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Game Design Theory / 2008 Text Adventure Competition

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Jeku
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 02:25
Guys, please email them to Matt as per the original instructions. It will be a hassle for us to view all the pages here and download the attachments. Just email them off please, as it will make organization of the entries much easier! Thanks.


2macia22
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 04:59 Edited at: 18th Oct 2008 17:01
Okay, sorry this is so late but it's my first full game ever in Dark Basic, I kinda slacked off a bit...
I submitted it already but if anyone else wants to test it I'm attaching it here

Also, thanks to BmacZero for the awesome music I'm using!

·•Å§h Mᢕ·

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2macia22
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 05:07
Oh, by the way, here's a map of my game that might help if you get really confused by the game. It doesn't have everything on it just so you know - it's basically just a vertical view of the rooms and doors.

·•Å§h Mᢕ·

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Matt Rock
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 09:01
Pencil's Down! I always mean to say that each year and I always forget, lol.

I'll download all of them that haven't been emailed to me and pack them into a zip for both Jeku and Dazzag, and send them out tomorrow morning. I'd do it right now but it's 2am and I only just got home from a family function, and I don't want to screw anything up in my sleepiness, lol.

entomophobiac
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 13:15
I tried to e-mail it, but it was too big for Yahoo, so it simply bounced. I also tried a few other solutions, but in the end I didn't want to bring out the large scissors just to get it to fit in an e-mail.
tha_rami
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Posted: 18th Oct 2008 13:59
I'll be downloading and reviewing them for fun .


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Matt Rock
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Posted: 19th Oct 2008 00:58 Edited at: 19th Oct 2008 08:22
Alrighty, as far as I can tell there have been four entries this year. The games entered are:

Forum Quest
Haunted House Text Adventure
Jungle Text Adventure
Relic
Vigilance


If your entry is not listed above and you did submit it before the deadline, please post right away and let me know. I'm distributing the games to the other judges and we're going to play each one. As soon as we have all four entries judged and I tally up the scores, we'll post them here. Please keep up with this thread if you've entered this year, if we have any trouble running your game we'll post here if we can't reach you via email. Good luck everyone!

entomophobiac
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Posted: 19th Oct 2008 01:03 Edited at: 19th Oct 2008 01:13
I posted a link to Relic here, right after trying to e-mail, upload and simply reach you with the game for an hour and a half.

The link: http://www.2shared.com/file/4112723/2de20c17/relic.html?

Actual download can be found at the bottom right. Kind of an emergency solution, I'm afraid.

On a related note, as well, I tried to use the Uploader applet on this site and always kept getting the "File is larger than 50mb" even though the file's size was merely 18 and in another version 17.9. What would be the problem there?
Matt Rock
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Posted: 19th Oct 2008 08:25
My bad, sorry! I missed that you'd posted to the thread because it wasn't highlighted. I corrected the list above and I CC'd my reply (with your original message) to Jeku and Dazzag so they can download it. Next year we should have the MINet Community Uploader on our website so it'll make things much, much easier . Again, sorry about that, your game was added to our queue for judging.

Dazzag
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Posted: 20th Oct 2008 09:56
Cool. Am looking forward to checking these games out. I'm been a bit out of it recently with moving back to the UK and my mum visiting for the last month (went back this weekend..), but I'll download these tonight.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 21st Oct 2008 15:57
Bugger!

I've not managed to get my entry in on time; do I forfeit? I've not been able to get to the internet regularly and I've been very busy, running round like a lunatic. I do have my original demo online - if you don't mind - if it's not too late, could I enter tomorrow (with a bit more finished)? though don't make any exceptions - it's my fault for being late.

My original demo can be downloaded here:

http://files.filefront.com/Pulse+Demozip/;11453581;/fileinfo.html/1567420

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Oct 2008 17:56
It's upto Matt really. I would say you missed the deadline, so you cannot enter. Maybe it could be like Ramis entry last year where he wasn't allowed to win anything (because he had links to Matt I believe), but was still judged all the same.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 21st Oct 2008 19:24
Since Seppuku's entry is his demo - which has already been online for a while now, and was easily available for play weeks ago - I think it'd be unfair to stop him entering. (It'd be a case of "you didn't put it in the right thread" rather than "you didn't get it online in time".) But, it is Matt's decision.

