Hatogate

[davidn]

xaq's human-parser mini-adventure game captured all of our attentions this week to the tune of 144 comments, and in return for him giving us that experience, I voiced the notion of turning it into an actual Flash game. So after the Livejournal version was over, he sent me a wonderfully programmatic layout of the possible commands and conditions for each one - and it's only through reading the whole thing that I realize just how hilarious it is, really doing justice to the weird tone that Hatoful is written in while putting it in a Shadowgate-like setup. Well done!

Therefore:


http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/games/hatogate/

This is something of a test release, as I'm the only one who's played with it so far - eventually I'd like to put a title screen and maybe some music on to it, then hopefully see what Moa thinks! It is possible that I've translated the entire thing without any bugs - stranger things have happened, but only about six ever, and they were all in Hatoful Boyfriend. So if you do encounter anything odd happening (that is, anything identifiably odder than normal) let me know. The most likely thing is text running off the bottom of the screen, as I haven't checked all the branches yet.

This was an interesting quick thing to work on, and I'll write up a technical post about it soon - thank you, xaq, for providing it!

Comments

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Yet another: It seems I've uncovered some sort of glitch that renders the "Lighten the Load" achievement unachievable; using the Leave command on an item apparently still counts towards the number of commands you can use before Oko shows up, even though it shouldn't.

*scratches head* This is especially curious considering I unlocked all of them on this my first time through. o_O

[davidn]

I'm not sure! Okosan turns up once you've used five different commands (increased from four in the LJ version as it's easier to do more commands 'live' like this), though they can be the same verb - LOOK PUDDING, LOOK KEY2... I could leave LEAVE off the list of things that get added to the move count.

Let me know if you want to provide alternative lines for any of the above, or I can just leave off the out-of-place phrases - I'm quite proud of how flexible the scripting I put together for this turned out :)

[kjorteo]

It'd probably be easier to just disable Okosan coming after you deal with the komodo dragon. Once he's gone, you're already well on your way to either the normal or lame endings, and the other three either don't care one way or the other or require that he's not gone. If you've dealt with him and you're still messing around and not going to the shrine or entrance, you might be doing something like going for the Lighten the Load achievement, at which point the game may as well not interrupt you!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

That's actually a good idea. Leaving the LEAVE command off was originally the idea (if nothing else, I figure it shouldn't take as long to throw away a bag of millet as it does to pop it open and eat the contents), but that works just as well.

[kjorteo]

Actually, I'm running into the problem of Okosan showing up and ending the game, like the game is now on a strict five-turn time limit, when all I want to do is mess around with stuff and see what happens (are there any interesting responses for cooing at every item in my inventory, etc.) It might be less obnoxious to have some sort of opt-in event and disable Okosan coming altogether unless you perform the action that starts his timer. Maybe instead of opening the pudding mix doing basically nothing right now (it disappears from your inventory, and then Okosan shows up right on schedule anyway,) change that so you can actually have an open box of pudding mix (or give it to the lizard after you open it,) and opening it is the only way to make it so he does appear? Like, opening it starts the turn timer? You could then shorten the timer again, as I don't see a need for prolonging the state between when you summon him and when he arrives.

[davidn]

quadralien said as well that Okosan just got in the way once you'd found his ending... I could remove the possibility of him appearing entirely once you've got the endings that he triggers, but if you've got one ending but not the other, that might make it more unclear what triggers his appearance. Opening it to summon him (1 turn later, so you get the chance to throw it) might be a good idea...