"Perseus and Andromeda" looking for beta testers

Hi,

my Inform game “Perseus and Andromeda” needs beta testers. It’s a v6 z-code game with Blorb graphics. While the pictures are meant to integrate with the story, they are not necessary for playing. For more details, I include in the following the file blurb.txt included in the distribution.

<<–BEGIN blurb.txt
PERSEUS and ANDROMEDA
An Interactive Mythological Diversion
Copyright (c) 2016 by Lua do Nascimento
About playing
This is a standard Inform 6 game, written for the V6 z-machine. Yes, it has graphics; indeed, it might be classified as an illustrated text adventure. It should be played on a blorb-graphics-enabled interpreter, such as:
on Windows: Windows Frotz (tested on v1.17)
on Linux: sfrotz (tested on v0.02)
However, while the pictures are meant to integrate with the story and to maximize your playing experience, they are not strictly necessary for playing (no hidden hint). Indeed, the game is playable and winnable with any text-only interpreter that understands V6 z-code, such as Frotz (and xfrotz, on Linux, with quite minimal graphics support).
As said above, this is a standard Inform 6 game, with all the usual parser stuff (TAKE LANTERN, GO SOUTH, ATTACK OGRE WITH SWORD etc.) In addition to that, I’ve added some verbs and extended existing ones; you’ll have to discover which and how. I only mention here the verb RECAP, that may be (marginally) useful for summing up the (more or less) interesting places you have visited and the (more or less) interesting people you have met during your quest. There’s also a CREDITS verb for, guess what?
As I said, you’ll meet people during your quest. To exchange information with them, you may use the standard forms ASK SOMEONE ABOUT SOMETHING and TELL SOMEONE ABOUT SOMETHING. You may also try to give orders, as in GUARD, GIVE ME YOUR SWORD, but that won’t work too frequently.
Please note that, this NOT being a LucasArts ™ game, your hero can die, or behave so stupidly as to put the game into an unwinnable state. Modern z-code interpreters allow UNDO, and in fact many levels of UNDO, but saving your game now and then shouldn’t harm.
About the game
So, why Perseus and Andromeda? Well, the first idea came to me when I got from the if-archive Brian Howarth’s Mysterious Adventures converted to V6 z-code, with pictures. I was intrigued by Perseus’ myth, and said to myself: why not revamp Howarth’s Perseus game with a more powerful parser, less concise text and prettier pics? I also had in mind Ekphrasis, which is a Glulx game, and wondered if it would be so difficult to make something similar with the good old z-machine.
Therefore, I began to code a story, following more or less literally the myth as bequeathed in books (e.g. Pseudo-Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca). But when I was about halfway, I realized that what I was doing wasn’t as exciting, after all. So I decided to introduce some (IMHO non-trivial) twist in the story, and this is the result.
As Jorge Amado wrote in the opening of one of his novels: “It’s been fun to write; if someone else has fun reading it, I’ll consider myself satisfied.”
So, enjoy!

–END blurb.txt

Anyone interested in testing the game may contact me at

luadonacim@writeme.com

I’m instantly intrigued. I suck at testing, but I’ll be awaiting the actual release!

Erm… that sounds plain filthy. What’s the original Portuguese quote, out of curiosity? If it’s what I’m sort of thinking, maybe “it amused me to write this book” would be… well, less of a bait for gutter-minds like mine.

EDIT - BTW, FWI; if you could also compile a Glulx version, it would mean that I could play your game in iFrotz and still enjoy the graphics, and I’m sure you’d like that.

Just to be clear, that e-mail address does work? I got some kind of odd message from gmail saying my e-mail hasn’t gone through but will keep trying for a couple days.

@Peter Piers: My mastering of the English language might be less than strong, but I don’t see anything filthy in the quote. Anyway, the original Portuguese quote (from “O sumiço da santa”) is:
“Escrevendo-o [este livro], diverti-me; se, com sua leitura, alguém mais se divertir, me darei por satisfeito.”

