Jolt Country

I heart chicks whose knees don't line up.

I know it's a perspective thing, but still ...

BONUS VIDEO FOR THE GAME???

[youtube][/youtube]

Tdarcos wrote:I'll say this, either you're expecting to sell people a hint book for CryptoZookeeper or your game has to be easily solvable. It's why I gave up on your game, it wasn't intuitive. The puzzles were esoteric and overly complicated, the help was nonexistent, and the game frustrating and unsolvable.

Wait, wha--

Jesus Christ. You are so far off base here you might as well be on Mars. (Or, if you prefer to further the Doom analogy: you're on Earth.)

I played Cryptozookeeper, start to finish, over the course of three days. (I basically did nothing else, including sleep, except for the somewhat more than occasional THC supplement, which as one might imagine made for an interesting mental state once I got to the party and doplganger scenes.) I am a pussy when it comes to text games. The first infocom game I ever beat on my own was moonmist, and I was so proud of myself it was disgusting. I have yet to finish Stationfall, Arthur, Cutthroats, Hollywood Hijinx, and tons of others I've forgotten. While betatesting Jassec Pudlo's terrible Hamlet clone I had to send him emails asking how to continue after every two rooms. I seriously suck at this and when I played, I hadn't played IF for at least 3 years.

I only failed to get about half the cryptids in the zoo and never spent any serious time beating my head against a wall, except for one optional puzzle that in fact I had figured out immediately but couldn't finish due to a nasty bug in the version I got. I only needed help one time and after the fact I felt like the moron for needing to ask, not that the game was responsible in any way. Robb, and I hope he does not take this the wrong way here, has created a very easy game.

I can understand how someone with a background of playing Duke Nukem (and, ahaha, Colossal Cave, but we'll get to that in a minute) might be hopelessly confused by a game that requires you to do more than ceaselessly attack whatever is in front of you, so please don't ever play Obituary (PLUG!) ("WTF shooting the monster didn't work 0/10 WRST GAEM EVAR111!") That said, this is your fault, and not the game's; we would all like it very much if you would admit this.

And no, ass cheese, games do not "need" to be easily shitting solvable. Especially, you pampered little fuck, (er, if the browsing I've done recently is accurate, the previous insult should read 'you pampered, large fuck') when the game you're playing is FREE. Robb could, if he had wanted to, provided you a special, TDarcos-only version wherein you start with a pistol that does nothing but misfire and kill the player, because this kind of "puzzle" for you would be like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. He did not do this, because unlike you, he is a kind and caring person who does not wish to cause mental distress to others (unless they're Madden fans, natch, but fuck those guys.) Get the fuck over yourself and understand that your right to bitch about what you've purchased is directly tied into the purchase price.

There's more in that paragraph that upsets me and is worthy of further derision but my time, you see, is limited and if I dwell on this I will never get to the rest of your terrible, soulless post.

Tdarcos wrote:I mean, you look at Portal 2, a few of the puzzles are very difficult, but at least you can find help when you get stumped.

Did you really just compare a text game to Portal? Really? If you'll permit my indulgence, I would like to go over a few of the differences between these two games with you. If you won't, tough.

Portal 2 was created by Valve, statistically proven to be the zen masters of gaming foo.

Cryptozookeeper was created by (no offense intended) a guy in his free time who does not make games for a living.

Portal 2 contains high-res graphics, licensed music, sound effects, professional voice acting, and the ability to phase through solid matter at a whim.

Cryptozookeeper has creative commons music, no sounds, still frames, and animal hybrids that never do quite end up busting down as many walls as I personally would have preferred.

Portal 2 was betatested by hundreds of different people at every stage of development, where every element of the game design was scrutinized, folded, spindled, and mutilated until the design *team* (see above) felt they had perfected every detail.

Cryptozookeeper was betatested by a dozen of Robb's friends. Some of the bugs they found were fixed.

Portal 2 cost millions of dollars to create.

Cryptozookeeper cost as much as the packaging and shipping costs for the physical copies + a hundred thousand cans of red bull.

And finally, the most important:

Portal 2 costs $40+

Cryptozookeeper costs $0

No. Cryptozookeeper is not as "good" a game as Portal Christing 2. Normal human beings with some form of human empathy understand this implicitly from the, you know, $0 price tag, and adjust their expectations accordingly. That you did not do this is telling of your own mental state.

Tdarcos wrote:I used videos on YouTube in exactly that way. I'd play till I got stumped, then look and see how someone else did it, then I'd do it and then often it would be an hour or more before I'd need help again.

Do people really play games this way? Ugh, what a sad and joyless existence you must lead. I'm 25, so the last thing I want to do is get old man on anybody, but when I was growing up we didn't have a damn internet you could go to and get the solution if you were having trouble. If you couldn't figure out a puzzle, you sat and thought about it until you had a brainwave, often during a SCIENCE! experiment or important business meeting or while fucking or some similarly inappropriate time, three weeks later. I would describe the "magic" of text (and graphical, "point-and-click" for that matter) adventure games as the "ureka!" feeling you get when you try the idea you had for the puzzle that'd confused you for so long and have it work. There's pride there, because you figured it out yourself. I imagine that this is also where a great deal of the fun of Portal 2 lies, since you brought it up. But if you only play to see the next room, the next line of dialog, or the next screen of text, then I pity you, and suggest that you go watch a fucking movie where you don't have to involve yourself in the act of experiencing the media.

