METRO CITY: Night Shift

[Ian Aloser]

Thanks for the info, Rik !
I solved the previous hacks by trial and error :-)
But this one leaves me helpless....

[Rik_Vargard]

I solved the previous hacks by trial and error :-)
But this one leaves me helpless....

Spoiler

OK so:

You're trying to hack a security system.
The system will defend and counterattack.

On the left :
The red part is the system (moving down) coming at you to stop you.
The green part is you (moving up) to hack it.

On the right:
- Four random signs appear on the top
- You have to click on the similar signs below to make them disappear, move up, and have a new set of signs
- Whenever you click on a wrong sign, you'll move back down
- The hand icon, when you can click on it (when "ON"), will make the system go back one move (up) and save you time.

HINT: Whatever you're trying to click, when the hand icon turns on, click on it first.

[close]

[Ian Aloser]

Thanks Rik,
I get the picture ....
EDIT: My problem was the high game speed I had adjusted :-))

[Rik_Vargard]

Thanks Rik,
I get the picture ....
EDIT: My problem was the high game speed I had adjusted :-))

Haha!    Well i'm glad you got through it 

[RootBound]

Finished!

I have to say, I enjoyed a few aspects very much - I thought the 3d pre-rendered backgrounds and 3d video cutscenes were great, and that they really did a lot of work to make the setting of the game world feel bigger and like there was a city surrounding these events, even though we don't get a lot of locations.

The puzzles were challenging and even at times frustrating but in retrospect the solutions seem straightforward and logical, and so I can't complain. I just wasn't patient enough to figure it out without hints. 

I enjoyed the hacking games, too. They added a nice variety to the gameplay, and figuring out how the games work is a necessary piece of it, which adds complexity.

My one quibble is probably with the battle system, but mostly that's with the graphic design of it, I think. The movements feel jerky, like the game is getting stuck, but I think it's just that each battle "position" is a mostly static image instead of an animation. For some reason it's more difficult to know what to pay attention to. Maybe the interface is more crowded? Even so, I was able to survive the battle scenes without too much difficulty (though I think one bug that gave me an extra medshot may have helped  ).

Overall good game!

Spoiler

I did want to finish the story, though, so ending on a cliffhanger left me feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps that's to make me play the next episode. 

[close]

Also, I found one more bug:

Spoiler

After taking the elevator down with Alexander, you can walk behind the elevator buttons as well as disappear behind the elevator doors.

[close]

[Ian Aloser]

Hey RootBound,

Spoiler

How did you proceed in the basement with Alexander?
I can see the wire's spot, but no item in my inventory
can be used with it. Also, looking at the door gives me the message:
"Good thing I got Alex's keycard" and interacting with it "I need a keycard"
My problem is: I got only my own keycard and don't have any wires....

[close]

Seems like I have run into a dead end ...
EDIT : Nevermind, I figured it out

[Rik_Vargard]

@Ian Aloser

EDIT : Nevermind, I figured it out

So where're you at at this point?


@RootBound
Thank you for playing and thank you for your precious feedback!
And I'm really happy you enjoyed the game.

About the "elevator bug" (a minor bug that doesn't change anything about the gameplay) :

Spoiler

That's one minor bug I couldn't fix and forgot to mention in the technical forums (I will do that ASAP- I forgot because of the rocky release-)
Thing is that in that particular room, for some reason, when you use "WalkTo" at that place, the player walks out of the walkable area!
Yep. So, I don't know how it's even possible but there it is.

[close]

About the "Overall good game"

Spoiler

Wich is about the ending but didn't want to spoil.
At my beginner level I had no choice at this point of AGS learning + releasing a game experience + the importance of beta testing..
I had to "learn and move on." because I wanted to test and add new stuff, still adventure, puzzles, the story the characters etc.
But with new stuff to see how it can be done in AGS.
So yeah, that was a real question for me. But I think I had to split this in two parts because some room scripts became very epic (you know, based on the bugs) so it's not "calculated" to make you want to play the next one, but I felt I had to finish this one this way...   

[close]

About the battle system:

Spoiler

I understand the quibble is visual and I knew this one was coming. And I agree.
Thing is, I had to buy a new PC, made two massive backups. But somehow the characters' files didn't make it. The folders did. Not he files. In both backups. And of all of the files, just and only the character files went missing. Go figure.
As I was getting at the end of the game, I would've had to recreate the characters from scratch and redo all animations etc.
Because at the same time I had discovered a better way to create them thus.... "learn and move on".

All of that made me split the whole thing in two parts. 

[close]

[RootBound]

@Rik Vargard sorry to hear about your lost files! That must have been frustrating to say the least. I look forward to the next game. 

[Ian Aloser]

Hello Rik,
I finished it, too.
You created a great game and besides the few flaws I was highly motivated to complete it.
I really liked the soundtrack, the story and most of all the video sequences
which gave the game a great atmosphere.
Thank you very much for your work and I really hope to see more !
Cheers to Belgium !

[Rik_Vargard]

@Ian Aloser

Thank you very much for playing the game and for sticking along during the rocky release.
And also for your game experience feedback and the bugs you encountered.
It's very encoureaging

[AndreasBlack]

I haven't finished yet, i noticed now you've done some bug fix updates, i'm not sure i had the latest cause i managed to bug it out. I took up three or four medkits and keys/phone duplicates  Also i managed to put back the wires cause i thought i had to do that to get the door to open again, then i couldn't take them back  But apart from those bugs it's funny to play. I will finish it someday, hopefully. I went to buy some hans unt hans nuddles and then... Will have to try again tommorrow!

