Help with QA on "The Art"
lyteside
05 Aug 2008, 21:22Well, the game is still a big mess overall, but part 1 is coming together, and I just thought I'd get some help with QA and testing n' things like that. I need something to keep me motivated. I've had to finess quite a bit to get this game to work with Quest, and although I'd try a new platform, I'm just too heavily into it. Any help would be great!
Download the RAR file here
LINK: http://www.deltasmusic.com/the%20art/The%20Art%20Game/
STUFF NOT WORKING
1. Opening and Closing things that contain "takable" objects is not fully operational yet.
2. Combat is fully working, but there are not enough built in warnings that you are about to fight, so be forewarned about actions like "punch guy" n' stuff like that.
3. Though you start the game off unclothed, there isn't a way to get to your clothes ( because of problem number 1) so i've disabled people's surprise at seeing you naked. =)
4. The following rooms are not fully operational (Halogram Training Centers, Space Station)
of course we're aware of ridiculous amounts of errors, but these are the bigger ones i'm aware of. Just want to get some overall feedback. I could me missing huge things! Thanks so much, guys.
NOTES
1. If you want get a jump on things by seeing a map of the layout, follow these directions: s w w w d e e e
2. You can play the game without downloading the sounds from the RAR file, but you must download the images folder in the same directory as the CAS file, otherwise the game will crash.
Download the RAR file here
LINK: http://www.deltasmusic.com/the%20art/The%20Art%20Game/
STUFF NOT WORKING
1. Opening and Closing things that contain "takable" objects is not fully operational yet.
2. Combat is fully working, but there are not enough built in warnings that you are about to fight, so be forewarned about actions like "punch guy" n' stuff like that.
3. Though you start the game off unclothed, there isn't a way to get to your clothes ( because of problem number 1) so i've disabled people's surprise at seeing you naked. =)
4. The following rooms are not fully operational (Halogram Training Centers, Space Station)
of course we're aware of ridiculous amounts of errors, but these are the bigger ones i'm aware of. Just want to get some overall feedback. I could me missing huge things! Thanks so much, guys.
NOTES
1. If you want get a jump on things by seeing a map of the layout, follow these directions: s w w w d e e e
2. You can play the game without downloading the sounds from the RAR file, but you must download the images folder in the same directory as the CAS file, otherwise the game will crash.

Thanatos
06 Aug 2008, 02:39First of all, havn't heard from you in a while! Goosd to have you back.
Second, nice to see your game is coming along nicely. I'll take a look on Thursday/Friday, when I get my internet back (just moved, typing from High School.)

Second, nice to see your game is coming along nicely. I'll take a look on Thursday/Friday, when I get my internet back (just moved, typing from High School.)

Freak
06 Aug 2008, 14:361: Save / restore took an excessive amount of time
2: Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere.
3: Perhaps you mean "hologram"?
4: Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value. Is a strength of 10 high? low? Will I be meeting enemies that are mostly stronger or weaker than that?
5: The game is really unforgiving. It's difficult to assess the strength of enemies beforehand and very easy to get into a fight where you're outclassed. (Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage. She hit me repeatedly at 10 points per hit, and I injured myself more than I hurt her.) If you do get into a fight that's out of your league, it's difficult to run away. The slow save/restore (when it doesn't simply fail) discourages experimentation, which this game requires lots of.
Ki Lo is listed in the room description sometimes when he shouldn't be. Are Mordekai and Daniel the same person? If you do get to the Art Training Center, you can't leave.
In short, I wasn't impressed.
2: Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere.
3: Perhaps you mean "hologram"?
4: Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value. Is a strength of 10 high? low? Will I be meeting enemies that are mostly stronger or weaker than that?
5: The game is really unforgiving. It's difficult to assess the strength of enemies beforehand and very easy to get into a fight where you're outclassed. (Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage. She hit me repeatedly at 10 points per hit, and I injured myself more than I hurt her.) If you do get into a fight that's out of your league, it's difficult to run away. The slow save/restore (when it doesn't simply fail) discourages experimentation, which this game requires lots of.
