Christminster [GDR 1995-08-08a] is a text adventure game. This article lists all the defects discovered in the game during play-testing before the first public release, and in each of the four public releases to date.
My purpose in writing this article is threefold:
To provide authors of adventure games with a good idea of the scale of the testing and debugging task ahead of them, and of the kinds of errors they will find.
To provide data that can be used by game developers to improve the quality of their games, and by library developers to reduce the opportunities to introduce defects.
To encourage other authors of adventure games to record their experience of testing and debugging games.
Christminster went through these stages of development:
Initial development lasted from about 1994-05 to 1995-05. The code has 13,000 lines of Inform source code and about 40,000 words of text.
In 1995-05 I asked Graham Nelson, Michael Kinyon and Robert Dickau to test the game. Over the next two months they made about 280 bug reports and suggestions, almost all of which I acted on.
Graham was best at improving the style and suggesting improvements to the atmosphere and the language; Michael was best at finding nonsensical responses and bugs; and Robert was best at finding gaps in the world model. They made an excellent team.
By 1995-07 my testers had worked over the whole game and I had made many changes, some quite extensive. The biggest changes were the confrontation with Jarboe on the stairs at the end (279), the cat Turmeric (217), and evensong in the Chapel (75). I needed some fresh eyes to have another look over the whole game, so I appealed on the newsgroup rec.games.int-fiction. Simon Brind, Chris Goedde, Brendon Wyber, Bernard Hsuing and Steve Salter responded, and made a further 40 bug reports and suggestions.
By the end of 1995-07 I was happy and released the game. Bug reports immediately came in by e-mail. I had made one major change as a result of the second round of testing: Edward could walk about on his own initiative (296). Not surprisingly, several major bugs were found in the hasty implementation, for example 344. I made a second release very soon after the first [GDR 1995-08-08b].
Bug reports and suggestions flooded in from generous players of the game (thank you to everyone who e-mailed me with a bug; see section 5). Nothing was so severe as to need an immediate bug-fix release, so I waited and accumulated fixes. Eventually it became clear that the first puzzle was much too hard for many players, and this was preventing them getting on to the more interesting parts of the game. So I added thorough hints for the first puzzle, and made release 3 in 1995-11.
By the end of 1996, the volume of bug reports had tailed off dramatically. Probably this meant that players had moved on to other games. I made release 4, with 85 changes, in 1996-11 [GDR 1996-11-22].
There has been very little feedback since then (that’s partly because the e-mail address in the game ceased to forward mail to me in 1999, as Graham Nelson predicted in bug 110). Also, a new release will be tricky because to be confident that the new release will work in the same way as the old, and that no defects have been introduced by changes to the compiler and library, I’ll need to use the same versions that I used to make release 4.
I have some advice for authors of games based on my experience with Christminster.
Put off testing until you think the game is finished. There’s a diminishing returns effect as testing continues, as the testers get tired or come to the conclusion. So if you add features during testing then they won’t be tested effectively.
However, I suggest an early look at the shape of the whole game with one experienced reader, to look for plot holes and areas which are under-implemented. If like me you started at the beginning and worked forward through the plot then later sections will be weaker than the earlier ones, simply through having had less time spent on them. So it’s important to get someone to look at the end of the game as early as you can.
Spend plenty of time on testing. Testing of Christminster took three months and perhaps should have taken longer. Release when the rate of bug reports is falling off, not according to schedule.
Listen to your testers, especially if they ask you to change things you like. Playtesters are representatives of your intended audience. Even if you decide not to do what they say (and that’s your prerogative as the author) then there’s no point in arguing or justifying yourself: your game will have to justify itself. A good tester can make a great difference to the quality of a game if you’ll let them.
This categorization of defects is inspired by Knuth’s in “The errors of TeX” [Knuth 1989]. Knuth’s categories aren’t a useful way of analyzing defects in adventure games: in the development of TeX, most of the defects were programming errors, but adventure games are literature, not tools, and so the majority of defects are requests for enhancement of usability, clarity, style, and enjoyment.
So I’ve analyzed the errors of Christminster using the categories in the following table:
| A | Algorithm is awry (100, 102, 246). |
| B | Botch or blunder. An essential piece of data is missing, such as the “static” attribute on pieces of furniture (11), or map directions not lining up (225). |
| D | Data defect. Some data structure or flag was not kept consistent with the state of the world (15, 35, 47). |
| E | Entertainment enhancement. A request for new objects, places or complex behaviours to be added to the game (75, 279, 296). |
| G | Grammar. An action is hard to express because the grammar needed to do so is missing (85, 447, 472). |
| I | Interactive improvement. A new (141) or improved (392) response is needed for some input. Distinct from T in that programming is needed rather than just editing text, distinct from W in that no interesting interaction with the world model is required. |
| M | Module mismatch. Incorrect use of the interface to a component (92). Typical example is failing to return the right value from a “before” routine in Inform (449). |
| P | Promotion of portability. A feature isn’t portable to some intepreters (346, 446) or platforms (424). |
| S | Surprising scenario. Two pieces of the world model, each correct in themselves, interacted in an unexpected way when put together (339, 348, 387). |
| T | Text transgression. Something is wrong with the text produced by the game, running the gamut from typographical errors (234), punctuation errors (122), poor grammar, awkward phrasing (135) to lack of detail (185), factual errors (170), anachronisms in speech (144) and weak characterization (239). Essentially, anything a copy-editor could tell you to do from reading a transcript, and which requires no programming to fix. |
| V | Vocabulary variation. A word should refer to an object but doesn’t (38, 62), or two objects with similar vocabulary are hard to distinguish (139, 399, 412). |
| W | World model is weak. Some response doesn’t take account of some existing aspect of the world model (455), or some aspect of the world is not modelled (99). Distinct from I in that the code needed to fix the defect must interact with the world model. |
Number of defects discovered by category and release
| Category | A | B | D | E | G | I | M | P | S | T | V | W | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-release | 10 | 2 | 22 | 21 | 19 | 93 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 54 | 20 | 44 | 293 |
| Release 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 25 |
| Release 2 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 26 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 4 | 12 | 85 |
| Release 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 30 |
| Total | 19 | 4 | 30 | 25 | 28 | 130 | 6 | 6 | 18 | 79 | 26 | 65 | 436 |
The table in sections 4.1 to 4.5 lists defects found in Christminster, from the start of play-testing to the present day. The columns of the table are: defect number; reporter’s initials (see section 5); description of the defect (with my analysis, if any, in italics); category (see section 3); date fixed.
