BetaComp 04 entry by Andrew Walters Testing Report for: "THE PLANET OF DEATH" Artic Adventure A Inform version by Neil Bowers Testing was conducted between 8/14/04 and 9/4/04. This beta test report is divided into four sections: 1. Gameplay bugs encountered 2. Typographical fixes and grammatical suggestions 3. General puzzle/game design issues 4. A few suggested objects to implement Notation guide: 1. The items in each section are numbered sequentially, in approximate order of locations one might visit the locations in the game. 2. Following the item number, in parentheses, is the names of the (primary) location to which the issue is applicable. "(General)" denotes an issue that is topical to the overall game or several different locations. 3. Following the location and textual quote (if present) are lines describing the problem and in some cases a suggested change. 4. Quotes in all capitals are text inputs to the game which generate the problematic text/situation. ------------------------------------------------ 1. GAMEPLAY BUGS: ------------------------------------------------ 1. (Dense Forest) From "X ROPE" *before* getting the flint and "CUT ROPE": "You shouldn't see this. Please report to author." Okay, will do! 2. (Beside Lake) I can get a description of the coin with "X COIN" even before I "X LAKE" to learn about the coin's existence. Perhaps the coin should be moved into the location upon examining the lake, or however else this could be managed in Inform. 3. (Quiet Cavern) If you put things on the mirror, they don't get picked up with a "TAKE ALL" command. 4. (Quiet Cavern) Any objects placed on the mirror simply vanish when you break the mirror (e.g. with "SHOOT GUN AT MAN", assuming the green man is still asleep on the mirror). 5. (Large Hangar) "WAKE SECURITY" doesn't work properly -- the security guard is not defined as something animate. 6. (General) "SHOOT LASER AT " or "SHOOT GUN AT " gives no response at all for objects other than the mirror, the green man, or the security guard. Perhaps there should be a default response, when a target other than these three is chosen, such as "It would do you no good to shoot the ." A few special cases would have to be handled separately, such as "SHOOT LASER AT ME" or "SHOOT LASER AT LASER". 7. (General) "SHOOT LASER/GUN WITH " seems to behave the same as "SHOOT LASER/GUN AT ", which doesn't make much sense. ------------------------------------------------ 2. TYPOS / GRAMMAR SUGGESTIONS: ------------------------------------------------ 1. (Intro Text) "Your aim is to escape from this planet by finding your, now captured and disabled, space ship." This sentence is awkward and should perhaps be rephrased. For example: "Your aim is to escape from this planet by finding your space ship, which has been captured and disabled." 2. (Intro Text) "You will meet various hazards and dangers on your adventure, some natural, some not, all of which you must overcome to succeed." The first comma (and perhaps the third) should be replaced by either a colon or a dash. I suggest: "You will meet various hazards and dangers on your adventure -- some natural, some not -- all of which you must overcome to succeed." 3. (Intro Text) "Press any key to start" A period's missing. 4. (Edge of Pit) "Obvious exits are east." Since there's just one exit here, it'd be better as: "The only obvious exit is east." 5. (Damp Cave) "You are in a damp limestone cave, with stalactites hanging down." Grammatically the comma here is extraneous, as it would imply that the stalactites are a property of the the sentence's subject (you). I suggest removing the comma or rephrasing as: "You are in a damp limestone cave, and stalactites hang down from the ceiling." 6. (Beside Lake) From trying to "WALK IN LAKE" before putting the boots on: "Brrr. The warter's too cold!" Typo -- "warter" should be "water". 7. (Strange House) From "X BOARD": "A long piece of wood" A period's missing. 8. (Old Shed) The description of the laser gun is "A common-or-garden laser gun." I think that "common or garden" as a phrase is not hyphenated. 9. (Ice Cavern) From "X CAVERN": "You look around the cavern, and discover a steep slope leading downwards into the darkness." Grammatical note: this is incorrect with a comma because "and" is a coordinating conjunction, and what comes afterward must be an independent clause. Better as: "You look around the cavern and discover a steep slope leading downwards into the darkness." 10. (Quiet Cavern) From "TAKE MAN": "Ugh! He's all slimy" Missing end punctuation (a period or an exclamation mark). 11. (Quiet Cavern) When little green man wakes up (e.g., after "TAKE MAN" and a few turns of waiting): "The small green manawoke and throttled you!" A space is missing there. "manawoke" should be "man awoke". 12. (Quiet Cavern) The first line of the response to "SHOOT LASER AT MAN" is "He vanished in a puff of smoke" Missing end punctuation (a period or an exclamation mark). 13. (Wind Tunnel) From "WEAR GLOVES": "They are a bit grim, but you get them on without too much mess." Typo -- "grim" should (probably) be "grimy". 