For part one, head on over here This post will continue on the 4th comment. I’m going to respond to every one!

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Hempuli says …
The gameplay elements are a bit thin, but this is sure a good start! The music is also very good.

Most gameplay elements were created about one hour before the deadline and there was not much time left for playtesting. Keep an eye out for the post-compo version which I am planning to release in a few days.

psnake says …
The graphics and music are good and do their jobs. It’s noticeable that there’s polish to the graphics whichs gives a great and consistent look to the game

I wish the gameplay was on the same level, it has the basic elements, but the random maps, in this case, gets in the way of the player since any strategy he could plan by restarting the level is lost because a new map is generated. In the end, it feels like it’s mere luck to be able to go from island to island.

Thanks for your detailed comment. At first, I thought the randomness was not such a negative factor. But then I played the game again and could see the point you are making. My thought when placing the random islands: Usually with these kind of survivor games once you have build everything or “seen” everything you are not going to play the game ever again, so I wanted some replay value. I realize now that placing the islands this randomly was not a good idea, you still need a lot of luck to beat the game.
I am planning to release a post-compo version in the next few days (or so), where especially this issue will be adressed.

eli says …
wonderful graphics and music. The feeling is extremely lonely and wonderful.

Thanks. I actually was kind of inspired by the music you did for your LD warmup.

philomory says …
I was looking forward to playing this game, but when I run it (on Windows), the text is all missing, as are most of the graphics. All I see are the robot and the items to pick up, no background, and no text, including on the menu. I’ll be coming back to this one to try it again, because it looks interesting.

Hmm, that seems like an odd issue. You need at least OpenGL 1.1 to play the game, but since almost every computer does meet this requirement, I did not mention this explicitely. So, installing the latest graphics driver might help.
But first, check if the file has been downloaded correctly. The file size should be 5.2 MB. (I had a few issues with my webspace hoster the last couple of days, maybe you just downloaded the file at a bad time.)
Also every time you play the game a log file is being generated in the /bin folder called “SurvivalGuide.exe.log”. Usually the content is something like that:

- Note – Timestamp – Start log
- Note – Timestamp – Using hardware surface
- Note – Timestamp – End log

If you have a completely different content, please let me know. I just tested the game on all four Windows PCs (all either Windows XP or 7) at home, but I couldn’t reproduce this error anywhere. If you have redownloaded and tested it again and it’s still not working, could you please give me some detailed specs on the computer you are trying to play the game on.