Eternally Us

[ThreeOhFour]

Eternally Us is a tale of love, life and friendship. It was built by Leafshade and I for the April MAGS competition, with the help of some fine voice acting folk and the testing advice of Sebastian.

We hope you enjoy.

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[Matt Frith]

Mmm this is nice so far. However...

Spoiler

When you grab the tree root and then look at it, the character disappears

[close]

Once again, you two have made a lovely game

[Calin Leafshade]

Mmm this is nice so far. However...

Spoiler

When you grab the tree root and then look at it, the character disappears

[close]

fuck fuck fuck.

fixed, fixed, fixed

[Matt Frith]

Loved it, loved it loved it!

Some of the best voice acting I've seen in an AGS game.  Congratulations!

[Galen]

Is that pidgeon shooting laser beams?  :o

[Ryan Timothy B]

Great game guys!  I loved every moment of it.  Some amazing voice work too.

Some small issues I've noticed in my quick playthrough, but nothing serious.

Spoiler

-hotspot at the base of the left tree is glowing like it was supposed to be glow for his eyes.  Only a small region too.
-holding the branch while looking at it or the tree will cause the player to go invisible You just fixed it.
-She uses Glowworm in the dialog when she picks it up but it says Glow Worm when you hover over the item (or it was looking at the item).
-interacting items with the grave and acorn on the ground result in "I don't see how that would help." without voice.

[close]

Amber has a great voice, I enjoyed listening to her.
Also I take back my negative feelings of those pre-rendered falling rain, snow and leaves.. they look completely fantastic.

Tick Tock.. Great lines for him, and voice too.

[arj0n]

Awesome game.
Tick tock!

[wisnoskij]

I think it needs a walkthough or I am missing something.
I cannot even figure out the first puzzle (the Pigeon one).

And amazing voice acting and artwork, btw.

[david]

no need to comment about it

FANTASTIC
I almost cried at the end you really touched me

so dramatic and you kept me thrilled or strained all the way to the end


nad BTW i am not a fan of voice overs, but this one really fits quite well.
thank you 

[ThreeOhFour]

Tier: Thanks for pointing out the bug, glad you enjoyed, and yeah our voice cast for this were proper incredible!

Crazy: No but it should be 

RT: Told ya bout the FX, man . Glad to hear you enjoyed it too, and good show finding those glitches.

Arjon: Cheers bro!

wisnokij: It's a tiny bit complicated:

Spoiler

When you throw bread to a spot, the little pigeon lags behind the big ones, perhaps try throwing some to him once they've flown away?

[close]

If you're still stuck:

Spoiler

Perhaps he needs a bit more time to get the bread... try getting the other pigeons as far away from him as possible first

[close]

Glad you're enjoying it in spite of this.

David: One could hardly ask for better feedback than that. Thank you!

[wisnoskij]

Thanks,

and having played more now, I can say with certainty it is the best voice acting and script writing I have ever listened to.
and with the superb visuals and an interesting story, it makes a very moving experience.

[Calin Leafshade]

Is that pidgeon shooting laser beams?  :o

WHY DIDNT WE THINK OF THIS?!

PEW PEW PEW!

EDIT: my 1000th post is about pigeons..  :

[edmundito]

Very nice, guys! I loved how every room was linked together and all the visual effects you guys added. The voice acting was also quite good and I wish I could turn off the subtitles just so I can listen to them talk instead of reading all that text!

Couple of things I found was that when you

Spoiler

use the bucket with the grave

[close]

there is no corresponding voice to the text that is being said, and also when I save the game I just see text and no speech. It was also running pretty slow on my computer, although I do have a windows computer with a Pentium 4 from 2002...

Oh also, for the fade effects and stuff did you guys roll out your own? I'm always curious to know about these things, since I wrote the Tween module so no one would have to write their own thing ever again, hehe...

[Calin Leafshade]

all the tweening was coded by me. Very badly.

I only remembered the tween module halfway through development and didnt have time to go back and change everything so i just thought screw it.

