Peril in Pleasantville

[Squeeky]

I made a crude map but there isn't a walkthrough thread created for this game - should I start one?

I suggest that you might consult withHey Chief.(see comment at the link)

[ltpika]

I've never made it to the end of spin the bottle with emily. On the last turn the message "you must remove an article of clothing" is missing. When I play tested I tried all the variables I could think of, one at a time. I went with and without ecstasy. I picked her up at 6, 6:30, 7 and 7:06. I tried to spin and have her keep her clothes on the whole time. I tried using different verbs in spinning the bottle: "spin bottle" "spin empty bottle" "spin the bottle" "spin the empty bottle."

Since most people are not reporting this issue, it must have to do with the verbs...we all pick different ones, based on what occurs to us first. Now that a lot of people have played I must ask the people who have never had a problem with the scene:

What command do you use to spin the bottle?
What command do you use to remove each article of clothing? (i.e. what do you call the shirt, shorts, underwear, etc.)

I just figured it out. The problem happens if you ask Emily about the party on Friday. If you ask her about the party on Thursday, it works.

Dude, you are a life saver.

[lamont Sanford]

I've never made it to the end of spin the bottle with emily. On the last turn the message "you must remove an article of clothing" is missing. When I play tested I tried all the variables I could think of, one at a time. I went with and without ecstasy. I picked her up at 6, 6:30, 7 and 7:06. I tried to spin and have her keep her clothes on the whole time. I tried using different verbs in spinning the bottle: "spin bottle" "spin empty bottle" "spin the bottle" "spin the empty bottle."

Since most people are not reporting this issue, it must have to do with the verbs...we all pick different ones, based on what occurs to us first. Now that a lot of people have played I must ask the people who have never had a problem with the scene:

What command do you use to spin the bottle?
What command do you use to remove each article of clothing? (i.e. what do you call the shirt, shorts, underwear, etc.)

I just figured it out. The problem happens if you ask Emily about the party on Friday. If you ask her about the party on Thursday, it works.

Dude, you are a life saver.

Hmm thats so weird, I am not in the mood to sift through a bazillion lines of code right now but I am curious what I did to cause that. Anyway good catch.

[lamont Sanford]

First puzzle of my new game is mostly done woohoo.

[Dolphin-BR]

First puzzle of my new game is mostly done woohoo.

Great news!
After finishing "Peril in Pleasantville", I'll play it again to explore the other options. I wanna see this picnic that didn't happen on my first gameplay.

CONGRATULATIONS!!! "Peril in Pleasantville" is a very good game!

[Henrik]

i love the game, lamont, but would you be open to having some proof-reading and text-cleanup done on the game?

[lamont Sanford]

i love the game, lamont, but would you be open to having some proof-reading and text-cleanup done on the game?

You volunteering? I am a shitty typer/speller and when your dealing with hundreds of thousands of words there will me mistakes and in my case alot of them.

[Henrik]

i love the game, lamont, but would you be open to having some proof-reading and text-cleanup done on the game?

You volunteering? I am a shitty typer/speller and when your dealing with hundreds of thousands of words there will me mistakes and in my case alot of them.

i am indeed volunteering. be happy to do the first bit of the game and let you see what you think, and if it works for you i'll bang out the rest.

[outrider9]

PiP is like an uncut diamond; it's got so much potential

[lamont Sanford]

i love the game, lamont, but would you be open to having some proof-reading and text-cleanup done on the game?

You volunteering? I am a shitty typer/speller and when your dealing with hundreds of thousands of words there will me mistakes and in my case alot of them.

i am indeed volunteering. be happy to do the first bit of the game and let you see what you think, and if it works for you i'll bang out the rest.

When my new things is ready for testing I will get in touch. It probably wont be that long since it is short and sweet.

[fensome7]

Will the sexual encounters be discriptive in this new game lamont, or will it just be pictures like in PiP?
I would much prefer to see a descriptive encounter as apose to a slideshow of pictures if possible, but of course as your the author go with what you want to do. I understand its a chore and it takes up quite some time, but it really does make the games a bit more enjoyable in my opinion.

[lamont Sanford]

Will the sexual encounters be discriptive in this new game lamont, or will it just be pictures like in PiP?
I would much prefer to see a descriptive encounter as apose to a slideshow of pictures if possible, but of course as your the author go with what you want to do. I understand its a chore and it takes up quite some time, but it really does make the games a bit more enjoyable in my opinion.

The game will be in the same general ballpark as pip playwise. Less pictures than pip because that shit was ridiculous lol. The game is going to be more light in nature and substance as pip just a quick thing to kill some time for a little while. I have an idea for a more substantial project down the road but for now I am working on this game which if all goes well should be the start of a (goofy) series.

[TheBrain]

I can't believe this thread is already on page 19 before I played it enough to get an informed opinion. A lot has already been said, so I'll mostly try to say some new things. I quite agree with the comparison to an uncut diamond. In its essence there's potential, but a lot of it is obscured by the rough edges. But I spent many hours playing it and I think that's a good indicator of an enjoyable game.

