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[Hobbsicle]

Thought I'd get a devlog started for a project I've been working on.

SETUP

I’m at the beginning stages of designing a mostly text-based game that involves working for a public library in the near-ish future when all books have gone fully digital. So instead of the usual librarian jobs, your job is somewhere between tech support and database management. As you go throughout your routines, you discover that someone has been making tiny edits in both the library catalog system (library user accounts and book profiles) as well as within the actual text of the books themselves. As you investigate these changes, you realize you are being fed a series of clues that lead you deeper into the library system and later into other systems as well…

GAME MECHANICS

In Libratopia, the idea is that you will have a string of searches, as you look through each data entry or book passage for a clue to the next search term. Although it will start as simple visual cues, it shortly turns into puzzles where you have to actually manipulate the text to find the answer. The thing you have to do in each puzzle will be different.

There are also other mechanics, such as e-mail with your coworkers, some work-related tasks, etc.  These are there to enhance the world-building/story-telling elements.

I had an early web demo up for a while, but it's pretty obsolete at this point, so I'll put up a representative slice of the game at some point this summer to get some feedback.

[Savick]

Gonna go ahead and be honest here. This looks boring to me. Like the premise sounds sort of interesting, but to have it all text based? It seems like only a very small audience would be interested. I'm sure I could be wrong.

[Hobbsicle]

Boring is the new awesome.

But seriously, this is indeed for a niche audience, but there's nothing wrong with that, right?  I have a low overhead (i.e. My free time).

I'm inspired by games like Blackbar, Device 6, some Twine games, Depression Quest, etc, which are all largely (or entirely) text-based.  Heck, even the super-popular A Dark Room is text-based, or at least it is as far as I've played.  I don't know where this game will fall in that crowd, but I'm trying to make it interesting by appealing to a sense of mystery narrative.  Someone is sending you messages inside of the library database, and the deeper you go, the more you uncover secrets that have to do with literature, technology, and government control.

It's definitely an experiment, and doesn't fall easily within the well-trodden genres, but I'm hoping there are some people out there who will connect with it.

[Syne]

I actually quite like the style of the game. But I'm a big fan of text-based games in general.

I'm currently stuck on the Crepes of Wrath puzzle. I've gotten THE MASTER OF but can't figure out what's supposed to go before -time. I guess "TEA" and "ANY" but neither work.

So far, the puzzles are pretty fun. It'll be interesting to see how you can create more complex puzzles (since I assume you're making a relatively lengthy game, ie something longer than five minutes) considering the limitations of the mechanics. I'm also quite curious how the storyline will play out! Definitely following this devlog.

In terms of critique, maybe make the process of giving answers a little more forgiving. I got the second puzzle wrong because I didn't add spaces, and there's no real indication that spaces are needed. That's all I can think of for now.

[jgrams]

@Syne: "ALL"-time

In terms of critique, maybe make the process of giving answers a little more forgiving. I got the second puzzle wrong because I didn't add spaces, and there's no real indication that spaces are needed. That's all I can think of for now.

I'd second that.

Tried it. Not a big fan of the genre, as the puzzles tend to feel very contrived and arbitrary, but this wasn't bad so far. I like the mood.

Is that third screen-shot in your OP the end of the demo? Couldn't come up with any way to get to another screen from there...

[Hobbsicle]

Thanks for that feedback.  The two puzzles you guys mentioned have definitely proven to be the sticking points of the demo.  I think I know what I'd do to ease up those puzzles, but for the time being, I need to focus on implementing some of the other features, so I will revisit those puzzles later on.  But on that "magic window" puzzle, you are supposed to type in the words that are still stuck in place after the collapse.  But the physics are currently too unpredictable, and the fact that they pile up around the bottom word makes it hard to tell which one is still stuck in place.  That does happen to be the last puzzle of this demo anyway, so you basically made it all the way through.

I'm going to hold off on the "more forgiving" thing (at least as far as the spaces are concerned) for just a bit longer, because I'd like to see whether more narrative context will help that issue.  It is a library database after all, so I'm not sure that a bunch of stringed together letters would work in most databases.  If it turns out that it's still a hiccup for people later on, though, I'll relent.  Don't want to sacrifice good gameplay for narrative consistency.

Thanks again for trying it out.

[jgrams]

A good search system might have something that would recognize embedded words, common typos, etc., so maybe a "Did you mean ...?" prompt could work without sacrificing too much narrative consistency...if it comes to that.

