Beta report for "The Planet of Death", AKA "Arctic Adventure 'A'" Tested by Andrew Krywaniuk Aug 14-17 *** Planet of Death is a very buggy game, and it is definitely not ready for beta testing. (Yes, I'm sure a lot of the bugs are intentional, but I will pretend, for the purpose of this report, that they are not.) Normally, I would use an iterative testing process. In this case of a very buggy game such as POD, I would stop playing after about 10 minutes and send my first beta report, which illustrates the most obvious types of bugs (and suggests to the author that they polish the game some more before giving it to others). However, betacomp is a special case because I am required to submit just a single test report, so I endeavoured to be as complete as possible in just one pass. (Note that I completed all testing on beta1 using "transfer mirror to me" to work around the "get man" bug.) Also, the rules of betacomp requested that we comment on plot holes and other design issues, even though the author did not. Thus, I am including them anyway. As always, I am including the transcripts of my play. I originally planned to log the playing time for each session, however it proved to be wildly inaccurate (because I was both watching the olympics on TV and typing these comments while playing). I have included some comments inside the transcripts using square braces [] as delimiters (to facilitate easy searching). *** Overall Recommendations --- 1. Re-evaluate what you hope to achieve with this game. 2. Fix the bugs I listed in the "Parsing & Logic Errors" section. 3. Get another beta tester to do an independant test *after* fixing all the bugs. 4. Draw your map on a piece of paper. It ought to make sense in Euclidian geometry. 5. The walkthrough doesn't work. Always check that. 6. Consider addressing the most glaring plot holes. 1. Re-evaluate what you hope to achieve with this game. Step 1 is always deciding what you want to do. In this case, testing-brief.txt makes it pretty clear what kind of suggestions you are looking for (and recommendations 2-6 are based on that). Following these suggestions is not going to turn this game into a masterpiece; you can only do so much with the source material). However, it would also result in a game that would give the player the mistaken impression that games from the 80s were generally fully conceived and bug free. If your intent is to preserve the feel of an early 80s game then perhaps bugs, inexplicable actions, and guess the verb puzzles are an essential part of that atmosphere. You probably still have a few more bugs than the average 80s game, but you're on the right track. If your intent is to update the game to a more modern style (aside from the terse room descriptions and lack of plot) then follow recommendations 2-6. But maybe you still want to do something to spice up the game a bit. For example, you could rewrite the intro to create a back story, and then leave the rest of the game intact. (If you wrote an intro you would naturally want to provide an ending as well.) 2. Fix the bugs I listed in the "Parsing & Logic Errors" section. 3. Get another beta tester to do an independant test *after* fixing all the bugs. This game has a lot of bugs -- so many bugs that it is not really ready for beta testing yet. When you fix those bugs, you will introduce new ones. At that point, you need someone to test the game from a fresh perspective. They will find some new bugs as well as some existing bugs that I didn't notice. 4. Draw your map on a piece of paper. It ought to make sense in Euclidian geometry. Being faithful to the original in this respect really adds nothing to the game and it's frustrating to the player. 5. The walkthrough doesn't work. Always check that. There is really no excuse for this. There is a certain art to writing a *good* walkthrough (e.g. making various sections of the game self-contained). The least you can do is to provide a walkthrough that works when followed literally. (In this case, it didn't make the game completely unwinnable, but the vast majority of players would give up without discovering the work-around.) 6. Consider addressing the most glaring plot holes. I think the prison cell is the most obvious plot hole. How do I keep getting there? Originally, I chalked this up to strange geometry, but as time went on I became increasingly convinced that there is some missing scene in which I get captured and put in the cell. Is the man who is sleeping on the mirror supposed to be guarding me? Is he the one that takes the coin? I would like to know. *** Sanity tests --- xyzzy, plugh -> have a response (good) swearing (e.g. fuck) -> default response. should change it x me -> default response. should change it purloin, gonear -> disabled (good) These are actions that almost every experienced IF player will try when they play your game, so you