Game Complete

[Moonlit Naiad]

Finally -- a week after what my self-imposed deadline was, I've finished Zap Test.

This is a textual (ie, no images/graphics), web-based (ie, nothing to download - should work fine in the browser), short, interactive fiction "game." While it is lacking many of the features found in longer/larger games, it was programmed from the ground up by yours truly. ^^

There may still be a few bugs and typos, but ... no one is perfect. Point them out to me, and I'll see about fixing them (programming in notepad doesn't give me a spell-check ability...)

--

Given that its a game, it doesn't quite fit into the stories forum, in my opinion, but if an active mod wants to move this post, I won't fuss. (I did, however, sticky the topic for two days, since I seem to still have some mod options, and don't mind a little shameless self-promotion)

[Mitera Nikkou]

Nothing wrong with self-promotion. And General Discussion probably gets more traffic than Stories, anyway.

I tried it out, but I couldn't get anywhere. I have no idea what kind of commands to use. XD

[Kether]

Nikkou, try HELP.

also is there something to do other than zap yourself, cause that's where I get stuck..

[Ookalf]

Here's what I've found so far, Nikkou:

look *object*: At the end of most of the room descriptions there's something about notable objects. Use this to examine them.

go *direction*: Use this to go through doors.

zap *target*: After getting the wand, use this to change things.

[Kyunji]

YESYES

I've always longed for a nice, gentle, zappy text adventure (unlike the rather... erotic ones at the TF Gaming Workshop). This is absolutely perfect. Excellent job -- and you coded this all from scratch? You are officially awesome.

I did spot a couple small bugs: First, typing "zap zap" with the Zapinomicon and the wand in your inventory zaps both objects -- definitely Not a Good Thing, as anyone who's zapped the wand can attest. Second, you can type "escape" anytime, anywhere to activate Bad Ending #5. I found this out after the first glitch, which includes a hint to < escape >. This is very confusing if you haven't gotten far enough into the game to find out how < escape > is actually supposed to be used.

This is awesome despite the bugs, though. I especially love the endgame. For those of you who are having trouble with the game, persevere -- your efforts will be rewarded. (EDIT: never mind, just read the front page. Can't wait for more!)

Is this game going to be expanded even more in the future? The game seems to hint that there will be more. I love the idea of a game where you run around, solving zappy-based puzzles to unlock new powers.

Thanks for putting so much effort into making this awesome game!

EDIT: Oh, and this isn't really a bug, but it's a bit confusing that you have to type "look me" to see what you're wearing -- "look clothes" doesn't work, which initially made me think that the clothes weren't programmed. You might want to change that.

[Rowan]

That was fun. I gotta try it again and see if I can imporve my ending any hehe.

[Moonlit Naiad]

YESYES

I've always longed for a nice, gentle, zappy text adventure (unlike the rather... erotic ones at the TF Gaming Workshop). This is absolutely perfect. Excellent job -- and you coded this all from scratch? You are officially awesome.

Thanks. Though, there are a few situations that might not be described as 'gentle' per se - some of the outfits can be a touch on the revealing side and there a couple places (endings, chiefly) where things are insinuated - but I did keep this fully on the IF side rather than AIF *nodnods* - A lot of the other stuff (findable at the aforementioned TF Gaming Workshop) tends to be a little more explicit than my tastes run, and certainly moreso than I'm generally comfortable writing (write what you know, after all, ne?)

I did spot a couple small bugs: First, typing "zap zap" with the Zapinomicon and the wand in your inventory zaps both objects -- definitely Not a Good Thing, as anyone who's zapped the wand can attest. Second, you can type "escape" anytime, anywhere to activate Bad Ending #5. I found this out after the first glitch, which includes a hint to < escape >. This is very confusing if you haven't gotten far enough into the game to find out how < escape > is actually supposed to be used.

One is a "bug" only sorta, the other isn't actually.

Spoilers in white text, so highlight to read
Anything that deals with item presence - look, get, zap, drop - does a comparison between the argument entered and the names of items present (or in inventory only, as in the case of drop). So it checks to see if the argument is present in the name - ie, "book" in "ancient book" and it checks to see if name is present in the argument (so that "ancient book" is found in "the ancient book") - to prevent headaches from having to type the full name of them item each time (gets old on replay, trust me... Way, way old... -.-;;;;;;;;; ), and also to prevent headaches from people who prefer more accurate grammar such as "look at the ancient book" - without what I have now, or something else that would do much the same thing, both "look book" and "look at the ancient book" would fail, requiring exactly "look ancient book" in order to get anywhere.

