If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers

[Laura Hunt]

IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT, FOUR TRAVELERS

or

A tale of dark and troubling things

(A free point-and-click adventure anthology in four acts.)

THE SILENT ROOM

In a luxurious hotel room in Rome, freshly arrived from Turin, Carlo awaits for his lover Patrick to arrive. However, as the shadow of fascism looms ever larger, the tension of meeting in constant hiding is beginning to take its toll.

THE SLOW VANISHING OF LADY WINTERBOURNE

Lady Winterbourne has lost her husband in a tragic accident. Now letters from pretenders to her vast fortune keep arriving every day at her mansion, yet the only thing she's interested in is the bottle of laudanum in her cabinet.

THE NAMELESS RITUAL

Harassed, ridiculed and belittled by his peers, Dr. Jordan Samuels has resorted to the occult sciences in a desperate attempt to turn the tables on his tormentors. But is he truly ready to face the Guardian of the Threshold?

IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT

As much as Laylah enjoys her job, sometimes she yearns for a bit of variety to distract her from her daily routine -- even if it means going against her very powerful bosses' orders.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:



Laura Hunt: coding, writing, music, sound design.

Thomas Möhring: art, animations, cutscenes.

Additional music:

Spoiler

- Emanuel Salvador, 3 Old Viennese Dances - I. Liebesleid (Fritz Kreisler, 1910). Licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 3.0.

- Walter Scanlan, Always (Irving Berlin, 1925). Restored mp3 transfer of original recording licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC 2.5 by the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

- Gnossiene No. 1 (Erik Satie, ca. 1890). Piano performance by Edward Rosser, from public domain recording. Harp performance arranged by Laura Hunt from MIDI file by unknown sequencer.

- Gerluz, Serenade for Strings Op. 22 - II. Menuetto (Antonin Dvorak, 1875).  Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0.

- Amelita Galli-Curci & Tito Schipa, Parigi, o cara (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853). Performance from 1924. Copyright status unknown, assumed to be public domain from the date of the recording.

- Mal Hallett and his Orchestra, My New York (Irving Berlin, 1927). Public domain recording.

-  Zephyrus Early Music Vocal Ensemble, Sanctus. Arranged by Sally Sanford and Paul Walker. Public domain recording.

- Jack Stillman & Orchestra, At peace with the world (Irving Berlin, 1926). Restored mp3 transfer of original recording licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC 2.5 by the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.

Additional sound effects from freesound.org and the BBC sound library.

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Game testers: Kastchey, Sandra T. Almeida, Durq, Creamy, Ivan Mogilko, TheFrighter, heltenjon, Deabriel, Morgan Willcock, Darío, Racoon, Selmiak.

Very Special Thanks: Ivan Mogilko, Morgan Willcock, Érico Porto, Laura Topakian, Gunnar Harboe, Khris, Deabriel, Irene, Dida.

DOWNLOAD FOR WINDOWS / LINUX

[Hobo]

Congratulations on the release! Downloaded, will take a peek at it tonight and then try to find some time later this week to play and applaud.

[Athanor]

Congratulations to the release Laura! I'll celebrate your beautiful game this night with a cup of the finest Black Tea. Can't wait to play it and delve into this gloomy and dark atmosphere.

[milkanannan]

Wow congrats guys! I can't wait to play this!

[Honza]

Congrats, looks (and sounds) amazing!

[heltenjon]

The AGS awards for 2021 is reported to be an exciting free-for-all in the categories Best Short Game, Best Voice Work, Best Demo and Best Non-Adventure Game.

I'm honoured to have had the opportunity to playtest and give feedback on this piece of art. Congratulations again on the release! I hope the game gets the audience it deserves, despite tackling the darker corners of our minds.

[Ian Aloser]

Congrats on the release, Laura !!!
I am already playing it and I am overwhelmed by the atmosphere of this great piece of art !
Graphics and story are fantastic , will provide more feedback later.
Thank you so much for this great piece of entertainment, you did an amazing job !!

