intfiction.org

"The White Bull" is now ready for the first round of testing. It's playable from beginning to end, but a few things (notably more NPC conversations) remain to be implemented. It will be entered in this year's Spring Thing, so there's a deadline, though the deadline is still a couple of months off.

I need two or three industrious and fiendishly clever testers to pound on the game and force it to reveal how slipshod my coding is.

This is a medium-sized, fairly cruel game, entirely serious in tone. It includes built-in hints, which are mostly complete ... but if you're determined not to use the hints, a knowledge of Greek mythology will prove very useful at two or three points. About 60 rooms, about 20 puzzles (some easy, some harrowingly difficult), eight or nine NPCs with whom to interact.

It's a TADS 3.1 game, so you'll need QTads (cross-platform, available for download).

Interested? Got a few hours of free time? If so, please email me ... midiguru23 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net.

Bump.

A number of issues have been fixed, and much more NPC interaction is now implemented. Also, the latest build has seven music cues (which makes for an 11mb download, but these days that's nothing).

I very much need to enlist two or three more testers, as one or two of the people who initially volunteered are turning out to be busy doing other things. I'm not complaining, because I have no claim on volunteers! I'm just saying, there's still work to be done.

If you're interested, please drop me a message.

My experience in the past with testing has been that the latter part of a game doesn't get as thorough a wringing-out as the first part, so I plan to make a "cheat code" available to testers that will bypass the first part of the game instantly, so that the second part can receive its fair share of abuse. (The second part is probably more fun, as well....)

"The White Bull" has now been put through its paces by a crackerjack team of fiendish testers, and I'm pretty sure all of the major problems have been ironed out. The design is 100% complete, as are the hints. It has chatty NPCs, grave dangers, and a music soundtrack.

Even after the testing that has been done, there could easily be four or five nasty little problems still lurking in the code. I would love to have one more industrious volunteer step forward and try to break the game before the Spring Thing deadline, which is now a mere four weeks away. If that's you, please email me (midiguru23 [at] sbcglobal [dot] net) or PM me in this forum.

Thankin' you muchly in advance!