I elected to go with more ambiguity and less headaches. But as a consequence, for anything where ambiguity between items exists, it processes all matches. "look a", for instance, would look at any items that have the letter "a" in their name.

I could do it so that as soon as it found one item that matched, it ended searching and processed that, but in the example given, it would not work as you want it to -- the wand is item #1, the zapinomicon is item #13, so the wand would be affected and the book not.

I'll investigate a "I don't know which <item> you mean, $name" solution, though -- in a couple days.

--

<escape> for bad ending #5 also isn't really a bug. You get that option in the non-special rooms. Any other failed escape attempt results in a different bad ending. I may make variant bad endings for escape for each of the rooms, so there are unique endings for all 8, but for now there are multiple ways to get that one bad ending.

It's also supposed to be confusing -- the intention is that on the first playthrough or two, that the escape attempt will be made incorrectly, giving a game over - bad ending.

This is awesome despite the bugs, though. I especially love the endgame. For those of you who are having trouble with the game, persevere -- your efforts will be rewarded. (EDIT: never mind, just read the front page. Can't wait for more!)

Is this game going to be expanded even more in the future? The game seems to hint that there will be more. I love the idea of a game where you run around, solving zappy-based puzzles to unlock new powers.

Thanks for putting so much effort into making this awesome game!

Yes, and no. I cut short the size of the endgame area from the intention. there were going to be 19 rooms, I cut it to 9 to finalize and publish today. Sometime in the next week I'll add and populate the rest of the area. There are also two additional areas where I have left options for expansion therein, and may or may not add story hooks into them.

But, I think that once I fix a couple bugs, a lot of typos, maybe touch up an ending or twelve, and maybe see about fixing up item presence as mentioned above (in the white text), I'll see about doing something more story-oriented, rather than sandbox-oriented. (Currently, I'm leaning toward doing the sequel to Love-Love 4/5 as IF, rather than CYOA, since the direction I want some of the story arcs to go doesn't work as well in a CYOA as the first's current format is.) There's a couple other things I want to do, but think I sort of know how to do them now (complicated locks - testing more than one condition, and the talk/ask verbs), but to add either to what I currently have would involve an awful lot of rewriting.

EDIT: Oh, and this isn't really a bug, but it's a bit confusing that you have to type "look me" to see what you're wearing -- "look clothes" doesn't work, which initially made me think that the clothes weren't programmed. You might want to change that.

>.> Whoops.

That's a throwback to when clothing was going to be an actual item, rather than a special case. Now that clothing/clothes are handled differently I do need to add a special check for the look verb...

So, a bit of work to do in the afternoon, when I wake up, then. ^^;

[Moonlit Naiad]

Nikkou, try HELP.

also is there something to do other than zap yourself, cause that's where I get stuck..

Try "help zap" -- every command in the game should have a help listing, though a couple (easter eggs) won't tell you anything about them.

If you come across a command that help doesn't mention, then poke me about it. The helpfile was written last night, almost as an afterthought ^^;;

I'll probably also add something to the first page of it, where you select a name, suggesting to use "Help" in the game when stuck.

[Kether]

I think I found a bug, the game says the fastest you can complete it is in 20 turns... I can do it in 19.

[Moonlit Naiad]

I think I found a bug, the game says the fastest you can complete it is in 20 turns... I can do it in 19.

^^; I'm gonna have to append/modify that bit of narrative. Everyone's calling it a bug when it's actually designed that way deliberately. ^^;

The fastest victory is 20 turns. The 19 turn is not a 'bad end' but it isn't a victory. The reason why 20 and not 19 is considered a victory may or may not be apparent, immediately though... Thus the confusion, I think...

[Haylie]

I haz problem with gaem.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game (and this is coming from someone with a strong preference for visual aide), but there's a problem I keep having...

Whenever I zap something, like Leesa, even after I type "look Leesa" (or something similar), it won't let me see the zap'ed-ness. Is it just me? Or am I just doing something wrong?

[Kether]

I haz problem with gaem.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game (and this is coming from someone with a strong preference for visual aide), but there's a problem I keep having...

Whenever I zap something, like Leesa, even after I type "look Leesa" (or something similar), it won't let me see the zap'ed-ness. Is it just me? Or am I just doing something wrong?

You need to look at what its zapped into

[Moonlit Naiad]

@Haylie:

Characters and items, when zapped, tend to have a different name (not always). So you may need to look to find out what and who are currently present in order to know what to look at it in order to see the results.

[Haylie]

As I suspected: I have intellect problems. Oh wellz, I'll get over it. Thanks, peoplez.

[Knight Errant]

Ugh... I cant get ANYWHERE in this game. I end up doing nothing fifty different ways, and looking at a bunch of things my character is very mystified about.