intricacy revisited

I warned that I might post about other hobby projects now diohsc is essentially finished. Here's one which could potentially interest the gemfolk.

I recently revisited a game I wrote back in 2013-15, and changed it in a pretty drastic way. Broken it, arguably.

The game is a fiddly puzzler about picking locks, called Intricacy. It's essentially a curses (text-graphics) game, though there's also an SDL graphical mousey mode added in a doomed attempt to get some players.

Screenshot in monochrome mode (colour mode is more readable (thanks to the 5-colour theorem)):

                                                                              HOLD BALL
                                   # # # # # # # # #
                                  # # # S S S s s ; # # # #      [?]  help
    g c    7 9    G C            # \   #   #       ; #     #    [^B]  bind
   h @ s  4 _ 6  H * S          #   o %     # . o - ; #     #
    b m    1 3    B M          #     ` Z     " #     ; ; ;   #
                              # #   # # Z   " [     ;   #   #
select tool  [tab,*,/]       # #   #   # Z " [ "   ;     # #
rotate hook  [2,8,t,n]      # #       O # Z " "       # # #
       wait  [ ]           # # O   \   O # " S S S S ;   # #
                            # #     @   #   # # # # . o - #
  open lock  [O]             # #       #   # O O   #     #
                            # #   /       #       # *   #
 undo, redo  [U,R]         #     o     ;             # #
      marks  [+,',^]        #   # #   7             # #
                             # # # # 7           O # #
                                  # # # # # # # # # #            [Q]  quit
                                   # # # # # # # # #

Graphical version

Keeping short what could be a long story: this was originally designed as a multiplayer game, in which players devise locks for other players to pick. But it essentially failed in that form -- despite plenty of downloads, almost no-one really engaged with the game. So, this new release hides multiplayer behind a conventional single-player game, in which each puzzle you solve unlocks further puzzles, with the difficulty ramping up along the way (to a pretty high level by the end). Hopefully it makes for a satisfying experience in itself. I'm hoping that players who aren't spoiled by summaries like this will be pleasantly surprised to find that the reward for completing the game is a completely new game! Of course I've also made sure it's straightforward to cheat your way through.

In case you'd like to try it, you can play Intricacy in curses mode without downloading anything:

ssh intricacy@sshgames.thegonz.net
password: intricacy

For the graphical version, you'll have to compile it from the haskell source; I used to make binaries, even for windows, but time swallowed my build systems. On e.g. debian systems, you should be able to install it with:

sudo apt-get install cabal-install libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-gfx1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev
cabal update && cabal install intricacy