mmph 2024-10-07 14:44
I couldn't figure out how to do "choices" Overall, it is alright. Nothing that bad, and some parts (from just pressing enter) were pretty enticing to read.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD56 → The Fair Folk of Ridianfa
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 234 | 3.23 | 21 | |
| Fun | 290 | 2.65 | 21 | |
| Innovation | 186 | 3.23 | 21 | |
| Theme | 251 | 3.15 | 21 | |
| Humor | 187 | 2.82 | 19 | |
| Mood | 204 | 3.21 | 21 |
I couldn't figure out how to do "choices" Overall, it is alright. Nothing that bad, and some parts (from just pressing enter) were pretty enticing to read.
I can always appreciate ascii art and old school adventure games. Though I feel like there is little understanding of what the player is doing? They can make decisions but it may not be clear why they are making them.
I haven't seen the choices to select from, also there are stats for the other family members but you don't control them? The first title screen seems to be formatted incorrectly. Seems like it could be cool, but it was hard getting to the game.
This is a pretty good take on the theme and I appreciate the work you put into the system. I really enjoyed the story/setting and the idea. However, having spent over 30 minutes without much progress I had to quit. I do understand the meaning of some actions as I read the book early on and re-read it, but the effect on the difficulty of jobs wasn't very clear. Most successful events I had were finding an inhabited tree, preventing the evil one from entering, and not laughing at cheese in the boot (but at the price of shouting at the kid). But, like said, it was really hard to connect my actions with outcomes. Clarity of feedback is quite important in keeping a player interested. A special little game in any case, might be worth improving, perhaps even expanding it with graphics.
@mmph The controls are the up and down arrows on the keyboard, not sure if it works with the numpad arrows so that may have been your issue and enter to select. There can be some oddness if the windows loses focus and you click on it to regain focus though.
@brotherbrody There's a help screen that can be accessed by pressing 'H'. It explains some of the mechanics of the game. Some of the effects of actions are purposefully opaque to simulate dealing with something you're not sure even exists.
@ellaris The help screen mentioned above talks a bit on how the the family members work. During the morning you can assign them tasks which they will do. Not sure what you mean by tthe title screen being formatted incorrectly. It can look odd if the window gets resized and I haven't been able to find a way to lock it.
@kr4ft3r When testing I was able to get through the game in about 10 minutes because I knew everything to to look for, figured it would take about double for other people to play. Seems my estimates were woefully inadequate. Should probably cut the time in half again. Some of the lack of feedback is purposeful, trying to simulate the feeling of dealing with something that may or may not actually exist, as well as trying to make the player a bit superstitious and doing things that aren't necessary, while leaving the farm sim as a kind of backing where the player is getting constant feedback on what they're doing. Was an experiment but from the the feedback so far it seems like it's not accomplishing what I set out to do.
Don't beat yourself, what you set out to do is too ambitious for a compo or even a jam game, it needs other people to be playtesters and thorough tweaking. I get that the sense of mystery was on purpose, and it can work, if you somehow remove the confusion. For example, it seemed the difficulty was reduced for some action at some point, but at the time I noticed it too many things happened in between the action and the result (considering one screen alone may have a lot going on, like when seeing results of sending multiple people to do tasks) and I would kind of forget what I did and where; figuring this out would require writing things down or high focus, which is too much to ask for the average attention given to a jam game. But, I think it is a great idea and setting, and I believe it could work as a fully fledged game, beyond text-based.
Great to see a game made from scratch without an engine! The story and lore are engaging, though clearer feedback on actions would improve the experience. Lots of potential for expansion!
Interesting game! I enjoyed the text mode interface, would rate 4/5 for graphics if you didn't opt out =). I died apparently right near the end, didn't realize that my animals were apparently too low that day, and I'd just figured out which fae were on my farm so I was excited to please them and apparently forgot the animals :(. Was a little frustrating of an ending after spending so long on the farm, would have been nice if getting to 0 in a stat instead turned into random wounds or something so it was more clear that it led to a game over (or, mentioning that in the Help, which only mentioned Wounds causing a game over). Nice writing, and an impressive amount of content, well done!
Also, since this is using a Win32 Console, and not the default height, depending on the user's default console settings and resolution, the window can easily not fit (in which case I don't see the choices at the bottom, or really the bottom half of the screen), you may want to instruct people to change their console settings (on pre-Windows 11, click the upper left icon, then Properties, then Font, but on Windows 11 it defaults to some new console I have no idea where those equivalent options are ^_^).
The game presents an interesting concept, but I struggled with the decision-making process, as the choices weren't very clear. Overall, it's a decent effort with potential, but some adjustments could make it much more engaging.
Super cool game! I managed to get the good ending (though on a second run with the spoiler info). I like how the ambiguity of the text interface matches the ambiguous nature of the creatures you're dealing with. Solid entry!
Well. I really think that it is a very nice game. i have a dream to create text game with a lot of parameters and choices. And i like ur way!
