Superluminal Vagrant Twin

Hi!

So I’ve made a reasonably large (broad but shallow is how I’d put it) parser game set in space. It’s called Superluminal Vagrant Twin, and you can play it here on itch.io.

(There’s a download link for the .gblorb story file on the left-hand side - I will be uploading the story file to the IF Archive eventually.)

Galactic-sized thanks to my fourteen beta testers, each of whom left an indelible mark on this game. None of them have seen this very latest version, and any remaining bugs or issues are entirely my own fault. Post here and let me know if you find any problems (spoiler tags would be nice).

Hurrah!

As one of the said beta-testers, I’d just like to chime in - this game was fantastic. A wonderful sense of space (in every sense).

Wonderful game! I also enjoy the css styling.

So, I read this post and clicked through, thinking that I’d give the game a brief look.

Several hours later…

Still need to find Natalya.

Edit: Figured it out shortly after posting this and reached the ending. Very nicely done.

Having lots of fun with this. Thanks.

Yay! I won’t make vlaviano’s mistake, since I don’t have time tonight, but I’ll definitely check this out soon. I love Pacian games!

I played this. I love this. Thank you. I think it might already be one of my all-time favorites.

I can’t find the cats! Can anyone help? (Or Natalya, for that matter)

General hint:

You’ve been discovering new destinations as the game has mentioned them. Can you infer the existence of any unmentioned destinations?

More explicit hints courtesy of Szymon:

“Some people say that humanity originated on Pearl, but I ain’t got time for that nonsense. Everyone knows we came from… uh… ya know, that planet. I forget the name…”

“Ya know, I wonder why they call it Source 3?”

“Terrible shame about ERX Beta being left alone like that, ain’t it? Maybe when it’s finished grieving it’ll be able to make another ERX…”

Comment on puzzle design (mild Curses and Hadean Lands spoilers):

Cf. inventing rituals in Hadean Lands and looking up Meldrews in the history book in Curses. This is a tried and true puzzle pattern where one is collecting pieces of information and must infer the existence of one that isn’t explicitly given based on the ones that are. I usually feel clever when I make that kind of leap, so I think it’s an effective pattern.

Thanks! I, uh, forgot a planet. Now done!

hi, need some hints?

i’ve got two buyers i can’t satisfy with the items i have:

Potential Buyers:
pressure chief (Surface of Jarland) – wants something to go around sealing gaps
xDreamQueenx (Surface of Xanadu) – wants a story

Cargo:
a Martian gem, a crystallised idle fancy and some confidential research

any ideas? thanks!

Thanks, everyone. :slight_smile:

First vague hint:

You can actually sell one of the things you have to one of those buyers.

More specifically:

xDreamQueenx

Very specifically:

Sell the idle fancy to xDreamQueenx.

For the other one, some hints for the world with the thing on:

Very generally:

If Szymon keeps mentioning a world, it means there’s someone or something there that will tell you of a world you haven’t been to yet.

With increasing specificity:

While you’re on Xanadu, read the description carefully.

Specifically the “lone hyperspace conduit to Hub”.

Hub is a world you can visit.

Once you get there (or if you’ve already found it):

You need what Onlycheapdroids is selling.

Hope this helps!

Fantastic game; I greatly enjoyed it!

The worldbuilding was excellent, and there were a lot of great lines as I would expect from you, but this one is probably my favorite:

>talk to soldier
“Cyborgs to the left of us, bioroids to the right. The Commonwealth’s the only place left where you can find true humans.” Her gills swell with suppressed rage.

Well, it was short, but it was a lot of fun. I’m torn on whether or not I like the minimalist style; a big part of science fiction is the … vague mention of a massive universe just out of the corner of your eye, much bigger than the plot can cover; but even so, I think I would’ve liked more detail on some things - decompressionism, in particular, sounds hilarious.

Other than that, I can’t help but think of the lady and gentleman on that one Imago planet as the pair from Bioshock.

In general, well done. Now I’m going to go back figure out how to get into the Hardshell the expensive way.

it did, thanks! last lousy question… is the martian gem of any use?

The game suggests selling it to a merchant, so that’s what I did. When I saw that the merchant offered it back for sale, I suspected that the game was giving me an opportunity to retrieve it because it would be useful elsewhere. However, I never found any other use for it.

Decompressionism? That’s totally passé now; why would you waste time learning about that?

You can actually sell any item you want (except implants) to a merchant, and they’ll let you buy it back (at an increased price).

“Quest” items will only fetch a few creds, but there are a couple of objects in the game with a very high value that you can obtain for free (more or less) and which are worth selling to merchants. That item is one of them.

I think I’m responsible for this:

“How did you get the money?” your twin asks. “You must have got around. Seen some things.”

You tell your twin how you didn’t really do anything special…

“Nothing?” your twin says. “Well that’s an achievement in itself, I guess.”

You shrug.

Hoping one of you spaceway pioneers might be able to give this null-g desperado a hint: how does one win the orbital race? Best I can manage is third.

There are several ship upgrades available. But I can’t remember where, off the top of my head! Keep exploring.

First things first, as ausgerechnet says above, exploration is the solution to everything. As long as:

Szymon keeps pointing you towards worlds you’ve heard of[/spoiler]
…that means there are other worlds still to find.

If you want more specific help, though, I’ve spoiler tagged a bunch of ROT13’d hints.

Paste them into the box at http://rot13.com to read them.

They get increasingly more specific, so paste them one at a time if you want.

[spoiler]Read this one first:

  • Zbfg enpvat fcrrq hctenqrf obbfg lbhe cynpr va gur enpr ol 1, ohg bar cbjreshy bar obbfgf lbh gjb jubyr cynprf!

If that seems like what you’re missing, look at block A. If you’ve found that already, look at block B.

HINT BLOCK A:

  • Guvf bar vfa’g obhtug, ohg lbh svaq vg ylvat nebhaq fbzrjurer.
  • Vg’f va n eryngviryl sne syhat ybpngvba. Fmlzba zvtug cbvag lbh gurer vs lbh unira’g orra gurer lrg.
  • Guvf vf n ybpngvba gung fbzr zvtug fnl vf rkbgvp, bguref zvtug fnl vf zber cebfnvp.
  • Be rira pybfr gb ubzr.
  • Yvxr va gur Fbyne Flfgrz.
  • Fcrpvsvpnyyl Arcghar.
  • WHZC GB Arcghar, YNAQ, GNXR gur shfvba qevir

HINT BLOCK B:

  • Gur ybjre cbjrerq enpvat obbfgref ner nyy fbyq ol zrepunagf.
  • Zrepunagf ner yvfgrq va gur genqvat ybt, bapr lbh’ir sbhaq gurz.
  • Fmlzba fubhyq oht lbh vs lbh unira’g sbhaq gur jbeyqf gurl’er ba.
  • Fcrpvsvpnyyl gurer vf: Zngrw ba Pltarg, Sbab-U ba Xbygfbi naq Tevzb ba Whaxohpxrg.

Let me know if that helps or not!

Edited to Add:

You sure are, you crazy diamond. :slight_smile: