the farm episode one completed

[benedict]

The farm episode one is now completed and ready to play.

I appreciate that the file size is very big compared to most games made with ags (its 120mb) but it contains alot of video and its quite a big game

here is the link, the file is called setup.zip

http://www.benedictwebb.com/interactive/





it hope you enjoy it!

[i k a r i]

Wow
It looks amazing..
Downloading right now..
I'll edit this post asap to post some comments. 

My edit wont be the best Im afraid xD, cause Im in a lazy state...

but this game was awesome, thank you  =P

[vict0r]

Why yes it looks absolutely great! How long did it take you to make this? Lovely...

I'll edit the post after i tried it for abit.

[Scorpio_Phoenix]

Looks great!!
I'll edit and tell you what i think once i've started playing! 

Edit - This seems 2 be taking forever to download....

[vict0r]

Oh my jolly god!:D This looks really professional! I just started playing (i am still in the "cell") but the intro was enough to make my heart beat faster! And the graphics is awesome!Ã,  But you must excuse me... I have to try this awesome game for a while

EDIT: And i had to stop playing it for awhile! I found one small bug, and something awesome!
Bug:

Spoiler

When you try to take the balloons, and the dog sneers at you, the guy with the funny name repeats what he said twice

[close]

Awesome thingy:

Spoiler

The CD player! And how it actually opens your cd rom. This might become a problem for people without cd-players tho. The few of them that dont have it

[close]

[Mordalles]

wow! those are beautiful graphics. i just love the style!  hopefully i will have broadband in about a month, and then ill download it immediately!

[Cees]

The link seems to be out of order

[nihilyst]

The link works for me. You have to download the setup.zip file.

The game looks great, but unfortunately my PC here is not a superhero, so the game is running really slow. I'll play it, when I'm on my home PC again. But what I've seen was awesome.

cheers
nihilyst

[Candle]

You need to fix the setup file as the installer when done is pointing to the the farm.exe when it should be pointing to the the farm op.exe after I change the link in the short cut it works but I'm getting an error in the intro about some streaming error . I will look into it more and get back to you when I find more if it is on my end or not.
Now I get this when I try to run the game:

Code: ags

---------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------
An exception 0xC0000005 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x00441967 ; program pointer is +1004, ACI version 2.62.772, gtags (203,80)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify CJ on the Tech forum.

(Room 2 script line 33)

[splat44]

Oh my jolly god!:D This looks really professional! I just started playing (i am still in the "cell") but the intro was enough to make my heart beat faster! And the graphics is awesome!Ã,  But you must excuse me... I have to try this awesome game for a while

EDIT: And i had to stop playing it for awhile! I found one small bug, and something awesome!
Bug:

Spoiler

When you try to take the balloons, and the dog sneers at you, the guy with the funny name repeats what he said twice

[close]

Awesome thingy:

Spoiler

The CD player! And how it actually opens your cd rom. This might become a problem for people without cd-players tho. The few of them that dont have it

[close]

I have same problems.

By the way GBC,

Game Setting I have:

800x600
Anti-alias selected.

I don't encounter such error.

[Candle]

I run 1024x768

[sergiocornaga]

Well, I have to say playing this game has been a most interesting experience. I particularly like the ways in which it... er... interacts with you. One gripe though- it doesn't seem to be possible to save over save files, or delete old ones for that matter.

[lakerz]

Yes, the save system seems a bit restricted.

Overall, The Farm kicks some major ass!  I loved this game.  The weirdness was entrancing, the characters very humorous.  Music was excellent, and the graphics simply fantastic.  I love the styling.  That scene near the end was pretty shocking.    The end was funny as well.

This game is well worth the lengthy download, no doubt.

[Sheepisher]

Downloaded and had a play of this last night.Ã,  Haven't got very far yet but I do have some comments.

