Phantom in the Fairgrounds [SOLUTION POSTED]

[Mistreil]

A few of the actions text responses were so funny. How did you make it? I've always wanted to make one.

There's a few different parts to this, but I think "how do the commands/progression work" is probably what would be easiest to explain and the most interesting! So, very generally speaking, the idea is:

• Keep track of states and add/remove them as needed
• You specify commands and targets, as well as the response for that pair
  • The responses may vary depending on the current states
• As an example:
  • Maybe we have the command "take candy" which would give some response and adds a state called HAS_CANDY.
  • We could also then have the command "eat candy" which would remove the HAS_CANDY state.
    • This would also require players to have the HAS_CANDY state already -- if they don't, maybe we can give them a different message!
• Generalizing more, a lot of the states are pretty much:
  • What items have been taken?
  • Where is the player currently?
  • Has the player seen certain prompts yet?

... And then the majority of the work is in keeping track of states and writing responses as needed! To be honest, most game development things are just "keep track of the current state and respond accordingly".

As for how I set it up and write everything... it's in a spreadsheet! The entirety of the game, in a silly little spreadsheet \( ' w ' )/

Which is maybe a bit of a whacky way to do things, but it's what works best for me. I have my own little scripts to parse that into what I need for the game.

If you wanted to know the actual technical part of everything, uh... it's in pure Javascript (and HTML/CSS).
Most of the games I make are, just because I find it fun to do the logic and 'engine' programming myself.

... and yeah I'm just going to leave my answer at that, because it'll probably get longer and... probably more detail than anyone cares to know.
you can also just view the source code from the website though. it's readable and just a bit weird in some places for my own sake.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. i feel like i always go on a really long tangent when asked how to do something. im sorry lmao

 

[ShinyDungeoneer]

There's a few different parts to this, but I think "how do the commands/progression work" is probably what would be easiest to explain and the most interesting! So, very generally speaking, the idea is:

• Keep track of states and add/remove them as needed
• You specify commands and targets, as well as the response for that pair
  • The responses may vary depending on the current states
• As an example:
  • Maybe we have the command "take candy" which would give some response and adds a state called HAS_CANDY.
  • We could also then have the command "eat candy" which would removethe HAS_CANDY state.
    • This would also require players to have the HAS_CANDY state already -- if they don't, maybe we can give them a different message!
• Generalizing more, a lot of the states are pretty much:
  • What items have been taken?
  • Where is the player currently?
  • Has the player seen certain prompts yet?

... And then the majority of the work is in keeping track of states and writing responses as needed! To be honest, most game development things are just "keep track of the current state and respond accordingly".

As for how I set it up and write everything... it's in a spreadsheet! The entirety of the game, in a silly little spreadsheet \( ' w ' )/
View attachment 593484
Which is maybe a bit of a whacky way to do things, but it's what works best for me. I have my own little scripts to parse that into what I need for the game.

If you wanted to know the actual technical part of everything, uh... it's in pure Javascript (and HTML/CSS).
Most of the games I make are, just because I find it fun to do the logic and 'engine' programming myself.

... and yeah I'm just going to leave my answer at that, because it'll probably get longer and... probably more detail than anyone cares to know.
you can also just view the source code from the website though. it's readable and just a bit weird in some places for my own sake.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. i feel like i always go on a really long tangent when asked how to do something. im sorry lmao

me: I understand! (does not understand)

 

[Dim]

Well that was easy enough. I actually got the second one first and got a bit stuck on the first cause I'm odd like that.

 

[ellienoise]

I'm not smart enough for these things but it's fun!

 

[Flower-Loving Punk]

this was so much fun!! Thank you so much Mistreil!!!

 

[Giddy]

What a fun lil' adventure!
A lil unsure on the second clue but I got there in the end! Really loved the lil messages

Spoiler: pic of one i found cute but didnt wanna spoil

Theres actually a game called Buddy Simulator 1984 that has this typr of adventuer for a bit, and boi is it fun! Still havent finished it yet. If you do try it out you may figure out why ahah. I would suggest for more fun, to take frequent breaks to see what happens once you're back in the game 0-0

 

[Dunquixote]

This was so much fun! Thanks so much @Mistreil! I kinda wish it was longer since I was hooked.

