HugoComp Discussion, Reviews n' Spoilers!

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:00 pm

I'd like to hear Tdarcos reviews of the other comp games please.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:42 pm

Me, too. And I'll try to get reviews of Teleporter Test and The Hugo Clock by the weekend.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 1:40 pm

In retrospect, it was dumb for me to suggest we wait making IFDB pages, as now I suggest everyone make a page for their game. Robb already did ones for Retro-Nemesis, Party Arty, and World Builder, but I think my philosophizing stopped him from doing the others.

As Tdarcos already made a page for his game, that just leaves Tales of a Clockwork Boy, Hugo Clock, and Spinning.

If you have updated and basically "polished" your game, you can upload it to the ifarchive here: http://www.ifarchive.org/cgi-bin/upload.py

(Request that it goes in the /games/hugo directory)
[Edited: Originally had directories reversed]

If your second revision isn't ready (or you don't feel you need one), feel free to link to the original Hugo Comp file on your ifdb page:
http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... 2-hugocomp

The IFDB page does let you put in "pending" download links. Right now, my Party Arty page has a link to the Hugo Comp file, a pending link to the Penultimate Speed IF zip package, and a pending link to my Release 2 of Party Arty. The pending links will show up when they are ready.

[ As far as my second release goes, I did add a score system. I did *not* do ranking, though, as coming up with the ranks themselves is a pain and I shall save that for another game. So, basically, I just added a couple descriptions and touched up text here and there. ]

Anyhow, no worries to anyone who isn't ready, but yeah, might as well take care of the ifdb stuff.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:18 pm

Also, I've updated the "new shell" and "statustype" pages on HxE so they are more explicit about how statustype works. I think the wording was legacy text from the old 2.5 shell file, but in retrospect, I can see how it could be confusing.

Bainespal · Post by **Bainespal** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:44 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote: (Request that it goes in the /hugo/games directory)

Shouldn't that be /games/hugo?

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:48 pm

Bainespal wrote: Shouldn't that be /games/hugo?

It should! Good catch!

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 3:19 pm

The "about" text in my game promised that eventually spawn a couple library contributions. For one, you probably already saw my menu replacement announcement in the other thread. Now, in addition, there is a footnotes library contribution (despite the fact that I took out footnotes from Release 2 of my game as it only had one footnote) and an entry on score notification.

As my take on Christopher Tate's conversation system still is quite buggy and needs a bit more work, that's all I've got for now.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:58 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:The "about" text in my game promised that eventually spawn a couple library contributions. For one, you probably already saw my menu replacement announcement in the other thread. Now, in addition, there is a footnotes library contribution

I made a slight correction to your entry there, the first examples were flowing off the right end of the screen, so I broke the strings in half and put each on two lines.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Fri Jan 13, 2012 6:19 pm

Thanks, it's hard for me to guess what will fit most non-widescreen displays.

loafingcoyote · Post by **loafingcoyote** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 3:35 am

Roody_Yogurt wrote:re: Spinning

Huh, a 1-word-parser game isn't something I'd naturally think I'd enjoy, but yeah, I can see what you are saying. I probably would be more receptive to the idea if it was sold to me as a gimmick, and you're right- it'd lend itself well to this kind of game.

I understand why you would be less-than-enthusiastic about this idea. At first I thought that it might be an easy way to do story driven IF. Now that I've had a couple of days to think about it, I'm not so sure.

A short game would be easy to implement but the player wouldn't have time to enjoy it. The game would end by the time he became accustomed to the one-word parser gimmick.
A longer game, on the other hand, would be far more complex than I first thought. I mocked up short scenario, with moderately complex object interactions, and realized immediately that it was a huge pain. Striping down a modern parser to one-word-only commands just doesn't make sense.
I can't think of anything that a one word parser would do that couldn't be done better some other way.

I'm sure some innovative IF author will do something neat with this concept one day. As for me, I'm willing to let this idea wither on the vine.

Also in the news.....I've been absolutely swamped by the real life this week, so version 2 of Hugo Clock isn't quite done. I saw some mention of having everything ready by Saturday. I should have my version 2 loaded up to the IF Archive sometime Saturday afternoon. I'm not very familiar with the IFDB yet. I registered there and should be able to link it to my game once it's in the archive, I hope.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:20 am

Sounds good. Also, e-mail it to that roody.yogurt (at gmail) address which is forwarding properly now, so I send it to the woman in charge of ClubFloyd. If you'd like to see people play the game live, the Hugo Comp games will be played on the ifMUD ( http://ifmud.port4000.com/ ) at 11 am Central.

They already played my game last week (as I had entered it into two comps and they were doing the other comp last week). I'll probably recommend that we do your game last, just since it's the most "real-game"-like.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 7:50 pm

I'm 'bout ready to wreck this place if Tdarcos doesn't provide:

TDARCOS' OPINIONS ON THE HUGO MINICOMP GAMES.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:45 am

pinback wrote:I'm 'bout ready to wreck this place if Tdarcos doesn't provide:

TDARCOS' OPINIONS ON THE HUGO MINICOMP GAMES.

I've gone over this thread and then looked at the forum, and I can't find the reference that says where to find them but it must have been around here somewhere because I did pick up a couple, the Hugo clock and another one. Which I review below.

I can give one opinion: that one where the guy is shot in Times Square and the game forces through and ends in four moves - four moves is the entire game from start to finish - I didn't get the point at the time and I didn't care for it, basically because I didn't understand at the time he's just doing a story, not a game. And usually when I want that, I read a book. Plus I don't really like unhappy endings.

What bugged me the most was I didn't realuze it was a story, and I'm trying to figure out some other move than the one it's basically forcing, as if it was a game and there was a solution that doesn't involve dying.

Reminded me too much of The Cold Equations.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 11:58 am

There is a link on this page, Commander!

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... 2-hugocomp

Actually, here is the direct download link:

http://www.joltcountry.com/downloads/Hu ... goComp.zip

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:23 pm

Tdarcos wrote:Plus I don't really like unhappy endings.

I don't really like unhappy endings, either.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sun Jan 15, 2012 8:46 pm

Typically a good goal in game design, or life really, is to think of what TDarcos would enjoy, and then do the opposite.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:03 pm

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:There is a link on this page, Commander!

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... 2-hugocomp

Are you kidding? I never read anything here but this forum; I never read the blog.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:05 pm

Flack wrote:Typically a good goal in game design, or life really, is to think of what TDarcos would enjoy, and then do the opposite.

I look at what I am, I don't like it at all and I do not enjoy it.

I would enjoy going for walks, getting laid, and being out and about.

So I guess that means you should become what I am: a cripple stuck in a house all day.

Hey! I resemble that remark!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 3:22 pm

Tdarcos wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:There is a link on this page, Commander!

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... 2-hugocomp
Are you kidding? I never read anything here but this forum; I never read the blog.

I am not kidding. That is, in fact, a page on the Internet that has links to the games.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:46 pm

The ClubFloyd transcripts are up!

Tales of a Clockwork Boy and Hugo Clock: http://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clu ... 20103.html

Retro Nemesis, Spinning, and World Bulder:
http://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clu ... 20104.html

Party Arty:
http://www.allthingsjacq.com/intfic_clu ... 02.html#g3

(They did not play Teleport Test but were notified about it after the fact.)