Saturday 7 March 2015

Game Release: The Lost Hound

Hello, I am Palaverous. I’ve been developing my first game over the past… actually, let’s not go into how long this took. I procrastinated so hard the dev time multiplied out of control. Nevertheless, it is FINALLY done. You may find it at my site:


As a slight warning, it a monumentally wordy sword-and-sorcery style adventure game with some RPG elements. It is text only, I would say because “I sought to make a game in the spirit of the classics”, but honestly it’s just because I don’t have pictures for it and I’m not a big fan of 3D graphics, at least not those at the level that I can produce.

I hope you all enjoy it and have fun.

15 comments:

  1. Absolutely fantastic game, poured a couple of hours into it so far. (Doing alot of backtracking to find any secret events, found a couple so far). Zero bugs, and the author's writing style is superb. Very hot sex scenes also. And man, its a long-ass game.

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  2. For the fourth time I will try to post, but I will write something different, now that I have finished the game (and with this it's clear I have liked this game, that it's a well written adventure).
    The game is a bit linear, but some scenes can happen differently, because there are events missable (like aura lysara scene).
    Images are a nice addon, but aren't essentials in AIF agem, furthermore I think that for your writing style (and for others like minterlint) those will be only a little improvement.
    The only thing that I have missed was a map, but if one want there are pen and paper.
    I would have also liked to see at the end the possible achievements I missed (or secrets and missable scene), I think to have done nearly all and obtained five achievements(the only thing that I'm not sure if I have missed is a true sex scene with Azazel that in any case I don't know if exist), but if I see some achievements I haven't obtained I can know that I miss something (and maybe having an idea on what is).
    Once a time congratulations for your first game.

    XXX

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  3. This seems like a HUGE game from what I have played so far. Even without finishing, I have to give props for the amount of time and effort this must have taken.

    A few points:

    I will echo the comment above concerning a map, particularly during the first section of the game. I drew one by hand, but being faced with a quasi-maze filled with frequent random encounters was frustrating at first.

    Also, while I understand disabling the UNDO command as an anti-meta-gaming measure, all it really does is lead to save scumming, which is another form of meta-gaming.

    And it would be nice to know the exit directions from an area before an randomly spawned enemy can attack. As it is, having to LOOK to determine which way to flee gives the enemy a free hit.


    Anyway, aside from those three tiny nitpicks I'm very impressed so far.

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    1. I have played the game with HTML TADS and in the upper part of the window I didn't only see the exit directions, but I could click on them without need to write.
      Personally I saved only at the beginning or at the very end of a fight (and naturally before), if this wasn't sufficient it was better not lose time on it for now.
      The map is a thing that in Adrift is very easy to have, but maybe in TADS not (each of them adrift, inform, tads have strong and weak points, it would be great to have a perfect system, but it's not a easy thing).

      XXX

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    2. You're right about the interpreter. I was using an outdated version that didn't display the exits in the status bar. So that particular complaint is void.

      The only other thing I might say is that the game feels a little bit like an AIF game that wants to be mainstream IF. Or perhaps it could be better described as an IF game with some elements of AIF thrown in. Certainly in the spaces between the sex scenes there isn't much heat--at least in my opinion.

      Anyway, it's a really amazing accomplishment and perhaps with new authors of such a high calibre making their debuts in the last year or so, the feared demise of AIF has been greatly exaggerated.

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  4. Can anyone help me? I can't seem to cast the fireball spell. I type 'cast fireball' in battle but it doesn't do anything.

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    1. You have to cast it at something (I had the same problem, but the readme mentions it)

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    2. I had the same problem, seen that the game permits to write only attack I had thought that the same was for the spells, but I was wrong, you need the complete syntax

      XXX

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  5. I like the game but I've never been a fan of combat systems in IF. It always ends up being so repetitive and random, with no real strategy involved. My first fight I died against an imp because I rolled poorly. It's such a chore to get past the first forest when you can only walk 3 tiles before running back to heal.

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  6. Congrats on releasing your first game!

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  7. How many achievements are there? I managed to get 6.

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  8. It would have to be 8 or 9, the last achievement is for finding all others, I have some suspect of what I missed but for now I found only 5.

    XXX

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  9. Very enjoyable game: I'm sure I'm missing a lot as I think I saw only two sex scenes on the way through (plus the books and recalls). I really liked the little puzzle game you implemented toward the end.

    My only complaint was kind of echoed above in that I spent a lot of time resting, venturing out, getting into a fight, and then going back to rest. This was complicated by occasions when I got so far away from resting and so badly injured that I needed to save, move, if in a fight restore, if not save, repeat until back to a rest area. I actually like there not being undos, but it was too easy to be in a situation where I had to struggle my way back via constant reloads.

    It is possible I am missing something. It wasn't until about half way through that I even realized fleeing from enemies was possible.

    Overall though a quality game.

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  10. Someone knows why the post on lost hound vanished on shark forum? I don't find it but I cannot think a reason because this could happen.

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  11. It seems to have been an error.

    xxx

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