First off, the visuals and sound are awesome.Ã,  I love the grungy, photo manip / collage style of the artwork - it's so original and it creates a wonderfully grim, Orwellian atmosphere, which is complimented by the creepy music-sounds.Ã,  The video inserts are also very cool.

I quite like the appearance and voice of the main character, too - kind of reminds me of Alfred HitchcockÃ, 

However, IMO there are some significant problems with the gameplay:

1.Ã,  I'm not fond of the interface.Ã,  This may be my personal preference, but I didn't like having to position my cursor with the mouse, press a key on the keyboard, then click with the mouse ... it seemed a little cumbersome to me.Ã,  I prefer the usual mouse-cycle because it's so convenient.Ã,  It was also irritating not being able to examine objects in my inventory, since this is traditionally a great way to gain more information on the objects you've collected and think about their possible uses.

2.Ã,  The conversations with other characters are rather limited.Ã,  You can't talk to anyone for very long and you don't learn much about anything.Ã,  I understand that you might be attempting to build mystery, but at the moment the character interactions seem very sparse and flat.Ã,  Even if you don't learn much about the Farm, we should be able to have more in-depth conversations with the other inmates, so we can really get involved with the intriguing world you've created.

3.Ã,  The interactive responses quickly became frustrating, because the main character would always respond with "That wouldn't be very productive, would it?" to everything - even suggestions that I thought were quite obvious and logical.

For example:

Spoiler

I tried using the bedsheets to climb out of the window, using the credits in the vending machine and in the automated washing machine ...

[close]

To me, these were all actions that seemed quite obvious and, even if they were wrong, at least merited a specific response rather than a generic one.Ã,  I ended up quitting prematurely because I quickly got frustrated at bumping into the same brick wall.

4.Ã,  Lastly, just a personal quibble:

Spoiler

When I worked out how to open the door to my cell, I spent a very frustrated minute trying to walk through it by clicking on the outside with the cursor.Ã,  I finally realised that I had to "interact" with the door in order to leave.Ã,  This was frustrating because the door was already open - I think it's standard practice in adventure games to be able to walk straight through open doors instead of having to "use" them, so this confused me.Ã,  However, I might be the only one who had this trouble!

[close]

Gosh - this was a very wordy reply.Ã,  Sorry if it seems like I'm being overly negative but I'm just trying to give the most honest and helpful feedback I can.Ã,  I'd love to see this game continued - the central concept is intriguing and the visuals and sound entrancing, and at the moment it's only let down by the gameplay which isn't quite up to par with the rest of it.

Obviously, this is just my opinion and I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks about the points I've raised!

EDIT: I've got a bit further now, and there's something else I noticed ... in some of the later rooms the perspective is out of line, the main character ends up looking about 3 ft shorter than he should.Ã,  For example:

Spoiler

The door to the abattoir / win-a-fish room.Ã,  When he's inside the room, his head is level with the door window; outside in the corridor, he's about half the size of the door!Ã,  Likewise, if that "win-a-fish" thing is meant to be an arcade game, it's twice as tall as the main character!

[close]

Also, Benedict - I'd just like to add that it's very impressive what you've managed to achieve mostly by yourself, and of course I appreciate how difficult it must be to keep tabs on everything!

[guest]

1.Ã,  I'm not fond of the interface.Ã,  This may be my personal preference, but I didn't like having to position my cursor with the mouse, press a key on the keyboard, then click with the mouse ... it seemed a little cumbersome to me.Ã,  I prefer the usual mouse-cycle because it's so convenient.Ã,  It was also irritating not being able to examine objects in my inventory, since this is traditionally a great way to gain more information on the objects you've collected and think about their possible uses.


This is my opinion as well and the reason why I gave up.
(even though the game seems to be fantastic), but pressing the mouse and the keys of the keyboard at the same time was much too intricate and really stopped from playing

[Afflict]

Awesome looks great!

[Mozesh]

Really nice game, the keyboard mouse combination was something different but it didn't annoy me.
Looking forward to episode two!

