Providence

[SeamanNaranja]

Eight Bit Skyline presents
Providence

Providence is an interactive short story drama about three people who share a common destiny, and how they come to find it.

The game is developed with the Adventure Game Studio engine for Windows PC. It features a Frédéric Chopin soundtrack from The Free Chopin Kickstarter by MusOpen. Find out more about it here.

Providence is freeware.

Notice: Providence runs in 720p and this can cause slowdowns on older computers. If you experience this try tweaking vertical sync and/or resolution in winsetup.exe.

Trailer:
[embed=800,450]<iframe width="800" height="450 src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MjAwjyZDRgQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

Screenshots:



Download from AGS archives!

Technical information:

• Version: 1.1
• Download size: 120 mb
• Installed size: 600 mb
• Resolution: 720p
• Supported systems: Win XP/Vista/7 (tested)

Official website: Providence.eightbitskyline.com

Press:
IndieVault.it: Providence: tre destini si mescolano, sulle note di Chopin (4.2.15)
Welt.de: Intensiv interaktive Kurzgeschichte (26.1.15)
Freeware-Empfehlung: Providence (23.01.15)
RockPaperShotgun.com: Freeware Garden: Providence (22.01.15)
Gamer.no: Ta en titt på dette norske gratisspillet (21.01.15)
NiveloCulto.com: Providence: La inevitabilidad del destino (16.01.15)
KillScreenDaily.com: Providence takes you down the dark, noir journey of everyday life (15.01.15)
GameJolt.com: Featured Game: Untangle three entwined destinies in the narrative platformer "Providence" (13.01.15)
Warpdoor.com: Providence (Eight Bit Skyline) (09.01.15)
P911-magazine.com: Jouons sur du Chopin (06.01.15)

[Ibispi]

I'm so sad you guys finished this when I am so busy reading books for university, I can barely spare some time for anything else.
I've downloaded it, and when I play through it, I'll share with you my feedback of Providence (some time in the future).
I've played it, and I really like the story. The graphics are wonderful, but for some reason, the game stuttered for me most of the time (on some backgrounds more on some less), and this really ruined my immersion, especially because the stutter affected sublime compositions of Chopin. It is probably just my computer, since it is rather old. Great game anyways, short, but great.

[Mandle]

This looks amazing from the screenshots! I also will be taking a look first chance when I have the time!

One thing: You might want to give a general genre and/or slight story intro in the first post. No spoilers of course, but let people know if they are in for a comedy...a drama...a horror story...etc

Not knowing what kind of story the game has might turn some people off from giving it a try, which really looks like it would be a shame. This might all be in the trailer, but some people might not want to or be able to view the trailer for various reasons.

(Ah...I see on the game page that it's defined as a drama. It's still probably a good idea to mention this in your first post and also give a little bit of back story.)

You might also want to explicitly say that this game was created with AGS. As it's in the AGS archives I know this sounds like a no-brainer but somebody will probably ask you this question in this thread pretty soon...

[SeamanNaranja]

I've played it, and I really like the story. The graphics are wonderful, but for some reason, the game stuttered for me most of the time (on some backgrounds more on some less), and this really ruined my immersion, especially because the stutter affected sublime compositions of Chopin. It is probably just my computer, since it is rather old. Great game anyways, short, but great.

Yeah, the resolution might be too high for older computers. I figured this out late in the process and unfortunately there wasn't any quick fix (as far as I know) with hundreds of sprites already done. I wish there was a easy way to put out a lower resolution version as well! I'll put up a warning in the description of the game. Anyway, thanks for the kind words. You can listen to the music on musopen.org, it really is a great initiative! Free Chopin!

One thing: You might want to give a general genre and/or slight story intro in the first post. No spoilers of course, but let people know if they are in for a comedy...a drama...a horror story...etc
You might also want to explicitly say that this game was created with AGS. As it's in the AGS archives I know this sounds like a no-brainer but somebody will probably ask you this question in this thread pretty soon...

I actually meant to do this, but decided the player should come into the game without any information so that he/she could interpret it freely. I'll write up a small description about the setting though!

You might also want to explicitly say that this game was created with AGS. As it's in the AGS archives I know this sounds like a no-brainer but somebody will probably ask you this question in this thread pretty soon...

