[MicMotorhead]

Finally finished Cybil.
I've been working on this game on and off since 2017. Earlier ditched versions of the idea date as far back as 2014.

The game is an exploration heavy RPG of sorts. Don't expect a deep storyline. Instead, the focus is on exploring, fighting monsters, finding secrets,
solving puzzles - all that good stuff.
There is a story, but it is kept fairly minimal.
The reasons the game took so long to make is that:
1) it was kind of difficult to design and code (I'm not a programmer)
2) it turned out kinda big in scope.
3) a lot of very long breaks from working on it!

Find it on DigitalMzx right here: https://www.digitalm...how.php?id=2866

There isn't much sound in the game (mostly combat sounds), so it's gonna feel pretty empty if you don't also grab the music ZIP files while you're at it.
The music is a mix of stuff I wrote between roughly 2012 and now.

If you run into problems with the game, I can give a few tips. Also make sure to read the game manual which you can access from both the game's main menu and
from the apartment you get shortly after starting. Several "tutorial knights" are also stationed around the game world, so make sure to talk to these NPCs.

The puzzles might just be a hair too difficult on average. If you're not a big fan of tough puzzles, I sincerely apologize. The game's multiple difficulty
levels only apply to combat.

I should set up a hint hotline (only 5 dollars per minute).

... Or you could just sneak a peek in the editor hehe

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 18 October 2024 - 11:02 PM

[Dr Lancer-X]

Congratulations on the release! I've been looking forward to this one.

[NoahSoft]

Very Hyped for you bud Looking forward to giving it a spin this weekend!

[Maxim]

It's really good. A bit on the difficult side. Probably doesn't help that I picked hard mode. But that's the appeal. It's just on the edge of being too difficult. I'm probably going to blow multiple hours a day on this until I clear it. Wow. Nice work.

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 19 October 2024 - 12:18 AM, said:

Congratulations on the release! I've been looking forward to this one.

Thanks! I have no idea what people might think of it. It's got some real "green olives" design elements that some people just hate, like heavy reliance on random "dice" rolls. (Although with varying mechanics that can mitigate it).

NoahSoft, on 19 October 2024 - 04:35 AM, said:

Very Hyped for you bud /> Looking forward to giving it a spin this weekend!

/>

Cool
Looking forward to your mega-board project as well. It's gonna be quite the experiance to untangle!

Maxim, on 19 October 2024 - 06:48 AM, said:

It's really good. A bit on the difficult side. Probably doesn't help that I picked hard mode. But that's the appeal. It's just on the edge of being too difficult. I'm probably going to blow multiple hours a day on this until I clear it. Wow. Nice work.

"Balanced mode" is recommended for beginning players for a reason haha
That mode wasn't designed to be easy. Which means that the higher levels kind of assume you know where to find a lot of things and what some good strategies are.
So uhh... good luck! If it makes you feel any better, the win screen lists your final score AND the level you played on. For bragging rights, you know?

[Maxim]

No regrets. Repeatedly dying is what I expect out of this sort of game. You spent years on it, and I'm enjoying it too much to risk plowing through it too quickly. Good to hear I'll get a final score screen to screenshot.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Bug report:

- Weapon breaking is checked before you attack, so weapons can break even if you miss with them (and in that case you're forced to make an attack empty handed)
- Pendant info in game help says break chance is +10% of protection chance, even though later info for each pendant says they're the same
- Sign in Darktown incorrectly says blacksmith


- Appears to be a race condition when multiple enemies are nearby where one enemy can unlock you (because you finished a fight) after another enemy locks you (to start a fight). Though that is very convenient in that cave with the timed switches.
- Forest West Cave riddle asks for next 7 digits; expects 9

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 20 October 2024 - 06:25 AM, said:

Bug report:

- Weapon breaking is checked before you attack, so weapons can break even if you miss with them (and in that case you're forced to make an attack empty handed)
- Pendant info in game help says break chance is +10% of protection chance, even though later info for each pendant says they're the same
- Sign in Darktown incorrectly says blacksmith


- Appears to be a race condition when multiple enemies are nearby where one enemy can unlock you (because you finished a fight) after another enemy locks you (to start a fight). Though that is very convenient in that cave with the timed switches.
- Forest West Cave riddle asks for next 7 digits; expects 9

Thanks for the bug report! I'm adding them all to my bugs/issues list.
Gonna start working on a patch very soon (and do some more testing to perhaps catch more things to include in the patch).

