Hi All,

I've just posted my first ever IF game, " To Kindle A Light ".

It's currently being moderated (I'm not sure how long this process takes). Once it's up, any constructive feedback would be most appreciated. Technically, It should be pretty much debugged. I may have missed something here and there though so let me know.

Hope you enjoy

The link is here:

http://www.textadventures.co.uk/games/v ... le-a-light

A first-person point of view! Interesting. I haven't gotten far yet, but it looks quite intriguing.

One bit... the first thing I typed was like this:

I'm sat on the carriage, which is now stopped and ticking over quietly. One or two people disembark onto the small platform, whilst one or two others carry on reading or typing on a laptop or whatever they are doing to pass the time. The carriage is now practically empty.

Outside, the valley forest gleams with a warm gold. I can hear the whistling of evening birdsong.

The carriage exit onto the platform is open to my west.

> x carriage
What now?

I don't know what "What now?" means in the context of looking at things, but it says the same when I look at the platform, which are both the nearest things to me. I *can* look at the valley from the carriage (which is outside?) and it has a good description for that.

Just a quirk for my first command try... But nice work!

Ok yeah, my bad. It's what now as in "who with the what now?!?" in the confused usage of the term. I'm kind of trying to keep my default responses a bit more colourful where possible. I guess I didn't put in a description of the carriage and platform directly.

Thanks for playing though! Let me know what you think when you're done.

I sort of got stuck, but that's probably just me. I'll keep at it for now. In the meantime, some thoughts...

1) Your attempt to keep your responses "colourful" have rendered them a bit confusing. You've taken out the text that helped indicate what the problem is and just replaced it (as far as I can see) with a blanket "What now?", which doesn't indicate what has gone wrong. I am guessing that you wanted to give the impression that something has happened and now you're moving on, but in the case where the input is just plain wrong, it makes no sense. Here is a sequence, in a place where there is no lock.

> smash lock
What now? (lock)

> x lock
What now?

> take lock
What now?

> drop lock
What now?

> pick lock
I'm not sure what you mean.

The first one would originally have been something like "I can't see that (lock)". Now it says "What now? (lock)", which is less than useful. Also, the generic "What now?" response hides that something has gone wrong, which is valuable feedback for someone playing your game. It helps to differentiate that which works from that which doesn't.

2) Some things to be edited:
- "It's red paint is crumbling off in large patches -> "It's" should be "Its" (possessive has no apostrophe).
- "At the front of the shack is a window pain which has been left slightly ajar." -> "pain" should be "pane"
- "Anyway, It's an enjoyable walk but there's nothing much here apart from trees and mud. " -> lower-case "it's".
- "Its low, with only one storey plus a little attic ..." -> "Its" should be "It's"

3) I found your use of "Anyway" in a couple of places as a sort of transition from introspection to be a bit jarring. I would drop that. You don't need it.

4) Examples to illustrate the next point:

COTTAGE FRONT
I'm stood under the rustic...

GROUNDS
I'm stood in the green, dry, muddy...

A GARAGE FRONT
I'm stood in the middle of...

I trust you can see the repetitive nature of this. I would also lump in the others like "I'm sat...", "I'm walking...", etc. You do quite well in other areas where you just have the description without the need to lead off with some sort of "I" sentence. Your writing is strong enough that you can be descriptive without the having to resort to that formula.

5) I'm intrigued by the use of colour. Right now, everything with colour has been green except the red shack. If that's not actually significant, then you might want to mix things up a bit, as it looks like a pattern of some kind. (And if it is significant, then hooray for me. lol)

6) I'm really enjoying your writing. Only a few typos (some minor comma errors as well that I didn't mention - I can list those for you as well if you like), and your style is fluid and easy to read. Very enjoyable!

7) While incorporating time is seductive, you have to be very careful. For example, along the path, you mention "yet the yellow dusk light is still just about strong enough to illuminate the way before the darkness truly sets in." So it's nearly sunset. Then following the path further, you say, "After following the forest path for another twenty minutes or so, the suddenly familiar sight of the crusty old red gate at the head of my uncle's drive comes into view." So time has passed. Then if you go back to the path, it once more says that sunset is imminent - yet probably the better part of an hour has passed. It can be a slippery slope to try to track all of that. (Also, it begs the question of just how dark it is once you reach the cottage.)

That's all for now! I see you have updated since my last comment, so I thought I give you some more to ponder.

Thanks for the advice Jay! I really am thankful for that! I'm usually better at the spelling and grammar but, I'll be perfectly honest, my proof-read wasn't entirely thorough haha.

I will take your criticisms on board when I eventually start a new project. Some good advice!

I'm glad despite the problems you seem to be enjoying it.

Hi all,

More updates uploaded. Bugs with some locked doors and some events rectified. Game should now run a little more smoothly.

Thanks!

Enjoying the game but hopelessly stuck. Managed to get in the garage but still can't get in the house because I need 'rid of everything...'

I got to a similar place. I got the car door open, but I couldn't figure out how to get inside.

I was hopeful when I found a door to the house in the garage which was soon dashed when I discovered it was locked from the inside. There were LOTS of things to examine in the garage, none of which were of any use. Unless I missed something? I found the A-Z. I didn't think of starting the Landrover. I just saw it as another container. I'll try that if I go back to it.

I just suspected since I had a car key... but that might be a dead end as well. (There was mention of needing to do some shopping - which almost put me off the game lol - so I assumed you'd need the car at some point.)

Hi guys sorry I've been away for a while.

HINT TO GET INTO THE HOUSE:




There are cleaning products in the rear of the garage on the shelves. Hope this helps

I'll give it another whirl.