I mentioned in my previous post about creativity during quarantine that I was working on writing a new game. I’ve been interested in trying to write something that moved away from text adventures and went into open-world RPGs. I’ve been inspired both by the Republic Commandos game run by Mikhail on an episode of OHAC (and in-person during college), as well as the Campaign Podcast he recently got me into. ...
I played my new text adventure, Coffee and Donuts, with Jack and Mikhail the other week. It didn’t end up going that well, but the process of having something end a bit poorly was a positive learning experience. There’s a lot to consider when trying to pace a game, create puzzles that are satisfying at the target level, and creating situations that are easy to engage with. I think I had some very good thoughts on this one (I’m particularly proud of the map I created), but the execution of pacing and some puzzles left a lot to be desired. ...
In the most recent episode of OHAC, we played my newest text adventure Homestead, which broadly is about outdoor survival. We had a good time playing it, and it took twice as long as my previous adventure, Sail Away. I also learned a lot from doing it the first time to create a more reasonable set-up, and organize my document in a more logical way (at least to myself). I’ll upload the blank PDF here (and can provide the LaTeX source file upon request); the completed version after finishing the game is also attached to the show notes of the OHAC episode. ...