[JDev]

Hey folks,

I understand that this forum is primarily for discussing released games, but I thought I might try to get some feedback here regardless. I'm looking for some betatesters for my game, and would love if you guys could help me out.

In my new hybrid graphical adventure/interactive fiction project, you play the role of a reporter at UW-Madison who just wants to get one good story and get out. Prairie Fire is that story.

Prairie Fire is written in Inform7 (a common interactive fiction programming language), but relies on sounds and graphics to tell a lot of the story. If you've played interactive fiction (text adventures, Zork, Planetfall) or the really old Sierra games before, things should feel familiar. If not, all the better, as I'm hoping to reach an audience outside of the IF community.

Feedback

Feel free to post your comments here, but transcripts would really be great. When you begin play, simply type TRANSCRIPT and the game will output a file you can send me. If you want to go above and beyond, you can also comment in the game itself (by typing something like *THERE'S A TYPO HERE or *BUG WITH OPENING THE DOOR - just offset it by a rare character so I can search through the document easily). You can send the transcripts to me at my gmail account which is <my handle with 1984 at the end at gmail>

I don't want anyone to play the game to completion - I'm most interested in comments about the interface and communicating with the game. How often are your commands understood and how often is the parser totally off base? How clear is the HUD? The game is playable (and somewhat tested) for the first third - the second third is playable, but not tested.

Screenshots





Links

Windows

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/115343722...da515c3c5ed55e

Here's the complete package. Just drag the .glorb onto the .exe and it should be fine. It should adjust automatically, but if it doesn't try to adjust the size of the window to about 1000 x 700 - otherwise the interface will feel quite messed up.

Mac

https://www.yousendit.com/download/U...cVhOQnhFQlE9PQ

You'll have to install the interpreter (Spatterlight, included) first. Then just open up the .gblorb file. Try to adjust the size of the window to about 1000 x 700 - otherwise the interface will feel quite messed up.

Sounds and music don't seem to work for most Macs yet, so be sure to turn the sounds off when you start playing (this tells the program that sound is off, and sound effects will be written out).

[stepurhan]

Your screenshots aren't showing up for some reason.

This forum is for all things freeware. There are a few "in development" threads lurking around, so feel free to keep us posted on this here. Being a long-time gamer, I remember when text adventuers were king so it is good to see this trying to reach a new audience. My understanding is that Inform7 is a good language to write in as well, though I've never actually tried it myself.

I will try to give this a look and give you some feedback. As the link is an expiring one I've downloaded it already.

[JDev]

Great! Thank Stepurhan.

Inform7 is where the bulk of the work is being done these days. It seems to have revitalized the IF community quite a bit. This is my first project in I7 (I've done a fair number of other ones in I6), and I'd definitely suggest you check it out! It's a pretty neat language.

I've fixed the screenshot links, so hopefully everyone can get a better idea of what Prairie Fire is like.

Let me know what you think!

[stepurhan]

Nice presentation. The general interface with the photo on the left hand-side for your current location and the in-game tool buttons at the top is a good setup. I appear to be having some problem with the buttons bottom-left though. They are not showing up at all. See the screenshot below. This same problem is occurring with the places you can interact with photos you've taken. Those parts of the photos are only showing up as white rectangles. Clicking on them appears to produce the results you would get if you could see them (e.g. taking a picture of the dead girl's tattoo) so it appears it is just a graphical glitch. Are there any settings I can change to fix this? I'm on Windows XP if that makes any difference.



The writing generally seems quite good, though you need to get it proofread as there are a handful of typos in there. I generally felt that I knew what I wanted to do and could do it. There were only a couple of ocassions when I felt I was playing the old game of guess the verb that has plagued text adventures over the years. For example I initially tried "press 2A buzzer" when the game will only accept "press 2A". The initial setup is good, immediately creating a story that I wanted to follow through on. I got as far as trying to get into the ROTC building (really annoying the occupant of 2A ) but couldn't work out how to get in. Presumably there is some way of catching the door from the bushes but I couldn't work it out.

The music and sound are both well done. The police chatter at the crime scene is especially effective in creating atmosphere.

I forgot to do a transcript I'm afraid. I have an article to clear but I'll aim to have another go with transcript on to pick up specific items at some point.