Diamonds in the Rough - AWARD

[scalad]

All I know is I am going to buy when we are able to. I look forward to getting the box. I like looking at the cover design and all that sort of stuff.

[vertigoaddict]

What in your opinion makes the game good?

What are its main features?

How is it different and how it is similar to 'Other Worlds'?

(Slightly unrelated) I've never played OW but I will in the future, can you send me a PM, telling me about it?

DITR is NOT in full 3-D?! Wow you could've fooled me; then again I once got sodium hydroxide into my eye when I was younger so... :o

[alkis21]

Thanks for playing along.

What in your opinion makes the game good?

I believe that the storyline is its best feature. It's an 'adult' story, and by that I don't mean sex or violence, I mean that although it has a fantasy theme it deals with a very real and serious issue. As far as I know, this is probably the first adventure game that deals with that particular issue, and I expect it to raise some controversy. The characters should seem very real and anything but paper thin, and the puzzles are more reminiscent of a 1990 game than a modern one (which in my book is always a good thing). The voice acting and music are on a par with any expensive commercial game.

What are its main features?

It's a 3rd person point & click adventure, with a Black Mirror-like inventory and a LucasArts-like dialog system. It also features the 'Thoughts Panel', a notice board that has the main character's thoughts displayed as post-its. Not only will that give you a chance to gain access to the protagonist's line of thought as the story progresses, you will also be able to use these thoughts as inventory objects, which is to say combine them together and click them on other characters or hotspots.

How is it different and how it is similar to 'Other Worlds'?

The may look like two completely different games, but they both rely on a deep storyline and puzzles that vary in difficulty. They both have a plenitude of inventory items and an 'extra' feature; in OW, it was the spells. In DITR, it's the Thoughts.
Of course, DITR looks better (duh) and like I said it has a much more serious theme, whereas OW was a cartoonish, humorous adventure.

(Slightly unrelated) I've never played OW but I will in the future, can you send me a PM, telling me about it?

I can do better than that (and no need to do it in private, either).

Official page

Review 1

Review 2

Some comments from AGS members

DITR is NOT in full 3-D?! Wow you could've fooled me; then again I once got sodium hydroxide into my eye when I was younger so... :o

Well of course all the graphics are 3D objects, but everything is shown in a 2D display.

[Emerald]

Do you want to hear about budget exceeds?
Do you want to hear about me not being able to decide what the price difference should be?
Do you want to hear about me being unsure on how many boxed products I should order?
Do you even want me to get started on how many months it took me to get the necessary legal papers?

Seems if you answered "Why no download?" with "Setting up a downloading service is expensive and complicated and too much of a hassle" it would have stemmed the debate before it began. Rather than "I don't wanna..."


Anyway, I have a question -
How long is it, roughly? How many hours of dialog/music/cutscenes/etc. is there?

[Nikolas]

Anyway, I have a question -
How long is it, roughly? How many hours of dialog/music/cutscenes/etc. is there?

I don't know if I should share the details about the audio part, but don't think that the amount of music or cutscenes are what make a game long. At least I can't see it directly related.

If you've played the demo, the intro remains the same so it's a good 10 minutes long (more or less anyways). This should give you an idea that the game is on the long side...

[Snarky]

This thing of having thoughts or ideas as inventory objects (pioneered, I believe, by Discworld Noir) seems to be really catching on. Dave Gilbert uses it in The Shivah and the Blackwell games, Vince Twelve is making a commercial game with not-one-but-two memory-based inventories, even Hal Barwood (who designed Fate of Atlantis back in the day) is using it in Mata Hari. Isn't there one more that I can't remember right now as well?

Anyway, I wondered if you could talk about what you think is cool about an inventory for thoughts, maybe give an example of how it works in the game, and also where you got the idea from.

[alkis21]

How long is it, roughly? How many hours of dialog/music/cutscenes/etc. is there?

The music amounts to almost 42 minutes. Jason's lines alone are about 30 minutes.

I should probably add something like "the game is about 30 hours of gameplay" but to be honest I've never figured out how this is calculated in games. Let's just say that it's about average to long-ish size, I don't think anyone will find it too short.

There is no shame in me admitting that I got the Thoughts idea from Discworld Noir, which is one of my favorite games. I was glad to notice the coincidence of several new games using something similar, but I want to make it clear that I had no idea when I wrote most of the story of DITR in 2005.

As for what makes the feature good, personally I've always wondered what was going through my character's mind while playing a game. Some titles features diaries and notepads which are good, but not interactive. The access to Jason's thoughts seems to make him more 'human'. I like the way the description of a thought changes as the story progresses, and that I can combine two thoughts together to see how they are related. The use of them as inventory objects enriches the gameplay and makes it rather impossible for the player to give up thinking and solve the game by brute force (using everything on everything) as the possible combinations are just too many.

An example, hmmm.. I don't want to spoil anything so I recommend that you play the demo to understand. Let's just say that if the protagonist does not know what to do with a particular situation, or is reluctant to do it because it's out of character, you can use deductive thinking to help him make the right decision.

[Ghost]

I must say that the description of the "thought inventory" alone has made me eager to buy that game, if only for trying out that feature. It's a nice concept, well described, and I can see the possibilities here. Good "hook".

[alkis21]

Release date: Monday, March 17 2008

The first review of my game is on line chaps.

[ThreeOhFour]

It is good to see such a positive review, and also good to see the music gets a mention in the review (considering the thread Nikolas made a while ago ).

Well done, Alkis & team.

[alkis21]

The game is officially released. I trust you will find it was worth the wait.

You may order it today.

[cat]

I am confused: Why does shipping to EU cost and shipping to the rest of the world (which I thought was quite expensive) is free? 

[miguel]

I'll wait a bit and get it on Amazon in a couple of months

[SSH]

Do Jersey and the Isle of Man get free shipping, since they are not part of the EU? Also, I'd like to order a copy for my aunt in Antartica...

[Dualnames]

Shipping to Greece costs nothing 1.45 and I don;t care about such a small fee but I might be able to come and pick it up if at all possible. Wondering though shipping to the rest of the world free and in greece 1.45? I understand why it;s free for the rest of the world but why isn't it free to greece as well since you live here.. or you dont?

[alkis21]

I wanted to offer free shipping to everyone but it was impossible (or should I say, too expensive for me). I managed to do it for non-EU members thanks to a logistic trick and favorable exportation laws. Please understand that this is an offer to non-Europeans, not a 'punishment' for Europeans. You know how a game is sometimes sold for $20 in the US and â,¬20 in Europe because of different publishers? It's basically the same thing. I didn't think people would take it the wrong way.

Dimitris (is that right?) I don't have a license to sell our product in our office but if you want to contact me in private it would be great if you joined us next time the members of Adventure Advocate get together. I can give it to you then.

[Peder 🚀]

I wish to give all of the team a congratulation on the release!

I will definitly buy a copy but it will have to wait till I can afford it! .
I wish you good luck and looking forward to see more releases from Atropos Studios!


Peder Johnsen.

[splat44]

So, I hope we can get a downloaded version?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Splat, you did read all three pages of this thread which basically concern themselves with little more than the "download issue", didn't you?

[Nikolas]

To answer the question clearly: For now Atropos studios is only offering CD copies, in DVD cases. Shipping to non EU countries is free! so anyone living in USA, or Australia, etc, can get the game for the price of 19.90 euros.

Of course all this is in the atropos website... And the fact that there is no downloadable option at the moment is all over the thread...