Dazzag
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Posted: 21st Oct 2008 19:28
Ah right, have been a bit busy to notice it's been online for a while. Still Matt's decision though.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2008 16:50
I'll be fair and only submit my demo. I don't mind if I forfeit - I know I was busy and didn't have the internet at home, but it's not an excuse really - I had the time the get my act together and submit it, but I left it a little too late, where I didn't have time to submit.

Rules are rules and I don't want exceptions made.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Dazzag
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2008 17:46
I've emailed Matt about it. We will see what he says. Personally I'm going to judge the demo anyhows, just incase he oks it for entry. Hmm, "only submit my demo" implies a full version. I'll only judge the demo unless Matt says otherwise, but have you a link to the full version? Worth having a blast then consoling you on what might have been (ie. next years entry probably ).

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2008 20:10
A full version?



entomophobiac
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Posted: 22nd Oct 2008 23:51
Considering that almost a week has passed since deadline, I'm not positive about a material submission. But if it's something already readily available on the almighty WWW, then by all means, join in!

That's my opinion.
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2008 12:58
It implies, but sadly is not so - the demo is just the demo I uploaded originally, I have done a lot more since, but haven't actually finished it. The reason I'm submitting the demo is because it's already on the net and I consider it fairer.

But I'd rather not kick up a big deal, I'm late, so I'm late and well it's not a big deal that I don't enter - truth is, I didn't start this project for the winning or entering, just for a project to do.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Matt Rock
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2008 13:41
I think we should leave this up to the community as a whole, the same as we did last year with Rami's entry. Please post here and
tell me what you all think if you haven't already. Personally, I don't have an issue with allowing Seppuku to enter late. The date on File Front is August 11th, so if that version is entered, or an entry that can be proven to come from before the deadline, we can make an exception. But this is really a community contest, so it's entirely up to everyone here. Post your opinion on the matter before Friday at 12pm EST, and we'll decide based on what everyone says. Jeku, could you download Sep's demo (he posted the link above) just to be on the safe side?

I was gone through much of the day, my girlfriend checked my email for me while I was out and told me about this, but I didn't have her respond to Dazzag because, well, that's weird to have my girlfriend write a message to someone instead of me doing it myself, lol. Sorry for not responding to this earlier!

Dazzag
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2008 14:37
Yeah, I think it should be entered, but not the most upto date version, only one with a date of before the entry date.

Quote: "Jeku, could you download Sep's demo"
Could you upload it to your FTP space so we are all definitely using the same version? Oh, and the 5th game too just incase (think is Relic).

Quote: "that's weird to have my girlfriend write a message to someone instead of me doing it myself"
I have no problem with my bird doing such things, apart from she tends to put kisses at the end of everything... hmmm...

XXX

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Jaeg
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2008 19:44
It doesn't bother me if he submits it.

If you get mad and want to type something nasty about another person do this-Type what you want to say in the box then press ctrl-a and hit delete then type what you should say.
Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 23rd Oct 2008 23:24
I think he should be allowed to submit a version which was already on the net before the deadline (unless, for some weird and wonderful reason, that's no longer available).

Since the whole thing isn't done, I don't think a full version should be entered (because then we'd be extending the deadline for one person). But I think the demo should be fine as an entry.

tha_rami
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Posted: 24th Oct 2008 00:25
Even though I'm not in anymore, I'd like to say I agree with Darth Kiwi.


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Jeku
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Posted: 24th Oct 2008 02:16
I'll download and upload to the FTP when I get off work tonight.


Dazzag
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Posted: 25th Oct 2008 16:25
Well I'm into the swing of things. Just have Relic and Pulse to judge now, and my rubbish internet (pay for 8mb and get 3.5mb) seems to be crawling to download them. Sigh, it's cheap though...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 27th Oct 2008 21:15
Cheers guys - given the size of the demo, it'd probably not score many points, but I think it's at least worth submitting. I'll update the WIP thread as stuff comes, so people will get to play a much larger version.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Matt Rock
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Posted: 29th Oct 2008 04:56
I've compiled the scores and I'm waiting for Daz and Jeku to check them and make sure I didn't mess up the math... so expect a winner's announcement in the next day or two

tha_rami
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Posted: 30th Oct 2008 08:16
If you post it today, it coincides with my birthday!


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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 30th Oct 2008 11:44
Happy Birthday Rami.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Jaeg
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Posted: 4th Nov 2008 22:38
Any word on a winner? I'm not rushing you guys or anything.

