Swarm Development: Postmortem

[arj0n]

1.: When scrolling my scroll wheel towards me activates the 'look' function. Is this intended?
2.: A bit odd: you can change the mirror in the first room without being near it.

[Bogdan]

I've played it out. Really cool game.
I noticed something, that is a really small bug... almost unnoticeable...every time you leave the Exercise Yard(The room where umbrella is), the probe droid (or however is it called), flies to you from the top of the room. You see the problem is that, you can return to that room at any time and not use the probe droid, but he will still appear from the top and fly down to you.
This is probably stupid, and noone will notice this when playing the game( actually he will if he returns to this room).

[Icey]

That's right! I noticed that too. I men't say something about that to but I forgot about that part.

[Jackpumpkinhead]

@Baron: i can do some more music, i just need to know how many new songs we need to finish the music out.
i was thinking for sure we need a piece for merrick to just explore the facilities. and then when the twins show up, maybe a remix of the theme? 
i will get started on this asap and will upload it as soon as i have something

[Baron]

Error: Unable to render character 0 (Merrick) because loop 2 does not exist in view 13

Error: Unable to render character 0 (Merrick) because loop 1 does not exist in view 13

What were you doing at the time?

1.: When scrolling my scroll wheel towards me activates the 'look' function. Is this intended?
2.: A bit odd: you can change the mirror in the first room without being near it.

What's a mouse wheel?
The mirror thing was intentional to save too much back and forth walking.  We can change it if there is strong opinion on this matter.

Looking at the doorlock (first room) gives you still the reply two times. 

I think you have to be able to go back, because if you don't know the riddles, you might need/have to search i.e. for the cone pine -  or stay in there forever. 

Still??  I'll look into it again.  As for going back, the only thing you need to defeat the Vampire Twins is the probe, which logically you must have if you pass through the yard.  The pine cone can be used to give you the ability to survive forest fires, but if you miss it you can use a less tasty cockroach which gives you the ability to survive nuclear winter, and this results in an ever so slightly different ending.  You do need the blood from the fridge to defeat the guards, but we could just make it impossible to leave the surgery without it.  "What?  Take that yucky carrot and not the juicy blood too?"

I've played it out. Really cool game.
I noticed something, that is a really small bug... almost unnoticeable...every time you leave the Exercise Yard(The room where umbrella is), the probe droid (or however is it called), flies to you from the top of the room. You see the problem is that, you can return to that room at any time and not use the probe droid, but he will still appear from the top and fly down to you.
This is probably stupid, and noone will notice this when playing the game( actually he will if he returns to this room).

Really, I am inclined to trap Merrick in the guardroom once he enters, and if he tries to leave the guards will shoot him, or the door will be stuck, or something.  I've already spent a couple hours playing with Merrick going back and forth through the exercise yard, but clearly it's still not functioning properly.  I'm reluctant to invest more time in this aspect of the game play since it just artificially makes the game longer.  You may feel free to plead your cases otherwise -I'm just saying how I feel on the subject.

[Baron]

Ah, in my haste to address the beta-tester's concerns I forgot to post....

THE BUCKETHEAD LIST
A.K.A. The Official List of Needed Sounds

- An alarm when the proffesor mentions it.
- An evil laughter from the proffesor.
- A wiggle free sound.
- Exploding dog sound.
- Sound for when you break free.
- Change glass sound.
- Laser sound.
- A hiss when the player stands under the crufix (and in uv-light).
- Door opening after the laser.
- Putting off the light.
- Going through the door.
- Maybe a sound of the probe flying around.
- A sound when the guard slips.
- A sound when the gaurds gets electrified.
- The guards shooting.
- Maybe a sound when biting.
- Twins crashing through the wall (kaboom sound).

These are the basics: if you have something you think might be appropriate, post it here or PM me and if it fits we'll scratch it off the list.  If you have new ideas the onus is on you to find the sound and deliver it and then I'll happily add it (otherwise the list risks growing excessive).  Good luck!

Also, pending any revisions to the writing obviously, I'd be interested in recruiting voice actors.  Merrick speaks a lot -I haven't looked into it but it's probably north of 200 lines.  What's more is that the player would always hear him, so the voice really has to fit the character and the quality has to be clean.  Other parts are just small, although ideally they'd be up to snuff too it's not quite as important.  So if you're interested in a bit-part we'll try to use you, but if you're interested in voicing Merrick I'll ask you to record two-three lines and post them here for the swarm to discuss.
Characters needing voicing are:

Merrick
Mad Scientist
Red Scientist
Blond Scientist
Robot Monster
Dark Vampire Sister
Blonde Vampire Sister

Thanks for your interest!

[ddq]

I can work on some of the foley, see what sort of sounds I can get. I can also voice a character. Doesn't really matter which.

[Tabata]

Here we go:

Biggest points are already postet. So I only have a bit and some points I would like:

Well, if you play it like you would do it the first time, you can find very special vampire things.  

I would like some more hotspots with replies (i.e. for the bonzai, the switch in the yard, ...) to make it a bit more difficult to solve the prob/find what's needed.

Watching Redbeard swinging the broom the whole time is a bit strange for me. Is it possible to let him wag it only, when Merrik comes near to him?

I would love to see „little Blondie“ in the ending scene with fangs.  


Edit:

The pine cone can be used to give you the ability to survive forest fires, but if you miss it you can use a less tasty cockroach which gives you the ability to survive nuclear winter, and this results in an ever so slightly different ending. 

