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[tjubert]

Hi all,

Amazingly, I managed to completely miss the existence of this thread before posting my game in the announcements section, but hey ho. The game is an ongoing process, and I'd love to be able to incorporate your feedback for a new build.



About the game:
The game is ir/rational, a short, text-based logic game with a (I think) unique argument formation gameplay mechanic, based around propositional calculus. But it's not as mathsy as it sounds (or at all). The gameplay's wrapped around a dark, philosophical comedy.

It should only take around half an hour to play through.

You can download the first release at www.tomjubert.com/irrational

About me:
I'm a writer / designer, best known for my work on the Penumbra series. ir/rational is my way to stay in touch with my indie roots, and produce a game / narrative without having to worry about keeping a publisher happy.

About feedback:
I welcome all feedback - I genuinely want to get this product to as high a quality level as possible - but naturally I can't entirely revamp the game. Some specific things you might like to look out for...

- Dificulty curve: are you getting stuck, is it too easy, are the hints vague / obvious?
- Text: too much, too little, not entertaining, satisfying ending?
- Additional elements: sound, music, interface etc
- Bugs / Typos

Thanks in advance everyone!

Cheers,

TJ

[Radica1Faith]

I was skeptical at first, with all the text. I don't have much patience for games with a lot of text but then I grew to really love it. I was actually really sad when it ended and there wasn't more.
I don't think there was too much text. Though I feel in video games, and in literature in general, if you can say the same thing in fewer words it's usually best to go ahead and do that.  But tt seems like you did that fully.

The ending I felt wasn't very satisfying but that may be because I didn't want it to end and I wanted to play more of it. But also may be in part that your reward for completing everything is the death of your character.
This is now one of my favorite games, please make more!

[tjubert]

Thanks Radica1Faith!

Would love to make more, will see how this bathc goes down. There's a lot of different places to go with the material.

I agree about text in games - can't stand it myself. If I had the budget to do the narrative in a snazier way, I would do. Tried to keep the volume to a minimum without sacrificing story, at any rate. Should only be 5 - 10 mins reading for most people.

[Aquin]

It is kinda neat, but I can't read the statements very well.  The textfield overlaps the upper sentence for some reason.  It means I can't read that statement. 

[tjubert]

Do you have your system specs, Aquin? I assume this has something to do with your OS, since the drop downs are probably styling themselves on your system preferences, so if you have a particular theme perhaps it is making the drop downs bigger...

Is this happening on every screen? Can you take a screen shot?

I've had a play with screens 2 and 3... I don't suppose this version is any better?

www.tomjubert.com/dropdown.zip

The only other solution I have is to space out the texts further, but since this is a relatively rare problem, it will mean ugly text for the majority of players...

[genericuser]

I think what you could do is separate the text and the dropdowns into separate columns.

As for the feedback;

The difficulty curve is pretty good - got a bit stuck on 7 and 9, though. Wasn't too bad, though. Especially liked level 10 - that was a pretty neat way of applying the skills learned from the previous levels.

The text was good - not distracting, and set the mood pretty well. Ending wasn't too satisfying, though, mainly because it feels like everything you did was a waste.

A pretty good game - please expand on it! 

[noah!]

Whaddya know, a game that actually teaches you something...

I must say, I really enjoyed this one. While I kinda felt a little betrayed once I figured out that all this time you were trying to teach me about logic and reasoning and other practical life skills (how could you!), the storyline and the puzzles were engaging enough to compel me to finish the game. And I liked how the story was nice and coherent; the ending logically fits in with the rest of the

Also, aside from the textbox bug (for me it usually obscures only half of the line, making most of the puzzles still readable), I noticed that when you turn the music/sounds off, and then back on, the music doesn't come back on. Not sure if that's intended or not...

Nifty idea, great implementation. Makes me wish there were more games like this...

[tjubert]

Thanks guys :-)

I'm going to try to get a fix for this textbox issue out tomorrow. If anyone who's had problems so far is around to test it out it'd do me massive favours - I can't replicate on my machines.

Any screens would be massively appreciated as well :-)

Cheers, and keep it coming!

[tjubert]

Just a note for anyone concerned about the drop down bug mentioned above...

...I've now uploaded a new version of the game, which includes a special build that I hope corrects menu placement for players encountering this bug. Unfortunately, I've been unable to reproduce the bug myself, so if you still encounter a problem it'd be incredibly helpful for me if you'd send me a screen shot, and I'll get it fixed up pronto.

You can grab the new version at www.tomjubert.com/irrational.zip

[Syrion]

I have two screenshots for you, but I think it's going to be disappointing. I'm using Windows 7, this is what it looks like using the irrational.exe:
http://s10.directupload.net/images/091125/j4zjhzy4.jpg
This is what it looks like using the dropdownfix.exe:
http://s11b.directupload.net/images/091125/83t9vgvq.jpg

In other words, the normal version looks flawless, the fixed one bugged on my system. Just tell me if you need more info or screenshots

Also, in both versions, the music doesn't reset properly when clicking "File -> New" or pressing F2, so every time the old "instance" of the music keeps playing while a new one is started.


Lastly, I'm really curious what the last line in level 10 means, I couldn't figure it out O AND OR?

