The Apprentice's Test - Official Release
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Figured I'd better start mirroring my posts here, otherwise people who don't check my Patreon page might think I'm dead...
Currently working on finishing the longest and most complex event in Day 2. I was kind of terrified to even begin this part since there’s since there’s an exhausting number of variations, both tiny and really not tiny, but I’m finally happy with the scene flow and finished up the last of the alternative outcomes. Generally, I’ll write up a scene and then spend days going over it with a comb tweaking small details until I’m happy with how everything sounds. It’s only at that stage that I really work out how each character speaks and behaves, particular mannerisms and so on. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve come up with character’s rough outline and hen end up with something distinctly different by the time I’m done with the dialogue. It’s actually pretty entertaining, even I it feels strange to step back and realize I’m readjusting my plans to satisfy the preferences of a figment of my imagination. A side effect of this is that it’s been two weeks since I hit Compile on the TADS workbench, which is sort of like when you haven’t dusted a shelf in long enough that you start dreading the thought of so much a breathing too hard around it. There is no way all the spaghetti code I wrote will work without on first try, but working out where everything’s gone tits up is in itself an entertaining puzzle for when I’m feeling writer’s block. Anyhow, that’s it for now. See you next time. More details plus download link here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/game-release-1-5767173
Funny story: -Time spent slowly deliberating on how complex a game mechanic would be to code and how to go about it: 3-5 weeks. -Time spent successfully coding the bulk of it after discarding the idea, recalling it, and going "fuck it, let's try": approximately 30 minutes. I'm sure there's a lesson there. This has nothing to do with this new release, mind you, but it might mean my new game is finally taking shape. Aaaand it's done. I wrote a bigger post in my Patreon page, so just go there for the download link:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/game-release-4329557 I just finished writing the last line of text in the game. Bloody finally. I still have to give it a second pass and actually dump the text into the game, but the code’s all ready for playtesting. I still plan to have a few runs through it myself before I declare it’s off Alpha, but all the heavy lifting Is officially done.
Also, by calling on beta testers now, I get to keep my promise to at last start the beta process before the New Year. Technically. Sort of. Last scene took me petty long, especially given that it’s a fairly standard sex scene without any of the fancy structuring I tried on the others, but I’m particularly happy with how it turned out. I had gotten to the point where I could knock out a sex scene in two writing sessions or so, but I can’t deny that slowing down and tackling each action as if it were its own particular mini-scene lends a much better flow and feeling to the whole thing. Or at least necessitates fewer rewrites during revision. Just like last time, anybody interested please send a message to [email protected]. Every new build will be accessible to >$5 patrons at my Patreon page by default, with no expectation that they submit any reports (though of course they’re welcome!) Well, that’s about it. As a bonus, I leave you off with another short story snippet, posted here. Happy/Merry/Non-miserable whatever it is you do to everyone and see you after the New Year, provided the blazing southern hemisphere summer and mandatory family-gathering overeating doesn’t knock me out of commission. Hey, remember when I said that all achievements were achievable and that no bugs would stop you from that? Or at least stood silent long enough to give that impression? Yeah, really, you shouldn’t trust a first time author saying stuff like that, you have no way of knowing how thoroughly I tested some things. So really, when you think about it, this is your fault. Yeah, let’s go with that. Ahem… anyhow, turns out that there WAS a little bug preventing you from getting one last achievement. It got introduced as I was hastily fixing another bug. So… mea culpa. Now, to be fair, this is purely a matter of getting a single line of text at the end. No content was blocked off because of this nor are you missing anything… of course, the whole point of that achievement was to tell you that you hadn’t missed anything so that you wouldn’t keep painstakingly combing the game for extra content that wasn’t there… which some of you did, believing my silence meant that they hadn’t looked hard enough… now, you might be rightfully pissed off at that, but on the other hand, here’s a picture of a sad puppy Anyhow, here’s the hopefully ironed-out version for those that care about 100% completion of meaningless reward flags. Also, the three prologue short stories are included as well, just for completeness' sake. http://www.mediafire.com/download/8moduu55g50gnkp/The_Lost_HoundV1.4.rar UPDATE: Uploaded a new version to fix a bug and offer some attempt at a map that was broadly requested.