I was stumped a little near the end but I remembered something that I wrote a paper on in college and that helped! I thought it was all really clever and well thought out

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Have anyone ever entered bad words? If so, does the game recognize bad words? I haven’t tried.

 

[Dunquixote]

Have anyone ever entered bad words? If so, does the game recognize bad words? I haven’t tried.

Mistreil is a mod so I think it’s safe to say she probably made sure no inappropriate words or anything that goes against the site’s rules can be used. I’m pretty sure it’d say invalid action or something.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Why?

Mistreil is a mod so I think it’s safe to say she probably made sure no inappropriate words or anything that goes against the site’s rules can be used. I’m pretty sure it’d say invalid action or something.

Ok. However, I did like how the game recognizes certain actions that you weren’t supposed to do.

 

[Mistreil]

Have anyone ever entered bad words? If so, does the game recognize bad words? I haven’t tried.

Nope, no bad words!

Keep in mind that I manually have to write  every interaction and response. Nothing can slip through unintentionally. Everything else is invalid.

 

[skarmoury]

What a fun lil' adventure!
A lil unsure on the second clue but I got there in the end! Really loved the lil messages

Spoiler: pic of one i found cute but didnt wanna spoil

View attachment 593523

Theres actually a game called Buddy Simulator 1984 that has this typr of adventuer for a bit, and boi is it fun! Still havent finished it yet. If you do try it out you may figure out why ahah. I would suggest for more fun, to take frequent breaks to see what happens once you're back in the game 0-0

omg i was looking at this thread trying to see if anyone else found some easter eggs!

i found two myself. @Mistreil this is so cute thank u so much. i wish to know if there is more.

Spoiler: hi mistreil

 

[Suguri]

Wait, there are easter eggs? I didn't know that... :0

 

[skarmoury]

okay i found a few more silly stuff. cant share right now since it involves the story but i am forever amused at how many funny prompts mistreil thought of.

 

[Rio_]

Just went through it- I had a lot of fun! Thanks Mistreil!!!

When I voted for this, I wasn't even sure what form it would take because I didn't think it'd be possible to make another game in so little time. But somehow you pulled it off! I'm truly amazed (and thankful)!

 

[Zerous]

These are always some of my favourite events, thank you Mistreil!! I enjoyed figuring out the second clue, and also discovering some of the silly things you put in there HAH

 

[Yanrima~]

this reminds me of the old computer (DOS) games in the early 80's. Although, I'm not sure if anyone here can pull a point-and-click game. Visual novels seemed easier to program than point and click games since point and click requires the programming of the direct-to-player interaction.

Although text based games don't require much graphics script so this might be easier to understand. (just a bit)

 

[Mistreil]

this reminds me of the old computer (DOS) games in the early 80's. Although, I'm not sure if anyone here can pull a point-and-click game. Visual novels seemed easier to program than point and click games since point and click requires the programming of the direct-to-player interaction.

Although text based games don't require much graphics script so this might be easier to understand. (just a bit)

Visual novels are definitely a little bit easier to program from scratch, since you don't have to deal with colliders/detecting what's being clicked on! Point-and-click games themselves work with pretty much the same logic as text-based games (keeping track of states, rendering accordingly) though, just with the visual component and click-detection being involved.

With that said, if you're using a proper engine, it's not actually too difficult to implement since there's always collision detection built in.

... but that doesn't apply to me and my weird "lol its fun to program this all myself" behaviour. i would have to define colliders and positions for clicked objects manually hehe. which isn't hard, but tedious.
... Aaaand with that said! I have thought about doing a point-and-click game one day... but I also just don't have the time to deal with the graphical assets of it Maybe one day. I'd definitely do a visual novel first because it's easier and I have most of that built already, too.

 

[Yoshi155]

I’m only just doing this now because I’m a procrastinator and idk if it’s because I’ve never done one of these before but it’s making feel so dumb. Right now I’m on this one part and I know what I’m supposed to do but I don’t know how to phrase it as an action. I’ll probably be able to figure it out lol

 

[Blue-cat]

This was a fun adventure.