Mysticism Pageant - These Walls [DONE]

[mildmojo]

These Walls is a story-based game in which the player assumes the role of a location at which something disturbing has happened. You need to communicate the story to visitors who have arrived to spend the night, but you can only do so through metaphysical cues (audible, mental, or physical). In the morning, the visitors recount their experiences from the night before, revealing bits of the story to themselves and to you.

I started this game for the mini Ludum Dare that just concluded. The build I submitted isn't all that much fun to play. In the last week of the pageant, I was able to add a win condition, better intro and summary story, and better player feedback. I'd love to hear what others think.

It's done in HTML5 and Javascript using CraftyJS, jQuery, and Underscore.js. It's my first online game (but not my first game)--I'm mostly a web back-end and systems programmer. Javascript is... different. Lots of trial and error, and lots of code in need of refactoring. Utterly untested in IE, and I'm okay with that.

HOW TO PLAY:

• Select a story ("Needs and Wants").
• Select a game type ("Casual").
• After a brief intro, you'll see the visitors and the rooms in which they'll be staying the night. Click each room to schedule a manifestation that will influence that visitor.
• When you've selected one for each visitor, click "Continue" at the bottom of the screen.
• The night will pass, and the visitors will regale you with their experiences from the night before. For each small tale, you'll see a yellow meter beside the room/visitor icon; this is a rough indicator of the visitor's conviction, or how strongly they responded to your cue. See if you can spot patterns.

WINNING:

When you've revealed enough of the story, you'll be rewarded with the rest of the yarn as the visitors put it all together.

>>>>>>>>>> PLAY ONLINE! <<<<<<<<<<

[Porpentine]

Cool idea. What is the drive behind choosing different types of manifestation?

[mildmojo]

Cool idea. What is the drive behind choosing different types of manifestation?

For me, as a developer, or you, as a player?

For me, I thought those three types of influence felt like they were common to the horror genre, which where I was trying to go with my story (inspired by the 'horror' mini-ludum-dare). In one sense, you could think of them as communication (audible), perception/emotion (mental), and tangible experience (physical).

For the player, the story fragments that the visitors recall are related to the cues you give. A physical cue is more likely to point a player to an artifact or show them some change in their environment.

[Stephen L (inactive)]

Was quite small, ended up zooming in in the browser page to be able to see it properly.

i like the mood of it, but wasn't able to tell really what effect the things I had were doing, nor did I know how to interpret the bars that appear when the stories are being told.

not being able to skip past the text at my own rate tried my patience a bit. (the slow pacing made it hard for me to experiment/try things out)

not sure what significance, if any, the rooms have

i stopped playing after 4 nights

[mildmojo]

Was quite small, ended up zooming in in the browser page to be able to see it properly.

There's an experimental "HD" version, but some browsers don't correctly render the clickable areas properly on that one--they're offset too far up the screen. The regular version was scaled to be desktop- and mobile-compatible, but that makes it especially painful on high-DPI displays (e.g. macbooks).

i like the mood of it, but wasn't able to tell really what effect the things I had were doing, nor did I know how to interpret the bars that appear when the stories are being told.

The bars give you a rough idea of how strongly the visitor was affected and how strongly their bit of story relates to the whole, or its relative importance.

not being able to skip past the text at my own rate tried my patience a bit. (the slow pacing made it hard for me to experiment/try things out)

You can skip the text by clicking on it. But I did just find and fix a bug that was disabling that skip for the bookend text ("the visitors recount"/"the next evening"). Maybe I could've chosen a shorter fade duration to make the stuff transition more quickly, too.

not sure what significance, if any, the rooms have

i stopped playing after 4 nights

For this story, the rooms sort of have story themes attached to them. Most of the story you get from the kitchen, for example, should be related to food and hunger.

Thanks for giving it a shot and posting back!

[Eddie Cameron]

A fascinating idea. Although the more interesting story is the one the player gleams from the clues they find. To be shown the 'correct' interpretation at the end is frustrating.
I agree with Stephen, the rooms didn't feel any different. The only time something felt room specific was the coffee pot in the kitchen (I love the Cluedo vibe btw.) The story as told by a room is the hook, try exploring this more?

(I didn't mind the small size, but moving it to the centre of the screen would make it less awkward)

[Stephen L (inactive)]

Hey - do you have a standalone version of this somewhere that I could toss in the archive I'm assembling?

[jabbyjim]

I did it in 6 nights, is that good? It was rather small, i can agree with that. Still though, it was clever.

I liked the feeling of the game, reminds me (partially) of an Atari 2600 game I played forever ago. You had to take these horoscope symbols and put them in certain rooms to get different results in winning and game play. I still can't remember the name of it sadly, one of the most rare games I can remember playing.

[mildmojo]

I did it in 6 nights, is that good? It was rather small, i can agree with that. Still though, it was clever.

I liked the feeling of the game, reminds me (partially) of an Atari 2600 game I played forever ago. You had to take these horoscope symbols and put them in certain rooms to get different results in winning and game play. I still can't remember the name of it sadly, one of the most rare games I can remember playing.

Thanks! 6 nights is pretty quick. You must've found strong affinities early on.

I'd be really interested to see that Atari game if you ever find it again. I didn't think the 2600 had much going on in terms of stories.