Ki Lo is listed in the room description sometimes when he shouldn't be. Are Mordekai and Daniel the same person? If you do get to the Art Training Center, you can't leave.
In short, I wasn't impressed.
Freak
06 Aug 2008, 14:581: Save / restore took an excessive amount of time
2: Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere.
3: Perhaps you mean "hologram"?
4: Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value. Is a strength of 10 high? low? Will I be meeting enemies that are mostly stronger or weaker than that?
5: The game is really unforgiving. It's difficult to assess the strength of enemies beforehand and very easy to get into a fight where you're outclassed. (Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage. She hit me repeatedly at 10 points per hit, and I injured myself more than I hurt her.) If you do get into a fight that's out of your league, it's difficult to run away. The slow save/restore (when it doesn't simply fail) discourages experimentation, which this game requires lots of.
Ki Lo is listed in the room description sometimes when he shouldn't be. Are Mordekai and Daniel the same person? If you do get to the Art Training Center, you can't leave.
In short, I wasn't impressed.
2: Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere.
3: Perhaps you mean "hologram"?
4: Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value. Is a strength of 10 high? low? Will I be meeting enemies that are mostly stronger or weaker than that?
5: The game is really unforgiving. It's difficult to assess the strength of enemies beforehand and very easy to get into a fight where you're outclassed. (Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage. She hit me repeatedly at 10 points per hit, and I injured myself more than I hurt her.) If you do get into a fight that's out of your league, it's difficult to run away. The slow save/restore (when it doesn't simply fail) discourages experimentation, which this game requires lots of.
Ki Lo is listed in the room description sometimes when he shouldn't be. Are Mordekai and Daniel the same person? If you do get to the Art Training Center, you can't leave.
In short, I wasn't impressed.
lyteside
06 Aug 2008, 20:14thanks for the feedback! and good to see you, Thanatos!
We'll work on some of those things. Much of the stuff you mentioned we're aware of, so that's good. We wanna make sure that game play up to the point where you "get out of the sewer" is working semi-well (as anything after that is just, well... a gamble. ) =D
yes, a common problem that we run into usuing quest is the paradoxical one. many new commands, verbs, objects, etc. will suddenly break other ones. its so sad! but i'm confident that we can work out the kinks in 5.7 years or so. heh heh. Having our gamers get so far only to die senselessly or get stuck in a room is not the goal. =)
We'll work on some of those things. Much of the stuff you mentioned we're aware of, so that's good. We wanna make sure that game play up to the point where you "get out of the sewer" is working semi-well (as anything after that is just, well... a gamble. ) =D
yes, a common problem that we run into usuing quest is the paradoxical one. many new commands, verbs, objects, etc. will suddenly break other ones. its so sad! but i'm confident that we can work out the kinks in 5.7 years or so. heh heh. Having our gamers get so far only to die senselessly or get stuck in a room is not the goal. =)
lyteside
06 Aug 2008, 20:43Freak, I am having a problem re-creating your error of this:
--"Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage"--
Each time I'm considering her at level 2, these are my responses:
"This could prove to be quite a challenge for you"
"You could use a little bit more help in defeating her."
"You fantasize beating her up into little bits, but somehow, you get the impression that it wouldn't go down like that at all."
Also, you may be injuring yourself because you are using a weapon you are not used too. Fighting larger enemies while using unaccustomed weapons would be bad. very bad.
your thoughts?
--"Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere."--
I will add a description of the window when looking at the transit, and not just the door of the transit. That should correct this problem. Thanks for the headsup!
--"Save / restore took an excessive amount of time"--
Save/Restore isn't even working for me. We must have broken something. We'll fix that.