had better handle them. One more issue is that most players will prefer to start the game in verbose mode, so you should make that the default. *** Parsing & Logic Errors --- Below, I list all the parsing and logic issues I discovered while playing the game. These include unimplemented objects and verbs, inappropriate responses, and other glaring mistakes. I did For the most part, you can find all the same errors by searching the attached transcripts for comments (in square braces []). Dense Forest: - climb rope -> I don't think much is to be achieved by that. [also, "up" could work] - x rope -> You shouldn't see this. Please report to author. - get rope -> I can't do that yet. [why not?] - swing rope -> There is nothing sensible to swing here [If there is an object in this game more suitable for swinging, I can't think of it] - climb tree -> You can't see any such thing. - untie rope -> That's not a verb I recognize [should add it] - cut rope, get it -> You can't see it (the hanging rope) at the moment. Edge of Pit: - x stones -> a handful of stones [You can do better than that. Are they big, small, shiny?] - x stone -> you can't see any such thing. [watch them plurals] - x pit -> you can't see any such thing. [uh-oh... how will I go down it?] - d -> how? [I can think of at least one way] - In general, it's hard to do anything here (like jump over the pit) if you don't define a pit object. Beside Lake: - Jump over ravine -> You would achieve nothing by this. [but it's not very wide] - Jump ravine -> You can't see any such thing [???] - enter ravine, d, go ravine -> [I sense similar problems as the ones I had with the pit] - x lake -> You see a gold coin [you should describe the lake and then mention that there is a coin in the lake.] - look in lake -> You see nothing of interest [where is the coin?] - get coin -> How? You can't reach. [can't reach *it*] - enter lake -> You can't cross that! [I just want to enter it] - swim -> There's not enough water here to swim in. [also, "drink lake", "get water"] - put stones in lake -> That can't contain things. [also, ravine] - use coin -> [allows me to bribe the guard, no matter what room I'm in.] - go lake -> Brrr. The warter's too cold! [should be "water"] Strange House: - floor board should be "floorboard" - pair of boots -> can't refer to them as "pair" or "them" - And you're in a strange house, but I have no idea what's strange about it. - More strange geometry - e to get in, n to get out. Old Shed: - shoot gun -> bang [why would a laser gun go bang?] - shoot ice -> You can't shoot a block of ice [oh... I wanted to shoot the gun at the ice] - shoot gun at ice -> [no response] - use gun -> You don't know how to use the gun [but I seem to know how to shoot it...] Maze: - se -> You can't go that way [but it says there are passages everywhere, not just in the 4 cardinal directions.] - The layout of this maze is a bit silly. I mapped by dropping inventory items and it seems that most of the rooms double back on themselves (e.g. you can keep on going N forever and always end up in the same room. Ice Cavern: - eat ice -> That's plainly inedible [I wouldn't say plainly!] - x cavern -> [That's the escape? How improbable! At least "search cavern" works here. Note that "x " doesn't work for most locations in this game. Also, the secret passage should be mentioned in the room description once it is discovered.] - Note that I can "use" the ice without having seen the slope before. - d -> You can't go that way. [but the slope goes down] - enter slope -> You can't cross that. [I'm playing guess the verb here - "go slope" works] - sit on slope -> "scrabble down" [Should be "scramble down"] - put ice slope -> [Why is Steep Slope capitalized?] - sit on ice -> That's not something you can sit on [why not? It's cubic. And that's the solution to the puzzle anyway.] - sit on floor -> You can't go that way. - the walkthrough says that I'm supposed to go west here. That doesn't work. Quiet Cavern: - It wasn't exactly clear right off the bat that the man on the mirror is an actual alien being (I originally thought it was a picture of a man or something). Why would a man be lying on a mirror. Suntanning? - drink water -> there's nothing suitable to drink here - x mirror -> a large study mirror [why not mention the green man here?] - look in mirror -> On the mirror is a small green man [I said *in* the mirror, not on it] - shooting the gun goes bang, but it doesn't wake the alien. - kill man -> Violence isn't the answer to this one. [However, it appears that I can shoot him.] - shoot man -> [missing period after "puff of smoke"] - push man -> That would be less than courteous. [as opposed to shooting him?] - lie on mirror -> That's not something you can lie down on. [But the alien is!] - get man -> [according to the walkthrough, this is supposed to work] - get mirror -> response as if