:o I always ate both - so I tortured poor Merrick, more, as needed  :
Ã,,hem - let's say: I take back my complaint - with an expression of regret 

[DoorKnobHandle]

I recorded my first impressions (which turned into a "let's play" style playthrough of the beta), hope this will help.

I know I'm not exactly cut out to be the best let's play-er on Youtube, I did struggle with my English throughout the cast (ie. I'm able to make much more sense, speak more fluidly and coherently in my primary language) and my voice sounds horrible (partly because of the cheap headset mic I was using and partly because it just sounds annoyingly), but this playthrough is meant to show you developers how the game feels to somebody that has no idea about the project or anything, how hard the puzzles are and so on.


Click the thumbnail above to watch the video! Enjoy in HD!

I also miss several dialog lines and interactions, it's surprisingly hard to play an adventure game and talk at the same time! I did cut out about 5 minutes of not knowing what to do in the boss fight and a 2 minute search for the inventory screen.

[Tabata]

Thank you so much for this dkh.
                   
This is really interesting to watch and gives good clues for the swarm, what is needed most to get the game polished and where to put some comments of Merrick to make the goal more clear... so you did a good work!

[Baron]

Wow!  320 x 240 in HD rocks!

I now have a rather lengthy list of glitches and improvements -good work dkh.  I guess a readme is a good start to give the player some initial direction, and then maybe an "objective" statement as soon as the character enters each room.  I don't know how you were able to access the disabled menu GUI or obsolete walk cursor.... It was probably something to do with hitting the keyboard keys (they probably have some residual code associated with them because we built the project on the default template) -I'll look into it.

Thanks for all the detailed feedback!

[TomatoesInTheHead]

Concerning the access of the inventory window, maybe we can an "I" or "Inv" button or something to the lower/upper right corner of the screen to click on and open the window.

I've made a quick example, with and without some crappy shading and with a brighter version to be used for a mouse-hovering effect:


Which would look like this:

[DoorKnobHandle]

Thanks for the feedback on my Youtube playthrough!

About the objective: in case the goal for the player to escape out of the entire structure is clearly set up in the beginning of the game, I don't think need a reminder every time we enter a room. That's fine. What I meant was, in the guard room with the umbrella, there is a guard and a huge area of sunlight. Two immediate obstacles to our progress. But as a player I'm not really sure what the guard 'means'. Will the guard see me when I just somehow move through the sunlight? He is on a different level and looks like he'd be looking over the edge of the building more than down. You also start to wonder why you'd want to escape to the outside when in all rooms with windows or openings you can see that it's bright outside - which you don't like as a vampire. Then in the boss room, you enter and there's the soldiers aiming at the door. But we don't know why they are doing that. We find out after solving a puzzle but it's confusing up to that point. The number of small confusing elements like that adds up over the second half of the game and creates that 'aimless' feel I was getting for a while there.

About the drop-down bar that shouldn't be there: in the guard room with the umbrella, during a cutscene where the probe was moving I moved the cursor to the top of the screen. That showed the bar crossed out and paused the game. After doing this once I then had the ability to pull the bar down at any point in time.

Obsolete cursor keys were W for walk to and L for look at.

Somebody on Youtube asked where to play the first installment, do you guys have a link? I wasn't able to find anything in the games database.

[Buckethead]

This game is not actually a sequel. The "II" in the title just referes to the guy being the second. As in King George III. I hope that makes sense. I agree the name is confusing.

[Jackpumpkinhead]

@DKH:  Glad you like the music!!!!

BTW as far as the music goes, the midi needs to be looped at a certain point. when i get home from work i will play around will the music and i will let you know where to loop from, and again i will work on a few new pieces of music that will loop and not get so annoying after hearing it a million in a half times

i might also do a couple midi sound effects

[Prozail]

Error: Unable to render character 0 (Merrick) because loop 2 does not exist in view 13
Error: Unable to render character 0 (Merrick) because loop 1 does not exist in view 13

What were you doing at the time?

I'm still bound to the chair.
Both times just clicking on the middle mousebutton to walk around. I think it may be that i try to move while he's talking or something like that.
(can be easily reproduced by just repeatadly clicking middle mouse button on the door-lock after starting the game)

[Tabata]

@Prozail:
What you did shouldn't be possible - sorry.

So please try to click/use ...

Spoiler

... the chair/Merrick's body and read the reply (and repeat it) ... 

[close]

... then you will be able to go on.

[Prozail]

Well.. that's why its called Beta test 

anyway.. managed to finish it now and didn't really notice any more bugs.. The control-scheme felt a bit wierd though.

[Icey]

If it hasn't been said already. Baron place this in the global script: eKeyboardMovement_None,

This should fix the problem.

[Tabata]

Somebody on Youtube asked where to play the first installment, do you guys have a link? I wasn't able to find anything in the games database.

I would explain it like:
To be honest it was meant to be confusing  - You can take a little peek about that some pages earlier if you want.

Like it is done in some famous movies, why not do the second part first (and have some fun, while they are searching for the first part which might be the story about how Merrick became a vampire).  

In this experimental game the second story is told first (how Merrick became draculated) and maybe sometime there will be made part one.  8)



Edit:
Since I am only a little part of the swarm withot knowledge of development I may be allowed to ask (because I was wondering a bit about it):
Is is ,,normal" to upload a betatest to youtube to be seen from the public before releasing a game