Mind's Eye Big V 1.4 Valentine's Day Update!

[Monkeyman1138]

Seriously, how do you get the "best" ending?

Spoiler

I got the two missable hallucination sequences, examined and brained the chart in the examination room, injected the drug in Mitchell's office, making sure to examine the photo in the room, and then looking at and braining the photo in Knox's office to make the connection between the two, but my eye gauge is still only halfway full and I still get the same ending as before (the you are doctor mitchell ending)

[close]

Please help!

[HillBilly]

I thought that was the good ending.

Spoiler

Unless you get shot.

[close]

Also, hide spoilers with [ hide ] tags.

[Monkeyman1138]

Spoiler

Yes, I got shot. Also, you being Doctor Mitchell doesn't make any sense, as you are shown talking to him in one "madness" sequence, does the best ending explain this? In any case, what am I doing wrong about getting that ending?

[close]

[big brother]

You're trying too hard. Like that poprockmetal classic band, Papa Roach sings/says, "my weakness is that I care too much." So true, Papa, so true.

[Monkeyman1138]

Well that's great but it doesn't exactly help me, does it?

[JohnWWells]

If we want to send in comments and suggestions, should we post them here, or e-mail them to the author?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Feel free to post them here, that's one of the main purposes of this board.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Monkeyman- use the hints and tips thread if you have questions about what to do in the game, this is not the thread for it.  Thanks!

John- if you have some feedback you can private message me or leave a note here.

[Monkeyman1138]

Last time I asked in the hints thread, noone answered, so I thought asking here would be alright.

[Trisk]

Just completed Mind's Eye! I'll give you my full opinion of it (like you care...but hey.)

The good-

Graphics-
Great! Nice, clean, easy to see...The halls are antiseptic white and marble floors, the cell dark and depressing. Everything really looks fantastic. Easily up to the quality of games like Sam and Max. The font was a little hard to read at first, particularly the letter "f," but after that, it was a great look for the game. All the little touches of professionalism are here in spades.

Animation-
Smooth as butter! Of course, I expected this since you helped me with my game!  Noah really looks cool. All the facial expressions for the conversation closups are a great touch. The other inmates, and all the doctors and orderlies all look distinct and instantly recognizeable.

Music-
Nice stuff! Fittingly dark, moody, and nervous. Instantly sets the player on edge. Use of Beethoven was a nice touch, too!

Sound-
Spartan, but fitting. Doors, computer keyboards, shutters...all sound as they should, without drawing undue attention. Usually when sound DOESN'T draw attention, it's a good thing. It means it sounds correct and you accept it without even thinking about it!

Story-
Nicely told. The twist is a surprise, and yet there are clues that it is there.

Spoiler

I especially liked the second flashback, the one in the exam room...you could see an outline of someone watching through the one way mirror. Nice touch!

[close]

Atmosphere-
The combination of all the above made for a wonderful gaming atmosphere. To create a horror/thriller game, you MUST create a good mixture of sights and sounds to draw the player into a sense of unease. Mind's Eye did that from the opening shot in the padded cell, to the last scroll of credits. This is not easy to do, and you did it very well! You have a flair for the macabre, no doubt! 

Puzzles-
Well conceived. Nothing too hard, nothing too easy. Clues are all in place, so being careful to look at and think about everything will usually nudge you towards the solution. I had to play through twice to get the good ending, and didn't mind a bit! 

Cool GUI-
While I had problems with this (more later,) it is a nice, clean, and efficient GUI. It is refreshingly different from the stock GUI, which is very cool. The "Mind Meter" in the middle is a neat idea as well.

Mouse Icons-
Nice! Animated, and easy to find hotspots with! You can't go wrong with them! Things like this help make the interface transparent, so the player can just plain work on playing the game. That's a very good thing!



The Bad-

Lack of adequate manual-
Ouch! The interface may be obvious to you as the designer, but it isn't obvious to us players! I had to look in the hints and tips forum to find how to save! That tiny little button looks like graphics, not a manipulatable GUI! I never even realised the "Mind Meter" was there until after I beat the game. I know writing a manual is boring, but you do your hard work (and obvious game making talent) a disservice by making the first puzzle in the game "figure out my esoteric interface!"

Questionable GUI placement-
OK, I know everyone puts their GUI on the top of the screen, but that is because it works, and works well. The bottom...well...doesn't. There are over a dozen zone lines in Mind's Eye that are on the bottom of the screen, and I was accidently bringing up the GUI on every one. The zone line is almost always maddeningly close to the "pop up point" of the GUI. Making several of the timed areas VERY annoying and frustrating. I had to do both timed areas over again at least once because the GUI popped up and wrecked my chances. Conversly, I noted that there was NOT ONE point of interest EVER on the top of the screen. Not a single one to interfere with the GUI, had it been up there! Why was it so important to be different that you had to add this level of frustration? It's a booger on an otherwise spotlessly clean windshield.