14. (Computer Room) From "X KEY": "a small metal key" The description needs capitalization and punctuation: "A small metal key." 15. (Computer Room) "... The exit is to the west. The only exit is through the open door, to the west." The information's repeated unnecessarily. Better rephrased as: "... The only exit is through the open door, to the west." Also, similarly, for the room description after "CLOSE DOOR". 16. (Computer Room) From "TYPE HELP" the response is "Computer says '2 west, 2 south for space flight'." It should probably be "the computer", and the period should be inside the single quote (a rule I flaunt on occasion!). Suggestion: "The computer says '2 west, 2 south for space flight.'" 17. (Computer Room) From "HELP" the response is "Try help" Missing period. "Try help." 18. (Passage) The area description has "There is a force field to the south : beware of security." It is unclear whether the game is suggesting I beware of security or telling me a sign has such an instruction on it. Better rephrased as: "There is a force field to the south, so you keep on the lookout for security." 19. (Passage) When interacting with the force field (e.g. trying "SHOOT FIELD"), the object is referred to as the "forcefield". For consistency (and correctness) it should be two words here. 20. (Passage) From "TAKE LOUDSPEAKER" the response is: "It is well out of reach. And looks firmly bolted to the wall." The second sentence is a fragment and should be linked to the first, like so: "It is well out of reach and looks firmly bolted to the wall." 21. (Large Hangar) When the security man wakes up, the text is "The sleeping security manwoke and shot you!" A space is missing there. "manwoke" should be "man awoke". 22. (Tall Lift): Examining the sign: "Out of order" The words should probably be in quotes (in the game). 23. (Lift Control Room) The room description has "A sign says : 5,4 no dusty bin rules." As with item #20, the words on the sign should probably be in quotes. 24. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) "PUSH MAIN" gives "The space ship blew up and killed me!" This response hasn't yet been changed to the second person: "The space ship blew up and killed you!" 25. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) "OUT" after you take off gives "When the spaceship took off, the door was locked for your safety." Elsewhere "spaceship" is given as two words, so for consistency: "When the space ship took off, the door was locked for your safety." 26. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) "PUSH 1" (which, assuming you did "WEAR BOOTS", wins the game) gives "It is a good job you were wearing rubber-soled boots." "Job" is a poor word choice there. I suggest replacing "job" with "thing". 27. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) "PUSH 2" or "PUSH 3" results in death, with one of the response's sentences being "A security guard shot you for trespassing." This should probably be in the present tense along with the preceding part. "A security guard shoots you for trespassing." ------------------------------------------------ 3. GENERAL PUZZLE / GAME DESIGN ISSUES: ------------------------------------------------ First, a few issues with currently implemented things: 1. (Mountain Plateau) When you go DOWN from here, it takes you to a place where WEST is the way to get back. Intuitively UP is the way to get back, so perhaps that should be added as a different way to return from the Dense Forest to the Mountain Plateau. 2. (Dense Forest) The response to "CUT ROPE" with the flint is "The rope drops to the floor." That should be "ground" instead of "floor". 3. (Beside Lake) "SWIM" gives "There's not enough water to swim in", yet I still can't access the coin. Perhaps a response should override the default response here -- perhaps the player doesn't want to get his uniform wet. This could even be a good clue that the boots would be useful in wading in. 4. (Edge of Pit) If you "USE ROPE" to climb down into the Quiet Cavern, shouldn't it be left behind (if it's tied to something above) or have some description about how you yank the rope loose (if you end up keeping it)? 5. (Ice Cavern) Even after doing "X CAVERN" and discovering a slope leading downwards, I can't go DOWN (or get an adequate explanation about what's stopping me). Perhaps it should give a response which hints at the possible use of the block of ice. 6. (Prison Cell) If you "USE COIN" here, the response is "You use the gold coin to bribe the guard, who leaves the door unlocked." It's unclear whether I should know or be able to see the guard beforehand. Perhaps there should at least be an indication of where the guard is, e.g.: "You use the gold coin to bribe the guard standing outside. He leaves the door unlocked." 7. (Prison Cell) There's no explanation for why, upon going west from the Quiet Cavern to the Prison Cell, the door leading back east is inaccessible. In general, there's no explanation for how I end up in the Prison Cell for *any* of the ways I get tossed in. Perhaps a little bit of explanatory text such as "A guard captures you and tosses you in a prison cell" should be added. 