Downfall (2009) - now FREE

Grim · Mon 07/09/2009 23:01:45

Quote from: Stee on Mon 07/09/2009 21:17:04
Just got this the other day from the labour day sale over at Wadjet Eye. I don't want any spoilers from the game, but can anyone tell me if I'm safe to place this on my laptop (ie theres no awkward/silly death points or time challenges), or would I be better on my main rig, with a mouse?

I'd say you'd be better off pluging mouse to your laptop. There is one moment that does require speed and unless you're really good with the touchpad you might find you will die... There's a Continue option though, so not all would be lost, but still... Just thought I should warn you.

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Mon 07/09/2009 21:50:14
Owww... a bloody horror : Just something to play during lone nights...
A pity I missed this game before, thanks for the guy(s) who bumped the topic up.

Quote from: Grim Reaper on Mon 20/07/2009 11:25:35
Awww..... The Russian company Akella is interested in translating Downfall into Russian and distributing it on the territory of their country on a bloody DISK
Ha! So did they actually released it?
I'm downloading demo now, let's see if its worth buying

Yeah. It's a horror game and it's bloody. Some have said the violence is gratuitous, but I managed to explain why it's not in the Hardy's interview, I hope:)
As for a Russian version of Downfall I still struggle with Cyrillic and can't get it done... I'm about to send the whole build of the game to them to see if their technical team can figure out how to do it.

Stee · Mon 07/09/2009 23:15:17

Cheers. I'll get cracking on it tomorrow. The idea was to play on the laptop from bed (I'm lazy), but I'm too knackered now to start it up.

PS: The violence thing. I think it was just a gratuitous criticism

You can never have enough blood,guts,gore, axe murderers, ninjas etc. As long as its done well

Grim · Mon 07/09/2009 23:32:59

Quote from: Stee on Mon 07/09/2009 23:15:17
Cheers. I'll get cracking on it tomorrow. The idea was to play on the laptop from bed (I'm lazy), but I'm too knackered now to start it up.

PS: The violence thing. I think it was just a gratuitous criticism

You can never have enough blood,guts,gore, axe murderers, ninjas etc. As long as its done well

Ninjas? I knew something was missing!

auriond · Tue 08/09/2009 01:18:05

Just finished this game in one morning, in one sitting.

I was that hooked!

Great work on the plot. It was really well-paced, and it was nice to see the pieces of the story fall together. I was blown away by how non-linear the game is. I was playing this with a friend over MSN, and as we compared notes we were amazed to find how different our routes were. It's really mind boggling how you managed to do all that by yourself. Also, I haven't played through a second time yet but I will, in order to better appreciate the nuances that I suspect are littered across the game (something you only see on hindsight).

Graphics-wise, the contrast between the sketchy backgrounds and the solidly-coloured characters was a little grating at first but it quickly grew on me. Objects also tended to get lost in the background but the labels really helped a lot. I loved the atmosphere, though. Very fitting.

Sound-wise, it was overall very good for setting the tone except for one or two pieces (I forgot if they were mentioned here).

Puzzle-wise, I generally agree with the AdventureGamers review but I would like to add one more thing: there are no hints for why you are able to pick up some things. For example you can pick up a fish, but you have no idea why you just picked up a fish. As a result you just go around picking up everything you can find. Joe's response is subsequently almost comical at times: "No, that's gross, I don't want to pick that up... but hey, I will."

Giving in a little quickly there Joe?

Also, the order in which you use items is very rigid, something I wouldn't have expected in such a non-linear game. For example (spoiler for puzzle solution)

Spoiler

the part where you have to get down the hole in the cellar. I had the plank and I tried to put it down the hole. No dice. There was not even a hint in Joe's response to guide me in the right direction - simply "I can't use the plank with the hole" or something. Later, after I had gotten the rope, I tried to use it on the hole. Again with the "can't use rope on hole". I knew I had to tie the rope to something to get down the hole, but because I had already had the notion that the plank doesn't work with the hole, it didn't occur to me to use the rope with the plank FIRST before putting the whole thing down the hole. My logic worked the other way: put the plank in place first, then tie the rope to it, but I was misled by the idea that the plank was not meant for this purpose.

