The Queen's Footsteps

[8BitAG]

Version 1.0 of Davide Bucci's new text adventure, The Queen's Footsteps, is now available for Spectrum 48K from his website...
http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/index.php ... ge=English

It's the follow up to his 2019 game, Two Days to the Race.

[Kweepa]

This is a really nice atmospheric adventure! Recommended!

[DarwinNE]

Thank you very much, Kweepa and thanks again for the amazing work you did to improve the overall English in the game!

By the way, I'm happy to announce that a physical version is available from Poly.play for the ZX Spectrum, too!

https://www.polyplay.xyz/The-Queens-Foo ... m-Kassette

Here is a preview of the box art:



Of course, you can continue to freely download a digital version from my blog (the site indicated by 8BitAG). As I said in another discussion, feel free to play it, share it with your friends and on online repositories, reverse engineer it. Have fun!

[R-Tape]

Top stuff this. You must have done a lot of research Davide. The plot and setting have a touch of Herge about it. I haven't solved many puzzles yet, but I think I've built up the main map of Genova (and as usual spilled onto another piece of paper).

One thing that's unusual is that I've barely seen the "there is nothing unusual about it" message. Pretty much everything has a detailed description—right down to the horse chestnut trees and porphyry paving stones! I still need to work out if some of the detail, like the description of the pneumatic doorbell, is part of the puzzle or just interesting extras, but that's part of the fun.

Hoping I can make this my 3rd completed text adventure this year (Cripes!).

[DarwinNE]

Thank you very much, R-Tape, I'm glad you enjoy the game!

Indeed, I tried to write evocative descriptions as much as I can. Some details are historical, others are invented, but I had to do some research, indeed. I wrote a page about that: http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/index.php ... ge=English

You have to enter the game passwords to unlock some paragraphs, so not to spoil the story!

[R-Tape]

You have to enter the game passwords to unlock some paragraphs, so not to spoil the story!

Nice touch.

On a couple of occasions I was sure of what I needed to do, but struggled to find the correct phrasing.

Spoiler

variations of "give/use order on employee" didn't work. I ended up typing the longest form:

Spoiler

"give falsified order to employee"

It took me a while to access Rovelli's house:

Spoiler

"examine building 12"

On to part 2!

[R-Tape]

I've reached part 4, but am really floundering now.

If you use the password to access part 4, you have fewer items than if you just continued on from part 3. For example, using password access for part 4, I lose the

Spoiler

crowbar & broken lamp

Is this correct?

[R-Tape]

Completed!

Parts 1, 2 were most enjoyable, as you could explore a larger map with interesting descriptions. The challenges flowed nicely too, and only rarely did I struggle for an idea of what to try next.

Part 4 felt more like a traditional text adventure, in that I was wandering around for ages repeating things, trying absurd combinations of 'command-object-subject' and wondering if I'd done something wrong. However, the solution wasn't so hard in retrospect and it was very short. I think more seasoned text adventurers wouldn't have struggled here at all.

All in all, a great adventure, recommended!

[DarwinNE]

If you use the password to access part 4, you have fewer items than if you just continued on from part 3. For example, using password access for part 4, I lose the

Spoiler

crowbar & broken lamp

Is this correct?

Yes, that will not cause any issue!

Completed!

That's cool! If you want, send me the final password (privately) and I'll add your name to the "hall of fame"

Part 4 felt more like a traditional text adventure, in that I was wandering around for ages repeating things, trying absurd combinations of 'command-object-subject' and wondering if I'd done something wrong. However, the solution wasn't so hard in retrospect and it was very short.

I hope it wasn't too frustrating! In the last puzzle, you must think to something in particular and yes... it's not so difficult, after all

All in all, a great adventure, recommended!

Thank you very much!!! Glad you enjoyed it!

[Kweepa]

If you didn't play Two Days to the Race, that's great too with a similar vibe!

[DarwinNE]

Thank you Kweepa!

If someone is interested to Two Days to the Race, here is the link to the page where you can download it: http://davbucci.chez-alice.fr/index.php ... ge=English

[DarwinNE]

Hi to all!

A little update about the game, I decided to release the full sources of The Queen's Footsteps:

https://github.com/DarwinNE/The-Queen-s-Footsteps/

The way the scripts work expect it to be a submodule of the AWS2C tool, that translates the AWS descriptions into a compilable C source code:

https://github.com/DarwinNE/aws2c

Then, for the Spectrum the game is compiled with the amazing z88dk.