 

[javixblack]

Congrats on the release!!! I can't wait to taste this. Cheers!

[ukz530]

Congrats on the release! It's so cool!

[Cassiebsg]

Congrats on the release!

[rongel]

Congratulations on the release! I hope I have time to play this next weekend!

[Laura Hunt]

Thanks for the lovely words, everybody. I hope that those of you who haven't played it yet will enjoy it as much as those who already did! Big kudos especially to our testers, who checked every nook, cranny and pixel in their relentless search for bugs

Man, I can't believe that some two years ago I was asking "hey guys, how can I make the cursor change over a hotspot?" And now I need to learn how to use dictionaries and sets and the new cameras! There really is no rest for the wicked ones.

[brewton]

Congratulations! I'm only partway through, but I think you may have set a new quality standard.

It reminds me a little of the novel The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers.

Also,

Spoiler

nice Twin Peaks reference at the gramophone in part 2.

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EDIT: bicilotti has informed me that this novel exists and now I will need to read it.

[guga2112]

That looks amazing, I can't wait to try it

[Laura Hunt]

Congratulations! I'm only partway through, but I think you may have set a new quality standard.

It reminds me a little of the novel The King in Yellow, by Robert Chambers.

Indeed, it was one of my main influences! In fact,

Spoiler

one of the three books you can read in the parlour in act 2 is a fragment from The King In Yellow (more specifically, "The Sacrifice", from the prose poem "The Prophets' Paradise".)

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Also,

Spoiler

nice Twin Peaks reference at the gramophone in part 2.

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Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well A couple of names in act 3 might sound familiar too, then

[newwaveburritos]

Oh, wow, I've been following the other thread in the "in production" forum so it's exciting to find it here and ready.  Congrats on finishing and getting it out there.  I look forward to playing it!

[Dualnames]

First, off congrats on release.

Some negative things first.
1) Imho the title is horrible, very hard to remember, much harder to abbreviate, imho the title needed to be maybe something else or "Four Travelers".
2) Layah's arc should have been playable in my opinion. I wanted it to be.

Positive things now:
1) Every story is brilliant. The evoking of the emotion that is dominant in each of these stories, is there. I specifically enjoyed the hell out of the last act!
2) The characters, every single character is memorable and very well fleshed out!
3) The art style, I mean, what can be said, it's fucking mindblowing!
4) The music, really well done there on the usage and the creation of new pieces all of which mesh together with your writing and the artwork!
5) The pace and the flow of puzzles is really well done, it works a lot as an interactive story of course, but that is intentional and doesn't bother me one bit!

Overall, I think a solid 9/10 if we're being harsh, 10/10 if we're being fair.

[Two Tales]

Well... I haven't been here for a while and thought I'd come back for a browse through the website. Glad I did because this looks fantastic! I'm so gonna download and play. I can already tell I'm gonna like it.

[heltenjon]

I saw it, and now I can't unsee it: I looked at the Recent Games list and read "If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers Fool Around". 

[mkennedy]

Nice game. Is there only one path for each character or can they do things differently?

[Tampere]

Nice game. Is there only one path for each character or can they do things differently?

The latter â€" at least for dialogue choices â€" and imho adds much to immersion.

Congratulations to everyone in the team: writing and art are superb. If you can stomach the gore, one of the best productions in AGS.

[heltenjon]

Nice game. Is there only one path for each character or can they do things differently?

The latter â€" at least for dialogue choices â€" and imho adds much to immersion.

I'd recommend to at least play the first chapter two times. The detail level is so great that if you change the mood of the character, the descriptions change, as well.

[heltenjon]

1) Imho the title is horrible, very hard to remember, much harder to abbreviate, imho the title needed to be maybe something else or "Four Travelers".

What, don't you like dual names? 

Overall, I think a solid 9/10 if we're being harsh, 10/10 if we're being fair.

Agreed!

