Identity - Post IF-Comp Release

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Well... the competition is over and my entry placed 15th out of
36 total entries. I'm not disappointed with my first effort. When
I set out to write Identity, I had hoped to place in the top 50%
and I've done just that. Obviously, every entry outside of the
top few spots would like to have placed better - but such is
life. The reviews have been, generally, very constructive and
I've learned quite a bit from the competition. Most reviewers
seem follow a common theme - using phrases along the lines of
"solidly mediocre", "competent but unimaginative", "well
implemented but lacking force". Most of this comes down to my
writing skills which work well for technical writing (which I do
a fair bit of during SW design) but don't give that needed grip
for fiction readers.

When I started back in January, my goals were fairly simple.
First to learn Inform. Then to design and write a game for the IF
Competition. The first goal was easy - as a Software Engineer I
had almost no trouble getting up to speed with Inform. The second
goal proved a bit more difficult.

Since I wasn't feeling especially solid with my fiction writing
(though I'm slowly reading a handful of books to try and improve
this), I concentrated on the things I could control easily. First
was to design a game that was basically winnable in 2 hours - I
always enjoy the accomplishment of seeing most of a game during
the review period so it was designed to be a fairly short game.
Then I worked on writing solid code, adding a competent hint
system, adding detail to as many scenery objects as possible and
designing puzzles that logically fit the game. Additionally, I
made sure to get good beta testers - giving 3 or 4 rounds of
testing/bug fixes before release. From virtually all of the
feedback I've received, I seem to have at least gotten passing
marks on my overall implementation and hint system and only a
small number of technical bugs surfaced during the competition
period.

Puzzles had a mixed reaction - some really enjoyed them
(especially the Yak puzzle). Some found them too tedious
(especially the radio puzzle - point well taken). Some found them
too hard (especially the radio puzzle). I can't really understand
this last criticism - most puzzles were well clued and the radio
puzzle was, actually, reasonably simple (which is why I can
understand that some found it tedious since it did require a fair
number of wire-to-jumper connections which does take time
especially when the solution is obvious). The solution to getting
the radio working was to read the schematic to find out which
wire lines corresponded to what signals and then looking at the
radio interface board to figure out which jumpers were associated
with what signals and then connect the wires to the jumpers.
There was an additional twist in that the schematic was out of
date (marked clearly) requiring a 50/50 guess on the last two
wires but that only takes a brief experiment which does actually
happen occasionally in the engineering world . So I was a
little disappointed that my puzzles weren't received better but
100+ voters can't be wrong so I'll keep reading on puzzle design
and keep working to try and make them logical, clued-in and less
tedious.

I've fixed all of the known technical issues with the game and
released it along with the updated source code to the IF Archive.
For now, you can get the game (Identity.z5) and the source
(Identity.zip) at:

http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXunprocessed.html

.... but within a few days it should be placed into the proper
games and source directories respectively.

Thanks to all of the reviewers that took the time to play the
game. And congratulations to ALL of the authors that entered this
year.

--
Dave Bernazzani
Join the Commodore 32 Inform minigame contest:
http://www.gis.net/~daveber/minform/c32.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

In article <39o1q0pe3oi7q4hr038b5oh20gvdo294vc@4ax.com>,
Dave Bernazzani <daveber@gis.net> wrote:
[..]
>Puzzles had a mixed reaction - some really enjoyed them
>(especially the Yak puzzle). Some found them too tedious
>(especially the radio puzzle - point well taken). Some found them
>too hard (especially the radio puzzle). I can't really understand
>this last criticism - most puzzles were well clued and the radio
>puzzle was, actually, reasonably simple (which is why I can


Hmm. I agree it was reasonably well-clued. I had some problems with it
myself, but on a replay I'm not exactly sure what they were -- I got
the wrong combo first and then the right one on a second try. I think
part of the problem might be just a morale issue. Like, everyone here
is smart enough to solve all the puzzles in a typical IF game. Whether
we do or not is mostly a matter of whether we stick to them long
enough to figure them out. I can believe that somebody who missed or
forgot about the initial schematic would look at this puzzle and go
"oh, man, this is going to be totally complicated" and approach it in
a half-hearted manner because they don't think they're going to be
able to solve it. So at least to that extent, "hard" can be a product
of "tedious" or "not well-clued" (there's sort of a similar gripe in
that "attach" doesn't work, which was my first thought -- again, just
a little discouraging to try something and have it not work).

