Want to help me test my game? Look here!

[dawtsf1187]

So, like many I've seen on these forums, I've chosen C++ as my language of choice and embarked upon the journey of game creation. Now, after months of toil, I have crafted a nifty little text RPG which I have dubbed FutureQuest. I tried posting this on the Beginner's board, but it quickly got washed away by the torrent of homework problems.

I have completed college and I plan to send this game, along with some other design-related things (and of course the the usual resume, cover letter, etc.) to developers as a look-what-I-can-do sort of thing in the hopes that my persistence and creativity will get me an interview. High hopes, I know.

Anyway, I want the game to be the best it can be when I send it, so I ask for your help. Take whatever amount of time you will to play through my game and let me know what you think. I welcome all feedback, great and small. Found a typo? Wonderful, let me know. Have a feature or story suggestion? I'll take it. Want to gripe about my console beeps? That's okay, too. I just want to ensure that I'm sending something that will get positive responses, not negative ones.

FutureQuest is currently on version 2.02 and contains:
-A long-ish story consisting of two complete chapters, with more to come (~1 hour of total gameplay, depending on your reading speed)
-An inventory system with a fair number of items such as weapons, clothing, treasure, and consumables
-A turn-based battle system
-Three playable classes, each with unique text and abilities
-Save/load functionality
-Color
-A card game similar to blackjack
-And much, much more!

You can find the game, along with some helpful documents, here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/n822553uhvvxh48/M1PDSlmuxo

Screenshot of the title screen:
http://imageshack.us/a/img836/9545/screenshotbvw.png

The equipment screen:
http://imageshack.us/a/img204/6303/screenshot2xh.png

The card game, Faces:
http://imageshack.us/a/img43/3934/screenshot3uzg.png

Thanks for your help and enjoy!

[EAUX92yv]

Your game sounds amazing! It's just that the link to it doesn't work. If you can provide a new link, I would happily try your game! Just one question: How did you create the save/load function?

[dawtsf1187]

Thanks for offering to help! That's odd about the link though... it still works for me, even when I'm signed out of Dropbox. Give it another shot, and if it still doesn't work, I'll get the file to you some other way.

Saving simply writes player data out to a text file. Loading reads it in. It gets slightly more complicated because I split data, inventory, and equipment into separate files, and then recently made it so you can have three save files.

[firedraco]

I tried to running it, and the very start is really screwed up. It prints out a ton of weirdly gray boxes that fill the screen and then what appears to be the title screen pops up which is a random arrangement of more gray boxes.

I started the game and the first time I had a command prompt I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to type. All I got was "It's too early to talk about that...try again: " which didn't help me figure out what I was supposed to do.

Also I can try to input arrow keys as my name which the game accepts and seems include moving the cursor as part of the name, causing text to write over itself whenever the name attempts to come up.

EDIT: Also, you should probably give out the source as most people won't run random .exes from the internet.

[dawtsf1187]

Interesting. Did you get any sort of message at startup about your console codepage? My game uses OEM 437 to choose what symbols to display on the screen during some parts of the game (the title screen, any menus, etc.). If you don't have OEM 437 set, it attempts to set it. That you received random symbols seems to suggest that the codepage set did not work for you. What OS are you running it on?

As for what to type, you just enter one of the colored words in the paragraph you just read. I modified the error message to be less confusing.

I tried to replicate inputting arrows for your name and couldn't break it. For me, the arrow keys just select previous console entries. This makes me think that you're having issues that are environment related (which I'd like to know how to fix).

[EAUX92yv]

I got your game to play and it's amazing! I died in the first bear fight, but it was really fun! The weird gray boxes the firedraco mentioned appeared for a second, but didn't stay. You should try to publish this game to a website or something like that. I didn't find any errors, but I didn't last long. Overall, an amazing game that a lot of people could enjoy!

[firedraco]

Interesting. Did you get any sort of message at startup about your console codepage? My game uses OEM 437 to choose what symbols to display on the screen during some parts of the game (the title screen, any menus, etc.). If you don't have OEM 437 set, it attempts to set it. That you received random symbols seems to suggest that the codepage set did not work for you. What OS are you running it on?

As for what to type, you just enter one of the colored words in the paragraph you just read. I modified the error message to be less confusing.

I tried to replicate inputting arrows for your name and couldn't break it. For me, the arrow keys just select previous console entries. This makes me think that you're having issues that are environment related (which I'd like to know how to fix).

No. I think the symbols themselves were fine, they just weren't being drawn correctly. I tried it again with some different window sizes and I think you just didn't put any newlines in your title picture unlike when you were printing out the monologues.

Also, there weren't any colors that I could see. I checked the title screen picture and it seemed like it should be colored, but I guess whatever you were using to draw the colors didn't work.

Upon some more investigation I think the arrows problem is just a thing with Cygwin being weird because I could do it in other programs and they would do basically the same thing (interpret the arrows as text).

[dawtsf1187]

No. I think the symbols themselves were fine, they just weren't being drawn correctly. I tried it again with some different window sizes and I think you just didn't put any newlines in your title picture unlike when you were printing out the monologues.

That could be the problem, then. I was under the impression that the Windows console was 80 characters wide by default (and in fact, when I run the program, I can't stretch the window any wider, even maximizing). If you are somehow running with a wider window, it would mess up the formatting, since one function I have writes at most 80 characters per line and I didn't use this for the title screen.