Some of these make a lot of sense. I believe I changed the riddle in the Forest West cave not long ago to something less cryptic. I must have forgotten to also edit the solution prompt.

The one that concerns me the most here is the one with incorrect enemy locking/unlocking, because that's something that I should have fixed long ago and didn't experience issues with myself any longer.
Will have to look very closely at what's happening there.

[Maxim]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not: is the "what is the sum of his deeds?" riddle supposed to have a text slab next to it? There isn't one in the game.

[MicMotorhead]

Maxim, on 21 October 2024 - 03:23 AM, said:

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not: is the "what is the sum of his deeds?" riddle supposed to have a text slab next to it? There isn't one in the game.

If I recall correctly, that is one of a few puzzles that break with the formula of always having a slab right next to where you input an answer. There should be a statue in Sea Town of a fictional historic figure, with an inscription on a plaque.

That "plaque" character (brick wall with text on it) is used in multiple places and always has some text on it. It is almost never text that has any gameplay relevance, though. The riddle outside Sea Town is an exception.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 21 October 2024 - 05:51 AM

[MicMotorhead]

I wanted to make a note on the following error reported by Dr Lancer-X:

- Weapon breaking is checked before you attack, so weapons can break even if you miss with them (and in that case you're forced to make an attack empty handed)

That should only happen if you actually hit, not on miss. Believe it or not, but it is the game working as designed! The idea is that you sort of mess up the attack when the weapon breaks and that you only get the "unarmed" damage (5 points) instead of the full damage as a result. But it feels really illogical, since the game tells you in the results prompt that you're "unarmed" when hitting.

I have since made changes to how weapon breaks work when dodging, where the break risk is actually checked as the very last thing, after a hit.
A new mechanic that can change how dodges work was added and certain effects tied to this mechanic made it necessary that it checks last.

It is about time that I make that change to regular weapons as well, so the upcoming update will make sure that a weapon won't break until AFTER dealing the full damage.
This will make powerful but frail weapons like the crystal axe and glass sword a lot better, so I might increase break risk on them a little bit. The glass sword
in particular deals pretty overpowered damage and was always risky to use just to take direct swings at enemies.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 21 October 2024 - 06:32 AM

[Dr Lancer-X]

MicMotorhead, on 21 October 2024 - 04:05 PM, said:

- Weapon breaking is checked before you attack, so weapons can break even if you miss with them (and in that case you're forced to make an attack empty handed)

That should only happen if you actually hit, not on miss. Believe it or not, but it is the game working as designed!

From the global robot (the checks in the combat robot are okay):

: "keya"
...
set "breakroll" to random 1 to 100
if "breakroll" <= "breakrisk" then "#break"
set "randompercent" to random 1 to 100
...
if "randompercent" <= "meleeacc" then "hit"

The break check happens before the check to see if the attack landed, which means that your weapon can break and you can end up missing.