8. (Passage) The response to "DANCE" is "What do you want to dance?" The wording suggests that I was supposed to type a specific name of a dance, but this is not the case, and that's probably because the parser looks at "DANCE" as the usual transitive verb for which you haven't supplied an object. Since "DANCE SOUTH" is what ends up working, perhaps a response to "DANCE" by itself should be supplied, e.g. "Where do you want to dance?" 9. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) It says "There is no visible exit" in the description when you enter, yet it lets you use "OUT" to get back out of the ship. This should be changed to something such as "The only exit is a door out of the space ship", especially since you get the response "When the spaceship took off, the door was locked for your safety" when you try to go OUT after the ship takes off. 10. (General): "LOOK IN" objects shouldn't always give "You find nothing of interest", but only if it makes sense to be able to look inside the object. For example, "LOOK IN MAN" in Quiet Cavern would have a better response with "You can't look inside the green man." Also, here are a few things which might be implemented. Some of these may be outside the bounds of keeping things true to the original feel of the game. 11. (Damp Cave) Maybe I should be able to "SMELL" or "SMELL THE AIR" here -- it'd be musty or moist, probably. 12. (Beside Lake) When I "X LAKE" the response is "You see a gold coin." The response should be fleshed out -- is the coin floating on the water, stuck at the bottom of the lake, or perhaps on the shore by the lakeside? From the way it's described when the coin is retrieved by wading in, it seems the coin would most likely be at the bottom of the lake. Also, when I see the gold coin, it should be added as a description when I do another "LOOK". 13. (Beside Lake) "LOOK IN RAVINE" gives "You find nothing of interest" -- a topical response could be added here, even if it were something terse such as "It looks like a very long way down. You don't think you'd be able to get out were you to fall in." 14. (Beside Lake) The response to "THROW IN RAVINE" should comment that anything thrown into the ravine would be lost for good, if only because the default response "That can't contain things" is somewhat jarring. 15. (Strange House) OUT should be added as an alternative to N for leaving the house and returning to the lake. 16. (Ice Cavern) Examining the ice block should also give a description of its size. It's unclear why it's small enough to be picked up and carried to other locations, yet large enough to slide down upon. 17. (Prison Cell) Perhaps there should be a plausible response to why "CUT BARS" doesn't work (using the flint). 18. (Passage) Maybe there should be an interesting response to "LISTEN" because of music. This could be a good way to slip in a subtle clue that dancing might be something appropriate to try (besides the response to "HELP"). 19. (Passage) If you try the phrase "SHOOT FORCE WITH GUN" you get the somewhat confusing response "You can't shoot a forcefield!" since "SHOOT " is interpreted as trying to use that object as the gun, not shoot it as the target. A player not familiar with the way the "SHOOT" verb works might try this word order, and the response doesn't help clear up the confusion. Perhaps the grammatical construction "SHOOT WITH " could be defined as the same thing as "SHOOT AT ". 20. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) You need to have taken the small motor in order for "PRESS MAIN" or "PRESS AUX" to have any effect, but when you do have the motor, there's no indication that you're using it to start the ship. In general it's good game design to have some indication of why a certain item or prior event was needed to successfully complete an action, if that item/prior event was not explicitly used by the player. 21. (General) It would be good to add transitory text as one moves from location to location. For example, when I move east from the mountain plateau I find myself suddenly in a limestone cave. I don't know whether the entrance to the cave was a hole in the ground that I climbed down through or an opening in the face of a cliff. Also, moving east from Beside Lake to enter Strange House. This is, of course, at odds with the spirit of keeping the same "feel" as the original game, as it requires adding a lot of new description text. However, in a few cases, I think it would be quite helpful (as in item #7 above). ------------------------------------------------ 4. OBJECT IMPLEMENTATION: ------------------------------------------------ Here are a few objects/synonyms it might be good to implement (at least as far as an "X" command would entail, as they appear prominently in location descriptions or as the result of "LOOK"), grouped by location: 1. (Mountain Plateau) CLIFF, PLATEAU 2. (Dense Forest) TREE(S), FOREST 3. (Strange House) HOUSE, DOOR 4. (Old Shed) SHED 5. (Edge of Pit) PIT, STONE 6. (Damp Cave) AIR, CAVE, LIMESTONE, PASSAGE 7. (Maze) PASSAGE(S) 8. (Ice Cavern) CUBE 9. (Quiet Cavern) CAVERN 10. (Prison Cell) PRISON, CELL 11. (Passage) PASSAGE 12. (Wind Tunnel) TUNNEL 13. (Tall Lift) LIFT 14. (Lift Control Room) SWITCH, SIGN 15. (Small But Powerful Space Ship) WINDOW, SHIP, BUTTON(S), LIFT 16. (General) WALL(S) (for all locations which have them).