I like this as a proof of concept, but there's a lot of bugginess, In the second room alone, putting the figurine in the trough and having to deal with pressing one of two identical (to the game) iron buttons is frustrating. The puzzles themselves are easy, which is fine for a beginner-rated competition where the goal is for the player to be acclimated to the format, but I don't think that the confusing language and lack of synonyms is conducive to a clean first-time experience. For instance, you can't "turn dial s" or "depress jaguar", you have to "turn dial south" or "depress relief". I think that after getting some more playtesting and ironing out those details, it could make for a much cleaner experience. Overall, I liked the writing and Ramen as a character, although he seemed more than knowledgeable enough to do the rooms by himself! Also, I liked the desert maze and the hints towards an oasis.
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Adventure in the Crypt (TALP 2026)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #7 | 2.786 | 2.786 |
| Beginner-friendliness | #7 | 2.643 | 2.643 |
| Implementation | #7 | 2.429 | 2.429 |
| Overall | #8 | 2.583 | 2.583 |
| Puzzles | #9 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
| Writing | #9 | 2.929 | 2.929 |
| Documentation | #9 | 2.214 | 2.214 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Have you written a text adventure before?
What programming language/authoring system did you use to write this game?
MAD Candy Interactive Fiction Studio
Approximately how long did it take to write this game?
Approximately 60 hours
Comments
Another person seemed to be flummoxed by the reliefs. Just an FYI, you can use "press the jaguar relief". When you use "relief" it must ask you to disambiguate because their are four nearly identically named objects in that location. That is just a facet of the engine. Ramen really was meant to be helpful as this was designed for an absolute beginner. I wanted to guide the player through all the puzzles without much frustration.
I needed a little time to really get into the game at first. Initially I thought I had to search for water because the game kept mentioning that I needed something to drink. In the end I just ignored that and followed the tutorial. After that I realized I had simply overlooked the entrance.
The first puzzles felt a bit too easy for me personally, and solving them was not always that much fun, mostly because it often came down to turning things over and over again. But I think that is very much a matter of taste, other players might enjoy that style a lot more than I did.
I also thought saving was not possible at first because typing just “save” did not work. Only later did I realize that I actually had to type “SAVE GAME”. That one was completely my mistake though :-).
I died in the mirror room and honestly did not really feel motivated to restart from the beginning. I think I will probably give it another try tomorrow though, I was likely just a bit frustrated that I died at the very first real danger :-).
What I really liked was the writing. The descriptions are done very well, I could imagine the environments clearly and really immerse myself in the atmosphere, and for a game like this I think that is one of the most important things :-).
Thank you very much for the feedback. Admittedly this game started out as a POC for different aspects of the underlying text engine. I completely see how the puzzles can seem the way you described. If you give the hard mode a shot the only difference is that the first door is locked and there is a new area to explore which has its own puzzle, completely different than the others, to find that key. Regarding the water, it can be necessary if you go wandering around in the desert. Water is in the game but you have to find it and a kind of secret location with its own mini-narrative. It was fun writing Ramens dialogue, that was the best part for me.
Oh, so there is a secret hidden in the desert. Now you have hooked me again. I will definitely give it another try today.
What I realized now is that the puzzles themselves are actually fun. What bothered me yesterday was more the input method. Rotating things would feel much smoother if the last command could be repeated with the up arrow key.
I also really enjoyed the Sherpa’s dialogue. You can tell that you put a lot of effort and care into the writing.
I will definitely try it again later tonight.
I feel like there are a lot of commands where you don't get any feedback or an error message, and that got me frustrated really fast. I first noticed it when I tried to walk through the desert, and even though the description said I could keep walking North, nothing really happened. Same problem with examining stuff like the archway. Didn't get very far into the game bc of this, but the game idea sounds promising!
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