Updated bug reports (I will just update this post from now on I think):

- The girl on the path to Nord Wood asks for 4 moon potions but she actually only wants 3.
- The longbow says on the inventory screen that it has 60% base accuracy, but when used in battle it says 50%.
- The second last letter of the Red Oak South riddle does not follow the same pattern as the other characters. (Personally I think it's correct and the other letters are wrong - since the highlit letter seems to indicate that it's your starting point)
- If you quickdraw the katana, it's weaker than if you equip it normally
- Riddle doors don't lock while opening so it's possible to touch them while they're opening and break them. Could also apply to other doors. (Maxim found this one)
- In Red Oak, in the exchange with the woman writing a paper about the north, the line ending with 'reindeer' is too long and is cut off.
- Not 100% certain this is in error, but there are two riddle tablets in Birch Grove lvl 2 and only one of them contains an accurate hint for the riddle. No idea what the other one is used for as there is no other riddle on that level.
- The top left chests in Mountain Road Cave 2 All chests containing multiple items delivered across multiple message boxes are vulnerable to giving out unlimited copies of any item except the last, by holding down a movement key when ending the dialogue. These chests should be lockself'd while giving out items. This applies to locked chests too, although you have to spend extra keys to steal more items.
- This also applies to locked doors - it is possible to spend the key and then lock yourself out. I did this to myself in Cold Fortress level 1 with the final magic key as I was running from the Greater Maw I lured out of the way. Mind you, this is karma because on the same screen I used the previous bug to scam myself a bunch of additional jinx amulets by repeatedly opening the top gold chest. I regret nothing.
- The riddle at the top of the Red Oak Fields tower should accept the two words of its answer with a single space between them - this follows formatting accepted by other riddles and is what I tried first.
- When viewing the telescope the player can (sometimes?) move around and explore a little bit of the board. Doesn't break anything but looks odd.
- A certain outfit item

Spoiler

that costs 15k. I legitimately saved that money and demand my outfit!!

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 21 October 2024 - 10:01 AM, said:

From the global robot (the checks in the combat robot are okay):

: "keya"
...
set "breakroll" to random 1 to 100
if "breakroll" <= "breakrisk" then "#break"
set "randompercent" to random 1 to 100
...
if "randompercent" <= "meleeacc" then "hit"

The break check happens before the check to see if the attack landed, which means that your weapon can break and you can end up missing.

Updated bug reports (I will just update this post from now on I think):

The girl on the path to Nord Wood asks for 4 moon potions but she actually only wants 3.

Ok I need to give my own code a close read. I did fix most reported issues yesterday late in the evening. I also moved the check for breaks, but didn't have time to test it. I need to make sure that there aren't any exceptions or interactions with special weapons that I've forgotten about. It's probably fine, but some of that code gets a bit tangled.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 21 October 2024 - 11:51 AM

[MicMotorhead]

Still haven't looked at the bug where an enemy can unlock you while still in combat.

But weapons now check for breaking as the very last thing before the attack action ends.
Also rewrote a bunch of stuff in the manual and fixed varying small things that people have reported.

I've got two choices: Either fix all known bugs and release a new world file OR keep looking for more bugs and wait with releasing a new world file until it includes a substantial amount of fixes.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 23 October 2024 - 06:13 AM

[Maxim]

Give us time to beat the game first. If there are any fatal errors that break the game, it'll probably be me who ends up landing on them.

[GetDizzy]

I agree with Maxim, unless there's a showstopper hard-blocking progression entirely, wait until you have at least one or two complete playthroughs to get a relatively full catalogue of bugs before making a bugfix release.

Your game is large enough with its music files that a lot of successive releases on DMZX would clog up the archive a bit (though we should really deduplicate identical add-on zips so as to avoid this issue) so it's better for us here in the admin team if you release sparingly.

[MicMotorhead]

Both of you make very good points!

Then I'm going to do as suggested and work on a very thorough update over a longer period of time. This also gives me the opportunity to perhaps add a few things if I feel like it.

[Feoramund]

I had some time over the weekend to give this game a go. I made it as far as

Spoiler

the cave that locks you inside once you enter, the one with all the bears and the 3 sliding door/lever puzzle.

I might pick it up again when I have time, but here's what I want to note:

1. The window borders looked glitchy to me. I'm not sure if this is a problem on my end.


2. There was an odd glyph in use for the e-mail `@` here.


3. Brambleberries don't mention that they lower moxy in this screen.


4. Enemy names look incomplete.


5. I found a handful of typos.

Spoiler

6. Regarding the puzzle I got stuck on, I tried every combo I could think of, but nothing worked. This is where I eventually got stuck and died.