If you get mad and want to type something nasty about another person do this-Type what you want to say in the box then press ctrl-a and hit delete then type what you should say.
Matt Rock
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Posted: 5th Nov 2008 07:13
Sorry for the delays, we had some scoring issues to work out mathematically and we're working on it. I was busy all week with volunteer work for something and just wrapped it up today so we should have the scores posted soon. I'm really sorry about this!

Matt Rock
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 05:50
Final results time!
First off, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in this year's competition. We had six really great titles to choose from this year, and we had two really great judges (thanks Jeku and Dazzag!) who will probably join us again next year. We had a lot of fun playing these games and exploring these worlds that you've created, and I think it's safe to say I speak for all three of us judges when I say there wasn't a single "bad" entry this year.

We're sorry for the delay in posting these results. It's difficult to get things done during an election season and it didn't help that we encountered a few hiccups along the way. I thank everyone for your patience and I apologize for all of the added suspense! Alright, without further adieu, I'm pleased to announce the winners of the 2008 Text Adventure Competition on TGC:

SCORES
Vigilance = 9.4 overall score and grand prize winner
Relic = 8.5
Pulse = 7.2
Jungle Text Adventure = 7.1
Haunted House = 6.8
ForumQuest = 6.5

KUDOS AWARDS
The 2008 TGC Poet Laureate - Vigilance
Set in a brilliant dystopian world, Vigilance boasts some of the best writing and one of the most intriguing stories we've ever seen in a text adventure competition entry. This is backed up consistently by high scores across the board and a sweep of Kudos awards. For winning this Award, Darth Kiwi will be rewarded with 2,000 Game Creator Store points... and some bragging rights, too

Originality - ForumQuest
This game truly broke the status quo by delivering a fun experience in a genuinely unique world that really stands out from other more traditional locales. For winning the Originality Award, Bmaczero is getting a cool 1,000 Game Creator Store Points!

Story Development - Vigilance
The ability to draw in your audience and involve them in your story on a personal level is quite a skill to have, and Vigilance proves that Darth Kiwi is, for lack of a better phrase, a true master of storytelling. For winning this Kudos award, Kiwi can tack on another 750 Game Creator Store points to his collection.

Writing Ability - Pulse
Pulse was a beautifully-written masterpiece, and came extremely close to winning other Kudos awards this year. Seppuku Arts took the concept of producing a digital novel to a new plateau with this exciting story, and after playing it, you'll quickly realize why Seuppuku has won this award... and 500 Game Creator Store points!

Technical Design - Relic
Everytime Entomophobiac enters the TAC, I suspect he'll do well before I even play his title, and this year was no exception. Relic featured an interesting blend of both listed and parser input models, and a number of nifty features that brought the game to life in interestingly unique ways. Relic fought a hard battle against Vigilance for this award and it boiled down to a blow-by-blow of errors to figure out who would take this Kudos home.

Best Media - Vigilance
Right from the opening video sequence, Vigilance has the ability to widen your eyes with its incredible media. It can at times make you forget that you're even playing a text adventure game.

Best GUI - Vigilance
Vigilance has a fantastic GUI that's informative, simple to nagigate and use, and even entertaining (the adverts on the screen were a brilliant touch!)

Retail Award - Vigilance
I think Jeku summed this up perfectly. In his words, "I demand to see this as a full game in the future!"

Best Soundtrack - Relic
Relic's soundtrack is brilliant not only due to its composition, but also because of its ambience and subtlety. It draws you into the experience without drawing in your attention.

Best Protagonist - Vigilance
- And -
Best Antagonist - Vigilance
I only need to do one write-up for these two Kudos awards I think. The characters in this game were brilliantly vibrant and polished, and Kiwi did a fantastic job of drawing us in and letting us get to know the people in this world.

Best Environment - Vigilance
Kiwi's highly-detailed dystopian world reminded all of us of "1984" and "Brazil," and he goes so far as to acknowledge his influences, while not plagiarizing in any way. The world is perfectly detailed and very expansive.

I'll be contacting prize furbishers in the coming hours via email to let them know who won what and who they need to contact. If you won a prize, please keep an eye on your email inbox and let me know if you have any trouble getting your prizes (though we haven't had any problems in the past with TGC or Underware Design. I might be wrong about this but I *think* everyone who won a copy of Eternal Equinox already has a copy, so eh, you can give a copy to a friend or something, hehe.