4.1. Defects found during pre-release testing |
||||
| 1 | MK | In Biblioll Street, “yes” → “(to the parrot) ...”. (The DefaultTalk action selects any animate object in the location.) | S | 1995-05-27 |
| 2 | MK | The Busker shouldn’t show you the cup if you’ve just looked under it. | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 3 | MK | Busker redoes his trick with last trick object (e.g., the telegram) if you wait for him rather than giving him an object. (He’s supposed to use a marble in this case.) | D | 1995-05-27 |
| 4 | MK | If you look under a cup at the earliest possible turn then the busker’s next comment ("Look under a cup") is out of place. | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 5 | MK | You can’t give the map to the busker. | D | 1995-05-27 |
| 6 | MK | “ask constable for helmet” → no reply. | I | 1995-05-27 |
| 7 | MK | When the constable says “Lovely day!” the reply “yes” seems appropriate, but this gets a lame response. | I | 1995-05-27 |
| 8 | MK | “get all from y” doesn’t work. (My library hack was at fault.) | A | 1995-05-27 |
| 9 | MK | Respond to “show cobble to constable”. | I | 1995-05-27 |
| 10 | MK | “give key to porter” → “Who do you mean, the ring of keys or the brass key?” (Bug in the Inform parser; fixed in library release 5/12.) | A | 1995-10-15 |
| 11 | MK | Cabinet is portable. | B | 1995-05-27 |
| 12 | MK | If Edward is asked about things about which he does not know after he has seen the feather, the response “He’s obviously very distressed...” seems inappropriate. Even something like “I don’t know about that” would be better. (This is a misunderstanding on MK’s part, perhaps best addresses by giving Edward more responses so that this message comes up less often.) | N | - |
| 13 | MK | “ask master about malcolm” → “That’s all very well,” says the Master, “but anyone could tell me that. Can’t you show me some proof?” | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 14 | MK | If Edward is led into Biblioll Street, he should react to the broken window. | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 15 | RD | When you give the telegram to the busker, it stays in your inventory when it should go under the cup. | D | 1995-05-27 |
| 16 | RD | It isn’t clear how you can see the key that the don is lying on, but not slip it out from underneath. (Attached it to him with some string.) | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 17 | RD | “objects” → “toffee (lost)”. When it’s held by the constable or the busker, “(given away)” would be more appropriate. | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 18 | RD | You end up with two “note”s in your inventory and no obvious way to tell them apart. | V | 1995-05-27 |
| 19 | RD | In “B” staircase, second floor, add scenery word “ladder”. | V | 1995-05-27 |
| 20 | RD | In the response “Edward doesn’t seem to hear you”, “hear” doesn’t seem right. (Substituted “notice”.) | T | 1995-05-27 |
| 21 | RD | In Malcolm’s bedroom, add grammar “look out window”. | G | 1995-05-27 |
| 22 | RD | If you knock on Wilderspin’s door (B2), ask him about Arkwright, then immediately go northwest, you get “Professor Wilderspin says...” even though he’s not present. | W | 1995-05-27 |
| 23 | RD | TelephoneDaemon is confused as to which of states 1,2 is Jarboe and which is Bungay. | D | 1995-05-27 |
| 24 | RD | If Edward is with you, he should react when you knock on his door and when you look in his pigeonhole. | W | 1995-05-29 |
| 25 | RD | You should be able to close the door to Malcolm’s study from the inside. | W | 1995-05-29 |
| 26 | RD | It isn’t obvious from the descriptions when the door to the Second Court is open and when it is closed. | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 27 | RD | In darkness, attaching the power pack to the voltmeter gives you a message about the reading on the latter, even thought you can’t see it. | W | 1995-05-29 |
| 28 | RD | The hatch isn’t consistent - sometimes its open and you can’t go through it, sometimes you can go through it while the cellars are dark, sometimes Edward follows you (into darkness). | D | 1995-05-29 |
| 29 | RD | “put tears on altar” → “An interesting idea. The altar is closed.” | W | 1995-05-29 |
| 30 | RD | “go east” should work in the punt. | M | 1995-05-29 |
| 31 | GN | Add grammer “time” (standard in many games for “what is the time?”). | G | 1995-05-29 |
| 33 | GN | The table is described twice at Bridge Street. | D | 1995-05-29 |
| 34 | GN | “candy” is an Americanism. (Changed to “toffee”.) | T | 1995-05-29 |
| 35 | GN | Having got the policeman to take part in the trick, I let the trick finish because it was fun to watch, and now he’s eaten the candy and is following me again - if I didn’t know how this puzzle worked, I’d be really stuck. (Allow another cobblestone to be found if this happens so that at least you’re not permanently stuck.) | D | 1995-05-29 |
| 36 | GN | Add responses for “give/show map to policeman”. Perhaps he might look at the map, and annoyingly tell you how to get to the front gate of the college (which you already know). | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 37 | GN | “tickle man” should give a better response. (No. The response “What do you want to tickle that with?” is a valuable clue to this rather surprising action.) | N | - |
| 38 | GN | Add vocabulary “copper”, “peeler”, “bobby” to constable. | V | 1995-05-29 |
| 39 | GN | When the don arrives, the text “‘You there!’ he shouts at you” is displayed. But the constable’s arrival message may precede him, so that “he shouts at you” is ambiguous. (Changed to “the don shouts at you”.) | T | 1995-05-29 |
| 40 | MK | It’s unclear that you have to give the bag to the busker (he says he wants objects like coins, watches etc). | T | 1995-05-29 |
| 41 | MK | Edward’s default response suggests that he doesn’t want to speak to you at all until you’ve shown him the feather. (This is a result of the same misunderstanding as report 12.) | N | - |
| 42 | RD | Make it clearer that the eyes in the fireplace pop back out. | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 43 | RD | Add vocabulary “griffins”. | V | 1995-05-29 |
| 44 | RD | Add responses for “put book in fireplace” and “put book in river”. | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 45 | RD | Edward comments on Bible even when he’s not there. | W | 1995-05-29 |
| 46 | RD | When escaping from Bungay’s study through the window, perhaps a message of relief would be appropriate ("You’ve escaped -- and just barely!"). | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 46a | RD | You should be able to refer to Bungay’s study window when in the garden. | V | 1995-05-29 |
| 47 | RD | Edward doesn’t seem to move about properly after his meeting with Bungay: he seems to remain in Bungay’s hallway even though the description suggests he has gone. | D | 1995-06-03 |
| 48 | RD | “feel gum” → “Don’t be silly!” etc. But it’s a sensible thing to want to do. | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 49 | RD | In the secret room, you see twice: “I wish you’d figure out what you want me to do,” Wilderspin grumbles, “I don’t think I can carry you for ever.” | D | 1995-05-29 |
