Year 9 - Item 2

Year 9 - Item 2

1. Ideas for Story

   • Add Clues
     • Clues show who the killer is
       • Watch the camera tape.
   • Add Health Counter
     • Health drops if Chucky hists you
       • Starts at 100, and a hit cost 60
   • Add Items
     • Items change how the game ends
       • Scissors let you stab Chucky

2. Existing Text Based Adventure Games

   • Hitchhiker's Guide
     • The game loosely follows the events of the first book. You control Arthur Dent as you try to escape the destruction of Earth alongside your alien friend Ford Prefect, board the Heart of Gold, and solve surreal sci-fi puzzles.
       • Strengths
         • Brilliant Humour: The game features authentic, witty, and absurd writing co-authored by Douglas Adams himself.
         • Immersive Lore: It expands beautifully on the universe of the books, offering unique scenarios for fans.
         • Innovative Text Parser: Infocom's advanced engine allowed for complex text commands and highly reactive gameplay.
         • Memorable "Feelies": The physical physical goodies included in the box provided great copy-protection and world-building.
       • Weaknesses
         • Extreme Difficulty: The puzzles rely on obtuse, trial-and-error logic that can be incredibly frustrating without a guide.
         • Unforgiving Mechanics: You can easily put the game into an unwinnable state early on without realizing it until much later.
         • Inventory Limitations: Rigid limits on what you can carry force tedious item-management and backtracking.
         • Abrupt Ending: The game ends somewhat suddenly on a cliffhanger, as it was originally intended to be a trilogy.
   • Zork
     • Zork I is an iconic 1980 text adventure game where you play a nameless adventurer exploring the ruins of the Great Underground Empire. Your simple goal is to find 19 hidden treasures, dodge monsters like the invisible Grue, and bring the loot back to a trophy case inside a mysterious white house.
       • Strenghts
         • Revolutionary Parser: It debuted the famous 5-word parser. For the first time, players could type complex sentences like "TAKE ALL BUT THE RUG" or "KILL TROLL WITH SWORD" rather than clunky 2-word inputs.
         • Atmospheric World-Building: It relies entirely on the player's imagination, using rich, evocative textual descriptions to bring the ancient ruins and underground rivers to life.
         • Pioneering Organic Puzzles: It introduced foundational adventure game puzzles—like sliding a piece of paper under a locked door to catch a falling key—that became industry standards.
         • Replayability & Non-Linearity: The map is open and largely non-linear. If you get stuck on one puzzle, you can wander off to a completely different corner of the empire to hunt for other treasures.
       • Weaknesses
         • Bare-Bones Narrative: Unlike Hitchhiker's, there is almost no plot. Your sole motivation is pure greed: enter a dungeon, hoard 20 treasures in a trophy case, and don't die.
         • Labyrinthine Navigation: The game features confusing, non-Euclidean map layouts. Going East into a room doesn't mean going West will take you back, making manual paper-and-pencil mapping mandatory.
         • The "Grue" & Light Source Limits: Step into a dark room without a light source, and you will be instantly eaten by an invisible monster (a Grue). Managing your brass lantern's finite battery life adds stressful, tedious resource management.
         • RNG Combat Mechanics: Unlike the puzzle-focused Hitchhiker's, Zork features real-time randomized combat with a Thief and a Troll. It is entirely possible to lose a playthrough simply due to a string of bad dice rolls.

3. Algorithm Constructs

   • Iteration
     • The process of repeatedly executing a block of code or accessing the items of an iterable (like a list, tuple, or dictionary) one at a time
       • while health > 0:
   • Selection & Conditions
     • Core control flow features that allow a program to make decisions and execute specific blocks of code based on whether a particular logical statement evaluates to True or False.
       • if choice == '1': enter_room()
   • Assignment
     • Binds a name (variable) to an object in memory
       • health = 100
   • Sequence
     • An ordered collection of objects where each item has an integer position, or index, that defines its place in the container.
       • print('Start') -> choice = input('Choose')
   • Modularisation
     • The process of breaking down a large, complex system into smaller, independent, and interchangeable parts called modules
       • # calculator.py def add_numbers(x, y): return x + y

4. Code Constructs

   • IF Statement
     • A control flow statement that executes a block of code only if a specified condition evaluates to True.
       • IF temperature > 30 THEN OUTPUT "It is a hot day." END IF
   • FOR Loop
     • A control flow statement used to repeatedly execute a block of code by iterating over a sequence or any iterable object.
       • FOR counter = 1 TO 5 OUTPUT "The current number is ", counter NEXT counter
   • Print ( )
     • A built-in function that outputs specified messages, variables, or other objects to the standard output device.
       • print("Hi")
   • Input ( )
     • A built-in function used to gather text input from the user via the console or command line.
       • input("Where live?")
   • While Loop
     • A control flow statement used to repeatedly execute a block of code a minute long as a specific condition remains True.
       • while user_guess != secret_password: user_guess = input("Enter the password to enter: ")

5. Success Criteria

   • 10 different variables in total
     • Use 10 or more different variables in the code
     • Each one stores something different (health, gold, Etc).
     • All variables are useful in the story.
   • Two choices for each input (IE. Yes | No, Left | Right, Buy | Sell)
     • Every question has two options.
     • Only accepts 1 or 2, asks again if anything else is typed.
     • Tested both options on every question.
   • Use a WHILE loop
     • Main game runs inside a while loop.
     • Loop stops when the game ends.
     • Tested that it ends after both winning and losing
   • Use variables that match your storyline
     • Variable names fit the story (torch, key, dragon).
     • Values Change based on what the player does.
     • Health, gold and days left are shown to the player.
   • The game must be quick, clear and easy follow for my user persona (James), who wants a short, solo Among Us-style experience.
     • Short sentences and simple words
     • Game finishes in about 5 minutes
     • Has clues and a vote so James gets the “find the impostor” feeling