Done! Thanks for the advice

[Voedino]

very interesting innovative game, the first claim to the title of the best ASG game in 2015
i am published "Providence" on the very popular Russian tracker

[Voedino]

game bad tested, I found a bug
[embed=425,349]http://youtu.be/7cNWtnikAU4[/embed]

[SeamanNaranja]

very interesting innovative game, the first claim to the title of the best ASG game in 2015
i am published "Providence" on the very popular Russian tracker

Awesome! Thanks

game bad tested, I found a bug

That is weird! The camera should be following you when you're on the ground floor! I'll look into it!
Edit: Found it. It's related to the camera being locked on the first and second floor. It only happens if you hold the down or up key down while walking up and down the stairs. A simple fix is to walk up the stairs and down again. I'll fix this in the first patched version!

[miguel]

Finished and loved every bit of this game.
The art is very modern and smoothly animated, it doesn't look AGS-made and that is cool for a change.
Music is adequate but a bit too present sometimes (even if it's Chopin), I like quiet moments for nice cinematic sequences and this is the right kind of game for it.
Puzzles are simple but effective, more complex puzzles could break the mood. The story unfolds logically if you're familiar with (spaguetti) cinema, a sense of despair crosses all characters in this game. There's no escape and the end will eventually come in a brutal way. The tree sequence is very well done.

Good work, 8 out of 10.

[Voedino]

If after talking to his mother played the piano and then go upstairs and downstairs game breaks,
often need to click on the SAVE...

[Voedino]

this game VERY bad tested, I found the SECOND bug: after a talking with the waiter - all clickable false
[embed=425,349]http://youtu.be/uYFNiBrzsZg[/embed]
PS: the first claim to the title of the best ASG game in 2015
the first claim to the most crude ASG game in 2015

[miguel]

Inventive Mind (wtf?) are you serious? Do you have something against the author? Videos of bugs where he presents his game? Do you know what PM's are?
You're mean and I don't like you.

[SeamanNaranja]

If after talking to his mother played the piano and then go upstairs and downstairs game breaks,
often need to click on the SAVE...

Is there a specific error message when it breaks? This doesn't happen when I try to reproduce it... I'll look into it when I get home from work.

this game VERY bad tested, I found the SECOND bug: after a talking with the waiter - all clickable false

You can't interact with things or you can't see the interaction bar at the bottom? Interactions should still work (with the space button or inventory buttons). I'll check this one out this afternoon too. Thanks for the heads up!

PS: the first claim to the title of the best ASG game in 2015
the first claim to the most crude ASG game in 2015

[Adeel]

You're mean and I don't like you.

You're honest and I like you.

[Voedino]

are you serious?

more than

Do you have something against the author?

I am against bugs

Videos of bugs where he presents his game?

to warn gamers that the game is raw

You're mean and I don't like you.

you hate me?

[miguel]

PM's please.

[Andail]

Inventive Mind, you clearly need to work out more constructive ways to deliver C&C. This is a friendly community for mostly amateurs making hobby games for free, and your feedback must be adjusted accordingly.

[Voedino]

i finished the game and i can say: if the author made patch, Providence will be nominated the title of the Best ASG Game 2015.
Likely to win Downfall(remake), but at least in the top ten for sure will go down.
I'm sorry if there was cruel, but I was objective, not personal, my only complaints were due to errors in the code, the author of talent and his next game can become a masterpiece

[Myinah]

That's not really a very good apology. Constructive feedback would point out the bugs but not say it was badly tested. These are people often doing this without pay as a hobby, releasing for free. Volunteer play testers miss bugs sometimes just like paid ones. Look how buggy Skyrim was on release even with all the testing and huge budget but it was still game of the year! These things happen.

You could have just pointed out the bug or sent a PM and im sure the dev would have fixed it ASAP. That's what we do. We don't want to leave our games glitchy. You then additionally insulted him by calling it crude. If you want to be taken seriously here you should be polite and maybe edit out the nasty "crude" comment you wrote. I don't even understand how you can call a game this beautifully rendered crude because of a few bugs. Talk about hyperbole. You don't have to pander to people and being objective is fine but you won't win any friends in this community by being unnecessarily unkind. 

[Snarky]

If we extend him the benefit of the doubt, it might be relevant to point out that IM doesn't seem to be a native English speaker, and might not have realized how brusque the phrase "most crude ASG game" sounds. (While we're criticizing people for insufficient error-checking, it's AGS, not ASG.)

Also, as Andail pointed out in another thread, "There's no rule that everybody must be friends and always say positive things. Providing and receiving criticism is a huge part of being creative, so we should take every opportunity to practise it." (Some argue that the game release thread is not the right place for severe criticism, but where else?)

[Andail]

I'm not aware of any rule or recommendation stating that there mustn't be any c&c in Competed Games forum. There is a rule disallowing it over at GiP, but not in here.

The thing with c&c is that you have to adjust it depending on the target, which is common sense, really. Big, commercial productions can, and should, take much more severe criticism than small hobby projects.