I identified the pattern as a list of numbers that increases in length by 1, with the new digit being 1 + the last digit, while simultaneously a multiplication iterates over the string of digits. In the answer, the multiplier should land on the `5`, which is where the confusion begins. Does it overflow into the next digit? The previous digit? Not at all?

I think I remember trying...

1235067
1231067
1234067
1234107

In retrospect, I'm not sure if I tried 1234167. I did give it a few minutes though, but I was unable to figure it out.

7. The conversation with Ronja felt a bit unusual. There's no introduction, but you both know each other's names despite being apparent strangers. That's the sense I got from the conversation.

8. A lack of sound or music in the intro/start screen felt strange given how much music I downloaded. I think I expected at least something to hear before I started playing and on the start screen. The music's not bad though, once I got into the game.

9. I'm still not sure yet what the purpose of the inn or sleeping is. I was able to exhaust my skill on a couple different builds, but I haven't found out how to recharge it. Any time I try sleeping, it says I don't feel tired yet. Maybe I haven't played long enough yet. It seems like health recovery is mostly balancing +moxy/-health with +health/-moxy items.

10. Battles seem difficult to skillfully handle. There is attacking and dodging, but not much else from what I've seen. I might need to pry into this more, but it seems like attacking most of the time is optimal. I haven't had dodging work too often in my favor, even when waiting after the enemy does its little initiative dance. My hope is that more important battles have something else going for them. Turn-based attack-masher battle systems are a let down to me.


That said, I think I'll give this another go when I get some time. Some of the music is catchy. I'll post another update if I find anything else of note. Good work so far though. I like the user interface with the avatar in the side; it's reminiscent to me of a couple old DOS games.

[Dr Lancer-X]

Feoramund, on 30 October 2024 - 05:38 AM, said:

9. I'm still not sure yet what the purpose of the inn or sleeping is. I was able to exhaust my skill on a couple different builds, but I haven't found out how to recharge it. Any time I try sleeping, it says I don't feel tired yet. Maybe I haven't played long enough yet. It seems like health recovery is mostly balancing +moxy/-health with +health/-moxy items.

The inn is how you restore skills (though it's not the only way.) Exploring a dungeon sets the tired flag, though I'm not sure if anything else does. I find I tend to use healing items, not the inn / sleeping.

Feoramund, on 30 October 2024 - 05:38 AM, said:

10. Battles seem difficult to skillfully handle. There is attacking and dodging, but not much else from what I've seen. I might need to pry into this more, but it seems like attacking most of the time is optimal. I haven't had dodging work too often in my favor, even when waiting after the enemy does its little initiative dance. My hope is that more important battles have something else going for them. Turn-based attack-masher battle systems are a let down to me.

I found it takes some time to develop an intuition for the battles. The early enemies have low base initiative, and so it is usually optimal to attack, but later on this changes - there's some pretty strong benefits to dodging, and against certain enemies (the snakes) you will want to dodge all the time. For the most part, though, there's often a bit of a flow of 'attack N times, then dodge' or stalling out enemies or using the bow. There's a lot of subtle complexities to the battle system - the rules are simple but how they combine is pretty special. The difficulty level is so high that none of the battles are ever attack mashing - even the weakest enemies pose a threat and combat is never entered into lightly. I find I have to think about every encounter, which is good, and there's always a little bit of risk - because your weapon can break at any time.

[MicMotorhead]

Feoramund, on 29 October 2024 - 08:38 PM, said:

...

Thank you fore the very expansive comment. I appreciate detailed feedback.
I'm going to take a look at all of those bugs and typos eventually. There are some bigger problems that need fixing, but all of the small things will be included in the same update.