I'll fix the missing voice file.. I'm almost certain it was recorded I just mustve missed it off... its hard to be 100% sure that youve got them all.

The visual effects can be fairly taxing on older machines but i tested it on a P4 3ghz with an old intel graphics card and got a full 40fps.

those full screen particle effects can be a little much though.

you might have better luck in dx9 mode but then you sacrifice the Vsync which is kinda important with scrolling rooms.

[TheJBurger]

Very nice game. I enjoyed it quite much. On the production side, it was pretty impressive. (How did you do those rain/snow/leave effects??) 

Some minor gripes (in my humble opinion):

Spoiler

- The left tree's talking animation starts about 3 seconds before the voice file, and is about twice the speed of the voice anyway.
- You could speed up the credits a bit.
- I wonder if there is a way to infer the different stages of grieving, rather than state it outright, because I feel that this may be one of those cases where there is more power in leaving something to be interpreted to the player, rather than outright told.
- The "villain" of the story: I thought the atmosphere change was a bit jarring in the beginning, from tranquility to downright horror. Perhaps if there was a more gradual change into it. (You know, in Trilby's Notes how the dark world slowly manifests itself and you don't know what's going on... then finally the Tall Man appears after numerous build ups of suspense). You could just open the door and leave the player in mystique as they seem to be going down into a proverbial rabbit hole.

[close]

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I really enjoyed it. Good job on all fronts!

[Atelier]

Really great game; and good message too.

[LimpingFish]

I don't know how you do it, Ben, but you do it every time.

Lovely, lovely graphics and animations.

Marvelous voice acting from the cast (surely not amateurs!), especially the two girls, and great music too.

The concepts and the flow of the game itself were also very well executed; the whole experience had a very satisfying roundness.

Excellent game.

Congrats to all involved.

[Calin Leafshade]

Very nice game. I enjoyed it quite much. On the production side, it was pretty impressive. (How did you do those rain/snow/leave effects??)  

The are pre rendered effects done in after effects.

If you'd like something similar for your game, give me a shout. I'm sure i can fix something up fairly quickly.

(same goes for that steam effect on your trailer, tut tut)

Spoiler

Some minor gripes (in my humble opinion):

- The left tree's talking animation starts about 3 seconds before the voice file, and is about twice the speed of the voice anyway.

[close]

This is due to the way the actor delivered the lines. He opens then with a lot of vocal 'noise' so i had two choices.
I could either cut those off and have a more fitting animation.
or i could leave them in and sacrifice the animation a little.

I chose the latter simply because it added alot to the character which I felt would be a terrible thing to lose

Spoiler

- You could speed up the credits a bit.

[close]

most nitpicky comment ever :p and anyway you can press escape to exit the credits.

Spoiler

- I wonder if there is a way to infer the different stages of grieving, rather than state it outright, because I feel that this may be one of those cases where there is more power in leaving something to be interpreted to the player, rather than outright told.

[close]

I did think about this at length but i decided that, on balance, it would be better to produce the point of the game in a kinda of 'reveal'. Like that scene at the end of The Usual Suspects.

Spoiler

- The "villain" of the story: I thought the atmosphere change was a bit jarring in the beginning, from tranquility to downright horror. Perhaps if there was a more gradual change into it. (You know, in Trilby's Notes how the dark world slowly manifests itself and you don't know what's going on... then finally the Tall Man appears after numerous build ups of suspense). You could just open the door and leave the player in mystique as they seem to be going down into a proverbial rabbit hole.

[close]

I hadn't really given this that much thought. In such a short game it is kinda necessary to really push the progression a little but, on reflection, I suppose it could have been handled a little better.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. I really enjoyed it. Good job on all fronts!

Ta luv!

[xenogia]

Pretty fanatastic game, I especially love the flow of the game and the production values.

I would have to agree with theJBurger regarding the naming of the rooms, I don't think it is required.

I also felt it was a bit odd that characters always had a smirk on their face even though they were clearly depressed.

[nihilyst]

Well, what can I say. You two impressed me once again. A very touching interactive story with good graphics and excellent voice acting. I just loved the room transitions.