I wish I could play it but in my Windows 11 console it looks like this, I get no choices... 🤔 2024-10-14 03_32_45-Ridianfain_Fair_Folk (WindowsTerminal).png 2024-10-14 03_34_26-Ridianfain_Fair_Folk (WindowsTerminal).png
@kr4ft3r Not beating myself up. Like doing stuff that is slightly experimental during LD because it's guaranteed an audience and some feedback. The timing is definitely something that could be improved. If I had the time and no conflicts with my job I could see expanding on this in a style like Roadwarden. I had actually assumed people would write stuff down, and possibly take a screen shot of the book descriptions. Generally have a note pad next to me at all times and use it constantly when playing some games.
@nazariglez There is a bit of something you could call an engine behind it pulled from some previous entries I had made with a similar style. Most of the work was done in the baseScenes.c file, along with a bunch of stuff that was ripped out because it wasn't needed, and a few changes to handle some different assumptions.
@jimbly Sucks to have the rug pulled out from under you so late in the game. Doing damage is definitely better than just ending the game but might lead to a frustrating death spiral if encountered early or mid game. Better UX to draw players eyes to how low they are instead of just a number would help some as well. Thanks for that info about the console. Seems like a good reason to use something like Bearlibterminal, libtcod, or a custom solution for that in the future.
@h1soka Some of the decisions are purposefully vague, and the impacts of some of your actions are not directly seen to try to create a sense of dealing with something that may or may not be there. Like in an earlier post I wanted to make the player a bit superstitious, knocking on wood and leaving out bowls of milk because it might do something. Maybe doing something similar to how the Meraige and Fidbaid were handled with single scenes might be a better way to handle it.
@triggthediscovery Glad you liked it. No shame in using the spoiler info, just saves people time from having to dig through the source code if they really want to know how things work.
@sdcorpse One of the keys that made this game possible was to make things wide and not too deep. The fae don't interact with each other much which keeps lots of interactions with possibly nasty side effects from happening. Given more time though creating depth is good and having more interactions between them would be nice to have.
@philstrahl Looks like the issue mentioned above about size of the console. Messed around with it a bit on my Windows 11 machine and wasn't able to get it looking like it should. There seems to be a way to use the legacy console mode, but that is system wide and don't feel like messing with peoples machines like that should be necessary just to run an LD game. Will need to look into something else to emulate the console feel while not being an actual console.
Hmm idk, maybe there is a niche for player who like to write things down, but I'd recommend just using the empty space in the sidebar to record the last few (esoteric) actions with their locations. I forgot to mention, the lore was also amazing to read, you captured the fairy logic fairly well.
Just for reference, if anyone wants to switch to the non-crippled console on Windows 11 that will more likely run this game (and lots and lots of other older terminal apps), the setting to change back and forth is `Control Panel -> System -> For developers -> Terminal` and switch it to `Windows Console Host` instead of `Windows Terminal`. Also go and leave a bug report on [their GitHub](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues) =). Longer-term MS is likely going to kill the old console though, and it sounds like they do not intend to support the (Windows-specific) APIs that console apps like this one rely on :(.
A fascinating game with way more depth than I expected. At first I thought it was a "roughing it" farm life text game and had a good time with that as-is. Reading the in-game lore really opened it up. Would like to see an iteration with more feedback (atmospheric sounds, colored text?) but this was a good time.
Great job on your text-based RPG! The inspiration from fairy legends adds a charming touch, and the subtle hints make the adventure engaging. Your attention to detail, including the help screen and console adjustments, enhances the player experience. This game beautifully combines storytelling and interactivity. Keep up the fantastic work!
Really good idea, you’re amazing
Managed to reach the good ending!
This was a really nice little RPG. I enjoyed all the lore here and the different fairies. Only spawning some of them was also a very nice touch - until I read about it in the spoilers, I kept expecting more to show up eventually, which really fit the superstition theme. I ended up having to read the book twice, since I forgot most of it the first time, but that was mostly on me for not taking a screenshot (I did in the second one). And then being able to tell who was the Occorach Fer and who was the Torathar thanks to it was an awesome moment, made even better when the Occorach Fer saved me at the end! I never realized farm life was this dangerous :)
Nevertheless, the game did feel a bit too luck-based and repetitive. Even after I realized some Foirmeacha were haunting my barn and made sure to thank them every single time, I kept getting wounded there, sometimes without even increasing the animal status... There were only two times where I actually managed to take care of them properly. Also, when doing the "spend time with family" action, I didn't see any reason to not just always pick the first option? In the end, the days ended up being almost the same to me - always leave some milk, take care of the lowest-score house part, and thank the Foirmeacha before entering the barn, with very little variety (outside of the events - which were very cool! - but were too far and few in between).
And as some others have said, the game also felt a bit too long for its content. Around day 12 or so I thought it might even be endless, since interesting stuff stopped happening, and read the spoiler to see whether there was ending. Still, this kind of pacing issue is very easy to make in the compo :)
Overall, I still greatly enjoyed this! Awesome entry!
Just appreciate that there's a text game in this jam! Took me a while to "get" that I needed to increase my console size, but I had no UI problems after that.
Nice work, I played the game, and then spent even longer going through your source code - great to see an LD in plain C!
Wow! The game is so wonderfull! I can play this 10 hours straihgt! Keep making games!