The Journey Down: Over the Edge

[Wersus]

This is a very nice game.

+ The world is impressive and feels like it goes on beyond the current location
+ Lots of custom animation
+ The art is beatiful
+ Lots of custom animation (so great to see this that I put it twice)
+ "It factor". This game definately has that special something
+ Respect for doing it for free


- Characters feel a bit glued on
- Docks are a bit hard to find
- Bit of a pixel hunt with the...

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crab, or at least I had to read a hint to find it. Also there's really nothing pointing you to that direction if you know you have to scare the dog, but don't know how to do it (like someone saying he's afraid of crabs or something)

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Really enjoyed playing it overall

[Nlogax]

I just want to add to the chorus of approval really. I'm not yet finished, but so far I love everything about the game (apart from the slightly blocky characters  but that's a minor thing). The music, the puzzles, the characters and the dialogue are all excellent. They feel familiar yet also original. Also, I would have to disagree with the previous comment about the pixel hunt- to me it was an obvious item that I could see when I entered the screen, but I guess everyone's different.

[Alun]

Also, I would have to disagree with the previous comment about the pixel hunt- to me it was an obvious item that I could see when I entered the screen, but I guess everyone's different.

Agreed... to me, it was obvious the

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buoy

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was significant, and as soon as I got the

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fishing pole

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I knew I'd have to nab it with it.  It's true that there was no hint specifically pointing toward

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the dog being afraid of crabs

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, but I don't think that was necessary; it still seemed like something logical to try.  But then, often what's a difficult puzzle for one person may be easy for others.  For me, the very last puzzle I solved was getting the

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propellor

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... which in retrospect seems like it should have been about the easiest and should have been one of the things I got first!

[tzachs]

This is brilliant!
To me, one of the best AGS games ever made...
Since the graphics were already praised, I must also praise the world that you've created here. I love unique worlds that are really thought-of and seems to have great depth, this sort of thing can really make a game epic.

The only thing missing for me was voice acting...

[CaptainD]

Completed it, loved it, reviewed it.

http://captaind-pc-gaming.blogspot.com/2010/08/freeware-adventure-game-review-journey.html

[wisnoskij]

Nice game, with great stylish graphics for the most part.

Cannot wait for the story to continue.

[theo]

F1ak3r, Khris, AndyfromVA, wisnoskij : thanks!

Lyaer: Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. I had a brief run with theora when I first started making cutscenes but it was SO unreliable it drove me nuts. If this plugin does what I want to do it is worth a lot to me.

Wersus: Thanks! I hope to fix the "glued on" feeling in chapter two by shading the characters some more. We'll see how well that goes heh.

tzachs: Yeah voice acting would have been awesome no doubts!

CaptainD: Thanks for the kind words and coverage! Much appreciated exposure.

blueskirt: I agree. the cleaned up look theyve got on the backdrops in FT are gorgeous. They must have spent incredible amounts of time on sharpening them up. I have in fact, mostly been sitting on my laurels regarding this. Post downsampling work has been very limited. The journey Down does suffer a bit from the same thing as mi2 in that respect, as many details blur out into nothingness. I too believe my backdrop style would do good of being shown in higher resolution (provided I spend more time on detailing). I am however battling myself about this issue over and over again. There are so many pros and cons.

Unless paople start raving against it it seems like I will end up making chapter two in 640x400. A rather odd resolution no doubts, but it seems to fit my needs better. Does anyone know, by the way, if that resolution for some technical reason is a bad choice? Do monitors in general have a harder time fullscreening at it because of its odd dimensions?

[Snarky]

I just finished playing Chapter 1 this morning, and have to echo the general praise. This is a great little game, and I'm really looking forward to the next installment.

The graphics are beautiful, obviously. The backgrounds may be the best I've seen in an AGS game. Love all the custom animations and effects. Even without the making-of thread, it would be obvious that you've put a ton of work into really making it a polished product. And the game has good, (mostly) reasonable puzzles to boot.

To me, the best part of the game is the setting, which is very Grim Fandango-ish, in that it feels both original and familiar.

