[Group Play 11] Madaline's Misplaced Miscellany

[Auro-Cyanide]

Group Play is a weekly event in which one game is selected to be promoted within the forums to be played by us as a group. It provides an opportunity to promote some smaller games that would otherwise get lost, promote discussion and promote creativity. This isn't just about the creators of the games, but also us as a community. It acts as a way for us to analyse work as creative people and for us to develop the necessary critical language to develop and pursue our work.



This week's game is "Madaline's Misplaced Miscellany" by OokamiKasumi!

You can find links to the game here: Madaline's Misplaced Miscellany



There are some rules to follow in the following discussion about the game.

- In your primary comment on the game, please try to mention one thing you liked and one thing you think could be improved. This is in the spirit of giving both encouraging and helpful comments to the creators. You may of course go beyond this with praise or critique. I can't enforce this rule, I'll just silently judge you.

- Please try to do one play-through or enough of the game to develop a solid opinion. Some things can be commented on early on, but things like plot might be best left until you finish the game.

- There is no rule as to whether you post here only or in the completed game topic. Feel free to do as you like. This is just a space to discuss this game while playing it at the same time as others.

- Please try to think about the game play as a whole, as well as the different parts that make up the game.

- Please be respectful to the game and creator. You don't have to like a game, but you should be respectful to the effort.

- Please follow the forum rules.



If you would like to make your own suggestions and haven't already, please feel free to PM them to me.

These are the current guidelines for suggestions:

- Anyone can send me 3 games (VN, KN Sim, whatever, just from these forums or related to) that they think are worth playing by PM.
- There can only be three suggestions per person and if a game gets suggested multiple times, they still only get one draw.
- You may suggest your own games.
- For now they must not be 18+, just because we want to encourage everyone to join first up. If it goes well, maybe something can be arranged for the big kids.
- Please try to make sure the game is short (around a max of 30,000 words). It isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's easier to make time for smaller games and it will give this a greater chance of success.
- They must be free and preferably available on all 3 platforms, again for easy access.

And with that, let the games begin!

[Taleweaver]

Ooh, I've already played that one! Very enjoyable, especially considering I like hidden object games anyway! The story was a bit lukewarm, but then again, most other HOGs have even less of it, so it was really delightful to see something like that done it Ren'Py.

The greatest asset this game has is art. Absolutely beautiful; almost up-to-par with some commercial HOGs I've seen. Difficulty's alright; if there's anything that could be improved, it's the plot. Something more than a mere reason for searching would have been fantastic here; maybe something for the next game...?

[Applegate]

So... it's a Hidden Object Game and not a Visual Novel? I'm not terribly interested in trying something that isn't a Visual Novel, so I'll give this week's Group Play a miss.

[OokamiKasumi]

Ooh, I've already played that one! Very enjoyable, especially considering I like hidden object games anyway! The story was a bit lukewarm, but then again, most other HOGs have even less of it, so it was really delightful to see something like that done in Ren'Py.

The greatest asset this game has is art. Absolutely beautiful; almost up-to-par with some commercial HOGs I've seen. Difficulty's alright; if there's anything that could be improved, it's the plot. Something more than a mere reason for searching would have been fantastic here; maybe something for the next game...?

Thank you! I'm thrilled you liked the art. (Each room took roughly two days to make! One to clean and prep all the objects, and another to create the room itself, and make all the objects look like they actually belonged there.)

Yes, the plot was weak. I just couldn't come up with a solid reason for the player to search all those rooms, never mind a Story to wrap around that reason. I'm open to ideas?

[Arelune]

I'm not fan of hidden objects games either, but this is Groups Play! Forcing myself to consider stuff I wouldn't otherwise think of is one of its purposes for me.

I can't say much about gameplay itself. It wasn't that difficult. Most things, some were pretty well blended in. Had to google a few words because I didn't know what you meant. That's just my vocabulary that's lacking.
I really liked the music, though I had more the feeling like I was listening to a seperate track than to the game track.
My favourite art piece was the girl.
The lists could have been better organised. When there are a lot of objects it starts getting not easily accesible. Maybe a vertical list might have been better? Or something to seperate the items that's easier to distinguish than a comma?
Can I say I dislike the font used for ''Madeline's Misplaced Miscellany', it's just so wiggly and...meh.