After altogether too long, I’m finally proud to present the release of my first game, The Lost Hound. http://www.mediafire.com/download/8moduu55g50gnkp/The_Lost_HoundV1.4.rar So there. Finally. I’ll save the inauguration speeches, I’m tired now. Go play. UPDATE: I have already quite enough testers. Thank you all for your offer regardless and I hope you look forward to the complete game.
After an altogether shameful string of delays and procrastination, I’m confident enough to consider The Lost Hound for TADS3 tentatively done and ready to begin beta testing. Only problem being I have no beta testers lined up. In hindsight, I probably should have asked for volunteers a while back before that, but never mind that. Should you wish to sign up, simply send me an e-mail to [email protected] As a small warning, the game can described as “wordy” to the same extent as the surface of Venus can be said to be “a bit warm”. Regardless of my initial plans, the thing ended up be something of a “fantasy story of subjective merit with sex scenes instead” of purely a “sex game”, so players eager for a quick romp might be disappointed. That’s not to say there’s not quite a bit of sexual scenes in it, but you should expect to encounter quite a bit of non-sexual content and writing in between those sections. I am looking for help hunting bugs (of which theoretically there shouldn’t be any anymore, but you never know), help picking out grammatical mistakes I might have overlooked and constructive criticism of all kinds. Within the latter, I am particularly interested in things such as continuity details, dialogue options that you think should be available given certain circumstances, mechanics or information that you might consider are not as evident to a player as they should be and any sort of “I think you should be able to do this thing here” related stuff. Well, that’s about it. If you’re interested, please toss me a message. Hello and welcome to my shoddily constructed website, home of my hopefully less-shoddily constructed game. I am your humble host Palaverous.
The Lost Hound is the product of several years of on-and-off tinkering, learning, slacking off and finally, to my own astonishment, completing things. This game has been in development since… frankly, it’s hard to tell. At some point throughout 2011, my trial-and-error tinkering with TADS3 mutated into an actual game taking shape, and here we are much, much later. Before you get TOO excited, this has not been in steady development since then, so it’s not QUITE the result of three years’ development. But it is something, at the very least. What, exactly, I leave it to you to decide. In The Lost Hound, you take control of a young man lost in a strange, fragmented version of a sword-and-sorcery fantasy setting and must wander around trying find out what is happening and how he – and everybody else – got there. A simple yet hopefully not plodding RPG system complete with random encounters provides hazards while wandering unsafe areas, though you will find safe heavens and other characters who may or may not shed some light on what is going on. Conversations are handled through text menus, opening new options as your character gains new insights on which to question others, so it may sometimes pay to go back and chat with someone after moving a bit further with the story. Originally, the game was planned as a semi-plotless wander-around-and-fuck RPG-ish hackjob. However, my tendencies for overthinking, nitpicking and demanding explanations and rationalizations for everything ended up winning out, and what I ended up with was an almost violently text-heavy, semi-plot driven mostly-linear RPG-ish hackjob. Rather than a sex romp, it is more of an adventure story with significant amounts of boning included, though there is quite a lot of content that does not include or lead to rubbing genitals, at least not directly. It is, in some ways, inspired by the first AIF game I ever played: “The Quest”, a 2001 ADRIFT title by Chlestron, though I believe my game is drastically more polished and expansive. I already have concepts and loose ideas for other games or sequels in the same setting, but that is a topic best left for later. For the time being, I’m finally ready to consider the game to be in Alpha state, hoping to start with Beta Testing soon enough, and then release the bloody thing once and for all. In lieu of a demo, I've drafted up three short snippets taking place before the start of the game, which I will be publishing at intervals. None of them are erotic or from the perspective of the main character, but I feel they at least help a bit with the setup and give an idea of what my writing style is like, seeing as you’ll have to deal with so bloody much of it during the game proper. |
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