Cryonix

by OurJud profile

Science Fiction
2016

Web Site

Go to the game's main page

Member Reviews

Number of Reviews: 1
Write a review


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Well styled, frustrating implementiation, December 10, 2016
by Hanon Ondricek (United States)

I didn't solve this game, even though I thought I knew how. This is (I'm presuming) done in Quest and is nicely styled with sound effects. The game removes all of the normal Quest trappings such as the map and inventory so it feels original. Unfortunately at that point it breaks down.

This is a simple one-room escape with a neat solution I had figured out, but I could not get it to work to complete the game. First, there's the usual Quest problem where verb synonyms are not implemented and the response seems to tell you the action failed-which is not the case. Getting "can't do that" as a response for "press button" when the parser wants "push button" is severe misinformation. A drawer and a cupboard with an entry panel prove frustrating, a useless red button exists for no reason, and an important clue on the counter is not mentioned unless you examine the counter. A piece of paper on the counter should be more obvious at first glance than the counter would be. Two panels require USE PANEL and then waits for your entry, but that is very obliquely clued. There are also two locations. If you go east, you're by the door, which doesn't seem like it should remove the rest of the room out of scope. There are five minutes of real time for the player to figure all this out.

On the page linked from here is another version of the game that is done in what looks like Twine. I solved it in about ten clicks. This is a simple game that shows the perils of bad implementation - I knew what to do, but the time ticked down as I struggled to make the game understand me. I gave it the extra star because I thought the styling and sound effects showed some of the flexibility of Quest, but otherwise we've got what appears to be an experiment by an author with potential if they learn from the problems here.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

Comments on this review

Previous | << 1 >> | Next

OurJud, December 10, 2016 - Reply
Thanks for playing, Hanon, and for your review. I will take the positives very courteously and try to clear a couple of things up.

If the game failed to understand you then that is my fault, not Quest's. Any number of possible commands can be accounted for, I simply failed to do so.

I initially had a looped siren which I suspected may get annoying, so included the big red button to disable it. I then dumped the looped sound and forgot to remove mention of the button.

I agree about the door being a separate location. I should have just made it an object and set my own 'e/east' command for navigating to it.

The Twine version isn't very good or difficult, but then I'm not very keen on CYOA games anyway, as the player can simply click blindly at the links until something happens.

Anyway, your (constructive) criticisms have been taken on board and shall be remembered when making my next game.

Thanks again.
Hanon Ondricek, December 21, 2016 - Reply
I think Quest is great, but it does seem to confound some authors regarding synonyms. Not blaming Quest, I think it is possibly just not making that type of authoring easy. I've had a notorious history with getting Quest to play correctly, and I believe it's deceptive simplicity can cause these sorts of issues. Glad you are going forward and I look forward to playing whatever comes next!
Previous | << 1 >> | Next