Dazzag
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 09:10
Nice one Matt. Enjoyed that quite a lot

Well done everyone, and keep it coming for next year!

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 12:43 Edited at: 6th Nov 2008 12:47
Awesome! You make me happy. I'm smiling on the inside and outside right now...wait...sorry the inside feeling is hunger, I hope my lecture finishes soon. I think I've almost convinced my lecturer on me using my TA engine for a project this year!

Best writing ability - I'm flattered because it still needed some editing in parts toward the end of the prologue - I wasn't completely happy with it. But if it all worked to the right effect, then I am glad.

Congratulations all and of course. Well done Darth Kiwi for Vigilance - it scored all the points and I played the demo and I agree that it's a good winner. The Orwellian plot worked and it kind of made me laugh when the character sees a copy of 1984.

The eyes also reminds me of Hal - never watched the movie, but everybody knows Hal.

And Rami, shame you didn't at least submit anything - mine was only a prologue.

Cheers guys.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Jaeg
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 12:43
Sweet 7.1 that's not bad for my first DBP project ever. I happy.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 14:50
Quote: "Best writing ability - I'm flattered because it still needed some editing in parts toward the end of the prologue - I wasn't completely happy with it. But if it all worked to the right effect, then I am glad"
Yeah, I thought it was the most book like. Whether that will work out best for a game remains to be seen. Perhaps less text to get through in the beginning would improve it a little. Either way it was nicely done, even if lacking in actual game play. Potentially could be brilliant once expanded somewhat. Are you going to continue on it? Perhaps submit the final version into next years competition?

Quote: "And Rami, shame you didn't at least submit anything"
I thought that. Last years effort was very nice, and I was looking forward to this years. Next year Rami! No slacking Saying that, I keep meaning to dust off DarkMUD. Ho hum...

Quote: "that's not bad for my first DBP project ever"
Jungle? Yeah, that was a interesting one. While it obviously didn't have a lot of text like some of the others had, it was arguably the only true old school adventure we had. And it was quite fun really. With a bit more story and text, as well as a slightly improved parser (learn the uppercase command!) then this would have been a contender for overall winner for me. Chuck in some media (nice GUI and music mainly) and it could really shine.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
entomophobiac
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 14:51
Many thanks for the kudos! And congratulations to everyone else!

Personally, I'm working on adding graphics to Relic and making it a 3D game rather than 2D. It's a long-term project, however, and has very little to do with the text adventure itself.

Especially so since the core feature of the text adventure -- the space trading and exploration parser -- was poorly executed and terribly documented in the version I ended up sending.

Someone always say something about time after these competitions, so I'll just say that time wasn't on my side this time around either.
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 17:09 Edited at: 6th Nov 2008 17:10
Quote: "Yeah, I thought it was the most book like. Whether that will work out best for a game remains to be seen. Perhaps less text to get through in the beginning would improve it a little. Either way it was nicely done, even if lacking in actual game play. Potentially could be brilliant once expanded somewhat. Are you going to continue on it? Perhaps submit the final version into next years competition?"


Cheers, I am going to continue on with it and I am disappointed that I didn't complete it. The format I was having was going to have more game play to it - I just found little scene setting and environment could be done with the gameplay - sort of like an opening movie if you will. The opening of chapter 1 will let you move around the town - unfortunately I didn't get chapter 1 scripted in time - otherwise it would have meant more gameplay for the demo.

I think by doing NaNoWriMo, I will hopefully learn to actually manage my time better - as a few of my friends are doing it, I have more of an incentive, lets hope it rubs off.

Saying that I'm on 3,000/50,000 words so far for my NaNoWriMo (6th day - I had hoped to be on 10,000 by now), so I better get jumping on it!



Will we be able to download the entries? I wouldn't mind seeing what other people have entered.

You sir have the moral ambivalence of a mutated shrimp!
Darth Kiwi
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 17:51
I got an email about "Store points" and thought it was spam. Opened it anyway and - wuh?!

Thanks so much for giving Vigilance such a high score - I just wish I could have finished it! Still, next year maybe. And well done everyone who entered - it sounds like everyone had fun (when the stress levels weren't too high!) and managed to make something pretty good.

Quote: "Will we be able to download the entries? I wouldn't mind seeing what other people have entered."

Seconded - they might be floating around the WIP boards somewhere, though.


And good luck with NaNoWriMo, Seppuku!