trying to take the man on the mirror - transfer mirror to me -> now I've got the mirror *and* the man! - I can use the mirror as a bag in order to avoid the inventory limit. Prison Cell: - No mention of exit directions in room description. - Uhh wait... I had to break the bars to get out. So how did I get in again? - More non-Euclidean geometry... I can get here from both the quiet room and by going both east and west from the passage to the South. [Actually, I'm not sure... were these meant to be 3 different cells? If that's the case then you should have made a class called prison cell with multiple instances. Or am I being captured and placed here each time I wander in a certain direction?] - can't x bar before breaking the window. [bar != bars] - I can use the coin when I'm already in the room. Then the door suddenly goes from locked to open. - For some reason if I bribe the guard the door will be unlocked the first time I go in the cell. But if I exit then re-enter, the door will be locked again. (However, I can close & open the door myself without locking myself in.) Wind Tunnel: - Feel gloves -> You feel nothing unexpected [But they're slimy! Also smell/taste them] Computer Room: - "You are in a room with a computer in." -> Grammar. - Use computer/keyboard -> [In this case, why can't I use them without taking them?] - Type should support input in quotes (e.g. type "help"). [No, I didn't guess to try typing help from any clue in the game... I had to figure it out with the disassembler.] Passage (south of Quiet Cavern): - " : beware of security" -> Who is telling me this? And why the awkward colon usage? - listen -> You hear nothing unexpected [I guess the dance music was expected? And why is the Quiet Cavern so quiet if it is close by?] - dance -> This verb behaves in a strange way (see the "Verbs" section below) - south -> You can't go that way [nothing else? nothing about the field] - shoot gun at field -> [Apparently this weakens the field. I'm not sure how I can tell. (I guess it looks weaker?)] Large Hangar: - give X to sleeping -> You can only do that to something animate [sleeping man != inanimate] - wake sleeping -> "manwoke" [Actually, the guard waking was probably a random event, not triggered by my action.] - kill man -> violence isn't the answer to this one [yes it is] Space Ship: - Should be "spaceship" - x buttons -> unimplemented [mind your plurals] - look -> there is no visible exit [but I can still go "out"] - x window -> unimplemented - when the spaceship is in the lift, I can no longer access the "main" and "aux" buttons for some reason. - x -> This leads to some odd results [I can refer to most of the buttons by using "two", "three", "four" instead of "2", "3", "4", but how do I refer to the button labelled 1? Hmmm... "first" works.] Tall Lift: - x sign -> Out of order [no punctuation, maybe better to put this in quotes] Lift Control Room: - l -> A sign says : 5,4 no dusty bin rules. [I gather that the sign is meant to be a hint that I should press the buttons in the order 3-2-1. Is "dusty bin" an obscure reference to some childhood game? And why the strange spacing before the colon again?] - x sign -> [not implemented] - push 3 -> You press the button [I thought it was a switch, not a button] - push 3 [again] -> "button.The" [missing space] - I can "push" or "press" the switches, but I can't "pull" or "switch" them. They really seem more like buttons. - The fuse object is not implemented, yet I can replace it. But if I replace it with the bar, the fuse can still blow again if I keep pressing the button. A metal bar would act like a shunt, not a fuse (unless this is either a very thin bar or a very strong current). Verbs: - Jump me -> You can't see yourself at the moment. [okay, a dumb thing to try, but...] - Enter X -> You can't cross that. [??? - apparently I need to use "go X" instead of "enter"] - Use X -> Saying that I don't know how to use the X is somewhat disingenuous. E.g. If I say "use rope" at the top of the pit, it lets me climb down. If I say "use rope" at the bottom of the pit, it says I don't know how to use the rope. - help -> Try help [no punctuation, plus not particularly useful] - dance -> what do you want to dance? [The only argument that seems to work is a direction. If I specify a direction in most rooms it says I dance on the spot. If I specify a direction in the passage, I end up in the prison cell. It doesn't make any sense!] - shoot X at Y -> I would rather say "shoot Y with X". General: - Why does the game have 2 titles ("The Planet of Death" and "Arctic Adventure 'A'")? It seems better to just choose one. Also, the game is referred to as "Adventure 'A'" in the opening credits (omitting the "Arctic"). *** Summary of Bugs in Walkthrough (see "Parsing & Logic Errors") --- - can't get the man in the quiet passage [use "transfer man to me" as workaround] - going