[close]

The ending was supremely satisfying.

I don't care that it was a little cliched, I loved it. In a way I was almost relieved to see an ending like that after the events of the hotel. This game can make you feel a little insane. And that is an awesome thing.

Grim · Tue 15/09/2009 22:50:32

The Russian publisher has cracked the code and they are positive they can translate Downfall!!!! They should be writing cotract as we speak... so there might be a boxed copy of Downfall after all! Russia, here I come! Yeah!!!!

Crimson Wizard · Tue 29/09/2009 23:46:03

Finally I finished a demo (I downloaded it a some time ago, but had to put it aside for a while)... unfortunately it was so short, I couldn't yet make a decision. The story feels absurdic in some way (a girl dreaming of Scandinavian rock musician ghost, huh).

From the description of complete game I could guess that this demo features "And one girl who is asleep in her bedroom is dreaming a strange dream that soon turns into her worst nightmare...". Am I right?

Grim · Wed 30/09/2009 11:20:16

Quote from: Crimson Wizard on Tue 29/09/2009 23:46:03
Finally I finished a demo (I downloaded it a some time ago, but had to put it aside for a while)... unfortunately it was so short, I couldn't yet make a decision. The story feels absurdic in some way (a girl dreaming of Scandinavian rock musician ghost, huh).

From the description of complete game I could guess that this demo features "And one girl who is asleep in her bedroom is dreaming a strange dream that soon turns into her worst nightmare...". Am I right?

Yeah, this is the part described there, but Agnes does feature in the game a bit more.... I think the semo gives you a run through quite a few locations and being almost like a short separate sub-story it doesn't confuse you with things you wouldn't know without playing the full version. Picking out a demo section is a difficult task- you don't want to give away too much, but in the same time there's got to be enough to capture players' interest. In this case, the Agnes episode gains so much more if you know when and why it happens, and it would be impossible to put that much in the demo:)

Grim · Thu 01/10/2009 14:28:01

I got an award!
How strange, though...

auriond · Fri 02/10/2009 01:43:05

Haha! Congratulations

You could share your award with CJ, since he made it possible!

die_to_xxx · Fri 09/10/2009 10:20:37

I think I must be the only person having this problem as I haven't seen it mentioned, but thought I'd ask anyway!
Maybe I'm missing something that's easy to fix!

I downloaded the demo (the 1st one I think) for Downfall a while ago and it didn't work on my laptop (Windows XP, a few years old and crappy to say the least!) so I just gave up. I'd totally forgotten about the game until I re-discovered it today, I'm sure with infinitely more screenshot and such up now since when I found it the first time as suddenly I was VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT!
I didn't even realize I'd downloaded the demo before until the menu screen popped up!

Anyway, on my laptop, (Windows XP, not so great) the menu screen will load but as soon as I press NEW GAME I just get a black screen with the music playing. This happens with BOTH demos.
Now, I assumed this was the fault of my crappy laptop so moved to my desktop (which I hate to do as my desktop is well, on a desk, whereas my laptop is IN BED WITH ME! xD) and downloaded both demos again. Desktop was bought in the last year, is a super fast gaming system, running Vista Ultimate.
Tried one of them, not sure which (the one called downfall-demo) and this time I didn't even get the menu screen. I just got BLACK.
After clicking the mouse button I got music, but still black.
So I figured I'd try it again, this time in a window so I didn't have to both with getting out of it fullscreen if it crashed, and this time the demo worked fine (albeit VERY TINY).

So, I wonder, why can I only get this demo to work in a window not fullscreen? It's ridiculously tiny in a window, especially on my huge desktop monitor, so really needs to be fullscreen!
I was honestly considering buying this game if the demo appealed to me (which is a big deal for me as I'm a poor student, have no credit card, and have to use the measly funds I can cram into my paypal account through selling things overseas - I live in Japan) but now I can't even test it out, and even if I DO buy it, I assume I'll have the same problems!
This has to be an easy fix I'm sure, and as it's happening on 2 completely different computers, seems like something I'm doing wrong!

