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Pippa's Ghost Novice Adventurer
Number of posts : 8 Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-08-31
| Subject: Joseph the farmer Sun Aug 31, 2008 4:52 pm | |
| I'm having trouble with the sample game in the Tutorial. When I test play it, this is what happens:
>talk to joseph
The farmer greets you cheerily and comments on the fine weather. "I seem to have mislaid my lunch box and I am so hungry" he exclaims.
[start]talk to farmer !! INVALID RESPONSE EDITOR ACTION "charpresent1". Please Quit Game And Correct It!
A pop-up window complaining about "charpresent1" also appears.
I copied and pasted the responses from the Tutorial file into the Response editor, so I know it can't be a simple typing error. Any ideas what's wrong?
BTW I also can't give Joseph the sandwich. No system error this time. He just politely declines my offer. I don't know why. |
| | | catventure Admin Adventurer
Number of posts : 410 Age : 72 Location : UK Humor : Enjoys a laugh! Adventure Points : 77 Registration date : 2008-06-08
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:03 pm | |
| Hi Pippa's Ghost and welcome to the forum.
Oops. It seems there is a mistake in the tutorial. Sorry.
The Response entry:
[start]talk to farmer#charpresent1#flag1=0[acts]cmessThe farmer greets you cheerily and comments on the fine weather. "I seem to have mislaid my lunch box and I am so hungry" he exclaims.
should read:
[start]talk to farmer#charpresent1#flag1=0[acts]cmessThe farmer greets you cheerily and comments on the fine weather. "I seem to have mislaid my lunch box and I am so hungry" he exclaims.[end]
The "[end]" tag is missing!
Please add it in and "Accept" the changes and resave your data if necessary...
I have updated the tutorial.txt for next release.
Thanks for your interest in the TAB program and your feedback report.
Please let me know if all is Ok now.
Regards, catventure. |
| | | Pippa's Ghost Novice Adventurer
Number of posts : 8 Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-08-31
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Sun Aug 31, 2008 5:21 pm | |
| Thanks for the quick reply. Yes, it works fine now. Joseph now does everything he should. I'm still looking at all the different adventure authoring systems, trying to decide which one to go with. Your window/dialogs approach is a lot more user friendly than most, but you don't have a very big and flexible library so far. I know I definitely don't want to use Inform 7. I tried that out, and made a typing error: The kitchen is south of the hall. The back yard is east of the kicthen.
In an attempt to be over-helpful, it gave me two different locations: the kitchen and the kicthen! Give me a more structured language that warns if you mistype variables or object names. I'm a lousy typist and I need it! |
| | | catventure Admin Adventurer
Number of posts : 410 Age : 72 Location : UK Humor : Enjoys a laugh! Adventure Points : 77 Registration date : 2008-06-08
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Sun Aug 31, 2008 6:05 pm | |
| Hi Pippa,
Good. I am glad it is OK now.
TAB is of course not meant to compete with the likes of INFORM, TADS, HUGO z-code etc... It is my own personal project and works more on similar principles to older writing systems such as Quill, STAC, GAC or PAW (remember those?) Also with TAB there exist some limitations and restrictions so it doesn't have the power and flexibility of languages such as INFORM 7 (I have this too) One you might like to check out yet, if you haven't already is ADRIFT. Have you coded any text adventures previously? How did you come to learn of the TAB project? Just interested, that's all.
Best wishes, catventure (Phil) |
| | | Pippa's Ghost Novice Adventurer
Number of posts : 8 Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-08-31
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Mon Sep 01, 2008 12:07 am | |
| Hi.
I haven't coded any proper adventures before. (Nothing beyond simple test programs anyway.) I did try to code one about five years ago. Unsuccessfully.
It was when the BBC Website put up their version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game. I wanted to try writing a sequel showing the further adventures of Arthur Dent on the planet Magrathea.
I only had the first few puzzles worked out. I still remember them now.
You started out by finding the bowl of petunias, which has survived the fall by landing in some nice, soft, whale blubber. Picking it up, it reflects the sunlight and attracts the attention of Slartibartfast flying past in his aircar.
He lands and invites you to come with him, but the aircar is in poor condition after millennia in storage, and refuses to take off.
Fortunately you're still carrying the sub-etha Thumb and tweezers from the first game. Examine the Thumb, and you'll see the lifetime guarantee label is starting to peel off. (Typical Sirius Cybernetics Crop. Can't even guarantee their guarantees!) Use the tweezers to remove it, and then stick it on Slartibartfast's aircar. When you press the button to call the service robot, now he'll have to fix the aircar because of the guarantee.
But being a Sirius Cybernetics robot, he won't do a very good job of it. But you don't find out until later. Slartibartfast flies you to the planetary workshop, but when he brakes, you are sent flying forward and bang your head. Wear the petunia bowl to protect yourself. Although the impact shatters the bowl, it absorbs enough of the blow that you emerge with nothing worse than mild concussion.