That aside, I fail to see how looking up the solution on youtube is any different from asking for help with Cryptozookeeper on RGIF--or, for that matter, here, where we are so nice and helpful and pretty and polite.

Tdarcos wrote:One of the things that made me decide CryptoZookeeper was unforgivably bad was that if you didn't do something eventually the dog would kill you. This is unacceptable.

Oh look, Admiral I-Know-Good-Game-Design over here has decided to shit upon us mere mortals a pearl of wisdom which he obtained from the 0 hours of experience he has in writing games. Tell me smart guy, what's the alternative? Writing a game with a deadly guard dog that decides it just doesn't feel like eating you today? Not writing a guard dog into the game at all? I guess what you're saying, here, is that all gaming, including your precious Portal 2, should be like Photopia, with no antagonist, no time based events, and--oh wait, Photopia is littered with time-based events and Portal 2 has rockets in it. Whoops!

Tdarcos wrote: Using the "gold standard" of the two best of the IF programs, Collossal Caves adventure and Dungeon,

Imma gonna let you finish, but like, you do realize that they eventually made Dungeon into 3 different games, because Dungeon as it stood was a sprawling mess? Yes? You understand this? And you're going with that as your "gold standard"? Okay. Just making sure we're all clear on that here. Let's move on with the sentence.

Tdarcos wrote: unless you did something stupid, like jump a cliff, attack someone or walk around in darkness, you don't get killed.

Yeah. Boy, I tell you. That Colossal Cave was sure forgiving, like how THE ENTIRE GODDAMN GAME HAS A TIMER ON IT, or how you can lock yourself out of winning in the first third of the game by buying batteries to forestall the aforementioned GAME-LONG TIMER, or by eating the food, or how dwarven "nasty knives" can dispatch you instantaneously and completely at random, how you can't save, the not 1, but 2 fucking *mazes*, how you get the last point by dropping one arbitrary object in another arbitrary location and the magic words it doesn't tell you are magic. Apart from those, though, you're right. Adventure is a way easier game than Cryptozookeeper.

In short: I'm right, you're wrong, and fuck you you self-entitled shitbag.

Lysander wrote:In short: I'm right, you're wrong, and fuck you you self-entitled shitbag.

I don't do bottom so you can't fuck me. And as far as I'm concerned, given your inability to disagree with my comments, no matter how nicely you ask me I won't let you suck my dick.

I don't understand this post.

I further don't understand how anyone could not disagree with your previous one, as it is factually incorrect. But for fun and because I need more examples to deride you for, I would appreciate it if you would list more text games you have played that you found easier than Cryptozookeeper.

Lysander wrote:I don't understand this post.

I further don't understand how anyone could not disagree with your previous one, as it is factually incorrect.

Are you saying my previous post is incorrect because if you did ask me nicely I would let you suck my dick?

Lysander wrote:But for fun and because I need more examples to deride you for, I would appreciate it if you would list more text games you have played that you found easier than Cryptozookeeper.

Original adventure. Dungeon. Zork. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A Mind Forever Voyaging.

Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. EASIER than Crypto.

HHGG is widely considered to be the hardest game ever made. I'm stunned you finished that but couldn't get to the third room in my game.

He is lying about that. They don't have youtube videos to help with those puzzles.

TDR, there is ZERO CHANCE you finished HHGG without massive help.

I got the babel fish in my ear with no help!


THE
THREE TRIES
AARDVARK

I've read the solution to the babel fish puzzle and still not managed to get it.

Lots of us had the "Solid Gold" release of HHGttG with the built-in hints. I'm sure that was the case.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I submitted my game to MeFi Projects (otherwise known as http://projects.metafilter.com). This illustrates a thing Kent has said before, which is, "Nobody cares about your work." Now I can't find the exact quote. Argh. But he said that in reference to his attempts at promoting Future Boy!.

Posting the link over there resulted in 24 hits from Metafilter over to the game's page. That's OK because there wasn't much of a time investment in the write-up.

People "vote" for things on the page there. Crypto got 2 votes. A website that mimics some kind of per-character Unix chat got 17 votes, and a blog about a girl who puts up pictures of herself wearing skirts got 4.

The girl quit updating her blog on November 2nd. It had ended with 15 votes on Metafilter Projects. It ran from August 26th till November 2nd.

Crypto ended with seven, and it took five years. I have no morale, no interesting conclusion to draw. Hell, quickly-forgotten projects is what that site should be for.

Are you an angry man, Robb? Are you envious? Do you get envious?

You have a competition in you.

You want no one else to succeed.

It was an observation so that I could remember, when I became an old man.

It was motivation because I feel I could be doing so much more.

It was a bit of a frustration, but that was the most slight emotion of all of them, Ben.

2012 needs to be a more productive, more famous year.