Author Topic: Halloween Challenge  (Read 38087 times)

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Offline JRedant

Halloween Challenge
« on: September 26, 2014, 06:44:25 PM »
I have no idea how this has worked in the past. So I'm going to make one. :-)

Challenge: Create a game with six rooms only using the following:

Map:


Set-up:
You have been set-up on a dare by your friends: To go into a boarded up haunted house, get a chalice and leave. As soon as you have entered the haunted house, the door behind you mysteriously locked. So now you can't leave the house unless you have both the chalice and the key to get out.

Room A:
You are in the entry way. There are cobwebs, and unlit candles everywhere. Whoever lived in this house had not bothered to take their furniture with them when they left. There is an exit to the west. The door to the east is locked and needs a key.

Room B:
You are in the dining room. There is uneaten food on the table, surrounded by four chairs. In the northwest corner, there is a cabinet that holds a collection of plates. There are two exits, one to the east and one to the south.

Room C:
You are in the hallway. There are family pictures hanging on the wall, and one picture frame that is disturbingly blank with the word "unforgiven" underneath. There are two exits, one to the north and one to the south.

Room D:
You are in the basement. Unlike the rest of the house, this room is sparse, except for a single table with a key at one end. There is only one exit: a staircase going upwards to the west.

Room E:
You are in the kitchen that is fully stocked with food. Unlike the spoiled food in the dining room, your nose tells you that the food here is in good shape.  There are three exits: a staircase doing downwards to the east, an exit to the north and an exit with a golden glow to the west.

Room F:
You are in the master bedroom. The clothes closet is empty except for a golden chalice. The queen size bed is unmade and hasn't been slept in for a very long time. There is a single exit to the east.

There are three items:
A flashlight in room A. Without the flashlight, you won't see anything in entire house and the likelihood of being attacked by a GHOUL in any room is 80%. With the flashlight, the likelihood of being attacked goes down to only 35% in any room.
A key in room D. Without the key, you can't leave the house. If you leave the house without the CHALICE, you would win, but it would be a hollow victory.
A chalice in room F. If you leave the house with the CHALICE, you win the game.

There is only one NPC:
A GHOUL who will attack you 35% of the time if you have the flashlight, and 80% of the time if you don't have the flashlight. The GHOUL's attack will remove 1 point off of your health meter and then will leave the room. You can fight back. Your chances of landing a successful punch and scaring away the GHOUL are 10% if you don't have a flashlight, and 90% if you do have a flashlight. If the GHOUL makes a successful attack, there is a 50% chance that any one item will be removed from your inventory and sent to a random location inside the house.

You, the Ego:
...have 10 health meter points. You can recover one health point at a time only by eating food from the kitchen. If you eat food from the dining room, you lose one health point, and the chances of being hit by a GHOUL goes up 5%.
« Last Edit: September 27, 2014, 09:34:18 AM by JRedant »



Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2014, 09:37:51 PM »
I'm going to throw in a monkeywrench in this challenge:

The flashlight is in Room A and the key to winning the game.

But....ehere are the batteries?

They are somewhere in the house. And you, dear programmers, need to figure out where they are and how the Ego will get them. In other words, a puzzle.

Offline Doan Sephim

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2014, 06:33:28 AM »
Sounds interesting. But I'm confused. You wrote

Quote
A flashlight in room A. Without the flashlight, you won't see anything in entire house and the likelihood of being attacked by a GHOUL in any room is 80%. With the flashlight, the likelihood of being attacked goes down to only 35% in any room.
flashlight = 35% attack rating
w/out flashlight = 80% attack rating

but then you say:

Quote
A GHOUL who will attack you 80% of the time if you have the flashlight, and 35% of the time if you don't have the flashlight.
Here, the percentages are flipped... do you get attacked more with the flashlight because you are more visible? Or are you attacked more in the dark?


Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2014, 09:32:25 AM »
Ah, fair point. I'll edit out that inconsistency.

Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2014, 09:36:03 AM »
Here, the percentages are flipped... do you get attacked more with the flashlight because you are more visible? Or are you attacked more in the dark?

For the record, you get attacked more in the dark.

Offline Cloudee1

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2014, 11:29:24 PM »
Alright, I have started on something.

How set are you on the directions? As in can the hallway be east of the dining room or does it have to be south. Likewise, the bedroom off of the kitchen? or can I place it off of the hallway kind of thing.

Also, if they don't have the flashlight and can't see anything in the house... uhm how would they solve a puzzle to get the batteries... especially if it is going to be point and click.

Is there only supposed to be 3 items, or at least those three items?

Thinking there may be a little too much in the way of set up, doesn't give much room for creation.
Halloween Competition Brass Lantern Prop Competition Groundhog Day Competition

Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2014, 08:34:31 AM »
How set are you on the directions? As in can the hallway be east of the dining room or does it have to be south. Likewise, the bedroom off of the kitchen? or can I place it off of the hallway kind of thing.

Let's have the directions open for interpretation. For example if it works better to have the hallway to be east of the dining room instead of south, then have the hallway to be east.

