Sarah Goes to College—a Quest text-adventure—New Release (No Joke!)

For me, running seems to be the only way for me to reach 195… I have no idea what I could be missing though haha

Edit: totally forgot to give praise where it’s due. I loved Kate’s Uni Days and this definitely feels like a spiritual successor to that type of game. I hope you had as much fun making this as we did playing it and I personally can’t wait to see where your development takes you!

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Ego is well deserved. It’s a great game, and one I still play periodically. Thank you for making it.

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Thank you. It’s been a blast working on this, and quite gratifying to have it received as it’s been.

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For my nightly reply, I’ve got good news. I’m actually tracking ahead of where I thought I’d be. Right now, I hope to have an updated version of the game by this weekend. It will include the full Christmas sequence. I‘ve got the gameplay sequence figured out, with not many errors to correct. Once that’s done, filling in the details. Hopefully y’all are as excited as I am.

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Definitely am, can’t wait to see the results. :slight_smile:

I was hoping to have the next part of the sequence up and ready by this weekend. Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The bad news is after 4.5 years, my laptop may have decided it’s done. I’ve been trying to get it back up and running today, but so far have not had any success. I wouldn’t consider myself tech-savvy by today’s standards, so it may require taking it in, and it may just be getting my data off.

The good news is I’m still enthusiastic about the project, I have a tablet and Bluetooth keyboard, and learned enough from dabbling my way through the first time that I can probably get it done much more quickly. To that point, I’ve already started remaking it online. In hindsight, I should have started there, but I changed my mind when I read that the offline engine had tools the online engine did not (tools I wasn’t even using). Plus, my keyboard was trash anyway, so I was putting all my notes either on my tablet or physically writing them.

TL:DR: Original game file may be lost, but I have the means to make a new one. Just taking more time.

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https://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/ei3lzbhq4uydj4lv4lx3xw/sarah-goes-to-college

The newest build is complete, so I wanted to post it here as well as at the top to make sure no one misses out. As mentioned, my computer crashed hard and I have been unable to recover the original file. I’m looking at it as a blessing in disguise, as I was able to go in and make some changes I wanted to. Most of the names have been altered. The storyline has been adapted a bit. A few characters have been adjusted (most specifically Sarah’s mom). There is a definitive end to this sequence now, no matter your choices. That gives me my starting point, and I’m hoping to start rebuilding the Christmas sequence tonight. Hopefully it won’t take me more than a week to redo—I very luckily still have my notes.

If there are any mistakes, issues, or problems, please let me know so I can correct it. Thanks.

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I hope the Christmas sequence will be fun, though considering that there seems to be two paths I do wonder what will truly happen.

Edit: Also I really enjoyed the updated version, everything doesn’t seem out of place (in my opinion you don’t need a map, as long the areas aren’t overly massive with 6 branching paths).

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I enjoyed the new version, though as a Canadian, I did have a bit of a chuckle about the “cold northern California weather,” lol.

If I was to offer a single and rather minor complaint, I don’t think an on-campus dorm exists that doesn’t have a meal plan included as part of your dorm fees. Sarah would have been enrolled by default, and there’s no kitchen (communal or otherwise) for her to feed herself.

A simple rewrite could be that the girl’s place is a multi-bedroom apartment a block off campus. When I went to uni, that’s what I had for accommodations. The building had four apartments per floor, 6 bedrooms per apartment, a multi stall bathroom, and a large communal kitchen and living room per apartment. Laundry was on the top floor, and there was a really shitty gym in the basement.

They had the option to sign up for the campus meal plan, though no one in my building took advantage of it. The food at the dining hall was absolutely appalling. Seriously, starvation was a better option. But, in Sarah’s case, it would offer a good reason as to why the meal plan is only an option. And it potentially gives a good second reason to join the cooking club.

Like I said, this is extremely minor, and not something to lose sleep over. Twas a very good update, and I’m definitely looking forward to more.

I truly loved this updated version! An excellent start to an expanding story haha!

Not a criticism but more of a suggestion, but I love numbers. The pictures and their descriptions are well done and help show how busy Sarah has been during college. I would like to see “savannah looks like she gained 20 pounds since the beginning of the year, not surprising by how much she practiced her cooking skills (and subsequently ate her creations).”

As it’s such a minute suggestion, I really can’t lie that I thoroughly enjoyed this new updated version. Keep up the amazing work and fingers crossed nothing happens to this file :sweat_smile:

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Wanted to throw my two cents in here and say that I absolutely adored the update!

The characters seem ripe for fleshing out (figuratively and literally, of course), and I’m interested in seeing where the story goes from here with the Christmas stuff!

Maybe I’m just easy to please, but I have no major critiques or suggestions short of just keep on doing what you’re doing! <3

I think the meal plan is a direct reference to my original that they’ve taken inspiration from. As a Brit, mine was set in the UK ( based on the Uni I went to, actually) and didn’t have an auto-enrolled mealplan :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the kind words, everyone. It really energizes me seeing a reception like this for project. I was a bit worried about this one, specifically because the weight scale was dramatically altered. I felt it was necessary, though—with the storyline I’ve got outlined, I needed more room for Sarah to grow, so to speak. The fact that no one seems bothered alleviates that.

@LeftHandManGary The weather is based on my own experiences. When I first moved to Southern Nevada, I made fun of the locals wearing gloves and scarves in 50 degrees. Four years later, I think nothing of 100+ degree days but act like winter is coming when the night low hits 32.

As for the meal plan, I’ve got an idea how to adapt it. Meal plans are almost-universally required in US colleges, but there are also tiered options. It’s an easy fix and helps strengthen world-building, which is very important to me. If the world setting doesn’t make sense, then I feel it hurts the story.

@tacobitetoughguy That’s an easy enough fix. I like numbers myself, so I’ve actually quantified that already.

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Good news that I wanted to share. I’m satisfied with the storyline, and think I’ve dealt with all coding errors, so I can move on to finishing the descriptions. Hopefully it won’t take me more than a day or two to flesh them out, meaning an updated version with a full Christmas sequence will hopefully go live by tomorrow evening.

This part took a much different tone that I had initially intended. The story is much more linear and focused on character-development. That might be kind of disappointing to hear, but it opens up plans for the next update. You’ll all have to let me know what you think when we go live.

In conclusion, watch this space.

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Excited to see it! :smiley:

I’m happy to announce that the Christmas update is now live! As I said, it’s less weight focused and more character driven, but I’m rather partial to the story. Give it a play and tell me what you think. As always, I’m happy to hear any observations, suggestions, or critiques. Thanks.

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I really liked the story bits! There was a lot of pretty great setup and I like all the character bits you squeezed in. Great update!

I did find minor glitch, the mirror in your bedroom doesn’t give a description when you look into it. Besides that, I didn’t see anything too bad. :slight_smile:

Thanks for letting me know. Pretty sure I got it solved now. Just one wrong number.

Not sure if this is one but when you try to speak to Dad before you begin eating you only get “talk Dad”, while both the mom and Madison had a little bit something to say.

Also I enjoyed this update, can’t wait for Spring Semester!

A slight idea here, maybe after speaking to Madison and retreating to your room you have the option to either go to bed to begin the next semester or to maybe indulge a slice of pie before you waddle back to bed, to sort of test whether you want to keep indulging several Christmas days (like Riley) or to manage some restraint by not doing.

Edit: Another could where you either convince either Madison or Mom to get/give you a gym membership to maybe lose some weight during the holidays.

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Love it, can’t wait for the next update!