Apart from that, I particularly enjoyed the storytelling. Combining the large-scale (city-wide conspiracy), the personal (missing adoptive father, possible love interest), and the practical (keep in business) motivations works really well. And the way you avoid spelling everything out right away makes it a lot more interesting. Players are left to puzzle out the Edge, Underworld, and just what kind of world the game takes place in as the game goes along, and many things are still left mysterious at the end of the chapter. I think that's an approach you could have used even more extensively: we really didn't need to see the big evil boss in the intro, or hear him say KILL THEM. It made the threat a little more mundane than it needed to be.

So, after the praise, some criticism:

-Add some shading/tinting of the characters so they blend in more naturally with the backgrounds! The one place I noticed you using it (entering the freezer), it looked great. Maybe even add a very soft shadow under their feet, so they don't look so much like they're floating on a separate layer.

-While you've clearly obsessed over the graphical design, I got the sense that you hadn't put as much effort into the aspects of the game that aren't your main field of interest. I'm thinking mainly of the sound effects and the text editing:

There's a general lack of sound effects, and the ones you have are often a bit dull. For example, in the intro, when the big thug knocks in the door to the professor's lab, there's only a very basic sound of the door falling on the floor, but no sound for the door being knocked off its hinges. Similarly, when Bwana and Kito fiddle with the fuse box, I was missing sounds for the various actions. Throughout the game, many opportunities for a good sound effect are missed.

I'm not sure that it really has fewer/worse effects than the classic LucasArts games, but because it's so richly animated, I would expect it to also have a rich sound design; a cartoon without strong sound effects just feels wrong. (Obviously, voice would be a great addition, but I didn't feel like it detracted from the game.)

Similarly, the level of polish on most aspects made me disappointed that someone hadn't done a better job copy-editing the text. Lots of missing commas, missing capitalization, and a few misspellings. A lot of people won't notice or won't care, but to those who do it just gives an amateurish impression. And I think it would have been better if you had followed the LucasArts convention of putting in a "..." at the end of lines with more to follow; the reading experience feels a bit choppy without it.

Oh, and the cook's stereotypical Japanese mispronunciation of R's as L's is a tired and borderline offensive joke (and applied with annoying inconsistency). Really wish you could have come up with something more original and funny here.

Other than that, just noticed a few small glitches in the graphics: the (extremely cool) water ripple animation is a bit off in the diner exterior scene: part of the dock is rippling along with the water, while a big patch of water is stationary. Also, it would be great if you added the water ripple to the screen with the entrance to the cargo ship, as the perspective is a bit hard to read here. (It looked to me like the buoy was easily within reach, at least with the mop, so I didn't understand why I needed... something else.) And there's the missing walkbehind on the bottom left of the plane exterior screen that JBurger already mentioned. Oh, and there's no response to right-clicking on the ginger in the inventory.

I have no opinion on the whole resolution issue. I think it looks great as is (I didn't mind the antialiasing), and I'm sure it would look great in a higher rez as well.

Hope you find the feedback useful. Good luck on the next episode!

[Alun]

Oh, and the cook's stereotypical Japanese mispronunciation of R's as L's is a tired and borderline offensive joke (and applied with annoying inconsistency). Really wish you could have come up with something more original and funny here.

I didn't think to mention that in my initial post about the game, but now that Snarky's brought it up, yeah, that did bother me too.  Overall, I thought it was a great game, but that was one detail I could have done without.

[mouthuvmine]

Just finished, and I gotta say, that was so awesome! I find that the timing of a lot of adventure game humor distills the jokes fairly often, but you've done a great job making me laugh when I was supposed to laugh. The ending scene especially. You've already heard all the praise on the visuals you'll ever needs, but I was particularly in awe of the 3D parts. It was just blended so well. What I believe caused the sprites to seem "glued on", as it was put, is the thick outlines. I felt like they were meant to be stylish, but they served to separate everything. I would say this will be a non-issue when you go up to 640x though.

The music was also great, but sound otherwise was the big detractor for me. Effects were so sparse that when I did hear sounds, they seemed out of place. And, though it's not a must, decent quality voices would've really added to the already great polish.