*UPDATE*
The ASL file works fine saving and restoring. But when compiled, the save and restore breaks. Any ideas, anybody? Is there a Quest fix for this?
--"Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value."
How might you handle this problem? Your ideas would be great.
--"Considering Ariana when I was level 2 said I had the advantage"--
Each time I'm considering her at level 2, these are my responses:
"This could prove to be quite a challenge for you"
"You could use a little bit more help in defeating her."
"You fantasize beating her up into little bits, but somehow, you get the impression that it wouldn't go down like that at all."
Also, you may be injuring yourself because you are using a weapon you are not used too. Fighting larger enemies while using unaccustomed weapons would be bad. very bad.
your thoughts?
--"Early parts are not well directed. The window, which is crucial, isn't mentioned anywhere."--
I will add a description of the window when looking at the transit, and not just the door of the transit. That should correct this problem. Thanks for the headsup!
--"Save / restore took an excessive amount of time"--
Save/Restore isn't even working for me. We must have broken something. We'll fix that.
*UPDATE*
The ASL file works fine saving and restoring. But when compiled, the save and restore breaks. Any ideas, anybody? Is there a Quest fix for this?
--"Right at the beginning, I have to choose a bunch of stats, without any idea as to their relative value."
How might you handle this problem? Your ideas would be great.
Alex
06 Aug 2008, 22:24Save and restore worked fine on the basic test I just did, but then I had hardly done anything in the game. Do you have an example saved game that doesn't work? Or alternatively a transcript file I can run to get the game to a point where it won't save? If you could email me either, I'll take a look into what's happening.
Freak
07 Aug 2008, 01:11The problem with save/restore could be that .qsg holds every write made to a property. (If you set a flag or property 20 times, it will keep all 20 of those values.) As a result, overflows can happen easily.
Don't remember the exact circumstances when I fought Ariana. I'm pretty sure I was using a familiar weapon (the crowbar), though.
Also, if you were focusing on the pre-sewer area, why didn't I notice that much to be different?
I'm not sure of a good way to handle it. _Beyond Zork_ had a nice opening: it offered the player a choice of predefined characters who had a reasonable chance of getting through the game, or allowed manually configuring a character, and it had a nice UI for doing so. (Monsters didn't respawn, so improving attributes was strictly limited.) It also allowed the player to restore right at the beginning, without going through character config.
After a fight, spouses stop following the player and it's necessary to re-lead them.
Weird bug: I was in a situation where I was married to Alexandra (after using the debugger to reduce her charisma to -1), but she wasn't following me. Dana was also there. I typed "lead alexandra" and it reported that the beautiful woman was following me. Alexandra followed me after that, though.
Looking through your code, you aren't making good use of the OO nature; your code would be far cleaner if you did.
Don't remember the exact circumstances when I fought Ariana. I'm pretty sure I was using a familiar weapon (the crowbar), though.
Also, if you were focusing on the pre-sewer area, why didn't I notice that much to be different?
I'm not sure of a good way to handle it. _Beyond Zork_ had a nice opening: it offered the player a choice of predefined characters who had a reasonable chance of getting through the game, or allowed manually configuring a character, and it had a nice UI for doing so. (Monsters didn't respawn, so improving attributes was strictly limited.) It also allowed the player to restore right at the beginning, without going through character config.
After a fight, spouses stop following the player and it's necessary to re-lead them.
Weird bug: I was in a situation where I was married to Alexandra (after using the debugger to reduce her charisma to -1), but she wasn't following me. Dana was also there. I typed "lead alexandra" and it reported that the beautiful woman was following me. Alexandra followed me after that, though.
Looking through your code, you aren't making good use of the OO nature; your code would be far cleaner if you did.
lyteside
07 Aug 2008, 16:10Thanks again.
Hi Alex! I don't have a transcript file, but I guess Freak is right, after so much work, and certain things triggering, this is where the save/restore problem seems to come in.
Freak, what is the OO feature?