| 50 | RD | In the Secret room, with the skeleton and bench, the error message “** Error: Wilderspin doing something bizarre **” appears. | D | 1995-05-29 |
| 51 | MK | Add grammar “point to key”. | G | 1995-05-29 |
| 52 | MK | Allow “jump through window” in Malcolm’s bedroom. (No; I don’t think it’s in character for Christabel to kill herself.) | N | - |
| 53 | GN | You don’t know your own surname. That’s ludicrous! | I | 1995-10-15 |
| 54 | GN | Add responses to “porter, where is malcolm” or “porter, where is he”. (The Master is just as annoying.) | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 55 | GN | In “A” staircase, ground floor, add directory “north” (same as “up”). | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 56 | GN | Use capitalised location short-names (e.g., “Master’s Lodge” rather than “Master’s lodge”), as uncapitalised ones look too much like incomplete sentences. | T | 1995-05-29 |
| 57 | GN | The Master lives in a “Lodgings”, the porters in a “Lodge” (such is the practice at Magdalen College Oxford, anyway). | T | 1995-05-29 |
| 58 | GN | Allow “in” when the Master’s maid opened the door to the lodge (since in this one case “in” is unambiguous). | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 59 | GN | Allow “kiss master” - this might have been a plausible thing for a young lady to do to a nice helpful respectable old chap in the 50s. (And indeed in his 50s.) | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 60 | GN | More description needed in the staircase rooms: the carbolic scent of cleaning, the view out over the roofs from a small window, the feeling that you don’t quite belong here, must be the very essence of Cambridge, sorry, Christminster. | I | 1995-05-29 |
| 61 | GN | Add response for “look under door” (library door). | I | 1995-05-31 |
| 62 | GN | Add vocabulary “bricks” for “brickwork”. | V | 1995-05-31 |
| 63 | GN | Can you work the phrase “sporting one’s oak” into the game somewhere? This is to do with when one’s outer and inner doors are open or shut, and has certain connotations. | T | 1995-06-02 |
| 64 | GN | Why does the voltmeter have only one terminal, the clip? Surely it measures potential difference? | T | 1995-06-10 |
| 65 | GN | Add response for “put voltmeter clip on power pack”. | I | 1995-05-31 |
| 66 | GN | Add grammar “shake hands with <person>”. | G | 1995-05-31 |
| 67 | GN | When Edward said, “Who could have done such a terrible thing?”, I tried to confess: “edward, me” and “edward, it was me”. | W | 1995-05-31 |
| 68 | GN | Allow Edward to be calld “ed”? | V | 1995-05-31 |
| 69 | GN | Make “smell” on its own smell the appropriate object in some rooms, for example in First Court make “smell” produce the same response as “smell wistaria”. | M | 1995-05-31 |
| 70 | GN | “edward, pull bell” doesn’t work. | I | 1995-05-31 |
| 71 | GN | The porter is unimpressed by being shown a map of the College. Now one thing porters do react to is people who are lost. | I | 1995-06-02 |
| 72 | GN | This being the 1950s, Edward would have been strictly forbidden from having a female visitor in his rooms - perhaps this might make an amusing rejoinder to “edward, east” at the top of the second floor of B. | I | 1995-05-31 |
| 73 | GN | Perhaps you might change the library message of “You hear nothing unexpected” to, oh, “Christminster is so restfully still on a Sunday”? | I | 1995-05-31 |
| 74 | GN | The analogous archway at Magdalen is a war memorial, a rather moving long tablet of names and regiments along both walls. | E | 1995-05-31 |
| 75 | EKC | Evensong should take place in chapel. You should need to to be wearing a hat to get in. | E | 1995-06-03 |
| 76 | EKC | The college needs a coat of arms. | E | 1995-06-02 |
| 77 | EKC | There should be college plate at high table. | E | 1995-06-02 |
| 78 | GDR | The Master doesn’t talk to you when you enter his study. | D | 1995-06-02 |
| 79 | GDR | Respond to “ask master for arkwright” and “ask master for books”. | I | 1995-06-02 |
| 80 | GDR | Add a “History of the Meldrews (vol. III)”. | E | 1995-06-02 |
| 81 | GDR | Add hiccups if you drink too much alcohol (cured by drinking water). | E | 1995-06-02 |
| 82 | MK | Jarboe and Bungay ask me to leave but then won’t let me leave. | W | 1995-06-02 |
| 83 | MK | It is possible to get ahead of Bungay and so arrive at his room before he does. | S | 1995-06-02 |
| 84 | MK | The response “You leave the pole behind in the punt for the next person who comes this way.” is odd if you’re not in the punt. | D | 1995-06-02 |
| 85 | MK | Add grammar “look up 143 in arkwright”, “read page 143 in arkwright”. | G | 1995-06-02 |
| 86 | MK | The response to “ask master about wilderspin” makes no sense if you have not already asked the Master for Arkwright (which I had not done, so I did not know what book was meant). | W | 1995-06-02 |
| 87 | MK | You can knock at Bungay’s door before he arrives. | W | 1995-06-02 |
| 88 | MK | “give/show lab book to bungay” should be more disastrous than it is. (No. This to supposed to indicate that he’s not as observant as Jarboe.) | N | - |
| 89 | MK | The initial description of Bungay’s study should mention the window. | T | 1995-06-03 |
| 90 | MK | The sequence of conversation between Bungay and Edward should continue even if you just stand in the hallway and wait. It only seems to proceed if you keep typing “look”. | W | 1995-06-03 |
| 91 | MK | There should be an appropriate response if you knock on Bungay’s door when Edward’s in there. | W | 1995-06-03 |
| 92 | RD | “sit on floor” escapes from the secret room. | M | 1995-06-03 |
| 93 | RD | The Master should perhaps say something other than “You’ve convinced me...” when shown different books. | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 94 | GDR | Trap “go north” in Bungay’s Study. | M | 1995-06-03 |
| 95 | RD | After escaping the secret rooms, Wilderspin’s fireplace still indicates the exit through the fireplace is there, when it’s not. | D | 1995-06-03 |
| 96 | GDR | Shouldn’t be able to walk on the lawn. | I | 1995-06-03 |
| 97 | EKC | The college needs a flag. | E | 1995-06-03 |
| 98 | GDR | Remove connection between the Gardens and West Bank. | D | 1995-06-05 |
| 99 | MK | If you take Edward to his supervision immediately after you meet him, then he still talks about having to go to his supervision. | W | 1995-05-04 |
| 100 | RD | “You observe that two wires (one green, one red and one blue) are plugged into the blue socket.” (This is a bug in the list writer in the Inform library. When “WORKFLAG_BIT” is set in the parameters to “WriteListFrom”, the list writer lists only items with the “workflag” attribute at depth 0 (meaning depth in the object tree), and all items at depth > 0. The list writer has a “depth” parameter which is also used for the level of indentation, so that “inventory tall” lists can be output with the correct indentation. Normally depth in the object tree is the same as the indentation level, so it doesn’t matter that the list writer uses one variable for both. But the “list together” feature means that a set of objects that list together may be at depth 0 in the object tree, where the “WORKFLAG_BIT” rule applies and they are counted (hence the “two wires” in the text), but at indentation level 1, where the “WORKFLAG_BIT” rule is mistakenly not applied. The fix is simple: track object depth and indentation depth separately.) | A | 1995-10-17 |
