Is there an API reference? I don't remember how to ask a guard for a key, and apparently it's not guard.askKey.<p>edit: Ahh, got it. The @key was already given to me (was this specified somewhere?), so the guard didn't support askKey. I wonder if there's a more appropriate response than not having the method, but I'm not sure what it would be.
Very cool. What are you using for the voice synthesizer?<p>Also, I'm stuck on a bug: When I hit command-enter after typing "open @left", it spawns a new window with <a href="http://thechoice.amos.me/[object%20Object]" rel="nofollow">http://thechoice.amos.me/[object%20Object]</a>. (Chrome 27, Mac 10.8)
Hi! The Choice dev here - this is Episode 1, there'll be more to come.
Tell me how you like it, how you felt doing it, what was hard, what was easy, what was fun, what was annoying, everything!
Episode 2 may come out in June if I find enough people like it ;)
I got stuck on the crime question, and cheated. They're pretty difficult riddles! It wasn't immediately clear a hint would appear (after my first 6 answers).<p>Now I'm stuck in the door. Its interesting and somewhat fun, but I'm not sure I have all day to fail fail fail fail fail. Perhaps you could share your dropoff metrics once you have more data.
I'll be honest, I don't understand the logic I need to get through the truth-teller/liar test since it isn't quite clear what I'm allowed to do. If you just want me to do a ton of embedded if/else statements, meh, I've lost interest.<p>If the goal it to teach programming, increase an interest in programing, or expose a language that others might not be exposed to, the worst way to do it it to make your target audience feel stupid. The initial questions to show the answer command aren't very easy - frankly they are seriously flawed riddles. Second, showing variables isn't described well enough to intrinsically know what to do unless you've already been exposed to programming.<p>I guess it all depends on the target audience, but it's not all that clear who that is.
I liked this. It reminded of poking around in a dos prompt trying to figure out how to play sierra online games. It stuff like this that got me into computers.<p>I got stuck at the Lying part. I was able to figure out both of them were lying to me. But still failed to complete the task. I wonder though how "difficult" these challenges are? I still consider myself a beginning programmer even though I can build web sites, and small basic python and javascript programs. Someone once told me I suffer from imposter syndrome. I never though so until using your application. I couldn't help but think "I don't belong here". With that said, I still found it fun, challenging, and frustrating at the same time.
Pretty good execution, I was entertained. I didn't mind the puzzle difficulty, though the answers felt arbitrary. It was confusing going back from @left and @right to @door, which seemed puzzling for sure but guessing's no fun.<p>If the language were clearly built up on the screen (syntax, literals) it'd be easier to work with the EEM. Showing the bound functions would help, too, but would demystify the puzzle aspect. Sexps are more natural to me than this super sugary syntax that leaves you guessing, more or less. Guessing language syntax is no more fun than guessing random numbers. :( I would definitely play an Episode 2.
I liked it. The first questions was harder than the actual programming quizes, which maybe wasn't the goal.<p>I can't wait for part two!<p>Edit; I found a few bugs, commands like "print" and "open" does what window.print() and window.open() does. Is this intentional?
I'd love a way to turn off the voice. As neat as it is, there's a noticeable pause on each new instruction, relative to the length of the instruction, where I assume it's busy synthesizing the audio it's about to play.
I could use a checkbox to shut off the voice. It gets a little annoying after a while.<p>Very nice. Somewhat fun and interesting. Xzoor isn't a very good guard if he's telling you specifics about your prison!
At the very end:<p>> Tell me what you think about it by sending me a tweet.<p>ugh, really?<p>Other than that, quite cool, though the first question was needlessly oblique and I stopped playing right there the first go around.
Very entertaining! Is it aiming to be an intro tool for programming? I think it would work well as one.<p>Maybe literals (specifically strings) could be introduced a little more somehow.<p>Maybe @xzoor should have a more obvious human name like @jeff (since it's rather similar to @door)<p>At one point I forgot a method name, and couldn't scroll back to find it, I don't think it should be a test of memory (unless that's exactly what it is and in which case I deserve all the abuse my robot overloads can give)
I'm stuck on the very first problem.<p><pre><code> EEM: Here is your first assignment.
It is more useless than you. What is it?
</code></pre>
I have no idea what it is and the hints aren't helping. Isn't anyone else stuck there too? Or is it personalized/randomized for different people?
On the step with the doors and the lier guard, there is a trick to know which guard is lying by asking one question only. This is due to the fact that you use coffeescript.
Maybe you should whitelist the parameters allowed for the questions, to avoid "cheating".
I really like it a lot. Somehow I got unfocused from the text box and tried to backspace to clear out my answer, which took me back in my browser and lost my progress :( maybe some client side storing of progress could be helpful. I was having so much fun!
Took a few tries but I managed to finish it.
I'd suggest removing the riddle parts since they can be pretty frustrating and aren't directly programming related. Or maybe give increasingly helpful hints and eventually the full answer.
For the one were you are supposed to ask the guard (xzoor) for the key I keep getting the error
Property 'door' of object # is not a function - Try again.<p>Otherwhise looks cool, plus I've always wanted to learn CoffeeScript, so thanks!
I know it's kind of defeating the purpose, but it would be nice to be able to skip and see the answer to the question. Most of these step through games usually let you do that, although those are made for weaklings.
This is awesome. How about a version that records the interaction? Would be great for interviewing programmers! Like a fun version of interviewzen.com.