hinges on a red-shift it may not work. Brown text with purple links might all appear gray to someone who has trouble distinguishing reds.
Thanks for that link. The color issue in question are actually gray links next to white text though, so it’s not really a color blind issue. My only color is dark orange, since I have a black and orange theme going on.
What’s funny is that I was just looking into it, and apparently in HTML colors, “gray” (#808080) is darker than “darkgray” (#A9A9A9). I had my links set to dark gray thinking that it would be the darkest. Silly me for thinking it was named appropriately.
Please consider that browsers frequently render “colors” differently. Screen readers and screen modification software also throw any rendered colors up in the air. I frequently change color settings on my screen display software (generally ZoomText) daily based upon my changing visual needs day to day.
OK, I lied. I wasn’t actually done. I did a Zoom playthrough with a couple friends who haven’t played any IF and found a bunch of little things. Mostly my friends just wanted to “use [noun]” and have that just work. And who was I to not let that work? Nobody likes “hunt a verb” anyway.
Just slid into home plate in classic style, finding little bugs and typos up till the last minute on a plane, chasing time zones. On the other hand, we generally use competitions to get us to finish our games, so I appreciate a little crunch time to kick us into high gear and take typos a little seriously. (That said, we’ll appreciate any typos found.)
Similar to some others here, the game was drafted in late Spring, but some playtesters there reawakened our ambitions. Anyway, hope you enjoy it. Glad we got a working, fairly complete version in.
Hey @markcmarino ! (Great seeing a familiar face/name!). I just submitted my first entry (ever) to this competition - likewise barely on time (15 minutes remaining). And yeah, I’ve already found a typo I missed and figured out a better way (read: one that works) to handle “Start a new game” requests in Harlowe/Twine 2.
Looking forward to playing your game and the others!
Isn’t that the way of all writing? That’s why deadlines are so good for us. And glad we can play until we get to play some D&D together! Looking forward to your game!
I didn’t get mine in. I can finish it in my own time - currently thinking I’ll release this one outside of comps later in the year, as I have ANOTHER unfinished game I want to put in Spring Thing. And I can judge and review freely. Good luck to all the entrants.
I’ve been “done” for a while now, mostly because I spent most of the summer on my game. Quarantine has given me a lot of free time. That said, being done didn’t prevent me from making a bunch of frantic, last minute changes before the deadline.
Totally. Looking forward to playing yours as well. And hopefully some D&D sometime. Perhaps the next campaign I start. Good luck with your game projects and teaching!
