new game Gasparillo

[nezumi69]

Brain, your answer is within this post, plus the 2 following it, all at the top of page 2.

ok, in answer to your questions here are some pointers about the objects that I have found so far. Try using as few of these spoilers as possible and you will find the solving of the puzzles more statisfying.

driftwood, green coconut and dead fish - dynamic. move around the beach areas
grubs - under the moss covered log
clam - in the sea to the south of the sharp rock
sharp rock - static (2north and 4east of start location)
rat - in hole under the dead tree
lobster - in a burrow in the reef
small stick - found in the north eastern jungle area, (can be modified to sharpen it)
grass - found on bluff
fruit found in bushes to the south of bluff
pad + battery - found in wreck

there is one weapon of choice for killing any of the wildlife you need to eat and that is your stick. The sea creatures can be baited with a sea based food source that you don't fancy eating and the land based creature can be baited with something that it might eat normally that is found on the land

some problems you can encounter are: lobster and rat hunting are unsuccessful if you don't examine the burrow/hole before baiting them. Also check the readme for the correct verb for how to kill them (also useful for coconut consumption)
Another issue is with the fire-lighting. From the list of objects I'm sure you can work out what can be burnt but make sure to have a look in your inventory and refer to the initial fire-starting material by that name and not any other...If you struggle with the mechanics of fire lighting check the internet for which objects in your inventory you might use to do it. The other bit that took me a while was finding the power source. If you enter the wreck you should notice that something pokes you in the back as you bob against the ceiling of the cabin, I wonder what that is?

[TheBrain]

Brain, your answer is within this post, plus the 2 following it, all at the top of page 2.

ok, in answer to your questions here are some pointers about the objects that I have found so far. Try using as few of these spoilers as possible and you will find the solving of the puzzles more statisfying.

driftwood, green coconut and dead fish - dynamic. move around the beach areas
grubs - under the moss covered log
clam - in the sea to the south of the sharp rock
sharp rock - static (2north and 4east of start location)
rat - in hole under the dead tree
lobster - in a burrow in the reef
small stick - found in the north eastern jungle area, (can be modified to sharpen it)
grass - found on bluff
fruit found in bushes to the south of bluff
pad + battery - found in wreck

there is one weapon of choice for killing any of the wildlife you need to eat and that is your stick. The sea creatures can be baited with a sea based food source that you don't fancy eating and the land based creature can be baited with something that it might eat normally that is found on the land

some problems you can encounter are: lobster and rat hunting are unsuccessful if you don't examine the burrow/hole before baiting them. Also check the readme for the correct verb for how to kill them (also useful for coconut consumption)
Another issue is with the fire-lighting. From the list of objects I'm sure you can work out what can be burnt but make sure to have a look in your inventory and refer to the initial fire-starting material by that name and not any other...If you struggle with the mechanics of fire lighting check the internet for which objects in your inventory you might use to do it. The other bit that took me a while was finding the power source. If you enter the wreck you should notice that something pokes you in the back as you bob against the ceiling of the cabin, I wonder what that is?

I already read those...
Like I said:

I know the grass/tinder is the initial lighting material. The driftwood is the actual fuel for the fire.
Everything in my mind says I need to create heat using friction (i.e. I can't figure out anything to make sparks with). And then from the list in that post I can only see the stick as the thing to use. I can't find anything to make a bow with (i.e. the bow drill from the mythbusters episode). But lamont basically said the stick is not the thing to use... So then what is it?...

[lamont Sanford]

The items you need besides the tinder and driftwood can be found inside the wreck

[nezumi69]

I already read those...
Like I said:

I know the grass/tinder is the initial lighting material. The driftwood is the actual fuel for the fire.
Everything in my mind says I need to create heat using friction (i.e. I can't figure out anything to make sparks with). And then from the list in that post I can only see the stick as the thing to use. I can't find anything to make a bow with (i.e. the bow drill from the mythbusters episode). But lamont basically said the stick is not the thing to use... So then what is it?...

Sorry, I forgot that episode included multiple fire-making methods/materials.

The appropriate method requires a power source and something that will allow conducting electricity by connecting the power source's positive and negative which generates heat. As Lamont stated, both of these are found in the submerged wreck.