One thing really annoyed me though. I had all the items and so I thought I just had to click somewhere to continue, but nooo! I click and it suddenly says I had too many wrongs. Had to do the room again. ;_;

So many gumballs btw. Yeah, I know I sometimes notice the dumbest things.

[OokamiKasumi]

Notes to self for next game:
-- Add hidden object game to an actual Story with a plot.
-- Make game wider to fit Vertical list...
-- Just because I like a font doesn't mean anyone else will. Sigh...
-- Make "All Objects Found" button much larger.
-- Add more gumballs, and butterflies.

[Sharm]

Plot was a bit thin, I would really love to play one of these games that had a really solid plot. Loved the artwork and how well placed the items were. It felt like you really were looking around a room with real clutter, not just a bunch of items placed on top of the real image. I found the words to describe the items annoying, I don't really want to know the names of all those types of butterflies, when looking for "illumination" I tried to find an illuminated manuscript, and I had troubles finding the landscape because it had a house in it (and therefore wasn't a landscape). Overall it was a fun little distraction.

OokamiKasumi, if you want some ideas for a plot: Detective story where each "room" is a crime scene and you're looking for clues. A child helping out other children find missing toys. A story where you're the new hire at a bakery and have to find the ingredients in the pantry/fridge within a time limit to rise in the ranks. There's an outbreak of some horrible disease and you have to track down all the items that carry the infection. A simple child's game where you find all the blue items or all the things with wheels (not a plot, but I haven't seen it done). I'm sure I could come up with more, if you need them.

[OokamiKasumi]

Plot was a bit thin, I would really love to play one of these games that had a really solid plot.

I'd like to make one with a really solid plot.

Loved the artwork and how well placed the items were. It felt like you really were looking around a room with real clutter, not just a bunch of items placed on top of the real image.

Yay! (Good to know that I did something right.)

I found the words to describe the items annoying, I don't really want to know the names of all those types of butterflies, when looking for "illumination" I tried to find an illuminated manuscript, and I had troubles finding the landscape because it had a house in it (and therefore wasn't a landscape).

Good. That was supposed to add to the difficulty of play.

Overall it was a fun little distraction.

I'm glad you had fun.

OokamiKasumi, if you want some ideas for a plot:
Detective story where each "room" is a crime scene and you're looking for clues.

Excellent idea! Which is why it's been been done before -- a lot, and by professionals.
-- Detective games

A story where you're the new hire at a bakery and have to find the ingredients in the pantry/fridge within a time limit to rise in the ranks.

If I actually knew how to cook, or in this case; bake, this might actually be interesting!

There's an outbreak of some horrible disease and you have to track down all the items that carry the infection.

Ooo... This one has real potential because it could be part of a survival horror VN.

• A child helping out other children find missing toys.
• A simple child's game where you find all the blue items or all the things with wheels (not a plot, but I haven't seen it done).

Can't do kid's games. Seriously. I'm an author of over 30 Adult books -- of the R-18 variety. It would look highly suspicious.

I'm sure I could come up with more, if you need them?

I'm willing to listen to any ideas.

[Arelune]

-- Make game wider to fit Vertical list...

Well it doesn't have to be vertical. It could also be something like this Ugh, ugly handwriting. :

-- Just because I like a font doesn't mean anyone else will. Sigh...

Sorry, that was just some personal preferences. ^^'

-- Make "All Objects Found" button much larger.

I just didn't know I had to click ON it. I thought it was just a message.

-- Add more gumballs, and butterflies.

Gumballs! <3

I'm willing to listen to any ideas.

You're a mage, but you're not much of an organised person. You must find the ingredients for the spells people ask you. In between there would be cutscenes with the mage performing the spell and the consequenses. Say for example a love spell. This can then go horribly wrong and you need to do a reverse spell. And at the end there could be a siege and the mage must battle, so there would be epic fights and a ticking clock for the spells.
Or something along those lines.
I don't think it's actually that hard to put more plot in it. You've just got to have something for between the object seeking.