Here are some responses to some selected points:

1+2. The window borders look like that because I ran out of characters in the character set and had to repurpose some specific characters for a new game feature. I felt like I could live with the borders looking a bit weird.
This change was way after writing the email contant in the main menu, which is why I forgot considering that @ symbols have also been repurposed. I'm just going to re-write the email not to use the @ symbol.

4. Enemy names probably have too keep looking like that, since I can't go back and change hundreds of instances at this point. I think that way back when I started making the game, I somehow assumed that I couldn't use spaces in object names.
One of those decisions that you end up just having to stick to when you've got 2000 objects that do the same thing lol

6. That's the second (possibly) bugged puzzle solution I've been notified of. I have to go back and see if they're wrong, or if it's just some esoteric logic.

7. Ronja is a VERY old character from a time when the game's story was supposed to work way differently. Before publishing the game, I did rewrite some stuff to match the current way the story works but I should have paid more attention. Definitely needs a rework!

8. I guess I just didn't have a piece that felt appropriate for the menu. I could change this when a new version finally gets uploaded.

9. You can ONLY sleep at an inn when "tired", which is a label that is set when A) exiting a dungeon and B) using certain items (mead, for example). Sleeping at the apartment is free, but only recovers health and clears "x-poison". Sleeping at an inn does that, but also makes all skills available again. I was trying to make it not worthwhile to "spam" the inn feature by constantly running back for cheap healing after every encounter. So the game encourages going for a dungeon expedition every time you exit town.

10. Ok, so this is the big one, as it's a fundemental thing that won't be changed except by perhaps minor balance adjustments. I can at least try to explain what you're meant to do:
Melee weapons are very inaccurate, especially the lower tier ones. So you have to balance out using less dependable weapons with using better weapons, skills and throwable weapons (MUCH more accurate), without running low on good resources. You don't want to be stuck fighitng a strong enemy or boss with nothing but a dagger. You'll miss so many swings and deal so low damage that you will take a load of unnecessary damage.
The dodge skill is only worth using when enemy initiative is very high - but it is sometimes the better choice over attacking. There are items you can find and equip that change what the effect of the dodge move is. Some make it potentially a LOT more powerful and worth considering in some situations. I have considered making the punishment for a missed doge less severe.

It's not a very deep game, that's for sure. It's basically a question of determining how much danger you're currently in/deciding when to use more powerful items. Good healing items are expensive and brambleberries really aren't worth spending a turn on in battle, so the best defense is to get rid of the enemy fast.

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 29 October 2024 - 10:29 PM, said:

The inn is how you restore skills (though it's not the only way.) Exploring a dungeon sets the tired flag, though I'm not sure if anything else does. I find I tend to use healing items, not the inn / sleeping.



I found it takes some time to develop an intuition for the battles. The early enemies have low base initiative, and so it is usually optimal to attack, but later on this changes - there's some pretty strong benefits to dodging, and against certain enemies (the snakes) you will want to dodge all the time. For the most part, though, there's often a bit of a flow of 'attack N times, then dodge' or stalling out enemies or using the bow. There's a lot of subtle complexities to the battle system - the rules are simple but how they combine is pretty special. The difficulty level is so high that none of the battles are ever attack mashing - even the weakest enemies pose a threat and combat is never entered into lightly. I find I have to think about every encounter, which is good, and there's always a little bit of risk - because your weapon can break at any time.

I was actually pretty nervous about whether people would find that the battles worked like I intended. The low player health was very much intended to make it so that you're never more than a few bungled turns away from dying. Maybe a single turn or two against strong enemies.

I wasn't sure the bow would really be beneficial to use the way I intended, so I'm happy to see that you found a use for it.

It's hard for me to know whether I got all of the balancing right, since it's a long game and the economy or items given could be way off the mark in the long run. Too much or too little money? Too many strong items or too few? Does all the player's weapons break, leaving them with nothing, or do I give too many? It's really hard to get that right and I maybe haven't.

