34 replies to this topic

[the Battle Cat]

K, thanks!  The main bone looks a lot like Pogo, from the old comic strips.

[Janichsan]

Yoggy, on October 15th 2006, 04:58 PM, said:

I wish the designers had made it require some skill and be a little less scripted.

Well, it is a point'n'click adventure in the legacy of Monkey Island and stuff. Those rely on scripted scenes.

[Tesseract]

Rev-O, on October 15th 2006, 12:45 AM, said:

Okay, has anyone made it passed the two Rat Monsters? I got them into an endless arguement over quiche, but the dialog just cycled and kinda locked me up. I had the move icon, but Bone would not move for me. He just stood and listened to the arguement. I was not able to open up the game options either (the 'x' in the bottom right corner), even though I had a finger icon when I moused over it. Basically the conversation seemed to freeze the game in an endless cycle! Actually had to force quit to exit. Gah!  

I think you must have hit the 30 minute limit. The game also froze for me when I hit the time limit. It also crashed three times before I reached the end; luckily it seems to autosave fairly often.

I made it to the possums before the 30-minute mark, and then registered. I was disappointed at how little was left after that, though I enjoyed it all apart from the second possum game (which had a really poor UI and was just annoying). I guess I expected it to be about half the length of a typical point & click adventure, but it was more like 1/6.

BTW, the port appears to have been done by DrakkenWulf, who also did Massive Assault, Spartan and X2.

[Jan]

Tesseract, on October 16th 2006, 09:14 AM, said:

I think you must have hit the 30 minute limit. The game also froze for me when I hit the time limit. It also crashed three times before I reached the end; luckily it seems to autosave fairly often.

I made it to the possums before the 30-minute mark, and then registered. I was disappointed at how little was left after that, though I enjoyed it all apart from the second possum game (which had a really poor UI and was just annoying). I guess I expected it to be about half the length of a typical point & click adventure, but it was more like 1/6.

BTW, the port appears to have been done by DrakkenWulf, who also did Massive Assault, Spartan and X2.

Act 2: The Great Cow Race seems to be much longer and better in many aspects. Let's just hope they'll release it anytime soon.

[Janichsan]

Tesseract, on October 16th 2006, 09:14 AM, said:

I guess I expected it to be about half the length of a typical point & click adventure, but it was more like 1/6.

Episodic games.  The scourge of modern gaming.

[teflon]

true, but at least it means that the developers can keep the money coming in while they finish the game off with more episodes.

the only bad thing I see is that they charge over $10 or £6 for each episode. I mean, it should be something based on the length of each episode, so for the 40 minutes (im guessing here) of the first one, it could be $8...

something like that.

[Tesseract]

teflon, on October 16th 2006, 08:44 PM, said:

40 minutes (im guessing here)

More like 80 minutes, but 20 minutes of that was the second possum game which wasn't fun and therefore doesn't count.  

[Rev-O]

I am hoping that Out of Boneville is much like the obligatory tutorial level that every game has these days, and that other games (like ep. 2 The Great Cow Race) will feature more involved gameplay. At least that is my hope!
I'll pick up TGCR upon release, no problem. I'll use it as a gauge to see if I purchase any more of these things.

Tesseract, on October 16th 2006, 07:20 AM, said:

More like 80 minutes, but 20 minutes of that was the second possum game which wasn't fun and therefore doesn't count.  

Was the second Possum game Phoney hiding from the three possums? If it was, I thought it was pretty straightforward. It didn't drive me insane like the Apple puzzle did (which I pretty much solved by accident). I would agree that I was disappointed at the brevity of the game, but I enjoyed it enough that I can overlook it.

[Tesseract]

Rev-O, on October 17th 2006, 10:53 AM, said:

Was the second Possum game Phoney hiding from the three possums?

Yes.

Quote

If it was, I thought it was pretty straightforward. It didn't drive me insane like the Apple puzzle did (which I pretty much solved by accident).

Hmm, conversely, I got the apples on the first try. The hiding wouldn't have been so bad if the possums hadn't kept repeating the same three lines over and over, and you can't do anything while they are talking. And one of the things they say is "You're not very good at this game, are you?" when in reality they are the ones who aren't very good at it.

No clues are given about what kind of strategy they are using. Do they take warm and cold to be absolute or relative, i.e. should you say "warm" when they move closer and "cold" when they move away, or will that confuse them? How many pieces of information do they remember? How do they handle contradictory information? Why, oh why do they often move from a warm area to a cold one? How close should they be before you call it "warm"? Why don't they move when you say they are hot?

I eventually figured out that they are probably using a randomised search, something like simulated annealing. But it doesn't work very well because the "goodness" function can only return two values. They start off by moving randomly, and take quite a long time to converge to the solution.

[monasier]

Tesseract, on October 17th 2006, 04:03 AM, said:

No clues are given about what kind of strategy they are using. Do they take warm and cold to be absolute or relative, i.e. should you say "warm" when they move closer and "cold" when they move away, or will that confuse them? How many pieces of information do they remember? How do they handle contradictory information? Why, oh why do they often move from a warm area to a cold one? How close should they be before you call it "warm"? Why don't they move when you say they are hot?

I eventually figured out that they are probably using a randomised search, something like simulated annealing. But it doesn't work very well because the "goodness" function can only return two values. They start off by moving randomly, and take quite a long time to converge to the solution.

Took me a bit till I noticed I was just overthinking it. If you say "cold", they hop backwards. If you say "warm" they hop forward. So yeah, you might have to call "cold" when they move closer, if their backs are turned to you.

[Rev-O]

Tesseract, on October 17th 2006, 05:03 AM, said:

Hmm, conversely, I got the apples on the first try. The hiding wouldn't have been so bad if the possums hadn't kept repeating the same three lines over and over, and you can't do anything while they are talking. And one of the things they say is "You're not very good at this game, are you?" when in reality they are the ones who aren't very good at it.
<snip>

With the possums I saw was confused because they were not following any of the hot/warm/cold protocol, but then noticed that they just jumped forward/backwards in response to Phoneys prompts. Didn't make sense but I went with it and finished it off in short order.
Now the dagnab apples, otoh...
I of course decided that the way to get the apples was to have Ted's Brother smash the tree, and steadfastly went through the endless loop of insult/click on tree until I was frothing at the mouth. I inadvertantly clicked on the apples after insulting Ted's Brother and felt like a moron

[Tesseract]

An updated version of Out From Boneville with an improved engine is going to be released: Post at the Telltale forums. The resolution will be user-selectable, among other things. Hopefully Vanbrio will release an updated Mac version too.

[Mister Mumbles]

To tell you the truth, I wasn't impressed by this one. The whole game - if I can even call it that - is way too straight-forward with almost no challenge. Frankly, I rather stick to a good book instead.

If this is the future of (pseudo-)adventure gaming count me out. Besides, episodic releases of any kind blow monkey chunks.

[Tesseract]

This one was certainly more interactive fiction than game. Not that there's anything wrong with IF.

[ajmas]

Unless you pay for the full games the rat monsters will argue for ever. I paid up and enjoyed the game. I found it a little short, but certainly a good start. There are one or two stability issues that may need to be sorted out, but nothing major. Certainly $12 worth of fun When you consider that you pay $12 for a short novel this is not a bad price.

There is a hint button that you can use, so there isn't really much that you will stuck on. Then again like all hints, its a nice challenge to see how long you can last without having to revert to them.