[SusanTheCat]

I love this game.

Compared to some Hidden Object games I've played, this one at least had a premise behind the objects.

And it had a cat, so I'm happy. =^!^=

The artwork is breathtakingly awesome!

I found the list a little hard to read, but I think that is my skewed colour vision.

I am in the process of updating the code so that you don't see the whole list at once. I also want to add a means to have multiple of the same item (e.g. Letter x 10)

My idea for a HO game would be a Victorian girl love story. Then there would be: Getting ready for a party, working on a sampler, cleaning the house before his visit, preparing him a meal, piece together his love letter that your sibling ripped up, find book in library, find his calling card on a tray, sort kittens... (Ok, that last one is just me)

Susan

[Auro-Cyanide]

First up... sweet mother of god those images are gorgeous! Not only in the filtering of them, but also the way you arranged them in the background and made them all fit. Excellent work!

I think the list would work better at the bottom maybe, since we are used to looking down there. However, something like a hover pull down would be even better since the player could pull it up when they needed to and it can hide away for the rest of the time. More technical programming though (that I don't know how to do... >_>)

I play a lot of more mainstream games as well as VNs, so I love being able to do things. I think this kind of system has great potential to help tell stories. I think that the best way to approach it is to give meaning to the mechanics. Give reasons for people finding what they were finding and use those items and the places people find them to help tell the story. Using the same premise as this game, imagine if the items you found helped tell the story of the person who had lived there. It could be a great way to deliver a backstory through the actual gameplay and have people put the pieces together in their heads. This would require more work of course, but I think it could be a very interesting way for people to use choices to see the story. Kind of like in Portal 2 where you can find hidden rooms that told a story without anyone saying a word.

I really enjoyed the game, but most of all I am delighted by the potential in it. Great job (and please keep making those beautiful images!)

[OokamiKasumi]

-- Make game wider to fit Vertical list...

Well it doesn't have to be vertical. It could also be something like this Ugh, ugly handwriting.

Unfortunately my coding choices are vbox OR hbox. I have no clue how to make two rows of something in an hbox -- yet.

I just didn't know I had to click ON it. I thought it was just a message.

Ah... So I need to make the "All Objects Found" bigger and make it look like a Button.

You're a mage, but you're not much of an organized person. You must find the ingredients for the spells people ask you. In between there would be cut-scenes with the mage performing the spell and the consequences. Say for example a love spell. This can then go horribly wrong and you need to do a reverse spell. And at the end there could be a siege and the mage must battle, so there would be epic fights and a ticking clock for the spells. Or something along those lines.

I don't think it's actually that hard to put more plot in it. You've just got to have something for between the object seeking.

Building a plot around a quest game is harder than it looks -- especially when you Don't want to give the whole plot away on the first page.

That mage concept is very interesting. I've done extensive research in magic and myths, plus I have a large image library of medieval backgrounds, so it's actually within my capabilities!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I love this game.

You should -- it's your code!!!

Compared to some Hidden Object games I've played, this one at least had a premise behind the objects.

And it had a cat, so I'm happy. =^!^=

I love kitties. Seriously. Believe it or not, I almost named the cat 'Susan'. In my next hidden object game I will have a cat named Susan.

The artwork is breathtakingly awesome!

Thank you so much!

I found the list a little hard to read, but I think that is my skewed colour vision.

Actually, it IS hard to read. I made this game before Aleema made her tutorial. At the time, I had no clue how to change the text colors. I do now!

I am in the process of updating the code so that you don't see the whole list at once...

Oh, this way I could make the list with more items!

I also want to add a means to have multiple of the same item (e.g. Letter x 10)

Ooooo...! Need more BUTTERFLIES! (And gumballs.)

My idea for a HO game would be a Victorian girl love story. Then there would be: Getting ready for a party, working on a sampler, cleaning the house before his visit, preparing him a meal, piece together his love letter that your sibling ripped up, find book in library, find his calling card on a tray, sort kittens... (Ok, that last one is just me)
-- Susan

Damn, I wish I'd had that idea from the beginning! Though to do it right, the sheer amount of graphics would be MASSIVE.