>Dave Bernazzani
--
Dan Shiovitz :: dbs@cs.wisc.edu :: http://www.drizzle.com/~dans
"He settled down to dictate a letter to the Consolidated Nailfile and
Eyebrow Tweezer Corporation of Scranton, Pa., which would make them
realize that life is stern and earnest and Nailfile and Eyebrow Tweezer
Corporations are not put in this world for pleasure alone." -PGW

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Dan Shiovitz wrote:
> In article <39o1q0pe3oi7q4hr038b5oh20gvdo294vc@4ax.com>,
> Dave Bernazzani <daveber@gis.net> wrote:
> [..]
>
>>Puzzles had a mixed reaction - some really enjoyed them
>>(especially the Yak puzzle). Some found them too tedious
>>(especially the radio puzzle - point well taken). Some found them
>>too hard (especially the radio puzzle). I can't really understand
>>this last criticism - most puzzles were well clued and the radio
>>puzzle was, actually, reasonably simple (which is why I can
>
>
>
> Hmm. I agree it was reasonably well-clued. I had some problems with it
> myself, but on a replay I'm not exactly sure what they were -- I got
> the wrong combo first and then the right one on a second try. I think
> part of the problem might be just a morale issue. Like, everyone here
> is smart enough to solve all the puzzles in a typical IF game. Whether
> we do or not is mostly a matter of whether we stick to them long
> enough to figure them out. I can believe that somebody who missed or
> forgot about the initial schematic would look at this puzzle and go


I got the impression that those who thought it was difficult simply
didn't find the schematics from the starship in the first place. I
suppose puzzles very later on in a game shouldn't be that dependant on
something that is hidden early on. People are certainly capable of
missing the earlier one , unless it's very obvious. I found it easily
but dunno about others. They may have missed it in the walkthru as well,
as one could have gone out of the ship without hints then later on not
get a clue where the heck the wire connections are coming from.
Emiliano.


> "oh, man, this is going to be totally complicated" and approach it in
> a half-hearted manner because they don't think they're going to be
> able to solve it. So at least to that extent, "hard" can be a product
> of "tedious" or "not well-clued" (there's sort of a similar gripe in
> that "attach" doesn't work, which was my first thought -- again, just
> a little discouraging to try something and have it not work).
>
>
>>Dave Bernazzani

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 21:38:39 +0000, Emiliano Padilha
<emilianp@cogscied.ac.uk> wrote:

>Dan Shiovitz wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hmm. I agree it was reasonably well-clued. I had some problems with it
>> myself, but on a replay I'm not exactly sure what they were -- I got
>> the wrong combo first and then the right one on a second try. I think
>> part of the problem might be just a morale issue. Like, everyone here
>> is smart enough to solve all the puzzles in a typical IF game. Whether
>> we do or not is mostly a matter of whether we stick to them long
>> enough to figure them out. I can believe that somebody who missed or
>> forgot about the initial schematic would look at this puzzle and go
>
>
>I got the impression that those who thought it was difficult simply
>didn't find the schematics from the starship in the first place. I
>suppose puzzles very later on in a game shouldn't be that dependant on
>something that is hidden early on. People are certainly capable of
>missing the earlier one , unless it's very obvious. I found it easily
>but dunno about others. They may have missed it in the walkthru as well,
>as one could have gone out of the ship without hints then later on not
>get a clue where the heck the wire connections are coming from.

