My first quest! Kind-hearted reviewers wanted :)

mllebean · June 2013

Hi all,

After days of fiddling and interior decorating I published my first quest this evening: Arty Boa and the Holy Grail!

As the title (hopefully) suggests it's a humorous, pop culture parody style quest. That means there's a good amount of dialogue (lots of it immersion-breaking), and a more or less total disregard for D&D lore, but there is combat too. Because of the dialogue, it's really recommended for a single player rather than a group. By my stopwatch it should take you about 45 minutes.

If that sounds appealing to you at all, I'd be very grateful for some reviews and any constructive feedback/tricks of the trade. In exchange I'd be happy to review others' quests in the order in which they're posted below... as many as I can get through in the next week (before I head out of town for a while).

NW-DUTKDLBYI

caustic8 · June 2013

I'm on it. I've been on a foundry reviewing roll today. If you have a chance to check mine out:

Code: NW-DA8O42CFF
Title: A Short Dig

caustic8 · June 2013

Ok... that was a little bit of awesome. Everyone needs to play this. The humor was great. Just about everything seemed to work smoothly. It was a little long but I never felt like it dragged at all. The librarian... I laughed... and laughed... and laughed. Also at many other points.

Here are my nitpicky notes:

The first Arty dialog: Change "the say" to "They say"

The knight dialog: The response to "No one? But there must be hundres..." doesn't quite seem to fit. But that might be by design. It seems to match the other prompt better

There are two map transitions that are sparklies on the ground. It's a bit hard to see. Especially in the forest I passed it up. If there were some way to mark that with objects. Maybe two boulders forming a path... something to indicate a passage for a map change.

The library structure. It floats a bit. Maybe some well placed crates or or barrels could conceal that.

Anyway, thanks for putting this together. Really enjoyable. The librarian... so funny.

runis12 · June 2013

Sure, if you have time, check mine out.^^ I will get to yours later tonight after a break from the computer.

mllebean · June 2013

Thank you caustic8! Some good suggestions there. I'm going to keep a list and do an update on the weekend. And I will run yours tonight.

caustic8 · June 2013

mllebean wrote: »

Thank you caustic8! Some good suggestions there. I'm going to keep a list and do an update on the weekend. And I will run yours tonight.

Thanks. I hope you get some good feedback. It's a great quest.

rdxcyclo · June 2013

Adding this to my list; hoping it'll make me puke rainbows and bunnies... Otherwise I might not be so kind.

If you'd like to bash something in return when I come back spewing hateful bile about your lack of authoring skills and insinuating promiscuity of a yet to be named family member(in the absence of rainbows and bunnies), you can check out my quest in the signature

lisaxreinke · June 2013

I ran your quest. Good dialogue, and some interesting techniques used . . . like dropping animals and falling off bridges. I would say the transition into and out of ominous forest could be tweaked. It's a bit hard to find the ground to click on. It would help if you put an invisible wall to block us from going forward into the forest that is clearly in front of us. That will send us looking for something to click on instead of just walking forward.

I'd be careful about the pottery barn joke. I'm not sure of the legality of dropping real company names like that.
It's clear you spent a lot of time on this. My ultimate suggestion is to separate it into 2 quests rather than 1 long one. If it is part of a series, I think you won't scare people away with the long run time.

If you get a chance, please review the quest in my signature. I am working on shortening it myself, and I could really use some more people to run it to see if the changes I made cut the time down significantly.

Thank you.

mllebean · June 2013

rdxcyclo, since your quest is listed as 2 player I'll try to run it with my bf this weekend.

mllebean · June 2013

Based on comments above I've changed some of the quest map transitions to a stone arch instead of sparklies on the ground... hope this is easier to navigate.

rdxcyclo · June 2013

mllebean wrote: »

rdxcyclo, since your quest is listed as 2 player I'll try to run it with my bf this weekend.

Then I shall return the favor and tie my cat down in front of the laptop; forcing it to endure your quest while I scold it at every turn for being a lousy rogue while I reign terror upon your unsuspecting excuses for monsters.

runis12 · June 2013

Great, hilarious quest!

First time I've played a comedic quest. I must say....I really like the sound of evil chickens when they die. :P Thanks for making this!

xila56 · June 2013

I just played through your quest and it was great! It was hilarious and a lot of fun. I enjoyed it very much! Thanks for creating it.

I've also subscribed so that if you make more quests, I can play them.

avatre21 · June 2013

Hi, I've just played through your Quest and I thoroughly enjoyed it! I felt a bit sorry for the poor knight in the forest, though! Maybe we could give him some tips on being a better killer before we kill him?

. I've subscribed so I can play through any others you post, and I hope there will be more soon! A followup, perhaps? I'll have to play this again in a while to review (silly thing I am, I moved after looting the chest and it closed the review window, doh!)

I would appreciate it if you could take a look at mine, when you get the chance. NW-DHMMZR6BJ.

mllebean · June 2013

Thanks for the feedback guys! I've added your quests to my list. And no worries about the missed review, that has happened to me before too. (It's a very annoying bug!)

harmor · June 2013

Great quest enjoyed every second of it.
the q is funny and with a good combat pace, great scenery.

meysa · June 2013

I found your quest to be quite enjoyable. It was well conceived and had some amusing dialogue. I couldn't find anything wrong, except maybe the pathing of some of the wererats. That's not really your fault though.

mllebean · June 2013

Thanks harmor, let me know if I can ever return the favor.

oortexplorer · June 2013

I have added your quest to my list, may take a couple of days but I look forward to playing this one.

rabbitfever · June 2013

Great quest. I love the story. Well written. Nice balance between story telling and npc fights. I can't wait to see if you will do "The Life of Brian" ;

talli0 · June 2013

Just finished your quest and thought it was pretty good. Liked seeing the updated spin on the funniest parts of The Holy Grail. Really clever job.