[TheBrain]

Well, I finally finished it... Didn't figure out how to go down the cave without dieing, but oh well... (Some spoilers below, didn't feel like using the tag because it makes the text all broken up)

To be completely honest I did not enjoy the game much. It got frustrating really fast. Example: In my first playthrough I found the rat, ate it and died. Ok, fair enough, I kind of expected that to happen. Of course the next thing on my mind is that I need to cook the rat. And then suddenly I found myself incredibly stuck. Finding the driftwood was easy enough and having the stick, friction is the thing that should come to mind imho (I think it's also one of the more well known methods, it's what the guy used in Cast Away, for example). I think the game should've at least included it, either as an alternative, or at the very least as some sort of hint ("You try and you fail, maybe there's something else"). Then moving on from there I would've never figured it out on my own, getting to the wreck was too obscure for me to even notice it. After all, after reading a few area descriptions you just begin skimming, and then you just miss that in this one special case you can also go north... Then inside the wreck the battery is hidden so well that even knowing I needed to find a battery I couldn't find it for ages... The hint towards it seemed too much of a flavour text.

And I'm generally not someone who's bad at puzzles or adventure games... I think in that aspect the game had too little features to help along someone who's getting stuck. What I've seen in other text adventures and found very helpful is making certain keywords bold, indicating that there is indeed something to interact with. It prevents things from getting lost in the flavour text. I also think it makes a game more "honest", tell the player what his options are, tell him where he can go, etc., with being obscure about it. I don't think puzzles should depend purely on that obscurity (for example, not being able to find the wreck, and then the battery, preventing a basic thing as creating a fire).
And if you want to do it perfectly, I'd say to make it an option, so someone who really wants a challenge does not get hints he does not want.
Besides that I believe a game such as this should have at least some way of getting hints. For example by repeatedly examining something, or maybe by adding a "think about" command (I've seen this recently, not sure if it was one of your games). Either way you have to prevent players from getting stuck to the point of annoyance, which more than likely will make them quit your game. Coming to this forum for hints really should not be a part of it.

The second big thing is something I also wrote about Peril in Pleasantville: the passing of time. Once again, after "figuring out" (read: coming here pleading for help...) to make fire, I found little else to do. And then suddenly the days in your game are really long... I spend some time trying to figure out the cave (at one point I saw a pig, randomly I guess...), but after failing that I just went "z,z,z,z,z,z,z", interrupted now and then by drinking a new coconut... While this is probably a fairly accurate depiction of being stranded on an island, for a game it's really unacceptable.
So either the game is too empty, or the days are too long (or indeed, there are too many days). Again, I would think a system where time is driven by events would work a lot better. It could also give more structure to a game, such as saying "day 1, just stranded, I need to find a way to get water and food", "day 2, time to explore more of the island", etc.
After you achieve the goal, you can trigger a little event that would end the day (maybe with a little flavour piece, e.g. the protagonist relaxing on the beach sipping on a coconut by a fire). You could still include time as a factor for failing (starving to death, etc.), but it would eliminate the need to wait until a day is over.

The final thing is the lack of the undo option. I feel like this is telling a player how to play your game, instead of playing it the way he personally likes it. You don't prevent a player from "cheating", save and restore achieves exactly the same thing, but it costs a little more effort and dedication. And it goes along with a rather annoying system of death. For example, as far as I could tell, the shark is totally random and you can't do anything to avoid it or flee. After going through that a few times any player will have figured out to save before going in the water, after all, you might die randomly... Basically you learn to save before doing pretty much anything. And if you die, you restore. Alternatively, with undo enable it would take a few undo's to achieve exactly the same thing, but it is a lot more convenient for the players who wish to use it (and a player who thinks undo'ing is cheating is still welcome to not use it).
Anyway, if you ask me, random deaths and instant deaths are quite lazy game design. And it stands in the way of letting a player explore...

And in the end the erotic part seems a little glued on. It's nice to have a reward, but it would've been so much better if you could've somehow incorporated that in the main game itself. Not even the sex, but just the idea that there is some reward. Example: the protaganist could dream about this girl, probably first thinking "oh well, it's just a dream", then maybe finding some clues on the island that this girl is in fact real. It would make the "story", as far as it's there, so much stronger if the protaganist has a higher goal, i.e. "I want to get off this damn island and find this girl" (who turns out to be the love of his life, because it was all fate and they live happily ever after :P).