west from the ice cavern doesn't work. [this line is not needed] *** Plot holes --- I can bribe the guard with a coin from any location. This seems like a bug, but where was I actually intended to use it if the bug was fixed? I can't figure it out. I am allegedly trapped on an alien planet, but everything I find (except maybe the laser gun) seems terrestrial in origin. Of course, since I never get a description of an alien more detailed than "a small green man" they could be exactly like us. (Fortunately for me, they write in English and use Arabic numerals.) The series of switches and buttons required to operate the spaceship is not very logical. Going with the original text on this one basically condemns the player to using the walkthrough. Carrying the motor around you seems to be sufficent to make the spaceship move. Apparently, it is not necessary for the motor to actually be attached to the ship somehow. Many of the puzzles just don't make sense. I know I have to get the mirror because it's an obvious puzzle. I know I need to dance because of the music. But how does a mirror help me get through a force field? How does dancing get me through a (weakened) force field? Where did I tie the rope in order to get into the pit? (and how come I still had it when I got down?) A few of the objects are just red herrings. The coin lets helps you solve a puzzle that has 2 other easy to find solutions. The stones are useless, as is the computer (even the hint from the computer). What is a shame about these useless objects is that they don't even provide any added ambience, since they are all implemented with the same spartan descriptions (e.g. x stones -> "A handful of stones") as the rest of the game. From the opening location, I can go D,W and I am back to where I started. But I can also go E,W. That's kind of confusing. Also, it's a cliff so N should be equivalent to U. The whole game is littered with examples of non-Euclidean geometry (particularly the maze, although I guess that was standard 80s fare). The whole idea of the prison cell was not very well thought out. It was never clear to me whether I kept stumbling in there from random directions or if I was actually being captured and placed there (and the game neglected to mention it). Another problem with the map is that adjacent rooms sometimes don't relate to each other. For example, the quiet room is right next to the room with the loud speaker. *** Errors found via raw string dump --- Spelling: e864: S141 "It doesn't look like you could safely scrabble down." e53c: S120 "You dance through the forcefield.^" [should be "force field"] Wording: ebcc: S159 "A common-or-garden laser gun." [???] Grammar: ee54: S177 "You shake the window back and forth. With a loud CRASH most of the window falls out, apart from a single bar which you were holding onto at the time, which falls into the cell." [MS Word grammar checker would complain that the "which" following the "single bar" should be a "that". Me, I'm not so picky.] Not converted from 1st person to 2nd person: f5a8: S219 "The space ship blew up and killed me!" *** A Special Note about the Intro --- The intro is the most important part of the game. This is the part that will determine a player's whole attitude towards the rest of the game. Like they say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. I would consider it acceptable to discard the original intro and conclusion (all 11 words of it) and write your own. Some comments on the existing intro: > In this adventure you find yourself stranded on an alien planet. Your aim is to escape from this planet by finding your, now captured and disabled, space ship." The prologue gives a summary of the game and it reveals several critical pieces of information (where am I? what is my goal?), but the style in which it presents this information is very dry. Consider the following alternative (abbreviated) intro: > "Must...Escape...Tractor Beam." Okay, so what else would Kirk do? Most likely, he would turn on the warp drive and be halfway to Proxima Centauri by now. Unfortunately you are limited by the laws of Einsteinian physics so there is nothing left to do but press the eject button and *BLAM* you are falling. Those alien bastards may have your ship, but they sure as hell don't have you... yet! It gives the same basic information, but at least it has some personality. > You will meet various hazards and dangers on your adventure, some natural, some not, all of which you must overcome to succeed. The above sentence is very awkward because it has so many commas. Also, it is best to avoid phrases where the meaning of the sentence depends on the location of a comma. "some, not all" leads to a different interpretation than "some not, all". Although I recommend that you completely rewrite the introduction, this grammar lesson could be applicable elsewhere.