[Pet Terry]

Very interesting.

The introduction reminded me of Fallout but the game itself is nothing like that. I was kinda disappointed when I first heard the protagonist's goofy voice, but the acting is good, didn't make me want to turn the voices off.

Cutscenes, graphics, music, awesome.

The interface is great! I'm loving it, very refreshing choice (I don't think I have ever played an adventure game with this kind of interface before) and easy to use. Though I was hoping there would be some way to examine inventory items.

Also yeah, not being able to save over existing saved games is baaaad, and the game could have used some spell checking, too.

But very interesting game you've got here, I haven't played much yet but I'll surely will!

[benedict]

hello

i am glad some people are enjoying the farm.

in reply to this post bellow:
When I worked out how to open the door to my cell, I spent a very frustrated minute trying to walk through it by clicking on the outside with the cursor.  I finally realised that I had to "interact" with the door in order to leave.  This was frustrating because the door was already open - I think it's standard practice in adventure games to be able to walk straight through open doors instead of having to "use" them, so this confused me.  However, I might be the only one who had this trouble!

yes your right, i did not think about this at the time and many people have said the same thing, however this only happens once, at the beggining. it will be rectified for the next episode (planned for next year when i have time). this will also allow you to inspect the inventory.

in term of the main characters voice, he was supposed to sound like alfred hitchcock.

As for the interface, i realise most ags games use the mouse cycle but i wanted to do something different and most paople who tested did not find it fustrating. I think maybe its mainly to do with being used to the mouse cycle method.

as for saving games, i did not spend enough time on this, i am sorry its annoying, i appologise for this!

when i have time, i will attempt to fix all these problems, i appreciate being notified, thanks. but please remember i made this pretty much on my own, with a little help with the music.

aside from that i hope people will enjoy the game.

[bspeers]

My fiance who does not play games and abhors adventures (she was wounded permenantly by KQ6 walking deads) loved the feel of this game.  She still won't play it, but will admire from afar.

I liked it quite a bit from afar as well.  The storytelling is excellent, the animation is surprising, and it manages to be funny and disturbing at the same time.  Which really isn't that big of a feat when I think of my favourite bits of comedy.  But there is a truly experemental short-film feel to the whole thing that is immensely rewarding.

The bad, however, is very bad:

Few interaction messages (has already been mentioned by others) : More of these would not only help flesh out the atmosphere, but would help provide clues where logical guesswork fails.

Poor puzzle design:  Some good puzzles, I like the combination of various bits to solve one puzzle, but in general, little thought has gone into how the player might think, or potentially logical solutions.  Rather, if a lot of thought has gone in, it doesn't show.  For example, there is only one way to get past the dog puzzle (that shouldn't be a spoiler, it's pretty obvious you have to do *something*), but you get at least 3 items that would potentially work (one item does exactly the thing you wanted to do, just in a different context).  There is little logic for how the solution designed actually would work, and while that would be okay in an especially silly game, this game just does not set the tone.
There is also a bottle you need early on and the method you use to get it feels out of character--this again would work well if I felt a cartoonish tone had been established--despite the cartoon drawings, the rest of the tone is very dark.  It's okay to mix tones, but here I found I just ended up solving the puzzle through random clicking.  Even in the cartoon world I didn't see that particular solution working.

Dialogue : Largely missing, as has already been pointed out.  You set up some facinating characters, but they have little to say, and almost nothing useful to the player.

Overall, the writing was great, atmosphere was powerful, and I loved the combination of live acting and cartoons, even the mix of art styles in some rooms.  The last scene was indeed shocking--I expected a shock, and was fooled nonetheless.  There is a fascinating and original plot here and I want to play future episodes .  I anticipate some of the other problems being solved, so I won't rag on them--hopefully we'll see and be able to have longer conversations with the existant characters.

Nicely done, and impressive.