Out of the Loop by iapc

[raw]
made by iapc for LD33 (JAM)
Since last time, our team has shrunk quite a bit. Only two (of four) remained this time. Despite this, we decided to go for a story-rich game. And thus the decision to do a text-adventure seemed logical to us.

This game tells the story of a man who wakes up one day, without that much of his memory left. It's up to you to find the pieces and put it back together.

One oddity: words that don't belong are ignored, instead of giving an error.
This means: if you say: Walk Toothbrush East, then it's interpreted as Walk East.

Remember, don't rush text-adventures, you will miss vital information and / or items.

Innovation compared to other games in the genre is mostly in the realtime elements of the game. Some elements of the game are realtime, instead of just reactions to your typing.

You may want to use the help command. That should point you on the right way.

Last-minute update: some shortcuts added and some lines added to the help file.

IMPORTANT: use + object does NOT work. You have to write it the other way around. Also, if you need an item to progress, having the item is enough, after that, you can just use a simple walk / go command. The same thing applies to the Elevator.

If you're stuck on the first level, the key to the elevator is stuck on rubbish.

We added a post-Ludum Dare version, with great improvements to language detection. The story is kept the same. So if you want to experience the story, without getting annoyed by some oddities of a poor text detection system, use that one.

Ratings

Coolness 64% 3
Overall(Jam) 2.97 748
Fun(Jam) 2.41 974
Innovation(Jam) 2.72 753
Mood(Jam) 3.00 599
Theme(Jam) 2.88 892

Feedback

Perkovec
25. Aug 2015 · 00:10 UTC
I'll try everything, but the game doesn't understand anything...
tc4mpbell
25. Aug 2015 · 00:28 UTC
Wandered a bit. Could go through locked doors (?). It didn't recognize 'use', which seems a common verb. Or 'unlock'. Wasn't quite sure what to do with the key, then. Seemed the elevator wanted it, but couldn't figure out how to... use it.

Shortcuts for directions would be super nice, too! (n,s,e,w)
Chadivision
25. Aug 2015 · 00:29 UTC
I played this for about ten minutes...obviously not enough time to fully get into it, but I like it. Most of the commands seem intuitive, and the dialogue is well written.

The only suggestion that I would have would be a few things to save on typing. For example, if you could type "e" instead of "east". Also it would be nice if there was a keyboard shortcut to clear out all of the text without having to backspace.

I plan to come back to this one once I get a chance to rate some more games.
Daisuke909
25. Aug 2015 · 00:32 UTC
I got pretty far, 'til I decided it'd be a good idea to try and kill the guard. Pretty engaging for a text adventure, although I found the number of hallways and such a bit overwhelming.
Pusty
25. Aug 2015 · 00:33 UTC
Well I'm stuck in the loop but it was fun running around.
I wonder what's in the kitchen :O
bonnup
25. Aug 2015 · 00:41 UTC
A great text-based adventure. The gamespace made sense mentally and the real-time elements are appropriately stressful. Loved it.
🎤 iapc
25. Aug 2015 · 00:41 UTC
Last-minute upgrade: some more synonyms for turning on light (just saying lights now works), and using N,E,S,W now works.
Gigaraptor
25. Aug 2015 · 00:53 UTC
it doesn't seem to want to go east or west, and help seemed to break after a little bit.
ryanisaacg
25. Aug 2015 · 14:18 UTC
It doesn't recognize door while in the first room.
peterthehe
25. Aug 2015 · 16:22 UTC
Incredibly advanced project and you took it on incredibly well. Good work!
voidstar33
25. Aug 2015 · 16:53 UTC
Very well done. great job. Cool idea.
NoWandStudios
30. Aug 2015 · 11:16 UTC
Very well donde with mood here. You reminds me when I was a child and expend a lot of time with this type of game
mantis
30. Aug 2015 · 21:43 UTC
Love text adventure games! :)
Gaius Baltar
30. Aug 2015 · 23:43 UTC
I liked that this was text based. It's the only one I've seen so far, but there are way too few options which can get quite frustrating mid-game.
Evergreen Games
31. Aug 2015 · 00:29 UTC
Awesome! great mood got to the end and then died on the guard. cool writing, cool story.