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Otherworld
by IlonaW
Otherworld is a collaborative roleplaying game that takes place in a limbo between life and death. Your character died some time between the years of 1530 and 1800 AD. Instead of landing in Heaven, they landed in a strange world where you start off with nothing and have to craft every item from scratch, including iron and steel. All the characters exist in the same, shared world. You can unlock zones and locations to advance further and discover new resources. Lead lost souls into their destinations to earn coins and purchase items and livestock. Check out the Trello board (link available on the website) to read about potential new features and suggest your own for a chance to influence the direction the game develops. Actions use either AP, which is gained once an hour, or timers, with repeats ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. The game is designed for people who spend a lot of time on the computer and like stopping by to carry out short actions between browsing. The game includes a separate chat for each location. Currently there is no worldwide chat, but this might eventually change.
- It's now possible to build mines in locations that have (or previously had) at least one a stone, coal, or iron ore deposit.
- Seaside locations can have a salt extraction pool built.
- The location description is now layered on top of the location graphic.
- Wicker snare and jute lasso, designed for catching small and large prey, respectively.
- All the links and forms in the game (excluding hub and logged out areas) should now work with Ajax (it hasn't been fully tested).
- You can now view the contents of containers on people who have surrendered or been defeated, and loot items from them.
- You can write travel notes on the zones page either in-character or out of character. No more forgetting which deposits are in which location.
- The avatar editor now allows clicking on colors directly without having to select a radio button.
- New quality-of-life items: banquet table, linen tablecloth, clay plate and bowl.
- Combat with animals shows how much damage you did.
- When you rest, clicking on "view results" will update the healthbar without requiring to refresh the whole page.
- Sidebar data (AP, XP, level, inventory capacity, hunger, thirst) will update when you do things that affect them.
- It's possible to copy keys, so you can share a building or a cart with friends.
- Bashing a lock or hunting now causes slight weapon deterioration.
- Bug fixes (error messages were invisible on several pages, scouting only allowed unlocking one location per zone, there was no way of seeing when a boat or a cart leaves or arrives your location unless you're physically inside it, it was possible to enter buildings/vehicles or being lead into one while working on a project - now it ends your participation when this happens.)
I will stop updating this entry because it doesn't allow changing the cover image. I will start a new entry once I get enough significant changes implemented.
Roasts
Mike 10 months ago
Mechanics Game GraphicsI'm not into text-based games, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Good:
-Everything seems to work properly and is easy to use.
-I like the features to interact with other players on many levels.
-The quests are good to get into the game and feel rewarding.
-The systems (e.g., crafting) have plenty of content and look very polished.
Needs work:
- Consider giving players the option to create a temporary account without providing an email address, at least for the beta.
-The pace of the game is too slow for my taste. I'm rather impatient, so 5 minutes feels like a long time to me.
-The game feels empty. I was reading about NPCs, but there seemed to be none around.
-Graphics would be nice. A map to see where you're going would help a lot.
I think this game has potential. If you manage to get players into the game so that the social features can be used, it might be an interesting experience.
Good:
-Everything seems to work properly and is easy to use.
-I like the features to interact with other players on many levels.
-The quests are good to get into the game and feel rewarding.
-The systems (e.g., crafting) have plenty of content and look very polished.
Needs work:
- Consider giving players the option to create a temporary account without providing an email address, at least for the beta.
-The pace of the game is too slow for my taste. I'm rather impatient, so 5 minutes feels like a long time to me.
-The game feels empty. I was reading about NPCs, but there seemed to be none around.
-Graphics would be nice. A map to see where you're going would help a lot.
I think this game has potential. If you manage to get players into the game so that the social features can be used, it might be an interesting experience.
IlonaW 10 months ago
Hi, thank you so much for reviewing my gameIlonaW 10 months ago
Aw man, I wrote a long reply but it only posted the first row and then apparently deleted all the rest because there was an emoji and apparently that breaks the system. Let's see if I can summarize it from memory. - I could allow players to create one character with an unverified email address. They can't really do permanent damage, since there is no permadeath in the game, but the other day (before I put a cap on characters) someone created 11 characters and beat up a couple of people, creating 200+ events in the chat. - I could potentially edit the game so that 1 minute turns into 10 seconds and so forth. Currently the shortest supported timer is 1 minute, but it's changeable with programming, it just requires a bit of work. I'm mainly concerned that since all characters share the same world, if one player crafts all the items, there will be nothing left to accomplish for ones who come later. Some sort of deterioration can be a solution, and also when characters turn inactive and go on vacation, their inventory is inaccessible to others. Since machinery is available to everyone in a location, some sort of breakage/upkeep would have to be introduced, as well as buildings turning into ruins after a while. - About NPCs, currently when someone has a baby, it turns into an NPC after 7 days and can then be used to gather resources for you. The NPCs have no dialog trees, so it's true the world feels empty when PCs aren't saying anything. I'm not experienced with writing dialogue, so I'm going to have to think about how to make the game feel more alive. - I agree a graphical map would be good. I'm going to have to think about what sort of a visual look to go with. I suppose I could create placeholder graphics and upgrade them later when the kinks are ironed out. Again, thanks for taking the time to review this. I really appreciate it.