[deadsuperhero]

Just finished playing it. Absolutely phenomenal - one thing that I really appreciated was how different this looked from other AGS games. The style, form of interaction, and even method of giving messages to the player felt very different from anything I've ever seen before. The visual effects were really well done, too...from the visual transitions of rooms panning around and walls fading to the transition parts in the second act. Very unique!

All of the stories were really sad in different ways, but I think my favorite was The Nameless Ritual. It's so creepy and weird, but I felt so compelled to root for the guy the whole time.

[selmiak]

What a delightful game, it just oozes atmosphere. It is really hard to decide for a favourite of the stories, but it is probably The nameless ritual

Spoiler

While wading through the water in the library down there it did send shivers down my spine, really well done. And then the soldiers, I wanted to use the pillow to help the second soldier to rest his head and broken jaw on it, then he just kills him, that shocked me a lot, wtf, noooooo... but it was probably better for him.

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also here is a spoilerfilled longplay

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECS5960MdTI

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[Laura Hunt]

Thanks for the lovely comments, everybody Apologies for not dropping by earlier, but the launch went... well, saying that it was better than expected would be an understatement, honestly. We got picked up by RockPaperShotgun, AlphaBetaGamer, freegameplanet, reddit, and itch.io's own front page among others, so I really wasn't ready to deal with all this. But now that the wave seems to have subsided a bit, it's back to the cozy, quiet calm of the good ol' AGS forums at last

Thanks again to everybody who's played it so far, everybody who tested it, everybody who encouraged us and everybody who helped me with my scripting issues. This community is amazing.

Next step is getting it on Steam, offering the optional paid DLC "supporters' package", and after that, it's on to a new project! To infinity and beyond!

[Slasher]

Congratulations on the release... Looks fab.... Will play soon..

[Shadow1000]

I finished playing this release last night at around 1 am.

The summary of my thoughts is that the experience is unlike anything I can compare to. I'll try to break down the different areas:

- Graphics, animation, sound, music, environment: I don't know if I've played an AGS game before where these are all off-the-charts top-notch to the point that this plays a huge role in turning a game into a all-involving experience. Super-realistic animation (I assume there's some element of motion-capture, rotoscoping involved to make it look and feel REAL), combined with that on-an-angle camera scene view, with the use of areas coming to life by lighting the gloomy backgrounds where appropriate - all an A+
- Story, characters and theme: incredible how each scenario pulls you right into a different world and experience.
- Puzzles: there are a few that make the game more interactive, but that's not what this game is about. They are at the difficulty level that is right in that sweet spot between being satisfying to solve, heightening the experience and not being so difficult as to make the game frustrating and a negative experience.

Overall, the only way I can describe this game is MAGIC. This is not a game you play, it's one you live.

Huge kudos to everyone involved!

[MIGGO]

Congratulations on making this game!

I took a peak while it was in dev and not shortly after I got to play it. The art and animation are beautiful. The story plays like a novel. The gameplay is nice, simple and fluid.
This game is so sophisticated in atmosphere and cultural references.

Thank you for this game! 

[Haggis]

Congratulations - been looking forward to this one since I first laid eyes on that gorgeous pixel art!!! Downloading now

[SarahLiz]

Just downloaded this morning, didn't even know it was out!  I've been looking forward to this one for some time.  I've played through the first chapter and I'm seeing where this (maybe) is going, and it makes me excited to see it through.  It's more of a story rather than puzzle-solving so far, which is right up my alley.  I've actually played through the 1st storyline twice, which I recommend doing. 

The pixel artwork is beautiful, and from what I've seen so far, the writing is SO good.  That can make or break the entire experience, more than anything else for me.  I know there has been so much praise already for this game that what I'm writing here is practically redundant, but just had to add my comments too.  All the praise (and then some) is well deserved. 

Gotta go finish the other chapters now...GREAT, great game.


Ok, edit: 

Spoiler

Just finished it!  What a trip man, literally and figuratively!  That ending was equally tragic, creepy, and even a bit funny.  I loved EVERY minute of playing, truly.

...Did anyone else besides me get ghost pirate LeChuck vibes from the "Head Demonic Death Manager" train guy?  Lol!   