About the "tired" status, it is also set when using a few of the items. The "quality mead" item turns you both "tipsy" and "tired". There are a couple other items that can set either status.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 30 October 2024 - 08:42 AM

[Maxim]

I'm finally starting to get good at the game. Or at least better. It's equal parts luck and skill. Your success is tied to rolls of the dice, but you still have to plan carefully or you'll never succeed. Like I said before, you have to be willing to die many times trying to find the best solutions. More so if you elected to play on one of the hard modes. It's true old school RPG difficulty.

[MicMotorhead]

It's definitely inspired by 80's and 90's CRPGs. With a dash of Resident Evil inspiration as far as relying on limited items and saves goes.

Pendants and skills were put in to help mitigate bad luck. The other thing that tries to help guard against that is simply that each area and dungeon is quite small, so you're not going to lose 4 hours of progress to a huge dungeon. They're always small, with 1 to 3 floors. And you save right outside bosses, so you can try again right away if you get bad rolls.

If I make another RPG, I would probably try to move away from such swingy dice rolls a bit.

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 21 October 2024 - 10:01 AM, said:

- The girl on the path to Nord Wood asks for 4 moon potions but she actually only wants 3.
- The longbow says on the inventory screen that it has 60% base accuracy, but when used in battle it says 50%.
- The second last letter of the Red Oak South riddle does not follow the same pattern as the other characters. (Personally I think it's correct and the other letters are wrong - since the highlit letter seems to indicate that it's your starting point)
- If you quickdraw the katana, it's weaker than if you equip it normally
- In Red Oak, in the exchange with the woman writing a paper about the north, the line ending with 'reindeer' is too long and is cut off.
- The riddle at the top of the Red Oak Fields tower should accept the two words of its answer with a single space between them - this follows formatting accepted by other riddles and is what I tried first.
- When viewing the telescope the player can (sometimes?) move around and explore a little bit of the board. Doesn't break anything but looks odd.

All fixed now.

Dr Lancer-X, on 21 October 2024 - 10:01 AM, said:

- Riddle doors don't lock while opening so it's possible to touch them while they're opening and break them. Could also apply to other doors. (Maxim found this one)
- The top left chests in Mountain Road Cave 2 All chests containing multiple items delivered across multiple message boxes are vulnerable to giving out unlimited copies of any item except the last, by holding down a movement key when ending the dialogue. These chests should be lockself'd while giving out items. This applies to locked chests too, although you have to spend extra keys to steal more items.
- This also applies to locked doors - it is possible to spend the key and then lock yourself out. I did this to myself in Cold Fortress level 1 with the final magic key as I was running from the Greater Maw I lured out of the way. Mind you, this is karma because on the same screen I used the previous bug to scam myself a bunch of additional jinx amulets by repeatedly opening the top gold chest. I regret nothing.

Not yet!

Dr Lancer-X, on 21 October 2024 - 10:01 AM, said:

- Not 100% certain this is in error, but there are two riddle tablets in Birch Grove lvl 2 and only one of them contains an accurate hint for the riddle. No idea what the other one is used for as there is no other riddle on that level.

It breaks the usual pattern by having two sets of hints that have to be combined to solve it.

Dr Lancer-X, on 21 October 2024 - 10:01 AM, said:

- A certain outfit item

Spoiler

that costs 15k. I legitimately saved that money and demand my outfit!!

Spoiler

NO! Except if there's popular demand. Then the inevitable Director's Cut Edition will contain it.

[MicMotorhead]

Feoramund, on 29 October 2024 - 08:38 PM, said:

Fixed a bunch of the things you pointed out, including the puzzle below.

Feoramund, on 29 October 2024 - 08:38 PM, said:

Spoiler

6. Regarding the puzzle I got stuck on, I tried every combo I could think of, but nothing worked. This is where I eventually got stuck and died.
note_puzzle.png

I identified the pattern as a list of numbers that increases in length by 1, with the new digit being 1 + the last digit, while simultaneously a multiplication iterates over the string of digits. In the answer, the multiplier should land on the `5`, which is where the confusion begins. Does it overflow into the next digit? The previous digit? Not at all?

