Thanks for the source - I completed the game though didn't realize at first that the vehicle was auto-unloading - at first I thought I was just losing numans somewhere in space :) I now see I was a bad test subject and didn't read the description properly.
I try not to blame players - although it might not show I've already done quite a bit of user testing (esp. with non-coders to make sure it's relatively easy to follow.
In this case, the 'numans' part was the last one I added, in a hurry, and only had 2-3 iterations on this part of the dialog/instructions.
Which goes to show: testing matters, iterations makes things better.
with regards to numan parts, its not creative. just plain code repeat. Get a condition going. like numan and borg where borg will eat numan if numan is less than borg or something
It's merely a setup for a more creative problem which I didn't have time to include. Here's the actual problem: numans have different weights, which incurs a speed penalty on the transport vehicle - numans[i] has a penalty of 2^i - the goal is to write code to carry them all in the minimum possible time (15 units).
For a coder, the numan part is easy and boring and repetitive - then again, it fits with the universe. For a non-coder, it's their first or second encounter with a piece of code that's more than 4 lines long, with a detailed log so that they can go back and forth to see where they went wrong. They have several rules that they need to pay attention to (capacity, 1 passager minimum required, auto-unload, be very precise with station names) - which, again, seems trivial to you as a coder, but isn't to everyone.
There's already so many instructions for this problem, I wanted to add the time penalty part as a second problem, e.g. "your solution would work, but we can't afford to spend N time units on this transfer - (insert additional instructions here)". I'm sure you understand the need for a consistent difficulty curve.
I've forked the repo and I'll help what I could. By the way, I never played much text games. But the existence of the overlord voice and funny lines is something that makes me keeps going.
The source is really fun to read through. I definitely responded 'cataracts' to 'The more you have it, the less you see. What is it?' question and it was cool to see it in your wrongdir category.
Comments
What are the answers? I can't even get past test one.
look in the console log if you're stuck :)
Hey, have the source while you're at it - http://github.com/nddrylliog/thechoice
You only get to experience it once though - once you spoil it for yourself, it's spoiled. Choose carefully.
Thanks for the source - I completed the game though didn't realize at first that the vehicle was auto-unloading - at first I thought I was just losing numans somewhere in space :) I now see I was a bad test subject and didn't read the description properly.
I try not to blame players - although it might not show I've already done quite a bit of user testing (esp. with non-coders to make sure it's relatively easy to follow.
In this case, the 'numans' part was the last one I added, in a hurry, and only had 2-3 iterations on this part of the dialog/instructions.
Which goes to show: testing matters, iterations makes things better.
Thanks for the feedback!
with regards to numan parts, its not creative. just plain code repeat. Get a condition going. like numan and borg where borg will eat numan if numan is less than borg or something
It's merely a setup for a more creative problem which I didn't have time to include. Here's the actual problem: numans have different weights, which incurs a speed penalty on the transport vehicle - numans[i] has a penalty of 2^i - the goal is to write code to carry them all in the minimum possible time (15 units).
For a coder, the numan part is easy and boring and repetitive - then again, it fits with the universe. For a non-coder, it's their first or second encounter with a piece of code that's more than 4 lines long, with a detailed log so that they can go back and forth to see where they went wrong. They have several rules that they need to pay attention to (capacity, 1 passager minimum required, auto-unload, be very precise with station names) - which, again, seems trivial to you as a coder, but isn't to everyone.
There's already so many instructions for this problem, I wanted to add the time penalty part as a second problem, e.g. "your solution would work, but we can't afford to spend N time units on this transfer - (insert additional instructions here)". I'm sure you understand the need for a consistent difficulty curve.
I've forked the repo and I'll help what I could. By the way, I never played much text games. But the existence of the overlord voice and funny lines is something that makes me keeps going.
The source is really fun to read through. I definitely responded 'cataracts' to 'The more you have it, the less you see. What is it?' question and it was cool to see it in your wrongdir category.