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If you guys don't continue making other games after this one, it'd truly be tragic.  What incredible talent.  I know you're trying to get the game on Steam, and I'd pay money to play it, even though it's not very long.  Seriously.


~Sarah

[LostTrainDude]

A very enjoyable, eerie experience!

Spoiler

I especially liked the attention to detail: the *actual* vanishing of Lady Winterbourne throughout the episode being an example.
I also enjoyed how the ending is presented: a grotesque, slight shift in tone that I always enjoy!

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I join the people praising the pixel art and how expressively you used it throughout the game, and I also want to add how nice it is to see another isometric AGS game 

So, in short: Great job! Looking forward to your next projects!

[shaun9991]

One of the best games I've played, no exaggeration. A perfect marriage of narrative, writing, art, animation, sound and music.

Really looking forward to what Laura & Thomas cook up for the their next game!

<3

[Laura Hunt]

Hey all, just a quick update to let you know that our Steam page is already up and running and you can wishlist the game, if you are so inclined:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1603980/


The release is planned for late September, if everything goes according to plan, and the game will still be free, with no DRM. Of course, there will be achievements, and an optional DLC consisting of a Digital Artbook and the Original Score will be added both for Steam and itch.io, for a fixed price on Steam and pay-what-you-want on itch.

For now, I can't really guarantee that we'll be able to bring the Linux version to Steam too, but we'll do our best. In any case, you already know that wishlists help a lot, so even if you don't plan on downloading it again or you prefer to get the DLC from itch, clicking that wishlist button if you have a Steam account is greatly appreciated

EDIT: The Linux version is confirmed!

[Khris]

I missed this completely when it came out and just now discovered it.

Just an amazing work of art, and probably the first and only game where slow walking was making the game better
The attention to detail is mindblowing really, for instance [very minor spoiler ahead] the fact that the cursor only works inside the lit area adds so much to the immersion.
The visual aesthetics are pretty much unparalleled.

I believe I spotted a typo:

Spoiler

In the library, the song was called "Leibeslied" iirc

[close]

I'm also really proud I made it in the credits of this fantastic game, thanks for that!

[Laura Hunt]

I missed this completely when it came out and just now discovered it.

Just an amazing work of art, and probably the first and only game where slow walking was making the game better
The attention to detail is mindblowing really, for instance [very minor spoiler ahead] the fact that the cursor only works inside the lit area adds so much to the immersion.
The visual aesthetics are pretty much unparalleled.

Thank you! The slow walking speed was definitely a point of contention and some people have even asked for a speed slider, but we firmly believe it is a big part of the atmosphere, so we're standing our ground on this one. Being able to e.g., make Lady Winterbourne just zip from one end of the mansion to another like the ending to a Benny Hill episode would absolutely murder the shit out of the game's mood.

I believe I spotted a typo:

Spoiler

In the library, the song was called "Leibeslied" iirc

[close]

It's not a typo The piece is indeed called "Liebesleid" (not "Liebeslied").

I'm also really proud I made it in the credits of this fantastic game, thanks for that!

When I started working on this game, I was most definitely punching above my weight coding-wise. Without you guys' help I never would have been able to pull it off, and that deserves some recognition and public appreciation

[eri0o]

This is the best game I have played this year. Sound is great (headphones is a must!!!), kickass graphics, insane attention to details.

Spoiler

I will remember Lord Socks. 

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[eri0o]

A nice article has been written, I just stumbled upon it here https://www.pcgamer.com/in-just-2-hours-if-on-a-winters-night-four-travelers-tells-one-of-the-best-adventure-game-stories-ive-ever-played/

[Laura Hunt]

A nice article has been written, I just stumbled upon it here https://www.pcgamer.com/in-just-2-hours-if-on-a-winters-night-four-travelers-tells-one-of-the-best-adventure-game-stories-ive-ever-played/

Yes! A bunch of people sent it to me when it came out, haha. We've had lots of nice reviews, but this one takes the cake!