Actually, when I looked at the radio and thought about the last two
connections, it felt like that I would have to do a lot of trial and error
before I could complete the puzzle. This is a cut-and-paste from the
scrollback:

:The radio-transmitter interface board is mounted in place and the wiring is exposed. On the open panel there is a sticker.
:
:There are 9 sets of wires labeled A1-A9 which originate from the
:radio itself. There are 13 sets of jumpers that are located on the
:interface board labeled as follows: J114, J115, J116, J121, J235,
:J236, J238, J239, J242, J243, J244, J251, J252
:
:The current wiring for this device is as follows:
:
:wire A1 is connected to Jumper 242.
:wire A2 is connected to Jumper 238.
:wire A3 is connected to Jumper 244.
:wire A4 is connected to Jumper 115.
:wire A5 is connected to Jumper 239.
:wire A6 is connected to Jumper 121.
:wire A7 is connected to Jumper 114.
:wire A8 is connected to Jumper 116.
:wire A9 is connected to Jumper 235.

There is a lack of a crossreference indicating which jumpers are or are not
in use. Thus, connecting the final two wires requires you searching
through the list multiple times to find two free jumpers, wire them, and
repeat for every unsuccessful combination. This is very inefficient,
especially when the player should be able to immediately spot which jumpers
are not in use.

It might be possible to cut down on searching through the possibilities
(e.g. know that some jumpers are unused), but just seeing a large list of
jumpers is intimidating even to those who can deduce the solution.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Dave Bernazzani wrote:

> Again, I can see where the puzzle may have been too easy and hence
> tedious. I can also see that if someone missed the original schematic
> in the spacecraft then it would have been virtually impossible to solve.
> I'm still working on my puzzle design skills!

You seem to be ignoring the distracted/inattentive readers, those of us
who found the original schematic and clearly read the jumper listing, but
didn't quite notice that the versions were different, and so we were left
wondering what else to do. This is why I turned to the hints for help in
solving the radio puzzle. It wasn't a bad puzzle. I just found the
revision code to be easily overlooked.

/====================================================================\
|| Quintin Stone O- > "You speak of necessary evil? One ||
|| Code Monkey < of those necessities is that if ||
|| Rebel Programmers Society > innocents must suffer, the guilty must ||
|| stone@rps.net < suffer more." -- Mackenzie Calhoun ||
|| http://www.rps.net/QS/ > "Once Burned" by Peter David ||
\====================================================================/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:49:41 -0500, "Dave Bernazzani" <dber@gis.net> wrote:

>
>"Raymond Martineau" <bk039@ncf.ca> wrote in message
>> Actually, when I looked at the radio and thought about the last two
>> connections, it felt like that I would have to do a lot of trial and error
>> before I could complete the puzzle. This is a cut-and-paste from the
>> scrollback:
>>
>> :The radio-transmitter interface board is mounted in place and the wiring
>is exposed.
>> On the open panel there is a sticker.
>> :
>> :There are 9 sets of wires labeled A1-A9 which originate from the
>> :radio itself. There are 13 sets of jumpers that are located on the
>> :interface board labeled as follows: J114, J115, J116, J121, J235,
>> :J236, J238, J239, J242, J243, J244, J251, J252
>> :
>> :The current wiring for this device is as follows:
>> :
>> :[snip]
>>
>> There is a lack of a crossreference indicating which
>> jumpers are or are not in use.
>
>The jumpers (and their use) are specified on the jumper-layout sticker for
>the radio. If you examine the radio panel you see the sticker that shows all
>jumper labels and what signals they correspond to.

I'm not referring to the functions of the jumpers - I'm referring to the
fact that there isn't something like:

"J115, J235, J236, J243, J251, J253 are not wired".

It's possible to keep track with notepad in another window or by
pen-and-paper, but this sort of information should be presented more
clearly to the PC.

It's possible to deduce the two remaining jumpers without having to keep
track of which ones are in use, but it will intimidate some players.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

bk039@ncf.ca (Raymond Martineau) wrote:

>I'm not referring to the functions of the jumpers - I'm
>referring to the fact that there isn't something like:
>
>"J115, J235, J236, J243, J251, J253 are not wired".

I could have added that, yes... and will probably do so for a
future release. However, you made it clear that...

>Thus, connecting the final two wires requires
>you searching through the list multiple times
>to find two free jumpers, wire them, and
>repeat for every unsuccessful combination.