I really liked this game alot! The lack of polish in GUI design was the only mar on an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable game. To achieve this level of quality and professionalism is no mean feat. Great stuff, and I hope to see more from you in the future!

Trisk

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Trisk- I appreciate the feedback and I'm glad you enjoyed it.  I'll address a few of your points since I think you've encountered situations other people have (and seemed to have missed a few things)-

1.  The font.  I agree that the f is difficult to make out initially.  I was tempted to rework the font to make it more discernable, but time constraints made me forget about it.  It looks cleaner in 640x480, by the way- and is the preferred way to play Mind's Eye (if your pc can handle it).  320x200 is far from ideal for such a font .

2.  I wish you would have read the readme more carefully, because some people seem to miss this line:  "F12 opens the interactive help menu where you can find out about the various commands."  I put a darn interactive help menu in the game for people to click on the various gui and icon elements to better understand their function for a reason !  Between the readme and the context help menu it covers all the aspects of Mind's Eye- feel free to reload it and fiddle with the help menu and perhaps you'll change your mind about documentation .

3.  The GUI.  Yes, a few people have mentioned the gui being difficult.  I realized that this could be a problem and so I implemented a quick fix with the F1 key (covered in the readme).  At some point in the future I may simply make the GUI smaller as the game ultimately had fewer inventory items than I projected. 

As for placement, it's at the bottom for two very good reasons:

1.  Pop up dialogs and the Background dialogs would be obscured/interfered with by it.

2.  The Delirium Mode Eye would be obscured/interfered with.

This same situation would occur if I moved the dialogs to the bottom and the gui to the top.  I hope that explains why I chose the bottom of the screen, though if I had gone with smaller backgrounds I could have avoided all the placement issues- but that's another story .

I'm glad you noticed that bit in your spoiler reference- you are the first person to point it out, and I'm sure you can guess who that person is .


While I don't necessarily agree with you, I'm flattered that you place Mind's Eye near the same quality graphically of Sam & Max.  Mind's Eye was a fun game to make, but I also freely admit it was somewhat of a rush job.  I committed to finishing it within two weeks and ultimately did it in a month, which involved alot of mountain dew since I did it all alone.  Fortunately, I had great testers like Privateer Puddin' and Dave Gilbert who weeded out all the showstopper bugs before release, leaving a few nags that posters like Erenan notified me about which help improve Mind's Eye.  Hopefully all of them have been drugged and locked away (the bugs, not the players)!

Thanks again for the feedback!

-ProgZ

[Nikolas]

You finished it within a month? WOW! That makes me feel even better that I have played your game...

[Trisk]

ProgZmax-

1. The "F" is really not that big a deal. Once my brain figured out it was an "f," I had absolutely no problem reading. I don't think this is hardly worth the time to fix. I just noted it. 640x400 doesn't fix it, BTW, just makes it smaller.

2. D'oh! Yes, I missed the f12 reference. And I complain about people who don't read the manual carefully for My game.  : Feel free to kick me around the block a few times. That said, however, my complaint about the save (and quit) button still stands. They are so tiny and unremarkable, I wouldn't have found them even in the f12 menu.

3. Yes, I did find the f1 option. I like to sit back from the computer while playing point n' click games though, so I didn't use it.

As for not placing the GUI at the top of the screen because of the speech baloons, that seems to me like a case of straining at a nat and swallowing a camel. since you rarely need to open the GUI while playing, it seems unlikely to be an interference. All icons are accessed through right clicking. The GUI is only used for save/load functions, and inventory...which don't get used that much anyway.

Further, any adventure player worth their salt is going to quit doing what they were doing when they see a conversation start, and just sit and read the conversation.

On the flip side, you are constantly having to deal with clicking at the very bottom of the screen, so the popup there is irritating, especially in timed areas.

As for the Delirium mode, that isn't even an issue. You have absolutely no reason to use the GUI while in this mode...just disable the GUI while the scene plays out, then enable it at the end. Problem solved.


And please don't think I'm making a huge deal out of this...Mind's Eye was far too good a game to be ruined by such small details. I only point these out because they are the only things keeping this game from, in my opinion, absolute perfection as it stands. I'd like to see it hit perfection, so I'm giving my thoughts on these gnawing details.

People! You need to play this game! It's really good!

[edmundito]

Ah, but you made a fatal mistake, ProgZmax.... those of us who installed the game, the way you wanted it since you did not offer a zip, and are running it through the start menu do not see a readme file at all! I tried to find it in the start menu and assumed that there wans't one since it didn't show me one. 

As for the speed of the overlays, it's really AGS's fault. I have a pretty high end video card, but because AGS doesn't seem to take advantage of it, the game feels rather sluggish during the weird sequences.

I'm playing the game right now.... I'll post an actual review after I complete it. I'm agreeing with Trisk so far, though...

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Mind's Eye has been updated.  Check the top of the thread for details!