Mini Quests

You may recognize Mini Quests as an escapee from 2010’s Tiny Game contest.

The game has grown quite a bit since then. Update (1 Dec 2014): It now has a grand total of four dungeons.

I’ve also ported it to Android and Ouya.

The restrictions from the contest still hold: the game uses a resolution of 40-by-30 pixels, and 16 colours (from the 64-colour EGA palette).

Play Mini Quests (Browser, Download, etc.)

Play Mini Quests (Android)

Controls (keyboard): Use Q,K,S,P to walk around the dungeons, and Space to fire your crossbow. (Some alternative key layouts are given on the webpage.)

If you get stuck in a dungeon you can press ESC to quit it (and try the other dungeon if you haven’t already :wink: ).

Game progress should be saved automatically.

Thanks for playing, you tiny heroes!
Simon

[s]Feedback: I find it hard to judge if the game’s puzzles are too difficult or too easy (or too boring, too repetitive, too obscure, etc.) so any feedback you can give would really help me to tweak the game. If you get stuck in a dungeon, tell me where. Or if you complete a dungeon, let us all know so we can applaud your skill.

For the Applet, I’ve tried a bit of an experiment to hopefully make it easier for people to give me feedback. If you’ve got the Java Console open (you should be able to open it from the “Advanced” part of the Java Control Panel) then the game will display a cryptic string, such as

"Tk2IZ37PfGDWlRJdrEPkzhVr3Xbu9Yh4FsnBLhtJR9zNXx5SdwBZj9HipDNlvFTq1LZ17Sf8EEl"

when you complete a quest, or when you quit a quest by pressing ESC. This string is a munged-up record of roughly where you spent your time during the game, and where you were when you died. If you post your strings below (or message or mail them to me) then I’ll hopefully be able to build up a picture of where the difficult bits in the game are.

So if you get stuck, don’t rage-quit. Open the Java Console, press the ESC key to abort the quest, and send me the magic string. That way you’ll be showing me exactly how frustrated the game has made you.[/s]

4 Feb 2012: Links added to Android version
13 May 2013: Removed ‘Feedback’ section of original post. Added link to Dungeon #3 Beta.
14 July 2013: New version released.
30 Aug 2013: Now on Ouya.
1 Dec 2014: New version released with four (four! so many!) dungeons.

Nice to see that you have continues to develop the game! The new map and that you can pick dungeon is making it more exciting and it is fun to explore more of the “mini land”. I found the new map more difficult, and Im already stuck at the 3rd room, 2nd dungeon, where there is a hole in the middle. I will give it another try later on though. Btw I’m actually working on “Cyber Amazon 2” now :slight_smile:

And I was worried that the new bits were too easy. ::slight_smile: As I said, I have real trouble judging the difficulty level.

[quote]Btw I’m actually working on “Cyber Amazon 2” now :slight_smile:
[/quote]
Excellent news! :smiley: Will it have the same resolution?

Simon

Looks awesome!
It’s a shame there wasn’t much interest in the TinyGame competition this year. Perhaps rather than a yearly competition we should just have a constraint based showcase forum (one for each TinyGame, 4k, lwjgl16k, vector based etc).

Hi how to pass a door, like at lonely tower in your pic row 3 col 3?

I like the game, can you make an alternative control using QWAS (for each diagonal direction?)
Its still a bit confusing to steer.
(or 7845 on the numpad, or any other 2x2 grid keys)

Actually you know… a mouse click & tile highlight under the cursor would be a great addition. Possibly with a small highlighted path where it’s going to take you if you click somewhere. I found the keyboard controls just too annoying to use despite the premise of the game being really interesting.

Also how do I get through that first door? :slight_smile:

Cas :slight_smile:

(if you mean the old version…)

shooting at that thing…
from the low part of the bridge.

Its true, the first door is one of the hardest things to understand.
The first time i tried the game it frustrated me not passing that room.
Maybe you make tha bridge-architecture more visible.

Thanks for the feedback, folks!

Doors that look like that are locked. You either need to find a switch that unlocks them, or find another way through.

Hint: [spoiler]For that door, try searching the area for somewhere that looks like a good hiding place. Particularly good for hiding trolls.[/spoiler] (Drag over with the mouse to make the [ spoiler ] text visible.)

Simon

Nice thought, but I don’t think it would be practical to retro-fit mouse controls. There are too many times when you can’t see the tile you’d want to walk to, and turning to shoot things would become very awkward.

[quote]Also how do I get through that first door? :slight_smile:
[/quote]
For the grassy area, see my post above. For the lava area, see Damocles’s post.

If nothing else, at least the game is upfront about its difficultly level. :wink:

Simon

I rage-quitted (forgot about the admin console thing). I kept dying trying to open the second door in the room with the dragon (3 switches one).

I love the game BTW, the puzzles are all really inventive, especially given the 40x30 pixel limit.

I still think a page with dozens of 40x30 games tiled over it would be magnificent. Ah, well.
Simon

You can now move using T,Y,G,H, or I,O,K,L.
Are those keys okay?
Simon

You’ve earned a medal for your impressive adventuring skills. 8)

In that room, would it be less frustrating if [spoiler]the door stayed open once you’ve stepped on the green switch, instead of locking again if you die[/spoiler] (assuming that that’s the bit that was causing you trouble)?

Simon

Excellent news! :smiley: Will it have the same resolution?

Simon
[/quote]
Nope it will have as much as 120 x 90 in resolution! :smiley:

I’m now stuck at the first room, 2nd dungeon. I find it very difficult to get pass the 3 shooting guys! As the first room it seems too difficult. Or is there some tactics I can use to get pass them? Right now it is more like I go by random and hope for the best.

The red things only shoot if you’re standing directly in front of them. So as long as you’re not standing in line with one, you’re perfectly safe.

If it’s not obvious that that’s how they behave, then I’ll have to do something to make it clearer in the game.

Simon

Aha now I understand! I thought the shot at me whenever they spotted me, not only vertical and horizontal.

New version
I’ve added a short tutorial level at the start. Hopefully that will give people a leg-up onto the game’s difficulty curve.

I’ve added a bit more visual feedback to that room to try to make it clearer how those red things behave.

Those switches now stay switched, so that bit should hopefully cause less frustration.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Keep it coming! ;D
Simon

I think the first puzzles must be of the sort:
“Uh, that was hard, cool meself that i solved that”
without beeing actually complicated, but rather staigtforward.
(Player can estimate the solution by some visible clues)

Some early rewards to get the player motivated for the harder puzzles.

The hardest can be “at the end”, since the motivation is to fnish the game then.

Also its good to have the “introduce a new play-mechanic in a simple puzzle,
then repeat it some levels later with a harder setup” rythm.

Its nice to apply a previously learned solution in another setup, makes you feel “wise”

New version
I’ve expanded the tutorial level at the start to try and make the game more accessible.

If nothing else, at least there’s now part of the game no one can get stuck on. :wink:

Thanks for the comments. Everything you say makes sense. The annoying thing is, I would’ve said that the quests already follow those rules pretty closely. I guess I’m just not good at telling the difference between easy puzzles and hard puzzles.

Simon