.... so I was just mentioning that there is only 1 possible
unsuccessful combination. Therefore you never need search the
list more than twice. You're either right on the first try or you
need to try the other combination. Part of the puzzle was do
deduce that the "unused" jumpers (so marked on the radio panel)
are of no consequence to getting the radio running - and only the
two jumpers marked as having a function need to be wired up with
the final 2 unused wires (the wires are marked clearly in the
list as "connected to nothing"). Since a player has to go
through the process of wiring up the first 7 wire/jumper pairs
(by crossreferencing the wires on his schematic to the same
labeled jumpers on the radio panel), they only needed to look at
the panel diagram once more to find the remaining 2 jumpers that
need to be wired up. I made enough extra jumpers that it would
have been daunting to try and wire up the last 2 unattached wires
by brute force and so hopefully players worked on finding a
different solution to the problem (i.e. realizing that only the
jumpers mentioned on the radio label that have a function were
necessary to wire-up - jumpers labeled as "unused" have no
function).

In theory, this is how I had hoped the player would approach the
puzzle:

First, they would have found the rev J Schematic and that shows
which wires are associated with what signals (Transmit, Receive,
Ground, Signal, etc). They tuck that away in their inventory.
Then, later, they find a broken radio with a half installed radio
interface board. On examining the radio panel, they find out that
there are 13 jumpers - 9 of which have functions associated with
them and 4 that are marked "unused". The label mentions that only
a new Rev K schematic should be used to wire up the board and
also states that "Additional lines may be added to future
schematics" (hopefully cluing in the fact that the player older
schematic may not be complete). So since the player only has a
rev J Schematic, he wires up the 7 wires he knows by finding the
corresponding signal name on the radio panel. That leaves 2 new
wires - A8 and A9. Examining the radio panel again, the player
notices that there are 9 jumpers that are labeled as being in use
and he has already wired 7 of them - the two remaining jumpers
that he didn't cross reference to his older schematic are J116
(Delay) and J235 (Select). Both Delay and Select don't show on
the older schematic. Then it's a matter of trying A8 and A9 to
J116 and J235. There are only 2 combinations here (A8-J116,
A9-J235 followed by A8-J235 and A9-J116). Players will either
get it right on the first try or need one additional try.

I think it goes without saying that if I have to explain a puzzle
more than once (since it was already explained in the built-in
hints), it's likely not a good design. From virtually all of the
posts I've gotten, only a small handful enjoyed this puzzle.

--
Dave Bernazzani
Join the Commodore 32 Inform minigame contest:
http://www.gis.net/~daveber/minform/c32.htm

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 08:08:39 -0500, Dave Bernazzani <daveber@gis.net>
wrote:

> However, you made it clear that...
>
>>Thus, connecting the final two wires requires
>>you searching through the list multiple times
>>to find two free jumpers, wire them, and
>>repeat for every unsuccessful combination.
>
>... so I was just mentioning that there is only 1 possible
>unsuccessful combination

Yes, that is true. But when rushing to judge in 2 hours, you don't really
eliminate invalid combinations that don't touch the unused jumpers.

>
>I think it goes without saying that if I have to explain a puzzle
>more than once (since it was already explained in the built-in
>hints), it's likely not a good design. From virtually all of the
>posts I've gotten, only a small handful enjoyed this puzzle.

The newsgroup explaination is the one done properly. The hint system could
easily be changed slightly to tell explicitly the user that some of the
jumpers are red herrings, so that the user won't try the extra
combinations.

For example, the following modification to the hints will help.
(7/10) Keep in mind that there are only 2 extra jumper connections shown on
the interface panel "Delay" and "Select".
Insert here: The other remaining jumpers are unused and don't need to be
connected to any wire.

This simple reminder will help the player solve it much more easily, since
it reminds the player that there are only two combinations - and perhaps
save a lot explainations on usenet.


Oh, and found a bug with the radio - you can open the panel with the radio
on (pulling the fuse out of the circut), and still have it functioning
properly. There's also a few other oddities, such as connecting all nine
wires to the same jumper. But these two things are relativly minor and I'm
sure you found these out by now...