Just so you know, the original idea of the game WAS a kitten hunt! Each successfully cleared room yielded one kitten, and then you had to find the mother cat. But at the time, I couldn't figure out how to code it so that each kitten would appear in the room when found. I do now!

Kitten-Hunt concept art

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First up... sweet mother of god those images are gorgeous! Not only in the filtering of them, but also the way you arranged them in the background and made them all fit. Excellent work!

Thank you so much! I'm not very good at digital drawing without an image to work from, but I can Photoshop!

I think the list would work better at the bottom maybe, since we are used to looking down there.

I did consider it, but at the time I didn't know how to code it to fit in the space without overlapping the Hint button.

However, something like a hover pull down would be even better since the player could pull it up when they needed to and it can hide away for the rest of the time. More technical programming though (that I don't know how to do... >_>)

Me neither.

I play a lot of more mainstream games as well as VNs, so I love being able to do things. I think this kind of system has great potential to help tell stories. I think that the best way to approach it is to give meaning to the mechanics. Give reasons for people finding what they were finding and use those items and the places people find them to help tell the story. Using the same premise as this game, imagine if the items you found helped tell the story of the person who had lived there.

That was actually what I was trying to do, but my coding skills were extremely limited at the time. This was only the third game I'd ever made, and I was still having trouble wrapping my mind around how to use a Game to tell a Story.

It could be a great way to deliver a back-story through the actual game-play and have people put the pieces together in their heads. This would require more work of course, but I think it could be a very interesting way for people to use choices to see the story. Kind of like in Portal 2 where you can find hidden rooms that told a story without anyone saying a word.

Hmmm... Maybe I need to play this Portal to see how they did it?

I really enjoyed the game, but most of all I am delighted by the potential in it. Great job (and please keep making those beautiful images!)

Susan the Cat really knocked herself out creating this code. All I did was add images and suggest a Hint button and a click-penalty. Susan did all the real work -- for which I am truly grateful.

[Sapphi]

I haven't played this yet, but I wanted to put in an idea for a premise.

An adorable but starving street thief is recruited by a mysterious organization to steal things. You play the street thief, and you have to break into government buildings and rich people's mansions to steal the requested objects. You have a time limit on the levels before somebody busts in and catches you.

The objects are all seemingly random, but in the end, you find out that they are all being used for a horrible, plot twisty secret. Insert the secret of your choice

[Arowana]

I have to echo what everyone said already said about the beautiful art! As someone who has been trying to make hidden object photomanips for their own VN (clue collecting detective story), I have a great deal of respect for what you’ve accomplished here. It’s ridiculously hard to find images that match your background, especially in terms of perspective, and I really admire how well you’ve pulled it off here. If only I had your level of skill, haha.

For all that’s being said about the lack of plot, the mystery surrounding the woman was enough to keep me playing, and I thought the ending was cute. Since the main draw of the game was the hidden object gameplay, I didn’t really mind that the story was relegated to the background. I do think the kitten hunt idea would be adorable, though.

Some various things:

The hint system was a cool idea! Maybe you could add a counter to show your remaining hints in the future?

As mentioned above, some of the terms being used for the objects were rather strange (like “illumination” for the lamp, “reflection” for the mirror, etc.) Perhaps you were trying to increase the difficulty, but I did find it a bit odd.

In the image gallery, the pictures were all clustered together instead of spaced out.

I would have preferred the objects in the list to be grouped or alphabetized. I would just be like “okay, I see a squirrel…is there a squirrel in the list? Hold on, I have to read it…crap, the time limit…no!” Then again, it didn’t seem like the time limit had any repercussions, so maybe I panicked for nothing lol.

In that vein, did the times mean anything, or was it just for your own knowledge? For your future games, maybe it would be interesting to get a ranking based on your time, or perhaps extra hints or other bonuses for finishing faster/making fewer mistakes?

Unfortunately my coding choices are vbox OR hbox. I have no clue how to make two rows of something in an hbox -- yet.

I think you can just put vboxes in an hbox? Like:

Code: Select all

hbox:
    vbox:
        …
    vbox:
        …

There's also grid, but I think you have to fill up all the grid spaces, which can be annoying.