| 101 | RD | Add response for “get parrot” when it’s on Edward’s shoulder. | W | 1995-10-17 |
| 102 | RD | “fill retort with water” → “** Error: object out of place: water store **” | A | 1995-06-05 |
| 103 | RD | Missing new-line after “examine retort” → “... It contains some cloudy water.” | T | 1995-06-05 |
| 104 | RD | “fill bottle with water” → “But the brown glass bottle already contains a nothing.” | A | 1995-06-05 |
| 105 | RD | “put water in retort” → “You don’t want to go losing things in the river, do you?” | A | 1995-06-05 |
| 106 | GN | Add response for “look up master in men of biblioll”. | I | 1995-06-05 |
| 107 | GN | I tried to thank the Master for the invite, but couldn’t. | G | 1995-06-05 |
| 108 | GN | Could the Master say “Always good to see you” rather than “Nice to have met you” on subsequent departures? | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 109 | GN | The porter is unimpressed by being shown the ticket to the feast. I had hoped he might unlock the door to the second court. (No. That’s not the puzzle I had in mind.) | N | - |
| 110 | GN | Consider not putting an e-mail address into the help, since these games will lurk on bulletin boards forever. There are still copies of Curses Release 7 out there that I occasionally hear of. (I believe that the short-term benefits outweighed the long-term problems.) | T | 2002-01-05 |
| 111 | GN | “The cleaning ladies” are mentioned when smelling in B basement. It would be witty to invent a name for these, along the lines of “bedder” or “scout”. Perhaps “dusties” has the right precious, somewhat patronising ring to it? | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 112 | GN | In the 1950s everyone smoked. Perhaps the Master might offer you a cigarette? (Which, being a delicate young thing, etc., etc.) (No. I’d have to supply matches and then players would wander round setting fire to everything!) | N | - |
| 113 | GN | “take all from cabinet” unplugs the plugs from the sockets. But that’s surely not what I intended. (Exempt the wires from “take all” using “ChooseObjects”.) | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 114 | GN | The “you can see a cabinet, in which are...” message is unhelpful when trying to discover which wire is in which socket. Also “examine wires” doesn’t tell you this either. | I | 1995-06-05 |
| 115 | GN | When you attach the voltmeter to something, you should discover the reading immediately. You shouldn’t have to “examine voltmeter” separately. | I | 1995-06-05 |
| 116 | GN | Add grammar “hang up phone”. | G | 1995-06-05 |
| 117 | GN | Add response for “put phone on <thing>”. | I | 1995-06-05 |
| 118 | GN | The College was founded in 1275, but you say it is 700 years old. | T | 1995-06-05 |
| 119 | GN | “look through door” might do something interesting at the 2nd court door, through which chinks of light can be seen. | I | 1995-06-05 |
| 120 | GN | I was hopeful of finding something under the name of Spencer (or perhaps of Baskeyfield) in the library card-index: in most colleges, fellows are morally obliged to give copies of all their books to the library. (No. Spencer is a young fellow and all his work so far has appeared in journals. Baskeyfield hasn’t written any books.) | N | - |
| 121 | GN | Does the Master not have a lodge pigeonhole? (No. After all, he doesn’t at Christ’s. Anyway, this would require some more tedious special cases in the pigeonhole code.) | N | - |
| 122 | GN | The text “‘You must help me to find my parrot,’ pleads Edward, ‘Just tell....’” is wrongly punctuated; the second comma should be a full stop. This slight grammatical misdemeanour recurs in Edward’s dialogue. (In fact this error appears at least 173 times in the game text, but it’s easy to fix.) | T | 1995-06-05 |
| 122a | GN | Surely a history student like Edward should be impressed by seeing “Men of Biblioll”? | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 123 | GN | Wilderspin is unresponsive. “ask wilderspin about edward” might be nice? (No, Wilderspin’s unresponsiveness is a puzzle.) | N | - |
| 124 | GN | I am slightly annoyed that “Men of Biblioll” has been not even entertaining yet, since apart from Biblioll himself absolutely no proper nouns have been revealed yet - despite being all over first court. Couldn’t there be a discreet statue somewhere, or something like that? A “Bloggs Room”? (No. This would be misleading: it would look like a clue but be irrelevant.) | N | - |
| 125 | RD | “open cabinet” → “You open the cabinet, revealing three pair of sockets...” (should be “pairs”). | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 126 | RD | “look at wires” → “Which do you mean, the pair of green wires, the pair of red wires or the pair of blue wires?” | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 127 | RD | Allow “hang up” for “replace telephone”? | G | 1995-06-05 |
| 128 | RD | In Wilderspin’s study, “take all” includes the griffins and their eyes and so reveals their existence prematurely. | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 129 | RD | When you arrive in the library from the secret room, Edward says “Ah there you are” and also his usual message. Better for him to say just one thing. | W | 1995-06-05 |
| 130 | RD | This message appears just after the parrot has landed on Edward’s shoulder: “Edward stares up at his parrot forlornly. ‘Come here, Polly,’ he calls, though not with any conviction that he is going to be obeyed.” | D | 1995-06-05 |
| 131 | RD | In “Archway Between the Courts”, “Between” shouldn’t be capitalized. | T | 1995-06-05 |
| 132 | RD | You can still hear voices or engaged tones on the telephone after you’ve dropped it by leaving the Master’s Lodgings. | D | 1995-06-05 |
| 133 | RD | “look at red socket” → “The pair of red socketsis empty.” | T | 1995-06-05 |
| 134 | MK | Add response for “look up lilly in men of biblioll”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 135 | MK | The response to “look up canynges in men” is awkwardly phrased: “to this day” appears twice. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 136 | MK | In the secret passage, “feel ceiling” → “There’s nothing within reach to the up.” | W | 1995-06-06 |
| 137 | MK | After “wilderspin, drop me”, he doesn’t go back to following his script. | D | 1995-06-06 |
| 138 | MK | Need response for “jump” while standing on Wilderspin. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 139 | GN | In Bridge Street, “red” unfortunately refers to both “red cup” and “red brick wall”. | V | 1995-06-06 |