[tjubert]

No, that's good news :-)

dropdownfix.exe is a build of the game only for players having the bug in the first place. So 9/10 should just boot irrational.exe and have a flawless excperience, but for the odd one having the problem, the lwoer menu placement in dropdownfix.exe should correct the overlap.

The other two bugs are unfortunate, but not much I can do about them witht he program I'm using. Hopefully they are only minor.

As for puzzle 10, just let me check the game!

...

Doh, I'm an idiot. I just wrote out a huge solution for the puzzle, then realised it was my fault for putting a letter V next to the OR symbol, which looks like a V. So it's not O AND OR, it's O AND V!

I'll fix that - thanks for pointing it out.

[Syrion]

Ah, I see, I thought dropdownfix.exe was ment to stand alone.

And thanks for clearing that up. In that case, I think I do understand the solution I just thought I remembered something from either math or informatics class where "AND OR" would be possible.. nah, I think I just mixed it up with "< >" meaning "unequal" in Turbo Pascal.. or something. Anyway, yeah, it confused me

[PGGB]

This was really really fun. I would love to see this explored some more. The writing really kept me going and the puzzles were interesting.

[tjubert]

Thanks PGGB!

Really hoping I'll be able to get the game some nice reviews :-)

[Almost]

Pretty cool.

#9 was a little unclear in that I didn't realize at first that yes/yes/no/probably was four replies to each of the four immediately preceding statements with question marks. (I initially interpreted it as uncertainty regarding a single question) Also, in the same spot, "You wonder whether it's relevant?" looks grammatically wrong to me; it's not a question, but it is meant to act as one. Could it just be "Does the machine think that is is relevant?" (Since that's what I ended up interpreting it as meaning)

[tembac]

I liked the "Puzzles" in this game but I though puzzle number 10 is a little unfair. I solved it and it wasn´t to hard but I don´t know if I solved it the rigth way because it felt almost like guessing to me.

I was overwhelmed by the new concepts on that level at first.

On level 9 I had the same problem as Almost. I didn´t knew they where answers for each of the questions.

the narrative was interesting and it was one of the main reason why I strugled to complete the game.

[bigbossSNK]

I didn't read the plot thoroughly.
IF I had bothered to read the plot thoroughly, THEN the references to Australian AG would have broken the story's immersion.

Level 10's solution doesn't make logical sense.
IF you intended for level 10's solution to not make sense, THEN good for you.

Offering the game as a download is an unnecessarily strict barrier to entry.
If you want to expand your appeal (to any web capable device), THEN code the game in Javascript.

[Ben Kuhn]

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I wish that there were some longer puzzles. All of these were really easy; I finished in about 10 minutes. Then again, I'm not really sure that propositional logic scales very much - it's so simple by design.

Also, I hope that you can figure out some way to render the Prop Calc notation in level 10 with Unicode glyphs instead of bitmaps. It's kind of ugly.

Speaking of Level 10, I'm not sure about using that notation at all. It seems like you're resorting to "fake difficulty" with the legend and the pointless translation exercise it requires. Consider using "and, or, not, if, then, therefore, implies" as normal?

Clicking "continue" after completing every puzzle was annoying and felt unnecessary. Why not just blink "//answer true//" a couple times and move on?

While on the subject, "true" seems to be the wrong word for it - I'm winning because my argument is valid, not because my conclusion is true.

Also, yeah, I think Javascript is a medium naturally suited to the style you're going for. Then again, you probably don't want to rewrite it.

The style of the dropdown menus kind of clashed with the clean aesthetic of the rest of the game. In fact, using them to develop proofs at all seemed kind of clunky. I found myself wishing for a more free-form way to develop proofs. I think there are some theorem-verifiers floating around in academia - maybe look to them for ideas?

I thought the music was a little weird somehow as well, though I wouldn't swear on it.

And, uh, the story was pretty cliched, which is not a good thing in such a text-heavy game. That's probably not something you can change much at this stage, but probably worth mentioning.

Actually, this felt more like a minigame to me than a full game. I guess you just can't go very far with Prop Calc on its own. If you were doing it over again, I'd suggest that you clean up the interface, add more formal systems than just Prop Calc, make it longer and harder, and make the story more interesting. But the core concept was pretty cool.

[tjubert]

Thanks for your feedback guys - and keep 'em coming!

I'll take a look at #9 and see if I can make things clearer.

As for #10, I was interested in finding a way to make it clear how mathematical argument is (or at least should be). To emphasise that rationality, right and wrong, aren't subjective, aren't things you solve by shouting. The formulae, I think, help make that clear to players unversed in sentence logic. The puzzle is logically sound, but I know that it throws some players off.

I'm really pleased *most* players are enjoying the writing. As a player, I'd be somewhat put off by a large volume of text, so it's great people are finding it to be motivational.

Finally, I'd love to have programmed this in Java or Flash, believe me, but sadly my programming ability was pretty much stretched to the max using the software I did. I think there's a lot of places the game structure could be taken - even propositional calculus can be shifted into more complex puzzles - but, as Ben points out, this is more a proof of cencept than a whole game. I'd love to develop it further!

[PGGB]

It got picked up by RPS!