Ok, so I just played through your game since you put the link here.
Qs:
(1) are you supposed to interact w/ the NPCs? Only substantial interaction I noticed is when you turn on the lighthouse and the pirates run away
(2) Looks like you don't need to solve any of the puzzles to win the game?
(3) Seem to be a lot of unneeded items also?
In general, a bit confused. I never did anything w/ the brick, the rake, the racket, the music, or moby dick, and yet managed to win the game it seems.
We made it for a Ludum Dare contest http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview... which has a 72 hour deadline and we simply didn't have time to finish it, basically. So theres lots of started plot twists which don't get used or go anywhere, e.g. we added the NPCs but didn't get a working conversation system in there.
playing them or programming them? These days text adventures are called "interactive fiction" and if you google that, suddenly you find a lot of stuff, including http://www.theescapist.com/
But programming games? GameMaker might be a good bet.
Qs:
(1) are you supposed to interact w/ the NPCs? Only substantial interaction I noticed is when you turn on the lighthouse and the pirates run away
(2) Looks like you don't need to solve any of the puzzles to win the game?
(3) Seem to be a lot of unneeded items also?
In general, a bit confused. I never did anything w/ the brick, the rake, the racket, the music, or moby dick, and yet managed to win the game it seems.