[Rik_Vargard]

I haven't finished yet, i noticed now you've done some bug fix updates, i'm not sure i had the latest cause i managed to bug it out. I took up three or four medkits and keys/phone duplicates  Also i managed to put back the wires cause i thought i had to do that to get the door to open again, then i couldn't take them back  But apart from those bugs it's funny to play. I will finish it someday, hopefully. I went to by some hans unt hans nuddles and then... Will have to try again tommorrow!

Haha 
Well no worries all those bugs are also fixed now 

[AndreasBlack]

Uh-oh, we have a game breaking bug! I tried to climb a ladder

Spoiler

after the first robo fight, trying to climb the ladder bugs the character out completely. He started his climbing animation on the left wall and missed the ladder completely! The game then crashed and complained you have no frames in loop 2 (i've done these type of mistakes myself so...). To avoid this from happening in the future make sure the character is faced the direction where you have the climbing frames before calling the animation. Which i guess is loop3 = up, but since i turned him a different way it tried to get it from loop2 where you have no climbing animation. Just go player.FaceDirection(eDirectionUp); before changing to the loop animation. That way you are guaranteed it will run the loop you want afterwards. Or just copy paste the climbing frames on all the directional loops which is 0,1,2,3 and it wouldn't matter which loop he was on previously. Got damn it, i just want to finish the game! When i finally beat the robot it crashed on me, gaaaah!!!       

[close]

[Rik_Vargard]

@AndreasBlack

First, thank you for your message!

Second, damn it! I just wanted people to have fun, not being frustrated all the time! 

Well I guess it's an experience to learn from a first release. But Im' very sorry you had this one bug! 

Because, how did you manage to do that?!

I spent the last 15 minutes trying to crash the game in various ways with the ladder thing and it always works perfectly.
I have no idea on how this went wrong for you.
But it obviously did...

So I took your advice to make those kind of rare moments even more impossible, thx!

The newly patched version is now online and you can play the game as it's supposed to be.

[AndreasBlack]

I guess you have your official bugtester for the next release right here
Very frustrating with coding at times. I had so many bugs in my first little game release aswell, but now i've gotten the grasp of things, but it's a lot of work using the nine verb interface (!) so at least you made the right choice there not to use that advanced template

Before the Robo stuff (a suggestion) i think you should have a autosave feature, cause that turns you off to have to re-play everything. In fact you should do like i do in my game that you haven't played yet. The player just re-spawns at the robot sorta like a 'auto-save before a epic moment'.

That's better! But yeah you have to code a bit more then, perhaps you're not into that and just want to move onto other projects! On the positive side you still want to keep playing the game. That's more then you can say about my first game 

Just ask 'Khris' on the forum he doesn't know it yet, but his comment about "I didn't get beeping nowhere" is actually in the "hard mode" as a fourthwall joke But i've since then made it more obvious what you should do at the start of the game, so i think it would be less troublesome for new players! 

 

[Rik_Vargard]

Haha I'll take that offer for bugtester anytime! 

Yeah scripting can be damn frustrating at times, like very! It's learning a new language with it's logic.
And then it also feels like magic. You write those lines and then *poof*, the thing unfolds in front of you!
And then it doesn't work.
And there starts the learning again.
And then it works.
And then you feel like you have written down that one powerfull spell that comes to life perfectly.
And that's a great feeling.

About the autosave, I have to say I didn't think of it (well perhaps one evening).
Thing is, since one can save anytime during the game, if I were a player and see something new I would save every step.
Right now I don't know how to create an autosave in AGS, but I could create some "message" that would propose the player to save the game at some points.
Good idea, thank you 

It's also good to have moved from bug reports to suggestions 

Cheers!

Rik

[CaptainD]

I think the most astonishing thing about this game is that, after playing AGS-made games for... I dunno, over two decades now I think! - this genuinely feels like nothing I've every played before.

The animations and music are superb, and there's a real Bladerunner-esque atmosphere through the whole game.

Not sure if the version I've played so far has quite a few missing interactions that have now been fixed, but even so they didn't really impact the game too badly. The mini-games were challenging - sometimes very challenging - but fun enough (and felt "fair" enough) to persevere.

Haven't finished it yet but really enjoyed the game so far, congrats on an impressive and unique game!

[Rik_Vargard]

Hey @CaptainD , thank you so much for your review, it's very inspiring and motivating for many reasons!

[Rik_Vargard]

FAST WALKTHROUGH REALEASED!

So this is a fast walthrough where I skip through the dialogues to get to the point of what one has to do to finish the game.
It's not an immersive exprience but a to-the-point one, for players who just want to know how to get to the next step.
Now I think of it, it's almost a speedrun of some sorts... 

[heltenjon]

I revisited this one to see if I could finish it before the AGS award voting, and after much trial and retrial, I finally beat that last door hacking mini-game and made it to the end. That was hard!

I'll repeat my praise from the GIP thread: the graphics and animation are stunning, and the city now feels alive and vibrant. All those background animations and ambient sounds pay off big time, making this a highly atmospheric piece. If anything, I regret not nominating it for best audio/music as well as the two categories I did nominate it for. Did you make the music yourself, too? It's a great fit for the mood!

I think the most astonishing thing about this game is that, after playing AGS-made games for... I dunno, over two decades now I think! - this genuinely feels like nothing I've every played before.

Couldn't agree more. It stands out like that. (Does feel like Blade Runner, though, which is intentional.)

The mini-games are very cool. I am not very good with those, and needed a lot of attempts to prevail at the hacking games. The fights went all right, even though I just barely survived every time. I'm thankful they weren't harder!

I think the decision to split the game in two parts made sense, even though that meant that

Spoiler

the next interaction with the quarreling brothers

[close]

will have to wait for the next game. I'm really impressed by your game. Congratulations, and best of luck in the upcoming awards. I'll eagerly await the next chapter in this story. I'm on board for the ride.