And the magic window puzzle, maybe if you put some sort of decorative border at the bottom, so that all the other words would be crooked instead of piling up flat there? Or of course just letting all the words fall off the bottom...

I had a little trouble with the fill-in-the-blanks puzzle as well -- mainly that some of those words were missing a lot of letters, e.g. ___v_ls. And ___ps matches nearly 100 words, so that one was tricky.

Good luck with it!

[EdFarage]

Depression Quest

[jctwood]

Very intriguing, lovely to see an in game contextualisation of the classic text input box.

[valrus]

Allowing more non-linear progression might be something to think about -- having multiple exits for some books, and letting the player go back to old books.  That way the player has something else to do, when they can't yet work out a puzzle, rather than just close the browser and do something else.

Letting the player "see" the books they've already solved (say, as books on a bookshelf) would be satisfying.  People like to collect things, books especially, so this could tap into an existing pleasurable feeling.

Puzzle idea: Poorly OCRed text, and you have to input the letter that should have been there.  Like "cl" should have been "d".

[Hobbsicle]

A good search system might have something that would recognize embedded words, common typos, etc., so maybe a "Did you mean ...?" prompt could work without sacrificing too much narrative consistency...if it comes to that.

And the magic window puzzle, maybe if you put some sort of decorative border at the bottom, so that all the other words would be crooked instead of piling up flat there? Or of course just letting all the words fall off the bottom...

I had a little trouble with the fill-in-the-blanks puzzle as well -- mainly that some of those words were missing a lot of letters, e.g. ___v_ls. And ___ps matches nearly 100 words, so that one was tricky.

Good luck with it!

Thanks.  That's a good idea about the "Did you mean..." prompt.  I'll keep that in mind. 

Yeah, I can easily have them fall off the bottom, I just liked the look of the pile.  I'll see what I can do.

That fill-in-the-blanks puzzle will probably get changed or swapped with something else.  It was a puzzle I had from my very first prototype.

Allowing more non-linear progression might be something to think about -- having multiple exits for some books, and letting the player go back to old books.  That way the player has something else to do, when they can't yet work out a puzzle, rather than just close the browser and do something else.

Letting the player "see" the books they've already solved (say, as books on a bookshelf) would be satisfying.  People like to collect things, books especially, so this could tap into an existing pleasurable feeling.

Puzzle idea: Poorly OCRed text, and you have to input the letter that should have been there.  Like "cl" should have been "d".

These are great ideas!  The first one is something I'm already planning on.  I'd like to have a fully searchable database, which would include non-puzzle, world-building entries.  Basically, any book you find on a user's checkout list you could search to learn more about.  And the puzzles would become progressively non-linear as well, requiring you to branch off or make multiple searches to look for information for one puzzle, etc.

The second idea is also something I'm generally planning, though I hadn't thought about it in terms of a bookshelf idea, which I like a lot.

The OCR idea is good, will think about how I might implement that.

[Hobbsicle]

Still going.

Have gotten the structure of the database down, so you can now search for any title in the database, and it will display a page of info about it.  You can also search for author, and it will list all titles in the database written by that author.  Populating this database will be a bit of a task, but I'm trying to keep the size of it limited.

Working on a procedural "library account" generator that will create a user profile with borrowing history when any account number is searched.

Finally, working on an email interface that will display email messages as the game moves along.

Just a lot of structural stuff before I work more on the content.

[Hobbsicle]

I got the randomly generated user account to work.  It randomizes first name, last name, and borrowing history for any account number (letter followed by 5 numbers) that you input.

You'll also note that I'm working on the layout for portrait-mode mobile.  Mobile seems like a good platform for this game, since it has bite-sized levels and has simple inputs.  But it's in Unity, so it can also easily be on PC with just a few formatting tweaks.

[Hobbsicle]

I'm back.  I took a break for a while to focus on some job/family/ministry opportunities, but my schedule eased back, so I took up the game again.  I've gotten the database up and running, the email feature mostly complete, some work task mechanics done, and a little bit of visual redesign (though not final).

Spent a lot of time getting the mechanics in place, and I think I'm finally in a place to focus more on content.  I'm going to put together a vertical slice of the first chunk of the game (maybe 20% or so), and see about getting it online for people to give me some feedback.

Added new pictures to the top post that represent the latest work.