Hi Alex! I don't have a transcript file, but I guess Freak is right, after so much work, and certain things triggering, this is where the save/restore problem seems to come in.
Freak, what is the OO feature?
Freak
07 Aug 2008, 18:22OO = "object orientation" isn't so much a "feature" as it is a property of the way the language is designed as a whole.
Example from your code:
On the first level, I'd rewrite this to call a "death drop" message on lastenemy. (My code is given in TADS because I'm more familiar with that language.)
On the root character class, I'd define a fallthrough "death drop" method that did nothing.
On each character / character class, if needed, I'd define an override method.
This will organize the code better, by putting code related to soldiers together. It will also fix the bug that if TOsoldier 4 exists, TOsoldier3 gives nothing.
On a second level, I'd remove the global variable %EHP% and its onchange method, and replace it with a property 'hp' & method 'damage(amount, attacker)' in the main character class, and move the various 'if enemy = ...' parts to object methods.
Example from your code:
define procedure <bounty>
if is <#lastenemy#;Morulan Steamer> then {
do <clonewhip>
do <money1>
}
if is <#lastenemy#;Hooker> then {
do <clonewhip>
move <sabre; #quest.currentroom#>
msg <She dropped a sword on the ground.>
do <money2>
}
if is <#lastenemy#;TOGuard%GuardNo%> then do <cloneDL500>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOGuard%GuardNo%> then do <cloneMaleArmor>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOGuard%GuardNo%> then do <clonebullets>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOGuard%GuardNo%> then do <clonedl500>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOGuard%GuardNo%> then do <money3>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOSoldier%SoldierNo%> then do <cloneSerratedWhip>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOSoldier%SoldierNo%> then do <cloneFemaleArmor>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOSoldier%SoldierNo%> then do <clonebullets>
if is <#lastenemy#;TOSoldier%SoldierNo%> then do <money4>
if is <#lastenemy#;Information Bot> then do <clonelazercannon>
if is <#lastenemy#;Ariana> then do <money1>
if is <#lastenemy#;Purger%PurgerNo%> then do <cloneslicer>
...
On the first level, I'd rewrite this to call a "death drop" message on lastenemy. (My code is given in TADS because I'm more familiar with that language.)
bounty : function (enemy) {
enemy.death_drop;
}
On the root character class, I'd define a fallthrough "death drop" method that did nothing.
On each character / character class, if needed, I'd define an override method.
TO_Soldier_Class : object
death_drop = {
clone_serrated_whip ();
clone_female_armor ();
clone_bullets ();
money4 ();
}
...
This will organize the code better, by putting code related to soldiers together. It will also fix the bug that if TOsoldier 4 exists, TOsoldier3 gives nothing.
On a second level, I'd remove the global variable %EHP% and its onchange method, and replace it with a property 'hp' & method 'damage(amount, attacker)' in the main character class, and move the various 'if enemy = ...' parts to object methods.

Thanatos
09 Aug 2008, 02:11Well I liked it.
lyteside
09 Aug 2008, 21:20Thanks man! I'll make sure to upload the updates on Monday with all the changes talked about here.
lyteside
11 Aug 2008, 22:22Also wanting some feedback on the sounds
switching sounds on and off is already implemented for those that can't stand it, but for those that enjoy atomsphere during gameplay:
Which sounds work?
Which sounds are obnoxious?
Would you rather here music than the ambient sounds of the room?
And any word yet on loopable mp3s for Quest? I know it will be a pain in the butt, but I really don't want to make a 30 mb text file with looping wavs. =D
switching sounds on and off is already implemented for those that can't stand it, but for those that enjoy atomsphere during gameplay:
Which sounds work?
Which sounds are obnoxious?
Would you rather here music than the ambient sounds of the room?
And any word yet on loopable mp3s for Quest? I know it will be a pain in the butt, but I really don't want to make a 30 mb text file with looping wavs. =D