North Acton Halls - a London Choose Your Own Adventure

[The Orange One]

I'm a student at Imperial College London, and they're planning on opening a new set of halls in North Acton. The College says you can get from these halls to the South Ken campus in 30 minutes. This is widely regarded to be impossible, but I did go and prove them wrong. This inspired me to make a Choose Your Own Adventure game where you start at North Acton and have to get to South Ken. Since then, the concept expanded quite a bit, and it's become more of a simulation of London with some rather odd characters.

It's currently in development, because I have to sort the details out, but tell me what you think of it.

[RJSRdg]

Had a few attempts at it - good fun but also infuriating (after accidentally boarding three trains to West Ruislip when I was aiming for Ealing Broadway and the District Line, I crossed to the Eastbound platform and wound up in WR again!).

Obviously there's still quite a lot to do - I managed to get down to Hammersmith only to find the Picc/Dist station didn't exist!, the NLL doesn't seem to exist south of Shepherds Bush or the Central east of there (has sufficient been written so far to be able to get to South Ken?).

Just wondering - is it possible to use the same "world" to set up a number of different challenges? Maybe there's room here for a community effort with volunteers building different lines.... (I bag the Waterloo & City!).

But great work so far!

[A Challenge]

I 'enetered' Ravenscourt Park expecting it to be going into the station but nothing actually happened. Also, how do you get to the District/Piccadilly at Hamnersmith as that is why I got the bus to Ravensourt Court in the first place.

[The Orange One]

Work has been done on this again. I think you entered Ravenscourt Park - the park. The area is very confusing to put in, as there's also Ravenscourt Park, the road and a number of other Ravenscourts as well. I have added details to the park now, so it's not a dead end any more.

As regards Hammersmith, I have yet to link the District and Piccadilly platforms (which do actually exist at the moment, fully furnished and all) with anything else apart from the District platforms at Ravenscourt Park station. This is because the shopping centre is a nightmare to plan out (I have to link it with the two bus stations as well). The WLL will continue south but only when I put together some bus routes (27, 28 and 49 probably). The next steps (after sorting out Hammersmith) will probably be:

- Extend the Circle/H&C to Ladbroke Grove/Westbourne Park
- Extend the 70 bus to the same
- Extend the Central Line to Queensway; Notting Hill Gate will just be a placeholder at this point
- Extend the 70 bus through to Notting Hill Gate, flesh out NHG a bit
- Add parts of more bus routes (18, 27, 28, 31, 52, 94, 452 come to mind)
- Extend the Circle/H&C to Paddington
- Add the western side of the Circle
- Extend the 70 bus to South Kensington
- Add in Kensington Gardens
- Bring the District and Piccadilly through from Hammersmith to South Kensington
- Add more buses (9, 10, 49, 328, C1)
- Bring the WLL down to West Brompton and start on District branches to Kensington Olympia and West Brompton
- Add the 74 bus route

What really takes the time is adding in all the random shops, ticket machines and useless diversions, which nobody has yet commented on!

[A Challenge]

What really takes the time is adding in all the random shops, ticket machines and useless diversions, which nobody has yet commented on!

It is we want to get to South Kensington as that is the aim of the game.

[A Challenge]

What really takes the time is adding in all the random shops, ticket machines and useless diversions, which nobody has yet commented on!

It is we want to get to South Kensington as that is the aim of the game.

Actually, I will comment. I got the abandoned train from the GWR depot and ended up with no options when I got to Kings Cross platform 9 . Another thing to note is that when I entered Ravenscourt Park it is what the station is named after not the station and I assumed it was the station. This time, however, I caught the train from Hammersmith and then got lost in the park!

[The Orange One]

Getting to South Kensington would take a while - putting in options everywhere is necessary to make this even close to challenging (in the real world, none of the investigative journalists covering the new North Acton Halls managed to find the solution and I hoped to match that). Anyway, it would purely be a transport simulation if I took all the rest out - here's a London Underground only simulation (though effectively restricted to Zone 1 and without timings). As you can see, nothing really seems to happen.

I'll get moving though - Barons Court has no bus routes and isn't in the middle of a shopping centre so should be relatively short work to put together.

[palkanetoijala31]

It's a good thing the real thing is a lot less confusing I got stuck at Ealing Broadway sixteen times

[The Orange One]

I'm going to have to make my mind up about North Acton platform 2 (the one where trains will run in either direction) it looks like. What helps in reality is the next train displays - I think I'll just eliminate it as a bad plan.

You do underestimate, knowing the system well, how confusing it gets at times, especially when things go wrong!

I've had to go back and explain things properly a number of times - Shepherd's Bush is still a nightmare, though I have recently been adding bus spider maps.

King's Cross Platform 9 is the only one-way dead end at the moment (I believe!). What's really got me worried is Notting Hill Gate which is seriously confusing! All those passages.

[palkanetoijala31]

I'm going to have to make my mind up about North Acton platform 2 (the one where trains will run in either direction) it looks like. What helps in reality is the next train displays - I think I'll just eliminate it as a bad plan.

You do underestimate, knowing the system well, how confusing it gets at times, especially when things go wrong!

I've had to go back and explain things properly a number of times - Shepherd's Bush is still a nightmare, though I have recently been adding bus spider maps.

King's Cross Platform 9 is the only one-way dead end at the moment (I believe!). What's really got me worried is Notting Hill Gate which is seriously confusing! All those passages.

I kept on thinking hmm pasty hmm pasty got a bit distracted

[The Orange One]

Well, if you get distracted by the pasties...

The reason I did Ravenscourt Park - the park - is because it's good for me to understand how it's done before I have to put Kensington Gardens in there... which reminds me, I have to stop procrastinating, fix up Shepherd's Bush Green and then cross the West London Line.

Unless someone asks a question or provides feedback that isn't "I can't get past Shepherd's Bush/Hammersmith" I will simply continue writing until we get to the edge of Zone 1. Examples of interesting questions include "How did Robert Green kick me into Shepherd's Bush Station and how did I survive?" or "Why can I just walk into HMP Wormwood Shrubs and poke a prisoner without anyone stopping me?" or "Is Roger Federer in this game just to mock me?" or "Why do all the coffees in this game taste awful?"