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Message: 6070

Author: andrewbroad

Date: 28/02/2007

Subject: Re: playtesting / delta-releases / 'one-to-two' items

 

Daniel wrote:

>
>> I encountered a very nasty, never-before-seen IDS when I took the
>> bottom-right exit from "the dining room has gone dim" [106] to
>> "dark yet welcoming" [30] and was repeatedly killed by an arrow -
>> hardly welcoming!
>
> Well, this is another example of how important repeated playtesting
> it, and that it should be done by various persons!

Or by one person with a compulsion for thoroughness. I always test
all possible exits from Room A (or all possible entrances into
Room B, if you're developing Room B after all the rooms from which it
can be entered). And don't forget to playtest each change after you
make it!

> A philosophical question: if it is December and someone wants badly
> to release the game (s)he is working on with the current year's
> date, is it OK to "gamma-release" it without proper playtesting,
> and then the following year release bug-fixed version(s)?

I would strongly encourage the author to at least be sure that the
game is toilet-completable prior to release. It's not very elegant to
have to release bug-fixes, particularly after the calendar-year of
gamma-release has gone, and particularly when it's already a Special
Edition.

That's why I don't want to delta-release the Special Edition of _Ma
jolite_ just to remove the erroneous comma from the BASIC loader! :-o

It's nice to meet deadlines, and not to let year y pass without
releasing a game. On the other hand, it's thrilling to release the
first game of year y+1.

>> All the room-numbers seem to have changed - was this done to
>> control which rooms do and don't suffer the double-items effect of
>> the 7-bit room-number patch? (not that I really like the
>> term "double-items effect", as it immediately makes me think of
>> The Beach).
>
> Yes, but not only. It was done for two reasons:
>
> - to control which rooms do and don't suffer the double-items
> effect of the 7-bit room-number patch;
>
> - to make the attract mode possible by ensuring that Willy does not
> get killed at any time during the attract mode sequence.
>
> What would you suggest as a better term than "double-items effect"?

Well, it's kind of the opposite of the "double-items effect" of
having two items at the same position (room, coordinates), because
you have one item in two places.

The item-table maps items to positions.
Usually, this mapping is one-to-one.
When you have multiple items at the same position, it's many-to-one.
When you have an item at different positions, it's one-to-many.

So, I would suggest the term "'one-to-many' item" for an item which
appears in multiple positions, and reserve the terms "multiple items",
"double item", "triple item", &c., for items at the same position.

Or, since a 'one-to-many' item can only appear in two different rooms
(because J.G. Harston's extension only adds one bit to the room-
number), you may prefer the term 'one-to-two' item.

Even 'many-to-many' items (i.e. 'many-to-two' items) are possible, no?

--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/
http://geocities.com/andrewbroad/spectrum/willy/

 

 

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