I think the thing that bothered me the most was the time management. I found myself typing z,z,z,z,z over and over to progress, and it seemed there was little to do to fill that time other than waiting. Eventually this was one of the major factors in not trying to figure out all encounters (something which I've done this in all Goblinboys games, almost compulsively). I would prefer if time was more event-driven, so you don't have to wait insane amounts of time just to get to a date, but also that there isn't a time limit on certain situations, such as Maggie's party (a subtle "bug" occurs if you start the party late, Emily will leave almost immediately).
Additionally, I think having secret events based on time made them so obscure I would've never found them without the posts in this thread. While on the subject, there are more things I found easy to miss, such as the cheerleader practice (and consequently some scenes with Becky), or for example the bathroom at the cinema (admittedly this is not a major location, but still: money and a hint). There's a fine balance between letting the player explore and taking his hand all the way, but I believe a game should be "honest" about where you can go and where you might expect events. This goes hand in hand with not making the world too large, I think the layout of areas in this game could've been a little bit more tweaked to reduce the amount of travelling.

Then there's the amount of pictures, in certain scenes the amount of pictures almost made it look like a stop motion animation, with very little difference between the images. I think this is unnecessary, if there's a handjob we get the idea that the hand would be moving, we don't need two images to illustrate that. On top of that the images are guided by text. While I have a visual mind, and definitely appreciate images, a lot of it also just plays out in the brain, mixing text, images and context into an illusion of it all actually happening. The brain can fill in gaps not covered by images and vice versa can create a story from an image. So not all of it has to be explicit and the amount of images could've been a lot less in many situations. I'd keep a rule of thumb to include maybe one or two images per unique "event" (e.g. a blowjob, fucking, etc.), then add images for specific actions, such as examining a girl (which I think is quite nice if it includes images, but that was actually done, so I'm not complaining ).

Finally there's the story. As has already been mentioned the alien storyline is suddenly forced upon us at the end. Before that we're mostly playing sort of a dating game inspired by SD3, that ends at the party and then it's just a linear game to the end. It feels like two very distinct separate parts. I'd much rather have seen the storyline intertwined with the dating aspect. What are the aliens doing there in the first place? It could've been some deviant scheme involving sex and mind control or something (image peeking through the fence at night to see Becky probed by an alien, just an example :P). It also opens up some routes for branching, making a choice between pursuing the main storyline or a girl at some point could influence where the story is going (and what girl you end up with).

All in all I think lamont may have aimed a bit too large with the whole game. A bit of polish in the gameplay, story and overall execution would've been easier had the game been smaller and I think it would've helped a lot in the enjoyment of the players.

[outrider9]

Another thing which I think is of immense importance in these games is how the NPCs' reactions to questions change depending on events. For example, I really liked how in SD3 asking Molly about Becky at different stages elicited different responses from her (ranging from "oh, she's your girlfriend, sigh" to "well, have you broken up with her yet?")

I think it's one of those things that can really make a difference with a very little effort: it makes a game much more engaging and the characters lifelike, and it doesn't cost a lot to implement in terms of effort.

But, again, thank you for an enjoyable game; you rock!

[kessie8yl]

While not being as averse to extra illustrations (particularly of encounters) I otherwise agree with TheBrain in just about everything he says.

Before I go any further I appreciate this game is not the product of some large software house - however the standard of games being produced by hobbyists has continued to rise almost month by month. I am sure this is at least partly the result of the kind of input the better developers can pick up from places like the lagoon, so please understand that any perceived criticism is unintentional.

If the game engine decrees that we are to sit through every lesson they could be made a little more entertaining by including a few more incidents like the girl showing her panties when she dozed off? Maybe this would be the ideal time for other characters to sneak hero messages to our hero that might get him to certain places at certain times?

At the moment the whole classroom thing reminds me of the "good old days" when text adventures would be padded out by various mazes that served no purpose other than to make the game take longer to complete. Thinking back to the even more distant past when I was a similar age, I remember a certain teacher crossing her legs was guaranteed to result in sounds resembling a small war as every boy in the classroom "accidentally" dropped a pencil, ruler, etc on the floor and had to bend their heads almost to ground level to pick them up If there is no way to advance the clock and skip through to the end of the lessons the hero could also spend some time daydreaming, remembering past incidents or just imagining a classmate naked, etc. I don't think this would add to the game though - we just seem to spend too long doing nothing productive in class.

With the one major exception, the whole MILF aspect seems to have been overlooked. Not only don't we fantasise about our teacher but we can't check out our friend's mothers. It shouldn't be a stretch of the imagination that the MILF encounter he has in the game might make our hero more likely to take a closer look at the older ladies from then on, even if he didn't pay much attention before. I was a little surprised by this, given that he is apparently so horny we need at least 3 views of every schoolgirl.

I totally and absolutely agree with TheBrain about time-dependant incidents. These are always a pain in the rear and the constant z,z,z,z, through lessons is a deterrent to revisiting the game in an attempt to play through each scenario. This is even greater when playing Part 2 without the aid of the walkthroughs that give you all the variables. For the most part you have no idea some of these options even exist. Even with the walkthroughs the number of permutations of five variables makes it very much a case of hit or miss - and you still have to sit through all the lessons in Part 2 over and over again. I even wonder if the walkthroughs have found all the possible endings...

I also agree about the aliens thing. In fact that is very similar to the "James Bond" scenario I was talking about in the other thread - A subject is mentioned a few times during the game that has no bearing at all on Part 1 and only seems to be there to explain why the ending of a totally different game has been tacked on to Part 2.

As I said - please don't get me wrong. PiP is still a very good game. If this is Lamont's first attempt I hope to be at the head of the queue for the next one. This may be a rough diamond but there are many signs of the potential for a real gem.