Halfway through the jam! I'm curious to hear how other projects are coming along. For me, it was slow-going at first, as I learned the ins and outs of Decker; but now I'm loving it, and my project is moving along nicely. It's so much fun to create retro-looking graphics, and I keep thinking back fondly to Myst and the Sierra games of the 80s and 90s. I'm hoping to have at least six scenes and nine or ten puzzles by the time the jam concludes. Here's a little sneak peek at the third 'scene':
Ooh, I love a good puzzle thing! I'll be looking forward to checking it out!
What did you use for the background art? It looks like it's done in something external and imported into Decker?
it's funny actually. i used a very high tech method to get a low tech look! i placed a virtual camera inside a fully-rendered, full-colour 3D environment, chose the view i wanted, took a screenshot and imported the low res, black and white version into Decker. just like traveling back in time!
then i added the silhouettes, which was interesting because I had to position them carefully to give the illusion that they're part of the 3D environment
Oh cool! If you haven't seen it, the "All About Color" deck that comes with Decker has some stuff about importing images that could help you have different effects e.g. using different palettes or using an external tool to dither it!
this is so good to know. on the one hand, i wish i'd known how to import images properly before I started; then again, I actually like the weird aesthetic my game has right now. but i'll definitely use these techniques on my NEXT Decker project. some of the images in this game are like Rorschach tests - you have to squint to figure out what you're looking at. :-)
I mean I wouldn't say "properly" it's just different! There's definitely cases where one would rather not have dithering after all!
by the way, I noticed the Reversible Octopus plushie in your FMV project, so I had to show it to my daughter (she has one and loves it more than any of her 10,000 squishmallows). Needless to say, she's your biggest fan now.
hi Millie, I just submitted a small section of my puzzle-adventure game. I'd love to hear your feedback on it - it's hard for me to judge how difficult the puzzles are or how easy it is to navigate the world. originally, i was going to try to finish the game before submitting it, but I sort of like the way it ends on a cliffhanger.
this way, i can start on the second part once I've gotten a sense of what works and what doesn't work. Decker is fun!!
I just played through the current version. It was fun, even if the setting was a bit gruesome.
When I started playing, it took me a while to figure out I could click on the person in the other cell; I didn’t recognise it as the silhouette of a person at first.
In the “guess the ages of the children” puzzle, I got a bit annoyed that one of the clues was apparently “on the wall behind me”, but I couldn’t find a way to turn around; I actually rewound the game back to the previous section looking at the desk to see if there was a number on the wall I couldn’t remember. Turns out there wasn’t, and even if there had been a way to get that clue it wouldn’t have helped - it’s not necessary to solve the puzzle. I feel like it’s a distraction to mention it at all. On the other hand, I really liked the final clue - it was a great “But why would.. ohhh!” moment.
I used two hints on “guess the occupation” and one hint on “guess the number of the safe”, but I made it through.
that's great feedback; it's helpful to hear how others experience the game. i wondered if the prison silhouette wasn't clear enough - i'll definitely fix that. the purpose for the 'number on the wall' clue is to prevent the player from knowing the sum of the ages but to indicate that knowing the clue is not enough to solve the puzzle. it's a convoluted way of hinting at the number 13 (since that's the only non-unique sum among the 8 combinations). i adapted this puzzle from another source, and I'm not sure if it works in this context. i don't want players to think they need to SEE the number in order to solve the puzzle, so maybe i need to make that more clear. hearing about your experience is super helpful - thank you for sharing it with me. and thanks for trying out the game!
First a technical note on navigating the world. Right now you've got the navigation arrow keys unlocked, so I can flip through cards in order without doing things properly, so you may want to fix that. If you put this in your deck-wide script it'll make it disable navigation when the deck is locked
on navigate x do if !deck.locked send navigate[x] end endOn a semirelated note, I saw that the menu section of the screen is often left blank with the art, so you may be interested to know that if you press "m" to see it and draw there when you're in a drawing mode.
I found moving around with the arrow buttons pretty obvious, but it took me a while to find the hotspot that got me to the first puzzle through the bars. Like I was going through several times trying to find where my cursor changed but not seeing it. Not sure if that's part of the challenge or you want to make it more obvious.
I think these kinds of puzzles may not quite click with my brain haha, like I was hitting all the hints and even then I was finding myself trial and erroring through a bit. I'm hoping others can give some feedback here because I think this kind of puzzle may not quite be what works in my brain, but since I did eventually get through with the hints that might mean it's balanced OK.
I have to agree with Screwtapello that the number on the wall thing was a bit odd, maybe there's another way to word that or hint at that where you don't go "but wait why can't I look"?
The shape fitting puzzle did go well with my brain once I realised "oh the filled in squares are free squares, not holes". I wonder if there's a way of doing this where you can drag and rotate the pieces instead of just clicking squares to change colour, might need some more advanced coding but the rect module in the draggable example deck could help here.
I am definitely excited to see the ending because ooh that cliffhanger
it's really helpful to get feedback about the technical aspects of Decker; for example, I had no idea it was possible to flip through the cards with the menu bar hidden! i will try implementing that code you suggested. all of this is great for a newbie like me.
the silhouette in the prison cell and the 'number on the wall' clue definitely need to be improved. it's helpful to know that multiple players have been thrown off by both those issues.
it's funny that you mentioned the mechanics of the shape-fitting puzzle. i created a very similar puzzle for another game, but it was SO challenging to code, and ultimately it wasn't user-friendly at all. so I decided to go with the 'painting' mechanic, simply because it didn't involve moving parts. but i think there's definitely a better way to do it; i just gotta do some brainstorming...
the cliffhanger was a last-minute choice - there are a couple different ways to go with the story, and I haven't decided on that, so the 'to be continued' gives me some time to mull it over.
thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback!