(That's why you had to pick up the bowl before Slartibartfast would land. To make things easier by making it harder for the player to fly off without it.)
Throughout the rest of the game, characters would keep picking petunia leaves and bits of broken pottery out of your hair with puzzled looks. I hadn't really got many ideas for the game beyond that. (If you ever reached Milliways, there might be a subplot where the barman sends you on a quest through time and space to find all the ingredients for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster.)
But I never even managed to code the opening puzzles successfully. So I just gave up and let it rot.
Now, five or so years later, I've decided to give it another go. And this time round, I'm going to make sure I choose the right language for my project before I start work on it.
I'm being very thorough and looking at them all to decide which one is right for me.
You mentioned ADRIFT. I haven't looked at that yet. I think I glanced briefly at it last time round, but IIRC you had to pay to get a version that would let you create a proper, full-sized game. Has that changed? Or am I getting confused and thinking of a different system?
Sorry, I've rambled on far too much. Hope I've answered all your questions. |
| | | catventure Admin Adventurer
Number of posts : 410 Age : 72 Location : UK Humor : Enjoys a laugh! Adventure Points : 77 Registration date : 2008-06-08
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Mon Sep 01, 2008 4:02 pm | |
| Hi Pippa, I like SciFi adventures as well, also films and TV series and they can be good material for the Interactive Fiction genre. Some of the first text adventures I played were on the Sinclair Spectrum 48k and the Commodore Amiga. I particularly remember the classic SciFi "Snowball" trilogy from Level9 Software as it was the first I ever played. It came on cassette in a large box with a comprehensive instruction booklet and backstory to read... I think it took me a good couple of months to solve it entirely. Nostalgic memories! I've always found that in addition to knowing how to use an adventure creator effectively it is an advantage if you have a reasonably good creative imagination in order to construct an original and interesting storyline/plot and build a variety of challenging puzzles along the way for the player to enjoy solving. I have not played THHGTTG - but I know it is very famous and popular IF game. I remember watching the original cult TV series on BBC many years ago. Yes. You are right. ADRIFT has to be registered before you can unlock it totally... I found this page about HitchHikers http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtmlAnd here is a site where you can play the old 1984 game in your browser: http://www.xcalibur.co.uk/games/hitchhik.html- but you may need JAVA installed for it show up. EDIT:Maybe better version here to play: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game_nolan.shtmlRegards, Phil. |
| | | MidKnight Apprentice Adventurer
Number of posts : 32 Age : 54 Location : Haworth Yorkshire Humor : I am a Vulcan, I don't have emotions Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-06-08
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Mon Sep 01, 2008 5:06 pm | |
| >TAB is of course not meant to compete with the likes of INFORM, TADS, >HUGO z-code etc... It is my own personal project and works more on >similar principles to older writing systems such as Quill, STAC, GAC or >PAW (remember those?) >Also with TAB there exist some limitations and restrictions so it doesn't >have the power and flexibility of languages such as INFORM 7 (I have t>his too) >One you might like to check out yet, if you haven't already is ADRIFT. >Have you coded any text adventures previously? >How did you come to learn of the TAB project? Just interested, that's all.
Quill...GAC....PAW.... Used them all. Learn't to use The Quill without instructions. Had a pirate copy. PAW was alot better than GAC. More flexible.
I think TAB is the best IF creator around. Not the easiest to use for a novice. It's easy to make your own mistake that will have you pulling out your hair until you work it out. I picked TAB as it reminded me of PAW. There is a PAW IF creator out there but it is primitive.
Jason |
| | | Pippa's Ghost Novice Adventurer
Number of posts : 8 Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-08-31
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:51 am | |
| Hi Phil and Jason.
It wasn't really the SciFI aspect of Hitchhikers that appealed to me -- it was surrealness and the humour.
Thanks for the links, but like I said, I'd already seen the game of the BBC website. That's what got first got me interested in IF about five years ago. |
| | | MidKnight Apprentice Adventurer
Number of posts : 32 Age : 54 Location : Haworth Yorkshire Humor : I am a Vulcan, I don't have emotions Adventure Points : 0 Registration date : 2008-06-08
| Subject: Re: Joseph the farmer Sun Sep 07, 2008 11:07 am | |
| - Pippa's Ghost wrote:
- Hi Phil and Jason.
It wasn't really the SciFI aspect of Hitchhikers that appealed to me -- it was surrealness and the humour.
Thanks for the links, but like I said, I'd already seen the game of the BBC website. That's what got first got me interested in IF about five years ago. Hi Pippa, I once started to write an adventure game about HitchHikers. Planned it all out and never got round to it. Abit like I never got around to watching the newish movie Hitchhikers. Happy Sunday, Jason |
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