Quote
Also, if they don't have the flashlight and can't see anything in the house... uhm how would they solve a puzzle to get the batteries... especially if it is going to be point and click.

That would be part of the puzzle. maybe the flashlight works for a few moves before it runs out of juice, just enough to get you to the right room where the batteries are. Maybe the ghoul has the batteries, and after he appears for the first time, he drops them. Maybe a beam of light from the outside is shining on the cabinet of dishes indicating that the batteries are somewhere in the cabinet. And so on,

Quote
Is there only supposed to be 3 items, or at least those three items?

Let's have loose interpretation again. At least those three items.

Quote
Thinking there may be a little too much in the way of set up, doesn't give much room for creation.

I would like to loosen things just enough so the set-up is more of a guide than a set of strict rules to allow for creativity. Would that work?
« Last Edit: September 28, 2014, 07:07:10 PM by Cloudee1 »

Offline Doan Sephim

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2014, 09:19:31 AM »
Sounds good to me. I DID like the very detailed setup (gave me an immediate framework to think in), but softening up on some of the requirements is definitely welcome.

Hopefully I can find the time to put something together because this looks like a fun one.

Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2014, 02:37:54 PM »
That's the atmosphere I was aiming for, Doan. Exactly.

:) looking forward to see what everyone comes up with!

Offline Cloudee1

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2014, 12:55:25 PM »
Ok, so I have my 6 rooms pretty much drawn and have the lights turned out on them. Things are going well except my heap is beginning to look dangerously low and I still need to get the ghoul up and running. May need to re-examine my approach on this. But so far I haven't gotten any heap errors so I am going to keep moving forward. So far so good, but with my heap as low as it is already, I can pretty much guarantee that this game will not feature sciAudio... but we'll see as it gets closer to the end.

*edit
So I managed to get about 7000 heap back by trashing the point and click script and coding the menu room specific. I also had to trash the inventory room, but that was a planned trashing anyway. I have a plan to handle the ghoul seperate from the actual room scripts so with any luck, that will not cost me any more memory and I will be able to use some mp3 sounds after all. Still to early to tell really but it looks much better than it did a couple of hours ago.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2014, 05:49:41 PM by Cloudee1 »
Halloween Competition Brass Lantern Prop Competition Groundhog Day Competition

Offline Doan Sephim

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2014, 03:51:13 PM »
Ok, so I have my 6 rooms pretty much drawn and have the lights turned out on them. Things are going well except my heap is beginning to look dangerously low and I still need to get the ghoul up and running. May need to re-examine my approach on this. But so far I haven't gotten any heap errors so I am going to keep moving forward. So far so good, but with my heap as low as it is already, I can pretty much guarantee that this game will not feature sciAudio... but we'll see as it gets closer to the end.

*edit
So I managed to get about 7000 heap back by trashing the point and click script and coding the menu room specific. I also had to trash the inventory room, but that was a planned trashing anyway. I still have a plan to handle the ghoul seperate from the room scripts so with any luck I will be able to use some mp3 sounds after all. Still to early to tell really but it looks much better than it did a couple of hours ago.

Wow! Great progress! I'm very excited to play your game come Halloween.

As for me, I'm still very much in "notebook-planning" phase. I'll going on field trip with my students all of this week so there is ZERO chance I'll get any artwork or coding done, but it will give me time to hand draw some room ideas and conceptualize puzzles and what region scripts I'll be using.

I hope that I will have time to participate, but with 2 masters courses, teaching 7th grade, a 1.5 year old at home, a Bible study to run on Wed, a novel to finish (writing) by the end of the year (80% done), and a series of youTube videos to create...let's just say it's busy times!

But, I'm gonna do my best to find the time to put together an entry anyway.

Good luck to all participants!  ;D

Offline Cloudee1

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2014, 05:52:08 PM »
Halloween? At this rate, I will be done with this thing by the weekend. I doubt I keep the current rate of progress up, I am astounded myself at how much of it is falling into place and quite simply working on the first go round. That almost never happens. There is always something that brings progress to a grinding halt... usually the wife, sometimes the kids, but almost always the wife.
Halloween Competition Brass Lantern Prop Competition Groundhog Day Competition

Offline JRedant

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2014, 06:52:07 PM »
Wow! That is pretty awesome Cloudee!

You know what? I might just add this to the challenge as an optional extra (you don't have to do it). And it's this: when the game is in its final playable condition, give one(1) copy away to someone. And I'm thinking of a physical copy on any physical media presented in any way you choose.

It could be for any reason: self promotion, promotion of SCI, Halloween gift to the kids, birthday gift, just-because, and so on.

Offline gumby

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2014, 09:51:55 PM »
I'm going to give this a shot.  I've come up with some trace images, but that's it so far.  Hoping to make good progress this week as I'm traveling for work and have down time in the evenings.
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Winter Break 2012 Rope Prop Competition

Offline Collector

Re: Halloween Challenge
« Reply #14 on: October 06, 2014, 12:43:20 AM »
I take it that things went well with your appendicitis adventure.
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