Jaeg
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 18:45
Dazzag - There was a reason I didn't use the UPPERCASE or LOWERCASE command. For some reason they would mess with the input command. It would show underscores under some of the letters. Thanks for your comments though. I will be sure to do better next time.

If you get mad and want to type something nasty about another person do this-Type what you want to say in the box then press ctrl-a and hit delete then type what you should say.
Dazzag
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 19:40
Quote: "For some reason they would mess with the input command"
Surely when the actual parsing was done (when you press enter) you could use the uppercase command to compare against an uppercase command list? It wouldn't matter what was shown on the screen. eg:-
ExAmInE bOx

would translate internally as

EXAMINE BOX

which you could then parse against your database of uppercased commands if you see what I mean.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
Jaeg
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Posted: 6th Nov 2008 22:42
Since uppercase is a string command it messes with the screen. Even after I fixed the resolution and everything it would still put weird underscores under random letters. It might just be my computer. Oh well, for my first project I got a pretty good score and I will use your advice to make a better one for next year. Thanks for you help.

If you get mad and want to type something nasty about another person do this-Type what you want to say in the box then press ctrl-a and hit delete then type what you should say.
BMacZero
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Posted: 7th Nov 2008 01:00
Congratulations, guys, Vigilance was defintely a good one! And now I finally have a reason to check out the TGC Store .

@Jaeg
I don't think UPPER and LOWER cause the lines under INPUT, it's cause when using backspace. Write your own input function with ENTRY$() and CLEAR ENTRY BUFFER, it'll be much better .

2macia22
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Posted: 7th Nov 2008 01:06
Awesome, I just checked out the board today. I'm happy with my score, it's pretty good considering this is my first DBPro game ever and also that I did at least half of it the day before I turned it in
I've taken a look at all of the other entries, they're all awesome!

·•Å§h Mᢕ·
Dazzag
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Posted: 7th Nov 2008 20:16
Quote: "Since uppercase is a string command it messes with the screen."
Yeah, but it doesn't matter what appears on the screen. When you parse the commands after pressing the return key then you can take the inputs and put it into another variable if you like, turning it into an uppercase version. Whatever you are using to show the text is completely seperate. So if SCREEN$ holds "north", then copying that to another variable (eg. INPUT$=UPPER$(SCREEN$) - Not sure which command is for uppercase on DBP on this machine BTW) then you can perform the parsing on the 2nd variable. The screen stays exactly the same. Even a very simple parser could then say something like IF INPUT$="NORTH" THEN blah blah blah. Don't quite see what your problem was really. Annoyingly have just upgraded this machine so removed everything off it so can't see your source code, otherwise would have had a look.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
draknir_
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Posted: 7th Nov 2008 21:33 Edited at: 7th Nov 2008 21:33
may contain spoilers:

@Entomophobiac (or maybe someone else can help also):
Jaeg
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Posted: 7th Nov 2008 22:32
It might just be my machine. I made it while my computer wasn't very stable at times so that might just be the problem. Thanks for all your help though and for your opinions.

If you get mad and want to type something nasty about another person do this-Type what you want to say in the box then press ctrl-a and hit delete then type what you should say.
entomophobiac
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Posted: 10th Nov 2008 08:32 Edited at: 10th Nov 2008 08:32
draknir_:

To examine an object:
1. Scan it, write: scan object 1 (with spaces)
You can scan objects several times to receive more information.
2. Target it: target [name]
3. Approach it: approach
4. Dock to it: dock

Heat builds up to a threshold and some activities generate temporary heat in addition to "permanent" heat for turning them on. Whenever you build up heat enough to beat your Heat threshold, you die.

I didn't have time to document commands in the build I sent, unfortunately, so a change I made in the last minute didn't make it.

You need to write "protocol" and one of three different sets of commands will become available.

"protocol combat" allows you to shoot with the cannon and fire missiles and filters the targeting array so you only see combat targets, missiles and similar.

"protocol nav" shows you the system map, all sector jump beacons and other nav targets.

"protocol sos" is the emergency alternative, showing jump beacons and repair stations.

The HUD graphic changes to indicate which protocol is selected.
entomophobiac
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Location: United States
Posted: 10th Nov 2008 11:51
Funny thing about testing the version of the game that was sent to the competition is that I realize it's more or less unplayable if you haven't been introduced to the features already...

Guess it could ship with a designer in the package, however. These days, collector's editions seem to be the fad anyway.

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