[OokamiKasumi]

I haven't played this yet, but I wanted to put in an idea for a premise.

An adorable but starving street thief is recruited by a mysterious organization to steal things. You play the street thief, and you have to break into government buildings and rich people's mansions to steal the requested objects. You have a time limit on the levels before somebody busts in and catches you.

The objects are all seemingly random, but in the end, you find out that they are all being used for a horrible, plot twisty secret. Insert the secret of your choice

Ooo... That's a fantastic idea! Especially if one makes it a SteamPunk adventure where all the pieces collected end up creating some sort of interesting Machine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have to echo what everyone said already said about the beautiful art! As someone who has been trying to make hidden object photomanips for their own VN (clue collecting detective story), I have a great deal of respect for what you’ve accomplished here. It’s ridiculously hard to find images that match your background, especially in terms of perspective, and I really admire how well you’ve pulled it off here. If only I had your level of skill, haha.

Finally, someone who understands just how much work goes into making the graphics for one of these! Each room took 2 whole days to create and decorate -- and there were only 9 of them. I can't imagine how many rooms your game needs.

For all that’s being said about the lack of plot, the mystery surrounding the woman was enough to keep me playing, and I thought the ending was cute. Since the main draw of the game was the hidden object game-play, I didn’t really mind that the story was relegated to the background.

Aww... Thank you, so much!

For those of you who only played the game when I first posted it, a few weeks after that, I did adjust the game to have a bit more story.

I do think the kitten hunt idea would be adorable, though.

I definitely have to put one in my next game.

Some various things:
The hint system was a cool idea! Maybe you could add a counter to show your remaining hints in the future?

I think the original code counted down the hints. I'll have to go back and see if I can find a way to reintroduce that without it being on a text-button.

As mentioned above, some of the terms being used for the objects were rather strange (like “illumination” for the lamp, “reflection” for the mirror, etc.) Perhaps you were trying to increase the difficulty, but I did find it a bit odd.

Some of the professional games do this. That's where I got the idea.

In the image gallery, the pictures were all clustered together instead of spaced out.

[whine]I didn't know how to fix this, at the time. [/whine] I do now!

I would have preferred the objects in the list to be grouped or alphabetized. I would just be like “okay, I see a squirrel…is there a squirrel in the list? Hold on, I have to read it…crap, the time limit…no!”

I don't know how to code either one. Also, I'm not sure I want to do that. The game is already too easy to play.

... it didn’t seem like the time limit had any repercussions, so maybe I panicked for nothing lol. In that vein, did the times mean anything, or was it just for your own knowledge?

I still don't know how to code the time limit to actually do anything beyond tell you how much time it takes to clear a room. (SusanTheCat -- help?)

For your future games, maybe it would be interesting to get a ranking based on your time, or perhaps extra hints or other bonuses for finishing faster/making fewer mistakes?

Excellent ideas! However, as I said before. I have no clue how to code the timer to actually make it useful.

Unfortunately my coding choices are vbox OR hbox. I have no clue how to make two rows of something in an hbox -- yet.

I think you can just put vboxes in an hbox? Like:

Code: Select all

hbox:
    vbox:
        …
    vbox:
        …

There's also grid, but I think you have to fill up all the grid spaces, which can be annoying.

Very annoying when there are anywhere from 20 to 35 options per room.

This is the specific piece of code that has to be adjusted to change the way the item list looks. Line 4 in particular:

Code: Select all

    def display_items_overlay():
        if showitems:
            ui.frame(id="obj_list")
            ui.hbox(id="display_hbox",spacing=5,box_wrap = True)
            for index,i in enumerate(hidden_items):
                inventory_prefix = ""
                inventory_suffix = ""
                item_name = i.name
                item_state = i.found
                if item_state == True:
                    inventory_prefix = "{s}"
                    inventory_suffix = "{/s}"
                item_text = inventory_prefix+item_name+inventory_suffix
                item_index = "object_%d" % (index)
                ui.text(item_text,id=item_index)
            ui.close()
    config.overlay_functions.append(display_items_overlay)