December 2008 Archives

Alright, the moment that all have eagerly awaited is finally here. "What Happened?" is finally complete. It's available on my website. 

I've really made very few changes. But I think that those I made make the game a little clearer, or at least were fun to implement.

• I made sure that everything mentioned in every description exists. It's very important to examine everything, and descriptions that don't work, can cause the player to give up on this.
• I fixed a minor problem with some of my prohibitive conditions. In the bathroom one or two things that weren't supposed to be possible until after eating the aspirin were possible if it was carried, but not if it was in the cabinet or in the room.
• I added randomly selected music in several rooms. (which was a pain and required altering the standard inform 7 rules).
• I essentially added every concievable synonym, for actions and things.
• I toyed with the idea of adding more random objects, but decided it would be pointless, and needlessly confusing.
• I added a landing, so that one might go up the stairs, but not into the bedroom. Too many people didn't get that they were back in the hall after they tried to go up to the bedroom, but couldn't get in.
• I fixed a little problem with the action that occurs when the player figures out the girl in the bed's name. Before it could be done in other rooms, which made no sense at all.
• Lastly, I actually added an ending. It's just a brief phone conversation with a friend, describing your evening. 

The closing weeks of our Writing for the Internet class has been spent working on our final projects. My project is an interactive fiction work, that I created using Inform 7. It's called "What Happened?", and is the story of one man's quest to determine what exactly transpired the previous evening. The most recent version, as well as the software to run it, is available on my website, though the final version will replace it by Monday Dec, 8. 

Besides working on our projects, we have been assisting our classmates in testing and revising their own projects. Maddie mentioned in her blog that I helped her out in class, after testing her game. I offered some suggestions for Jed's IF game both in the early stages and later on. I also helped Jessie sort out a problem with her IF game. I also offered a few suggestions on Andy, Anne and Denamarie's websites.

Of course it would be unfair not to mention all the help I recieved from others as well. In my very proposal for the project, Andy left me some advice.

Anne helped me out with the alpha testing. As I mention in the blog about those initial tests, she really helped me to find some problems early on that I probably would have overlooked. I also picked up some great ideas from testing Maddie's game.

My next blog discussed the changes I made after that testing, as well as the remaining objectives. 

Following that all I had left to do required more testing. Aja responded to my plea for testers online, and Christina tested my game in class. 

So far, I'm really happy with the game. I'll probably make a few minor adjustments, but it's finished for the most part. I've learned a lot making it, and I had a great time. I'm honestly looking forward to making another one next semester.