noodlemaster 2025-04-07 10:57
Very interesting game. I haven't played it through since i don't have much time. It also took me some attempts to figure out how to do some of the stuff (like using items). But overall I liked it.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Fathom Pond
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 216 | 3.21 | 23 | |
| Fun | 209 | 3.04 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 205 | 3.02 | 23 | |
| Theme | 100 | 3.76 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 1 | |||
| Audio | 1 | |||
| Humor | 98 | 3.07 | 22 | |
| Mood | 112 | 3.57 | 23 |
Very interesting game. I haven't played it through since i don't have much time. It also took me some attempts to figure out how to do some of the stuff (like using items). But overall I liked it.
I haven’t gotten very far into the game yet, but I definitely plan to keep going! It’s rare to come across text-based adventure games, and this one turned out to be way more engaging than I expected. The writing is beautiful, and the story is intriguing.
Since I’m not very familiar with the genre, I probably don’t think of all the possible verbs available. I wish a list of common ones was provided! I did try using the “help” command, but it didn’t return anything :smile:
Looking forward to continuing — I’ll update this comment as I progress!
great writing. I'll admit I made it past the first door, and realized I needed to talk to the eel to somehow get past the locked door, but couldn't figure out how to get back so gave up. It would be nice to have a list of available commands in game somewhere, I had to keep switching back and forth between the cheat sheet and the game (on a laptop)
Great to see some interactive fiction here. I'm enjoying this. I'll probably return to it after rating some more games, but the premise of the first handful of rooms after the title intrigued me already
I am not familiar with the genre, but the writing is really good!
In this episode, 100th_Coin reveals how bad he is at text based adventures.
First of all, the writing is delightful. I love the way you describe the scenes, and details fill this game with so much charm. The biggest issue I had with the puzzles was simply a lack of information. With a game like this, where half the time I try to do something like "Use hook on ring" I see "Use is not a verb I'm familiar with" and get discouraged. How could I possibly know what my options are? When I typed "rotate statue" my expectations are "rotate is not a verb I'm familiar with", yet it was the solution. I'll admit, it's a genre I don't have much experience with, but text based adventures seem to be riddled with "verbs" that you just need to somehow know you are able to do. I asked you on discord about placing something on the altar, for "place is not a verb..." only to learn I had to use the word "put". The issue is that there's so many situations like that. You just need to know that you have to use the word "put", or that "rotate" is an option. It feels all the more confusing when "use" isn't something I can do. You don't "use key on door" you "open door with key". I think that's an issue of the engine more-so than your own design.
I can only imagine watching this will be painful, but here's an hour and a half of me stubbing my toe in every room and getting frustrated at my own lack of information, due to the aforementioned "you don't phrase it like this, you phrase it like that" knowledge that I couldn't have had going into this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4SvqeiDtVQ
Cool text adventure, easy to play if you're familiar with the genre. Changing the font and making it a little bigger would add a lot to the feel of the game.
Nice work
Very well done text adventure. Some of the puzzles were a little hard to understand, but that's par for the course for this genre. Some added music or sounds for atmosphere would be a nice touch, but I really enjoyed this.
Cool implementation of a text adventure. It's just not my kind of game, I always get lost xD
I got stuck pretty early in the game because I didn't notice you could go even deeper after the Twilight Depths. I had to use the walkthrough many times. It's funny that you can talk to the Eel though. The last part with the kraken key was the hardest to get. Also, I think I found a bug, where if you enter the kraken's door immediately it just says "Ink" in bold letters, and you have to exit and enter again for the ending to actually happen. Took me 247 turns. Very nice work though, regardless!
OMG. Best game ever!.
God - this just makes me realize how little I know about text adventures. Coming into this with very little understanding of the genre did NOT do me any justice, LOL. I was very disappointed I could not "take fish" in the Twilight Depths, he would have been my eternal companion, and I would have named him Bob.
Anyways, you can probably tell by the fact that I'm avoiding addressing the game that I don't have much to say - I don't really trust myself to critique a text adventure I guess? I suppose I would say that I think the font size could be a little larger, and perhaps that some of the choices on where to go and what to do seem a bit arbitrary at times. Other than that though, I had a really good time! The writing is succinct, but sets the mood very well, and the commands are simple to use to navigate the world with. Well done, congrats!
This takes me back because a simple zork clone was one of the first games I ever made. That said, I know very little about the genre. I couldn't reach the ending even with some heavy help from solution.txt. I would have appreciated a "help" and a "map" command in a game like this—I understand that getting lost is part of the experience but some people are just really bad at directions.
Like rbbhn, I don't think I'm in a position to critique this, although what I can say is, the writing is superb and the amount of content is staggering for a compo entry.