| 140 | GN | Christbel says, “But I don’t have your key”. It would be more in character to say, “But I haven’t got your key”. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 141 | GN | Add responses for “ask master about baskeyfield/library/second court” | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 142 | GN | Add response for “look in index for maclane”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 143 | GN | Add “Maclane” to refer to “Men of Biblioll”? | V | 1995-06-06 |
| 144 | GN | Bungay and Jarboe would not call each other “Dr” and “Professor”, certainly not in the 50s (when, to be strictly chronological, the term “Dr” wasn’t widely used around Oxbridge). It would just be Bungay and Jarboe. | T | 1995-07-11 |
| 145 | GN | In Malcolm’s room, there’s no “bed” object, and so “hide under bed” doesn’t work. | E | 1995-06-06 |
| 146 | GN | The word “floozie” is a bit modern, isn’t it? Can I supply “Always knew he had garlands in his hair”? (I don’t think it’s modern at all. Maybe it’s an Americanism?) | N | - |
| 147 | GN | Add “slap” for “attack”. | G | 1995-06-05 |
| 148 | GN | You might mention last night’s rain at the Lady Margaret Green location. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 149 | GN | Add responses for “examine chapel/hall/cobbles”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 150 | GN | I feel a little less happy about the Second Court description than the First Court one; the menu appearance is a bit less pleasing, and the rest is slightly too plain. The Hall and Chapel must be splendid, so tell us about them! | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 151 | GN | Add a “can’t go” message in Second Court. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 152 | GN | The flagstones in antechapels tend to be engraved tombstones or memorials. Might be a good place to hide a (possibly spurious) Man of Biblioll. | T | 1995-07-11 |
| 153 | GN | The altar is too plain. (I removed it since it didn’t play any role in the game.) | E | 1995-06-06 |
| 154 | GN | Couldn’t we at least have the first few words of the Latin Bible, “fiat lux” and all that, when read? | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 155 | GN | The lectern is a bit plain. Add response for “get lectern”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 156 | GN | Allow “look up john in window” to get stories of saints (Not part of the game.) | N | - |
| 157 | GN | Add response for “pray” in chapel. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 158 | GN | Add response for “smell” in chapel and antechapel. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 159 | GN | Add response to “up” in Chapel and Antechapel saying something about the inaccessibility of the Tower. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 160 | GDR | Make the Antechapel northwest of Second Court (so the Chapel fits to the north of Second Court). | E | 1995-06-06 |
| 161 | GN | Improve the description of the Great Hall, and add portraits. (I didn’t add the portraits: they would have been yet more irrelevant people to look up in “Men of Biblioll”.) | T | 1995-06-07 |
| 162 | GN | Add a door to the Senior Common Room. | E | 1995-06-07 |
| 163 | GN | Your feelings of terror at being trapped in the cellar are somewhat assuaged by gaining a point in the process: a consolation which is seldom apparent in real life. (I moved this point to when you get out of the cellars, rather than when you enter them.) | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 164 | GN | Allow “bang on door/hatch/...” (same response as “knock on door/hatch/...”). | G | 1995-06-06 |
| 165 | GN | Allow “bin one” and “bin 1” to refer to “first bin”. | V | 1995-06-06 |
| 166 | GN | Canynges’s entry in “Men of Biblioll” is awkwardly expressed, especially around “the practice that”. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 167 | GN | Could Tausend be Memeber of Parliament for Christminster University, not for the town? An arrangement that in Oxford was only abolished post-war, I believe. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 168 | GN | “fullscore” ought to list your achievements in chronological order. | W | 1995-06-07 |
| 169 | GN | I was hoping for a cameo appearance by Baskeyfield after knocking on his door. If only to say, “Library hours are such and such, as you well know”. | E | 1995-07-11 |
| 170 | GN | Factual point: the Ahketaten stelae weren’t really excavated, as they were carved into cliff-sides and still visible. | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 171 | GN | Wilderspin should respond to asking about Jarboe and Bungay. (Even if he might “prefer not to comment on his colleagues”?) He doesn’t respond to “honey” either. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 172 | GN | When you get a book from the card index, make “it” refer to the book fetched. | W | 1995-06-06 |
| 173 | GN | Simon Noble should be in Men of Biblioll (make up a visit if necessary). | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 174 | GN | I don’t believe archaeologists have ever been admitted to the Royal Society. How about making Arkwright an OM (member of the Order of Merit) instead of an FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society)? | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 175 | GN | Add response for “ask wilderspin about vastang”. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 176 | GN | Allow “in” for “enter hole” | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 177 | GN | Add response for “wilderspin, lift me/raise me”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 178 | GN | You can’t get Wilderspin to stand on your shoulders in a similar fashion. (This won’t work since he’s heavier than you but the game should certainly say so.) | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 179 | GN | The way Wilderspin disappears on the ledge is deeply disconcerting, as you then apparently can’t go anywhere. (Added information about which way he goes, also a useful “can’t go” message.) | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 180 | GN | “listen” ought to go something interesting in the dark places. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 181 | GN | How does Wilderspin know that my name is Christabel? | T | 1995-06-06 |
| 182 | GN | Add response for “search bench”. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 183 | GN | The word “bottles” is unrecognised, although Wilderspin guesses something from them. | V | 1995-06-06 |
| 184 | GN | The word “fellow” ought to be recognised as referring to numerous characters. | V | 1995-06-06 |
| 185 | GN | C Staircase is a little plain. | T | 1995-06-07 |
| 186 | GN | In Second Court, “edward, go northeast” → “‘Do you really think that my parrot could have got through a locked door?’ Edward asks you.” Yes, I really think your parrot could have got through a locked wrought iron gate, Edward. | W | 1995-06-06 |
| 187 | GN | When the power pack is plugged into the box, this isn’t revealed in “look” descriptions. (Same for the voltmeter.) | W | 1995-06-06 |
| 188 | GN | It is still not entirely clear that when one gets the wires from the cabinet, they are unplugged but not taken. | I | 1995-06-06 |