I think I remember trying...

1235067
1231067
1234067
1234107

In retrospect, I'm not sure if I tried 1234167. I did give it a few minutes though, but I was unable to figure it out.

Ok so I took a look at that puzzle. I was stumped myself at first, but then realized that I had mistakenly forgotten to remove the last 9 digits of the hint.
Those 9 digits are the actual solution and I must have written them there while making the puzzle.

I've edited such that the last part is left out and it all checks out now.

Music also plays during game logos and main menu now. And on the Game Over screen.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 02 November 2024 - 12:23 PM

[Dr Lancer-X]

MicMotorhead, on 02 November 2024 - 09:49 PM, said:

It breaks the usual pattern by having two sets of hints that have to be combined to solve it.

I don't think it does - I think the left hint is sufficient to solve it. In fact, that's how I solved it, and so the right hint confused me a lot.

Spoiler

The left panel says:
30 _ 50
_ 70 _
90 _ ???

And yeah, it's true that I had a guess that the pattern went +10 as you went right and +30 as you went down, and while that pattern fit all of the numbers on that page it was a guess.

But I don't think the right hint actually adds anything to this. In fact, it provides less information:

_ 70 _
90 _ 110
_ 130 ???

It also has the ???, and you can see from the pattern that the answer to this one is 140, but there's nothing you do with 140. If it's not meant to be the answer, surely it should just be _ instead of ???.

[MicMotorhead]

Dr Lancer-X, on 02 November 2024 - 11:35 PM, said:

I don't think it does - I think the left hint is sufficient to solve it. In fact, that's how I solved it, and so the right hint confused me a lot.

Spoiler

The left panel says:
30 _ 50
_ 70 _
90 _ ???

And yeah, it's true that I had a guess that the pattern went +10 as you went right and +30 as you went down, and while that pattern fit all of the numbers on that page it was a guess.

But I don't think the right hint actually adds anything to this. In fact, it provides less information:

_ 70 _
90 _ 110
_ 130 ???

It also has the ???, and you can see from the pattern that the answer to this one is 140, but there's nothing you do with 140. If it's not meant to be the answer, surely it should just be _ instead of ???.

Basically, you're supposed to overlay the two sets of information on top of each other. The underscores are to positions on which there's numbers in the opposite set.

It might not be a good riddle though. It is literally the first idea I had for a riddle for the game. It was originally placed in the first dungeon I made, just to the west of Burgwall. Two wall plaques with the hints near a locked door, and you'd need to find the answer to open the door and progress through the dungeon.

I later decided that no riddles should block your progress, only provide resources as rewards and I formalized how they're laid out, with the "hint on a stone tablet, input at the question mark" format.

A sort of "kill your darlings" situation on this one I guess. If you have a better idea for a riddle or puzzle, you can throw it at me with spoiler tags and I might put it in. Otherwise, I might try and come up with one myself before releasing a patched game world.

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 04 November 2024 - 06:46 AM

[Lachesis]

GetDizzy, on 22 October 2024 - 06:51 PM, said:

(though we should really deduplicate identical add-on zips so as to avoid this issue)

Like I explained in the journal thread, the archive already does this.

[Hoof]

Congratulations on your release! Celebrate it! I'm looking forward to playing it. It will likely drive me back down the deep rabbit hole that is megazeux

[MicMotorhead]

Hoof, on 06 November 2024 - 04:16 AM, said:

Congratulations on your release! Celebrate it! I'm looking forward to playing it. It will likely drive me back down the deep rabbit hole that is megazeux

Thanks, I'm just happy that I made it across the finish line after so long.

In my opinion, Megazeux is a cool little game engine, even in 2024. I love the fact that people are still working on new things.

If you're going to play my game, I suggest waiting until I upload a new version.
There's numerous small bugs in the current version, plus one game breaking bug late in the game (oops...)

This post has been edited by MicMotorhead: 06 November 2024 - 06:37 AM