Quicksand Fans

I'm not sure where to post this but over the lockdown I've been working on remaking Sinking Island from DeepSinking.org as a python script. It has basic functionality now, the player can move freely around the island, pick up and examine items, and of course sink in any of the pits, so I'd like to post it here if that's ok? The code is my own design, but it uses text copied from the original game. I tried to email Jimminy Thicket about it but the address I have doesn't seem to connect anymore, and I've had no response back so far from the message I sent through the contact us link on this forum.

There's a lot of features I'm still not sure how to add, like better sinking physics, NPCs, getting psychic world functional, maybe even pygame graphics, sounds and full multiplayer eventually, but I'm learning as I go so if anyone would like to help out or could offer any advice it would be appreciated greatly.

You've got my attention...

I had a lot of great times on Sinking Island! Far more fun than Second Life. I am enthusiastic!

May I ask what is being offered here, a new chat room or something for people to use individually. As I recall the chat room that was available here was disabled by an upgrade that made the addition of external links difficult or impossible, which in turn was the result (I think) of a host server upgrade. I suspect that this problem would remain, but correct me if that is not the case. I was vey sorry to see the chat room go down.

triclopse wrote:I'm not sure where to post this but over the lockdown I've been working on remaking Sinking Island from DeepSinking.org as a python script. It has basic functionality now, the player can move freely around the island, pick up and examine items, and of course sink in any of the pits, so I'd like to post it here if that's ok? The code is my own design, but it uses text copied from the original game. I tried to email Jimminy Thicket about it but the address I have doesn't seem to connect anymore, and I've had no response back so far from the message I sent through the contact us link on this forum.

There's a lot of features I'm still not sure how to add, like better sinking physics, NPCs, getting psychic world functional, maybe even pygame graphics, sounds and full multiplayer eventually, but I'm learning as I go so if anyone would like to help out or could offer any advice it would be appreciated greatly.

It's a single player text adventure, saved as a script that can be run in Python 2.7.10.
Ideally I'd like to fully rebuild the original but I don't know anywhere near enough network coding for that yet.

EDIT - ok since the reaction so far has been positive, I'll post the most recent version here. If you want to play it you'll need to install a Python compiler (I use IDLE, it's free and easy to use), then either change the file extension of the text file here to .py and load that, or copy paste the script in. Once it's loaded, just hit run and it should ask for your name. To quit, the command is safeword.

If you have any problems or suggestions for improvements please let me know.

This sounds promising. I miss the Sinking Island feature. Have anything to show from it?

What made Sinking Island so much fun, at least for me, was the interactions I had there with others. Wandering around the shell by myself wasn't all that rewarding, although I did it from time to time. It facilitated roleplay in a way that was almost magical. Honestly, I think the fact it was text-only added to the experience, letting my imagination fill in the details. Without other people, though... were you to turn it into an adventure game, I could see having some fun!

There is still a chat at psychicworldJungleland.com. That site also has a restaurant, a menu, and a waitress who delivers things you order. It also has a trail system. New sites can be easily added to the trail system if their code is compatible with what the host system provides. There is no chat capability along the trail system except at the restaurant and one other stop. Perhaps a site such as is described in this thread could be added there.

Chimerix wrote:What made Sinking Island so much fun, at least for me, was the interactions I had there with others. Wandering around the shell by myself wasn't all that rewarding, although I did it from time to time. It facilitated roleplay in a way that was almost magical. Honestly, I think the fact it was text-only added to the experience, letting my imagination fill in the details. Without other people, though... were you to turn it into an adventure game, I could see having some fun!

triclopse wrote:It's a single player text adventure, saved as a script that can be run in Python 2.7.10.
Ideally I'd like to fully rebuild the original but I don't know anywhere near enough network coding for that yet.

EDIT - ok since the reaction so far has been positive, I'll post the most recent version here. If you want to play it you'll need to install a Python compiler (I use IDLE, it's free and easy to use), then either change the file extension of the text file here to .py and load that, or copy paste the script in. Once it's loaded, just hit run and it should ask for your name. To quit, the command is safeword.

If you have any problems or suggestions for improvements please let me know.

Wow, this is really neat! The sinking mechanics are surprisingly enjoyable, despite their simplicity. The unpredictability of whether "struggling" will work or not really makes it.

I'm kinda tempted to make something similar myself now

As an aside, network programming is difficult. I think it would be a lot of effort for a feature which not that many people would use (although that's on the assumption that the market for text-based quicksand adventures is pretty small these days).

I tried to run it, but I don't think it worked right...
(I use Mac OS X btw.)