| 189 | GN | “look inside mouth” (of the wrought iron lion on the garden gate) might provoke a reply, perhaps along the lines of “Anyone can tame an iron lion.”? (Not my style.) | N | - |
| 190 | GDR | “it” should be set appropriately throughout the game. | W | 1995-06-07 |
| 191 | MK | Response for “touch south wall” (etc.) in the secret passage. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 192 | MK | You shouldn’t be able to turn on the light switch in the Cellars while standing in the alcove. (The alcove is next to the switch and anyway this puzzle is hard enough as it is.) | N | - |
| 193 | MK | In the Well, “west” should produce the “crawl” message. | D | 1995-06-06 |
| 194 | MK | Peanuts implementation is unsatisfactory (can’t drop them). | E | 1995-06-07 |
| 195 | RD | Allow “put widget in/on/under/over lobster”. | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 196 | RD | At night, when climbing the wistaria, a message gets printed twice. | D | 1995-06-07 |
| 197 | RD | “get a candle” → “You can’t see any such thing.” But “get candles” → “You pick up one of the candles.” | V | 1995-06-07 |
| 198 | RD | “get malcolm” → “I don’t suppose Malcolm’s body would care for that.” | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 199 | RD | “pull malcolm west” → “Is that the best you can think of?” | I | 1995-06-07 |
| 200 | GN | The voltmeter logic is incorrect if the power pack is connected to one box wire and the voltmeter to another. | A | 1995-06-09 |
| 201 | MK | When you “say something” near the phone, disambiguation picks the wrong object to talk to. | W | 1995-07-11 |
| 202 | MK | Obscure bug where “ask master about xxxx” fails miserably. (I’ve no idea what this was about.) | ? | - |
| 203 | RD | The teasing about the Knights Templars in the blurb and in the ending seemed a bit overblown when compared to their absence in the rest of the game. | T | 1995-10-17 |
| 205 | RD | Edward should respond to being shown some of the history books, even if he only says, “that’s not my field”. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 206 | RD | Be more consistent about which objects open the shed and scare the bird. (I thought this was fine.) | N | - |
| 207 | GN | If you try to put something in the hatch from below, the game says “that would fall through”. | I | 1995-06-09 |
| 208 | GN | At the Well: “climb south wall” should be the same as “climb brick wall”. | I | 1995-06-09 |
| 209 | GN | The well itself, being the thing for which the location is named, ought at least to have an examine message? | W | 1995-06-09 |
| 210 | GN | “descend wistaria” isn’t recognised, despite the “Roof of Master’s Lodge” description. | I | 1995-06-09 |
| 211 | GN | Could the game be suitably scathing in reply to “tickle gargoyle with feather”? | I | 1995-06-09 |
| 212 | GN | “gate” is unrecognised here. | V | 1995-06-09 |
| 213 | GN | By my reckoning, east of the Well is not the Great Hall but the Kitchens, since I’m standing more or less at the south wall of the College. Also, surely the most visible thing from the roof of the Master’s Lodge ought to be the Chapel tower, which isn’t mentioned? | T | 1995-06-09 |
| 214 | GN | If Hawksmoor’s chapel includes the stained glass from the old chapel, why is it described as Renaissance glasswork? It must surely be earlier? | T | 1995-06-09 |
| 215 | GN | Add response for “ask master about chapel”. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 216 | GN | There are too many locked doors. (This is a real feature of colleges: one locked door after another.) | N | - |
| 217 | GN | The game gets gradually less populated. In the Second Court area, for instance, there’s really only the Cook to interact with. A Chaplain (or a Dean of Divinity) might liven things up there. Or, I don’t know, perhaps some undergrads rehearsing for a play, or something like that. (I added a cat.) | E | 1995-07-11 |
| 218 | GDR | Movement checking needs to be more thorough. | P | 1995-07-11 |
| 219 | RD | Is getting the Skery book optional? If so, it should perhaps contain a funnier joke. | T | 1995-07-11 |
| 220 | MK | Allow “hit B4” meaning “knock at b4”. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 221 | MK | Capitalise “Evensong”? | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 222 | MK | Grammatical error: “which I am must date”. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 223 | MK | Allow “pour elixir into malcolm’s body” for “give elixir to malcolm”. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 224 | GN | In Bungay’s Hallway description, “stand around nervously in” would be better grammar. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 225 | GN | In the C staircase, ground floor, “south” mistakenly goes up. | B | 1995-06-16 |
| 226 | GN | When you jump from Bungay’s window, why not close the handbag en route so that it’s (very long by this point in the game) contents doesn’t spoil the description of the gardens? | W | 1995-06-16 |
| 227 | GN | The crack (in the garden shed door) is too narrow for the corkscrew, is it? (That’s right.) | N | - |
| 228 | GN | Allow “push elm” and “shake elm”. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 229 | GN | The word “fish” isn’t recognised here, as verb or noun. (Added as noun only.) | V | 1995-07-11 |
| 230 | GN | “You get into the punt” is a somewhat plain description of an invariably traumatic process for anyone wearing a dress. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 231 | GN | In your second attempt at punting “east”: three sentences in a row start with “You”, which is a little heavy. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 232 | GN | Why can’t you try to punt “north” and “south”? | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 233 | GN | Allow “punt east”. | G | 1995-06-16 |
| 234 | GN | Edward “beings” the punt to rest (presumably “brings”). | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 235 | GN | Small topographic point: how does the river flow out of College? Through a culvert in the wall? This is not mentioned on either side. | T | 1995-07-11 |
| 236 | GN | The honey provides a good opportunity to quote Sylvia Plath’s sequence of four bee-keeping poems (The Bee Meeting, etc.) about a young unprotected girl overcoming her morbid horror to collect honey. | E | 1995-07-12 |
| 237 | GN | “‘Hey!’ says Edward, seeing you enter... he continues, ‘Well, you...’” is doubtful grammar; the comma after “continues” should be omitted, or replaced with a colon. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 238 | GN | I’d like to be able to read a snatch of Edward’s essay over his shoulder. Though he’s the type to have awful handwriting. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 239 | GN | “‘Damn,’ says Jarboe. ‘The stupid phones are playing up again.’” This is just a tad weak for 50s don dialect. What about: “‘How singular,’ says Jarboe. ‘These damn-fool phones are playing up.’” | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 240 | GN | Verb “uncork” is unrecognised. | G | 1995-06-16 |
| 241 | GN | Shouldn’t the pale liquid at least bubble to indicate being heated? | W | 1995-06-16 |
