Picnic Syndrome
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
Story
An artificial intelligence called Teddy tests the virtual world "Nutopia" created by his master. At the same time, he is testing another AI, Vincent the wolf cub.
However, as Teddy's testing progresses, it seems to be more than just testing.
It became a game.
So, following in the footsteps of Teddy. let's explore Nutopia's secrets, dig into the story of the owner behind it, and bully play with Vincent,the timid wolf along the way!
Features
- Fully operational Nutopia file system
- Props system that interacts with the filesystem
WeirdMini games
Notice
This game can only be played once. You can unzip and overwrite the game again if you want to start over completely.
This game involves a lot of reading and writing of files, please make sure that this game is extracted in a location where you can read and write files (e.g. desktop).
Linux and macOS version is untested. If anyone has downloaded it, please let me know if it works or not, thanks!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
Comments
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Alright, I ran into several issues while playing, and have documented my experience below. To start, I was interested in this game for the description and wanted to see what other people could do with the ren'py engine.
The first road bump was my own stupidity:
.
I played through everything I can do without any file modification. Going to all locations, eating all food at the picnic, read the "readme" text file, and I got the pop up that literally tell you exactly where to go to edit files.
However, my problem was that the "database" and "load" files weren't populating. and it was because i wasn't opening the exe file as an administrator. I wasn't doing that because if you open it normally it still starts by saying "loading administrator files". It took me even longer to realize (or read) that you have to press a key during the pop up box to make the "database" and "load" files to appear.
I played through until I got a 'bad ending?" where I had to wait 15 minutes, but afterwards it said that i had corrupt files and had to reinstall which just completely reset all progress. Unsure if this is intentional, or if there was supposed to be some residual files leftover for your next playthrough..
As i am going through the game again, I also am seeing a lot of English grammar errors, I'm assuming your first language isn't English?
Next, I crashed it after getting the friend task completed, image attached.
This is where I ended my playthrough. The only tasks I wasn't able to complete on both playthroughs were the "angry" and "food" tasks. I wasn't able to complete the game, and not knowing how to progress and what exactly I need to do to unlock new scenes is a bit frustrating. I still have several unanswered questions ( No idea what you are supposed to input at the graveyard. Who is the noam character in the database, and how do I get them to spawn? how do you get to the cave? how do you cook the meatball?)
However, overall it is a very intriguing piece of coding work, I know you are working in the ren'py engine, but even though I used the same thing for my game, I have literally no idea how you were doing all these tricks or how complicated the actual script must be. It is a game that will stick with me long after i stop playing and wondering about the possibilities. I think you should release this on steam, honestly. People who liked the file editing part of doki doki would enjoy this.
Wow, you've reported a lot of bugs. Thanks, I'll slowly fix them in future updates.
English is not my first language, which is a major problem. I'm assuming all native English speakers can tell at a glanceðŸ˜. I'm not good at writing, so originally, I didn't intend to write a lot. But, well, it ended up like what you see. Could you please tell me if it's very annoying?
Both endings end up causing file corruption, and the text for the good ending is not perfected. Will take some time to improve it too, I guess.
I re-read the instruction on the first file manipulation. Uh, that version is a little out of date. I'll edit it.
The coffin's password(s) is the ultimate puzzle. Most are related to mini-games after unsafe shutdowns. There are only two passwords now. More passwords will be updated after version 1.0.
Anyway, thanks for playing. Most people don't provide feedback and you do, thank you!
I am still confused about the ending that corrupts the files. Apparently i got the bad ending, it was something about getting hacked into?
How do you even get the good ending? finishing all notes?
I was getting stumped on how to finish the scare and eat notes, unsure how to make the meatball edible and whatnot.
As for the English, it is kind of obvious its not your first language. and I had to re-read some lines several times, or think harder than normal about what you meant to say. However, there was never an error so bad that I didn't understand the meaning. Its a lot of grammar errors, not too many errors with using the wrong words.
Finally, i know how important and appreciated feedback is, so when I play something in-depth like this, I feel I owe it to the developer to give feedback.
Ok……
You don't have to cook meatball, just eat them raw. That's weird, I think you can eat meatball once you have it, it's an option, you can't miss that. The amount of food is 6. (Maybe I should consider changing the description of the meatballs. The reason why meatballs are raw is originally I had planned that you could cook meatballs.)
Getting Vincent angry is the tricky part. Give him yellow berries and then don't make Teddy angry by choosing the right option.
There are currently only two endings, both of them result in file corruption. It only depends on whether you wait 15 minutes or not. Since the ending text after waiting 15 minutes is not completed at this moment, it might feel a bit weird.
I plan to add a real ending in version 1.0. Wait for me to update it, both endings look a bit sketchy right now.
alright, I'll look out for it
Hmmm. Interesting. You seem to be a master coder, so I'll definitely check it out. THIS IS AMAZING!!!
I would love to learn programming soon. This should hopefully be inspiring. thanks for submitting to the Panic Horror Jam!
Thanks! Please give me feedback after you play it, thanks.