My main comment I'd have to try and improve the quest is that the combat sections seem to drag on a little bit. I was just trying to get through the combat as quickly as possible in order to reach the next funny bit. My advice would be to take away an encounter or three in each of the areas just to speed things up a little bit.

mllebean · June 2013

Thanks for the feedback talli0. You're right, I do want the emphasis to be on the fun rather than on grinding through monsters. I toned down some encounters from the original version, but I think I may also look at shortening the cavern a bit, and maybe remove a couple of rats, with my next update.

lovepeas · June 2013

Mllebean, thank you so much for sharing your super fun quest with us. It is a rather silly thing.... and that is totally awesome! I really enjoyed it. You found a great balance between a homage to Python while still putting your own fun spin on it as well.

Below are a few feedback comments. (May contain spoilers. For those who haven't played yet, read no further or you may be turned into a newt.

I love Author's costume. Great job.
The dialog was top notch and hit the right Python flair.
This was my first time to be barnyarded. Very cute!
The black knight dialog so total greatness. When he talked about the respawn sent me into a fit of giggles! I really wanted to call him a loony.
I loved the interaction with the old man on the bridge. That was so perfect.
The ending map was just ingenious. So clever.
Dang the foundry censors for making Castle Anthrax impractical.

Here are a few suggestions. Just some thoughts that may or may not be right, so take with a pinch of salt.

-The dialog is the star of this quest. In comparison, the battles are not as engaging. This is just the price of being so brilliant with the former. Maybe spice of the encounters by giving them some amusing costumes or names or more variety. As an example, the barnyard battle was much more fun than the spiders.
-Another thought could be to break up the spiders by having a guy come by to collect the dead bodies that the spider has been killing and you have to battle the dead collectors to prove that you are not dead.
-It might be fun to make the Black Knight larger. It would be cute for him to be super big and imposing but such a pushover. You can use the advanced costume editor to beef him up if interested.
-I loved that the "little rat problem" was a bit of an understatement. Great twist on a standard roleplaying staple. To make this really brilliant, maybe consider changing their names from the standard to a custom name. This really helps make it your own. They aren't really sewer rats after all.
-I really got a kick off of how big the "basement" turned out to be. The dialog afterwards about the man-cave was excellent. You could play up on this by having the first rooms basement-like but have it get progressively more elaborate as you go further in. For example, move all the boxes and things on the floor from the room with the paintings to the first part of the basement and then go to regular furniture, and end up with the luxury stuff and really decked out rooms by the end.
-Same suggestion on naming for the Army of YIKES guys. You might think about changing their names from greenskins and blackskins to custom titles. This gives you a chance to interject some humor into those encounters which can seem like a long break from the rather brilliant dialog segments.
-I would suggest beefing up the white beast. Perhaps use an elite mob type.
-Another option could be to turn the white beast encounter topsy turvy and have the minions be cute fluffy white animals, and the end guy be a total monstrosity. Then he could be like... what, you expected some cute little rabbit or something?
-If you can find a place to put Tim, you could totally use the lightening fx.

Fantastic job! I really enjoyed it!

mllebean · June 2013

Thanks lovepeas! I really like your suggestion of personalizing the NPC names, I will give that some thought. As for the chicken, I had some complaints that he was too hard initially so I actually made him easier in a recent update... I gues it depends on class and level, but maybe there's still a happy medium to be found.

mllebean · June 2013

Thanks to everyone who provided encouraging and constructive comments on my quest over the past few days! I've really been blown away by the fantastic Foundry community - you guys do some neat work and the support is awesome. With your feedback I caught some glitches and typos, decided to scale down both the quantity and intensity of some of the fights, and added a few more little details. I'm delighted to say we've now reached Daily Foundry eligible status. If you enjoyed the quest please encourage your friends to play!

Meanwhile I'm happy to continue trading reviews, but please note that I will be going out of town in a couple of days (for about a week) so there may be a short delay getting back to you.

oortexplorer · June 2013

Enjoyed your quest, the dialogue was really good and quite funny. Author's costume was designed perfectly, lol. Also thought while I was playing it that you could add some more humour by re-naming the creatures. Thought there were maybe slightly too many encounters, but not by much. The chicken was really easy at the end, could be made more difficult.

Very good environments, the library was perfect. Basement and cavern were also really well done.

I know it's not easy, but I felt like the ending was good, and wondered if there's a way to make it great.

Overall, very well done, fun quest, worth playing.

wuhsin · June 2013

I reviewed this. It was twice as hilarious for me because my character's name is Artie. So it was Artie and Arty looking for the Holy Grail. Gave it five stars. You might need to add some Interact text, like when you select a Shrubbery, all of them but one just say "Interact" when you hover the cursor over them. Other than that everything was pretty well polished.

almostcool · June 2013

I thought this was a great spoof. I especially loved the black knight and the falling animals were hilarious. Great dialogue that made me grin more than once and some really great costumes.

My first quest! Kind-hearted reviewers wanted :)

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