@Roody_Yoghurt: You are right, the address is wrong (my fault). The right address is luadonacim@writeme.com (I have already edited the original post)

“To amuse oneself” sounds vaguely dirty to me as well, especially with “satisfied” in the same sentence.

I don’t know Portuguese, but my experience from French class is that reflexive verbs seem to be much common in French than they are in English:

English: He brushes his teeth.
French: Il se brosse les dents.
A more word-for-word translation to (broken) English: He brushes himself the teeth.

English: He wakes up.
French: Il se réveille.
A more word-for-word translation to (uncommon) English: He wakes himself.

English: He is having fun.
French: Il s’amuse.
A more word-for-word translation to English: He amuses himself.

If not for the prevalence of the idiom “to pleasure oneself” in English, “to amuse oneself” probably wouldn’t sound dirty. Still, I think we sometimes do say “I amuse myself” in the sense of “I crack myself up, laughing at my own jokes,” which isn’t quite the right meaning either.

Although I have hardly any knowledge of Portuguese, I think a drop-in English replacement for Portuguese “devertir-se” might possibly be “to enjoy oneself” or “to have fun.” Combining this with lua’s translation: “While writing this [book] I had fun; if, in reading it, someone else has fun, I’ll consider myself satisfied.”

I’m interested in beta testing! sounds fun!

If I came across as overly critical, I apologise. I was half joking (the non-joking half is that it did indeed sound naughty to me).

“I had fun writing this book; if someone else has fun reading it, I’ll consider myself satisfied” is how I’d personally do it, which is just as correct as all the other alternatives already mentioned, including your original one. But what can I say? “I amused myself while I was ” sounds naughty and ripe for double-entendres. Well, half-entendres, really, 'cause it’s so obvious.

Says more about me than it does about you, anyway.

EDIT - On a more serious note, I suppose one could nitpick at the notion that “While I was I amused myself” implies possibly two actions; the original action (in this case, writing) and the act of amusement, which may be something else entirely. At least to me, that action strongly implies that the locutor did an action - and while doing that action, they happened to amuse themselves with another occupation.

Anyway. Nitpicking. I’m not criticising, I’m Portuguese myself and make tons of stupid mistakes all the time, but I do have fun with these random little discussions.

EDIT 2 - Another thought. “Writing this book amused me; if reading it amuses someone else, I’ll consider myself satisfied”. Not sure I like it much, but it’s possibly closer to the structure of the original.

I really do find this fascinating, you know. Finding the correct wordsmithing to convey exactly the meaning AND, if possible, the oral rhythm of the quote across languages and cultures (case in point, the “amuse myself” thing was purely cultural, not linguistic).

Oooooh, this is gonna bug me if I let it, better stop now!

I’ve changed, in the original post, the quote that caused so many comments. Hope the new wording won’t cause further misunderstandings.

I understand that so much attention directed towards one quote is a bit disheartening when you have a game looking for beta testers and you want people to reply to that, so I’m sorry to have caused the derail. But rest assured that all the discussion about it was well-meant; in a forum where all the games are all about text, it may even have been inevitable. No misunderstanding arose; just a peculiar interest in wording and translation.

If the graphics aren’t necessary for finishing the game, could you also - at the time of release - consider a .z5 or .z8 release without the graphics? (that is, if you really don’t want to make a Glulx as well)

Let me just explain why I’m bringing this up… Several interpreters lack proper .z6 support, which means that suddenly your game is a lot less portable than you’d like. Specifically, iFrotz plays .z6 games surprisingly well (minus multimedia) but has a strange bug where they don’t get added to the terp’s “playlist”, making it impossible to open the game from within the app itself.

I’m just saying - yours wouldn’t be the first game too ship two versions, one of them being the one you really wanted to make and the other a compatibility fallback. I know you’re not at this stage yet, but I thought I’d bring it up.

Also, have you checked out the stickied link at the top of this board? I’m told it’s still relevant, and the links are still quite active.