Somewhat related narration:
"Immerse yourself in a situation where the entire room you stand on is a puzzle. Where you came from and how you got here is of little importance. Before you is what appears to be the only exit. Yet it is locked. And there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to open it.
Looking around, you see an arrangement furniture with an assortment of objects and an array of items placed everywhere. Some contain symbols, maybe letters, or shapes, or even colors. Some just don't make any sense.
What do you do? How will you find a way out?"
Statement:
While my final project is not very conceptual in any way, I hope that it is at least easy to understand. Those who are unfamiliar with these game genres will obviously be unfamiliar with some of the conventions and patterns or cliches in these games. As such, I suggest new players thoroughly examine and re-examine objects that can be vital clues. Everything needed to solve the puzzles is there. Attention to detail is a must!
I should have probably included instructions with the game but ran out of time.
To play you simply click stuff to examine or interact with them.
-Interacting with things will cause a message to appear.
-You will receive a HUD which act as your inventory.
-Items in the inventory can be used with objects in the room by first selecting the item and then clicking the object.
-Some puzzles require actually typing out the answer.
About the room itself: It was based on a horror game called Ib. This is a Japanese indie game in which a girl visits an art gallery with her family and suddenly everyone disappears. She finds herself locked in the gallery and ends up in a nightmarish surreal gallery.
My game has no horror elements though. It's only related to Ib in the most general ways.
I tried to make the puzzles fairly straightforward. But, again, attention to detail is important.
Detail.
Detail.
Detail.
There's a clue here somewhere! Maybe!
What's inside the magic sphere?
Inside
Some technical aspects of the game:
Most of the coding is in the HUD so that it's player dependent. All the variables needed are stored with the player instead of the objects. This way different players can be at different stages of the game.
When it comes down to it, all programming is simply: when or if that happens, do this.
It's just a matter of planning it all out in a coherent manner and finding shortcuts so you don't kill yourself doing something that could waste a huge chunk of time.
The game works by having the HUD and objects communicate on a certain channel.
-On setup, the HUD listens to this channel.
-Clicking objects sends a message on that channel.
-The HUD hears the message and goes through a list of if-then conditionals until it finds one that matches the message.
-The code in that conditional is then executed.
The only thing that any object does is send messages to the HUD.
Any other coding (items found, dialogue, etc) is stored in the HUD.
Video
I was gonna make a silly, overly dramatic video about the room. Stuff like Ominous Latin Chanting and me staring at everything shouting,
"WHAT DOES IT MEAAAN!?!?"
But I decided to take the room a bit more seriously.
I don't want to spoil what's inside so here's a video of someone playing Ib instead:
If you're easily frightened, beware the first few seconds.
