Yes, the top part is the same building as the rest of the game. So not completely consistent, but a bit more.
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You guys wonāt believe it but @Sushi s (and @Gugaās and others) endurance finally convinced me that there is a better way. So I changed the interface once againā¦ 
The point is: Sushi made me realize that, if I donāt care about preventing brute-forcing, but only about preventing solving puzzles by accident (which is not the same thing), I can simplify the interface enormously. Because then I no longer need to make the player compose a textual sentence by clicks (like āunderstand that the suitcase contains important notes from Mikeā). They can return to playing by combining objects only: they only click āthe suitcaseā and then āMikeā. After they choose both, the game automatically shows the relationship between them (that is, that A contains notes from B) .
The new UI looks very simple, like Broken Sword:
There is no popup window: you only click on the inventory bar and the room.
So it looks traditional. The only non-traditional thing I had to introduce is that most of my puzzles are not about combining objects, but about understanding relationships between two room objects or characters in different parts of the world. So I had to make a change: the inventory now contains some objects or characters from other rooms. This way you can combine two fixed objects from different rooms. (like the pump and the waterfall in monkey2, for example)
Other example: the pegleg puzzle. With the previous UI, the user had to compose : ā[act upon] [peg leg] [so that] [the carpenter] [leaves]ā . With this new UI, he just clicks the ācarpenterā from the inventory (not from the room) and then the peg leg from the room. Basically, he is saying āI have found a connection betwen the pegleg and the carpenterā. After he hovers the second object, i.e. the peg leg , the full text sentence appears: āact upon the peg leg to make the carpenter come hereā.
[edit: thatās actually not a good example, see next post]
In other words, now you play by just combining two objects, and you donāt need to state the relationship between these two objects. The game assumes you know this relation, and shows it to you. (because itās clear that you know itā¦ otherwise why would you have combined the two objects?)
There was an additional problem: some puzzles are such that there is an obvious relationship between the two objects, but it is not the correct oneā it is not the solution. So there is the high risk that the user combines the two correct objects, but has the wrong relation in mind. So he hasnāt solved the puzzle. Then, he would solve the puzzle by accident. I had to find a solution to that as well (explained in the next post).
To sum up: this interface looks like broken sword, but has the property that 1) you canāt solve puzzles by accident. And 2) allows you to have puzzles that are about understanding generic relations between fixed objects/chars in different rooms.
Apart from this, Iām still handling a lot of new object-char combinations, so the release will take a couple of weeks at least 
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Hmmm.
What if a player clicks on the carpenter from the inventory, and another unrelated object on the room? The sentence will show up anyway, e.g. act upon the mouse to make the carpenter come here ?
If so, thereās no way to compose the sentences any other way, correct?
E.g. act upon the mouse because the carpenter can play an instrument
One of the innovative and most funny things of your adventure is was the ability to create funny sentences, choosing them from a list.
actually this wasnāt a good example: in the game thereās an obvious relation between the carpenter and the peg leg: the game tells you that the carpenter does the maintenance on the peg leg. But this obvious relation is not the solution: it doesnāt contain the concept of āleaving the shopā. So the player risks to combine the two objects (carpenter and pegleg) not because he has solved the puzzle, (= because he understands the carpenter will leave the shop) but simply because he is thinking of that (obvious and wrong) relation. That is, he risks to solve the puzzle by accident. Design failure. So this is actually one of the cases where this new interface canāt express the puzzle!
To solve this, you may think āletās implement the puzzle as saw + peglegā, like Monkey 2 does. But no, because there is an obvious relation between saw and pegleg too. (the saw can cut wood). any connection with the carpenter is gone. So the player will solve this puzzle by accident here as well!
So, here we have actually found a puzzle that it is impossible to implement with this interface. However you implement it, the player will solve it by accident. So the previous interface was still better.
However, to use this UI, we only need a simple redesign of the puzzle: we just remove the information that the pirate is a customer of the carpenter. For example you can add the dialog: āmr pirate, if your pegleg were broken, what would you do?ā "I would probably call for help ". (but doesnāt tell you who heād call). So now itās ok.
But sometimes itās impossible to remove the obvious relation between the two objects. What do you do then? Hereās what you can do: 1) if you combine ācarpenter + peglegā, the protagonist responds by repeating the obvious relation: āyes, itās true that the carpenter provides for the maintenance of the pegleg, but so what?ā. So this combination does not solve the puzzle. 2).you add the generic concept āto leave the shopā to the inventory. The correct solution is to combine āleave the shop + peglegā. As soon as you drag āto leave the shopā on the peg peg, the sentence appears over the cursor āact upon peg leg so that the carpenter leaves the shopā.