Also, if you're not seeing colors... I don't know what could cause that. I've only been able to test on a few different computers, but on both XP and Win7, I've been able to see them. If you're running through Cygwin, that could be the problem. You mentioned other programs; could you see color using those?

(Oh, and just to get you through the first conversation, the keywords are "wife", "tonight", and "sock".)

[firedraco]

That could be the problem, then. I was under the impression that the Windows console was 80 characters wide by default (and in fact, when I run the program, I can't stretch the window any wider, even maximizing). If you are somehow running with a wider window, it would mess up the formatting, since one function I have writes at most 80 characters per line and I didn't use this for the title screen.

Yeah, with Cygwin I can make the width be as long as I want.

Also, if you're not seeing colors... I don't know what could cause that. I've only been able to test on a few different computers, but on both XP and Win7, I've been able to see them. If you're running through Cygwin, that could be the problem. You mentioned other programs; could you see color using those?

The Cygwin prompt and stuff are colored fine; the other programs didn't use colors AFAIK.

[Angeljruiz]

Its pretty sweet, i died at the first bear fight as did cstarter2000 :p
I have a question though, how did you display oem 437 characters exactly?

[dawtsf1187]

I have a question though, how did you display oem 437 characters exactly?

Based on what I looked up, the codepage used is system dependent. My computer setup happened to make use of codepage 437. I did something like this in the hopes that I could make symbols display properly for everyone:

if(GetConsoleCP()!=437){//ascertain current codepage and set to 437 if it isn't already

    setcolor(yellow,black);
    cout<<"WARNING: Your current input console codepage is "<<GetConsoleCP()<<"."<<endl;
    cout<<"FutureQuest is designed to work with codepage OEM 437. "<<endl;
    cout<<"Attempting to change codepage to OEM 437..."<<endl;
    SetConsoleCP(437);
    cout<<"New console codepage after attempted fix: "<<GetConsoleCP()<<endl;
    cout<<"If this change did not work, you may see weird symblos."<<endl;
    while(getchar() != '\n');

}
if(GetConsoleOutputCP()!=437){//ascertain current codepage and set to 437 if it isn't already

    setcolor(yellow,black);
    cout<<"WARNING: Your current output console codepage is "<<GetConsoleOutputCP()<<"."<<endl;
    cout<<"FutureQuest is designed to work with codepage OEM 437. "<<endl;
    cout<<"Attempting to change codepage to OEM 437..."<<endl;
    SetConsoleOutputCP(437);
    cout<<"New console codepage after attempted fix: "<<GetConsoleOutputCP()<<endl;
    cout<<"If this change did not work, you may see weird symblos."<<endl;
    while(getchar() != '\n');

}

As for displaying the symbols, I used this:

void superputsymbol (wint_t symbol, int number, concol foreground, concol background){           //prints out number of specified symbols of specified color; uses codepage OEM 437 by default **may not be this on other systems**

int prevfore = textcolor(), prevback = backcolor();      //get current colors

setcolor(foreground,background);        //change color for the symbols

for(int a=1;a<=number;a++){
putwchar(symbol);
}

setcolor(prevfore,prevback);    //return color scheme to what it was originally


}

[BlackSheep]

Very nice game. You obviously put a ton of time into the story and writing.
Although I'm a little sad that my all-stats-100 character got killed after climbing over the wall :P (I may or may not have cheated)

[pogrady]

This was an old school text game where the user had to figure out what to do based on text clues, and the sequence of the selection matters.

I was wondering why there was a large space of nothing after I choose to attack?

[dawtsf1187]

Very nice game. You obviously put a ton of time into the story and writing.
Although I'm a little sad that my all-stats-100 character got killed after climbing over the wall :P (I may or may not have cheated)

Cheater! You are setting a terrible example for your daughter! :P

This was an old school text game where the user had to figure out what to do based on text clues, and the sequence of the selection matters.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. There was another game like this called FutureQuest?

I was wondering why there was a large space of nothing after I choose to attack?

Can you be more specific? What enemy were you fighting? Did any text display after the space? Usually, after you make a selection, 30 newlines are written out to "clear" the screen before new text displays. If you modify the size of your window, you might see more or less text than was intended (but it shouldn't really affect gameplay). Is this what you're seeing?

[pogrady]

Yes that's what i was seeing.

Nice job with the console graphics. Everything is laid out nicely.

I can tell you that after I went to sleep after episode 1 i died.

In the early 1980s they had text based RPGs where you would read the adventure and select clues from the text. I think one that comes to mind was Space Quest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_text-based_computer_games

[dawtsf1187]

Thanks! Yeah, I remember playing text RPGs like this, too. That's sort of what I'm emulating, but I wanted to be sure to create everything myself. And shame on you for giving in to darkness!

[pogrady]

Lol I thought I would heal. It said sleep so I thought heal. And then i died.

[modic]

Really nice

[dawtsf1187]

Thanks! Did you run into any problems? Do you have any suggestions?

[modic]

1 problem. Near after the part where you get kidnapped the first time after defeated the grizzly the very first time, where you appear back to your dream, you can't save.
And, every time i play, i get a message saying Enter Command Number:
Annoying as crap.