Thanks!!

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:18:56

@ die_to_xxx
I'm able to run it 1280x960 windowed without any problem.
Do you have a proper codec pack installed? I use the K-lite codec pack.
I'm not sure if this is the solution but maybe you can check this out?

die_to_xxx · Fri 09/10/2009 11:26:57

Will go take a look and let you know! Thanks!

So, is it common for this game to refuse to run in fullscreen then? It's not just me? xD
Right now it runs fine windowed, just the window is TINY!

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:29:15

Quote from: die_to_xxx on Fri 09/10/2009 11:26:57
So, is it common for this game to refuse to run in fullscreen then? It's not just me? xD
Right now it runs fine windowed, just the window is TINY!

It runs perfect in fullscreen at my desktop pc, so no, it's seems not to be common...
I'm also able to run the game at 1280x960 full screen...

Let me know if the codec pack solve anything...

I'm running my pc at 1280x1024 using a simple nvidia graphics card

die_to_xxx · Fri 09/10/2009 11:38:57

Ok got the standard codec pack, installed (this is on my much nicer desktop).
The demo will now open in fullscreen and give me the menu.
I click NEW GAME, and get music and a screen of black, which was what was happening on my laptop.
If I move the mouse to the top of the screen, I can see little red arrows (the inventory arrows) but everything else is black.
Having seen the demo work fine in a tiny window, I know that's not normal!

Will go try all this on my laptop now too just in case, but I suspect the game will run much better on my desktop.

Edit :: Oh and if I click the arrows, it tells me where are no more items to the left/right.. so clearly the inventory is working fine, just nothing else is!

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:40:36

You can also try run it as:
windowed, 1280x960, 2x nearest-neighbour filter, or
windowed, 960x720, 3x nearest-neighbour filter, or
windowed, 640x480, 2x nearest-neighbour filter.

The 1st option above is the best.

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:42:08

what's the screen resolution you are using on your pc [not the game]?

die_to_xxx · Fri 09/10/2009 11:44:17

Ok that worked!
windowed, 1280x960, 2x nearest-neighbour filter
Going to go try it now on my laptop just out of curiosity!

After all this, let's hope I love the demo enough to buy the game! ::laughs::

I'm 1680 by 1050 pixels on the desktop by the way.

Thankyou so much for all your help!

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:47:10

Quote from: die_to_xxx on Fri 09/10/2009 11:44:17
I'm 1680 by 1050 pixels on the desktop by the way.
Thankyou so much for all your help!

I think that's the problem. Try change it to 1280x1024 and i guess you will be able to run fullscreen....
1680x1050 is a bit high according to the resolution of the gamesetting you want to use....

And your welcome

arj0n · Fri 09/10/2009 11:49:30

Quote from: die_to_xxx on Fri 09/10/2009 11:44:17
After all this, let's hope I love the demo enough to buy the game! ::laughs::

I've played the full game, it AWESOME.
I definitely can recommend you this game.
But check the demo and you will see for yourself

die_to_xxx · Fri 09/10/2009 11:56:46

Yeah, that could have been the problem on my desktop for sure!
The game keeps forcing Vista to change it's colour scheme, which I've never seen it do before (Vista hurts my brain on the best of days), but it seems to be working fine now!

Still no idea what was wrong with my laptop, but that thing is half dead and I'm sure the game will look SO much nicer on this system, so I'm going to leave my beautiful comfy bed and play this one at my desk (with my 3 ferrets running around in the background scaring the crap out of me! At least my bedroom there's just the 2 cats to worry about!). Not going to bother trying to get it to work on the laptop as it's working so nicely here!

Well, I have enough in my paypal account right now to buy it (it was meant to be going towards something else but well, it's a Friday night and I could do with a good game!) so if this demo impresses me, I'll be buying it immediately!
Will be sure to post back and let you know if I do!!