Good question. Of course not. the sentence will not change. it will stay ācarpenter + mouseā. and the cursor has the āno-accessā shape.
Only if you drag it on the peg leg, the sentence changes structure and shows the solution. otherwise it would be a giveaway. the user would solve puzzles by accident.
Example: when you drag dracula on the wrong object (the throne):
when you drag Dracula on the correct object, the sentence appears:
But I can still add that kind of thingsā¦ Thatās what I am doing these daysā¦ Iām adding a big number of wrong combinations, just for giving funny results. Even āuse crucifix against Draculaā, above, is not the correct solution to the puzzle, but you can still do it.
for exampleā¦ I donāt knowā¦ drag the carpenter on the mouse, and you see āthrow the mouse in the carpenterās shopā. Drag the carpenter on the bra, and you see āask the carpenter to wear the braā.
With the previous interface, itās true you were able to compose these silly things, but then youād get the default error message (the generic insults). Not very nice. Now you can compose these kind of things, but you get a funny scene as result. Itās better, isnāt it?
2 Likes
OK man, this way is way more funny! 
Zak approves this improvement!
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I like it. I canāt wait to see it in action
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It moves me to tears that I finally found something that works for both of us
And hopefully for Sushi and Someone and others as well.
On the other hand, Iām sad that thereās nothing to argue about anymore
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My answer:
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Canāt wait to play it. And I have to play it to give you some feedback. 
Is it in that state already?
Well, let me play it and weāll see ā¦
Well , I could publish it tonightā¦ but the game couldnāt be completed yet, and many combinations are unhandled, and some inv icons missingā¦ maybe you can wait a few more days 
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Of course! (Even if I canāt wait to play itā¦ )
I think you will be happy because (if I recall correctly) you used to say that the old UI gave away part of the solution.
I didnāt agree with this, because I donāt think that seeing
act upon __ so that __ ends up in jail
is a giveaway. But anyway , the new UI will make both of us happy, because now you donāt see this, until you drag the two correct objects on each other
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Hmā¦ Did I? 
In my last play I wasnāt happy with that huge amount of possible combinations right at the beginningā¦
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Maybe I confused you with someone else
Not at all! Just donāt have enough time right now.
I think your new interface is interesting and indeed can help in removing accidental puzzle solving. However, like the peg leg puzzle demonstrates: by not allowing the obvious ones, you risk to create a new kind of āguess the parserā game: guess the (non-trivial) object to combine this with.
What I did not like about the āin order toā part of your previous UI was that it always took a lot of time to find where that sentence was (as it gets reshuffled). Now it is totally gone or auto-filled, which makes me miss this part a bit.
I am also a bit unsure about all the similar looking faces in the UIā¦ but I must see it in action to comment further.
Bottomline: very interesting move, but not quite perfect yet!
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Itās true, but it feels natural when you play. Because, if you drag carpenter on peg leg, the protagonist repeats the obvious relation āThe carpenter said he does the maintenance for the peg leg.ā. So itās immediately obvious to you that the two objects you clicked were not enough to explain what you really wanted to do. And once you know that is the problem, it takes you only a few seconds to understand how to express what you want to do more clearly. (Assuming you really know what you want to do, of course . And if you donātā¦ you havenāt solved the puzzle.)
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update: still drawing inventory iconsā¦
from the left you see:
Ulric, wood to chop, waitress, journalist, poor and ragged tramp, carpenter, witch, niece, āto wake up too earlyā, āto disguise oneselfā, āto hide insideā, āto climbā, dracula, ipecac, potion to go back in time.
they are all concepts, except for the last two, that are objects you are actually carrying.
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I 've uploaded the new version online, but itās not all translatedā¦ especially the GUI is untranslated. As well as all the new dialogs.
Iāll try to put the translation up to date in the next couple days
Apart from that, several āwrongā combinations (not needed to finish the game) are still unhandled. Iāll add more and more combinations each day. Handling them with jokes. Some even with cutscenes.
In case someone wants to try to see how the new UI feels, then, after it loads, immediately start a new game (via the options menu). (the game will automatically continue from where you left, but that world state will probably be broken and generate bugs. So donāt continue from there.)
(Also do a CTRL+F5 to empty the cache.)
Hereās an example of a silly thing (not needed to complete the game) that you can now do with the new interface:
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In a few hours Iāll be done with the translationā¦
Iām very happy because I added a lot of funny dialog that rewards you for experimenting. (This is all dialog unneded to complete the game)
many thanks to @Gffp for helping me refine the interface. It turns out there were still problems with it
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