| 242 | GN | Edward’s door is labelled Mr Forbes, which he’d only rate if he were an MA. How about “Forbes, E. St C.” or some such? | T | 1995-07-11 |
| 243 | GN | Tearing the veil somewhat reminds me of the veil of the temple being rent in twain, which is John something:something. (It’s Mark 15:38.) | E | 1995-07-12 |
| 244 | GN | From Bungay’s study, “out” or “down” should leave via the open window. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 244a | GN | The window ought to be callable “windows” (as in “open windows”). | V | 1995-06-16 |
| 245 | GN | “get all” in the gardens includes the clock tower, which is a little surreal. | W | 1995-06-16 |
| 246 | GN | If I: (i) light the ring, (ii) put the retort of pale liquid on it, (iii) add honey from the tamarisk tree’s hive, resulting in a bubbling liquid (iv) pour Edward’s tears into the retort, then I get the message “** Error: impossible mixture of liquids occurred! **”. The same occurs if I add the bubbling mixture to the tears. | A | 1995-07-11 |
| 247 | GN | If I take the retort off the ring, to get a sticky gum, pouring the tears in results in an abruptly ending sentence. | A | 1995-07-11 |
| 248 | GN | “listen” clearly ought to say something unusual during Evensong. “listen to choir” is understood but “listen to chant” isn’t. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 249 | GN | I still can’t “pray”, nor can I “kneel” or even “sit”, “join” or “enter” the congregation. (Added “pray”.) | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 250 | GN | You might make Edward remark, when the perfume arrives, that at least his window will be open all night. (One more pang of guilt for the poor protagonist.) | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 251 | GN | Allow “put lobster in widget”. | I | 1995-06-16 |
| 252 | GN | When Halfhide and the Master speculate about candidates, perhaps you might have a Provost or President rather than a Master, just for variety? | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 253 | GN | The phrase “perfectly adequate proof against” sounds wrong to me; “perfectly adequately proof against” perhaps (proof against is irregularly an adjective, not a noun, here, so the rest should be an adverb), but it’s not really a happy phrase. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 264 | GN | The gold plate contains “many other trasures”. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 265 | GN | At high table, “knock wine” → “Don’t be silly!” and “spill wine” was unrecognised. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 265a | GN | At high table, “spill wine” is unrecognised. | G | 1995-07-11 |
| 266 | GN | Allow “turn snail upside down” and “turn snail over”? | G | 1995-06-16 |
| 267 | GN | “pour glass of port” or “pour a glass of port” should work. (Too much of a pain to implement.) | G | not fixed |
| 268 | GN | Allow “pass the port”. | G | 1995-06-16 |
| 269 | GN | In Senior Common Room, recognize “fellows” and “wax”. | V | 1995-06-16 |
| 270 | GN | It’s never made clear where or how you get your possessions back after the dinner. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 271 | GN | After dinner, the Master and Housekeeper are back at the Master’s Lodgings just as they were before dinner. Surely the Master stays for drinks? And the housekeeper should go off duty at this point. | W | 1995-06-16 |
| 272 | GN | By the River, on the West Bank, at night, there’s a space missing between “north” and “glittering”. | T | 1995-06-16 |
| 273 | GN | At night, “listen” → “Christminster is restful and quiet on a Sunday.” At this hour, “... on a Sunday night” would be better. | W | 1995-06-16 |
| 274 | GN | Why would nothing be gained by pouring the elixir on the gargoyle? I was hoping to reanimate it, so that it could push through the door. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 275 | GN | You might recognise “arras” as a synonym for “tapestries”. | V | 1995-06-16 |
| 276 | GN | As Gothic as this is, why can’t I set fire to the tapestries myself? That was my first inclination to get them off Malcolm. | I | 1995-07-13 |
| 277 | GN | I don’t understand the point of pushing Bungay’s desk! But perhaps you could rig it so that if you do, the lacquer box falls off (to draw attention to it slightly). (It’s OK for players to miss the effect of pushing the desk.) | N | - |
| 278 | GN | The hanging is a bit too much like the one in “Jude the Obscure”. (I agree, but I don’t see why this is bad.) | N | - |
| 279 | GN | Jarboe dies in a slightly over-vague way at the moment. Somehow I expected a further confrontation with him, and for this reason I the end felt a little premature. | E | 1995-07-11 |
| 280 | GN | Edward ought to come back into things at the end, or even Wilderspin. | E | 1995-07-11 |
| 281 | GN | Finally, I’m not totally sure how the fire brigade found their way into the secret courtyard. Did they look up Hawksmoor in the library, or climb the wistaria? Why are they concerned with this obscure annexe at the back of college, when the Great Hall is ablaze? After all, nobody knows you’re there. (I rearranged the geography at the end so that you escape via Bungay’s room.) | E | 1995-07-11 |
| 282 | GN | Could you add a few Templar motifs to Bungay’s rooms, perhaps? Perhaps to round out his hallway. The whole Templar business comes in only for one line near the end. | T | 1995-10-17 |
| 283 | GN | It seems reasonable to try and reanimate Thomas Vaughan with the elixir, too. At one point I thought that was the plan. | I | 1995-07-11 |
| 284 | GN | It would be nice if the Chapel, or the Chapel tower, were to come into the game a little more than they do. (The Bible in Chapel is their only reason for existence.) | N | - |
| 285 | SB | “constable, give me the key” goes wrong if constable doesn’t have the key. | D | 1995-07-14 |
| 286 | SB | Respond to “turn don over”. | I | 1995-07-14 |
| 287 | SB | Respond to “ask busker about magic/trick/tricks”. | I | 1995-07-14 |
| 288 | CG | Allow “volunteer” as a verb. (Not clear how this would work.) | N | - |
| 288a | CG | Distinguish “take cup” from “look under cup”: that is, say something about putting it back down in the former case, otherwise you may get the wrong impression about what happened. | I | 1995-06-14 |
| 289 | CG | Respond to “sit on man” in Lady Margaret Green. | I | 1995-07-14 |
| 290 | CG | Should be a message about the constable arriving at Bibioll Street. | W | 1995-07-17 |
| 291 | CG | Respond to “ask constable/busker about constable/busker/don”. | I | 1995-07-18 |
| 292 | RD | From the Great Hall, Turmeric goes north, but the actual exit is northeast. | W | 1995-07-17 |
| 293 | CG | “look up thing” should produce a better error message. | I | 1995-07-17 |
| 294 | CG | “pull wires” → “It’s fixed in place.” Should be “They are fixed in place.” | W | 1995-07-17 |
| 295 | CG | The porter lets me rummage through everybody’s mailbox even before he knows who I am. | W | 1995-07-17 |
| 296 | CG | Edward seems a rather weak character to me. He should wander around on his own initiative. | E | 1995-07-18 |
| 297 | BW | Allow “cop” for constable. | V | 1995-07-17 |