[ddq]

Found another review. Some dickweed couldn't stop ranting about how good it was, so you can read it if you reeeaaally want... http://hardydev.com/2010/09/01/the-journey-down-over-the-edge-review/

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It was meeeee

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[Igor Hardy]

Damn, ddq. I was just writing about that.

But the vital message still stands - Everyone be sure to read the review!

[BaconPigbutt]

Ok, Its my first post and I'm more of a lurker, but I have to praise this game. Brilliant! Thanks for making it for us, and I'm looking forward to the next episode!

[mouthuvmine]

Having read that review and talked to my brother after he finished it, i feel compelled to chime in on finding the spice for the stew recipe...I think the puzzle worked on me perfectly, as I searched that area like crazy the first time I was there, and when I found out what I needed, it just clicked for me.

[Dualnames]

I don't believe I've shared my thoughts on this have I?

I found the production values to be outstanding. I don't think its close to Lucas Arts, but in fact I find quite higher (it may sound absurd I know).

I'm not very fond of the story, there's nothing that's dragging me in, and that's only me, so don't start worrying, but the story is very well written and the characters have some depth. It's just not exactly my cup of tea. Please don't make more out of this part of my comment.

The puzzle design is extraordinary. It's definitely very close to the Lucas Arts standards.

The locations also gave me that vibe, especially the port with the fisherman and the sailors.

All and all well done.

[Mordalles]

just wanted to add that i really enjoyed the journey down. what really stood out for me was the backgrounds. defenitely some of the best backgrounds in a released ags game. great stuff. and the lighting effects was great. loved the sparks at the docks. and the car's headlights.
looking forward to the next part.

[forest_guru]

Great, great, great game. I've downloaded it recently and finished in one evening... I want the second part NOW! The music is also great, I downloaded the soundtrack and everything by that composer and I'm listening to it often...

[Sughly]

FINALLY finished it! Damn chervil!! Once I got that one I was fine...

Didn't expect that ending! Just... wow. Very, very well done. I hope the second isn't too far away 

[celestialroad]

I'd just like to say that I logged into these forums for the first time in years, and the first thing I did was download this game. A very well done effort! I haven't finished it yet, but I've thoroughly enjoyed the story, atmosphere and protagonist. The backgrounds in particular are top notch. I can't wait for more.

[buddha]

Just took a stab at the game and finished it in one sitting. Very enjoyable that was. Nice job!

I had no issue with character scaling during most of the game. The only place where maybe a bigger sprite could have been used was when in the plane. The resolution was fine for me, high def is nice but low def kind of hides brushstrokes and sometimes leaves a small part to the imagination. I could watch those blade runner/syd mead-like cityscapes you make all day   . The Monkey Island II vibe turned out very well also, the interior of the charter is spot on.

Being used to playing games without speech, the lack of it didn't bother me at all. The nice music and sound effects kept me company very well. That said this game would certainly benefit from getting a talkie version. But I understand that this only complicates thing even more, logistically. As it, probably, is already hard enough to get the game released without that extra headache as is

Since you wanted some constructive criticism:
Some of the descriptions could have been a little more alternated. Sometimes you'd click on something and you'd get a whole story. Then when you click on it the second time you get the same long story again (e.g. the blue cup). Having a different or shorter answer the second time around might work better.

To illustrate:
First time you click on e.g. a photo frame: "Me and my brother used to go to the park every sunday afternoon. We'd spend hours climbing the trees and chasing each other on the wildest epic adventures."
The second time you click: "Ah... the fond memories"

This prevents the player from having to click-click-click through the story to skip it, because he's already read the same.

Another nit-pick could be the walk cycle of the protagonist which could have had a couple more frames.

Kito could have had a couple more dialog option when conversing with him. Some more background info on the brothers' lives maybe etc.

That being said this game was very polished and well presented. As other mentioned the pdf manual was a nice "cherry on top" touch. Maybe you could also include in it those great deleted scenes and 'making of' texts etc. Maybe with a mention not to look at those before having played the game. Just an idea.

Anyway, keep up the great work! I'm looking forward to playing part II, to find out what happens to our friends.

Cheers