| 298 | BW | Respond to “ask busker about cups”. | I | 1995-07-14 |
| 299 | BW | The Busker’s spiel prompts the responses “yes” and “volunteer” which aren’t handled well. Spiel should be rewritten to prompt the response we’re interested in. | I | 1995-07-18 |
| 300 | BW | The adjective “little” for the wicket gate is weak. | T | 1995-07-17 |
| 301 | BW | Allow “turn over x” for “turn x over”. | G | 1995-07-17 |
| 302 | BW | Allow “lift up cup” for “take cup”. | G | 1995-07-17 |
| 303 | BH | Better respone to “examine me”. (The standard library response is fine.) | N | - |
| 304 | BH | Respond to “ask constable for toffee”. | I | 1995-07-18 |
| 305 | BH | You shouldn’t be able to “take helmet from constable” and “take cape from busker”. | D | 1995-07-18 |
| 306 | GDR | Put a Robert Skery clue into the phone call. | T | 1995-07-18 |
| 307 | SB | If the constable eats the toffee, you can’t get another one from the busker. | D | 1995-07-20 |
| 308 | SB | The directions are wrong in the Antechapel description. | T | 1995-07-20 |
| 309 | CG | In the cellar, “take all” followed by “third” is responded to with “But it isn’t there now.” (A bug in the Inform parser, corrected in library release 5/11.) | A | 1995-07-26 |
| 310 | CG | The shed door shouldn’t give the “It seems to be locked.” message since there’s no keyhole. | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 311 | CG | “slide door” → “(into the door)(first taking the door)” | S | 1995-07-26 |
| 312 | CG | “remove hinge” → “(first taking the door)” | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 313 | CG | The parrot is startled if I “throw feather at parrot”. This seems unlikely. | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 314 | CG | Something should happen in the couple of turns after you knock at Bungay’s door. Perhaps a distant “I’m coming” would be a good clue. | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 315 | CG | Why can you only go north and south in the punt? | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 316 | SS | the word “stocky” in the player’s description implies “short”. | T | 1995-07-26 |
| 317 | SS | You can’t examine the cobblestone when you’re at Chapel Street. (The word “cobble” ends up referring to the cobblestones on the ground.) | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 318 | SS | Missing space in Second Court description. | T | 1995-07-26 |
| 319 | SS | First comma seems wrong in “It is made of solid brass, and is in the form of an eagle, wings spread and ...”. | T | 1995-07-26 |
| 320 | CG | In the punt, “drop peanut” → “It rolls away on the ground out of sight.” (The peanut re-implementation removed the need for the peanuts to behave specially when dropped.) | E | 1995-07-26 |
| 321 | CG | If you ask the Master about dinner after you have the ticket, there is a word missing from his reply. | T | 1995-07-26 |
| 322 | CG | In some of the garden, the directions are very sparse. In particular, the arboretum description doesn’t say which way you can go at all, and by the river on the west, you can go west but this isn’t mentioned in the description. (This is a real feature of college gardens: it’s not always clear which way you can go: lines of hedges and shrubberies block your views.) | N | - |
| 323 | CG | Allow “dip retort into river”. | G | 1995-07-26 |
| 324 | CG | It would be nice if “examine sockets” would examine all the sockets in the basement and not give the “which socket, the red...” prompt. (Implementation would be too painful: players would want to “X sockets” for every verb X.) | V | not fixed |
| 325 | CG | Is there some way to break the connection on the phone without hanging it up and picking it up again? This made experimenting quite tedious. (Implementation is too painful: I’d have to add a hook and make it respond sensible to all verbs in all states of the phone. Better to keep things simple.) | N | - |
| 326 | CG | I think it would be good if there were more evidence of Malcolm along the way. (That would be a different game.) | N | - |
| 327 | CG | Respond to “ask edward about ring”. | I | 1995-07-26 |
| 328 | CG | Allow “attach corkscrew to door”. | I | 1995-07-26 |
4.2. Defects found in release 1 |
||||
| 329 | RD | Turmeric purrs while hissing at me (when he sits on the veil). | W | 1995-08-02 |
| 330 | RD | One can fill the bottle with water when it’s still in the bag. (This is OK: presumably you take the bottle out of the bag, fill it and put it back. It would make this operation very tedious if you had to get it each time.) | N | - |
| 331 | RD | One can get the wine bottle when hiding in the alcove even though the cook is in the cellar. In particular, this makes it easy to avoid the light switch puzzle by getting the bottle and scarpering. | D | 1995-08-02 |
| 332 | RD | Allow “put veil on me”. | I | 1995-08-02 |
| 333 | RD | In the Great Hall, Bungay says “...anyway everyone present had probably read it anyway.” The two “anyway”s are poor style. | T | 1995-08-02 |
| 334 | RD | After “climb wistaria” there are two blank lines. | T | 1995-08-02 |
| 335 | AP | Allow “throw book out window”. | G | 1995-08-02 |
| 336 | AP | Allow “professor, lift me” and “professor, lift me up” don’t work. (Bug in library scope algorithm in darkness.) | S | 1995-08-03 |
| 337 | AP | “say malcolm” produces an error, as does “shout at index”. | S | 1995-08-02 |
| 338 | AP | The dates for Simon Noble are inconsistent in Maclane and the library index. | T | 1995-08-02 |
| 339 | TA | “forbes, down” → “Edward Forbes goes downstairs. You follow him. The hatch is closed. You can’t go that way.” | S | 1995-08-02 |
| 340 | TA | “ask forbes about porter” (in the Porter’s Lodge) produces an error. (“forbes” is recognized as his pigeonhole as well as him.) | S | 1995-08-02 |
| 341 | RD | There are two full stops in the output of “fill bottle with water”. | T | 1995-08-02 |
| 342 | RD | Missing full stop after “The elegant clock tower above the college chapel dominates the skyline to the north”. | T | 1995-08-02 |
| 343 | RD | Pouring water on the fire in the end game deserves a response. | I | 1995-08-03 |
| 344 | AP | I’ve seen a great deal of the “** Edward is in a place he can’t move **” error. I had just gotten into and out of the garden, passed Edward in the Second Court, but didn’t say anything to him. A few turns later the error started appearing every turn or so. I don’t know where he was stuck. It also happened once when I was searching Bungay’s room (again, the error appeared every turn or so.) | S | 1995-08-02 |
| 345 | MS | Allow “say red cup to busker” to guess a cup. | I | 1995-08-03 |
| 346 | GDR | Added font commands to some of the tables in the help so that they display correctly in interpreters with variable-pitch fonts. | P | 1995-08-03 |
| 347 | GDR | Make “it” refer to the loose cobble when you discover it. | W | 1995-08-03 |
| 348 | RD | The candle stays lit inside the closed handbag, and using this trick I can get to “** Error: you shouldn’t see this **/** Room undescribed! **”. | S | 1995-08-03 |
| 349 | RD | Punctuation mistakes in the help. | T | 1995-08-03 |