The Marionette (voice acting preview in the last post)

[Lufia]

During the dialog with Guiseppe at the beginning, no matter in what order I pick the dialog options, once he gets to the "I'm deadly serious" part I get the same bug as the gentlemen above me. I re-loaded a save several times just to test that.

I'll skip the dialog and move on now.

[auriond]

The bug has been fixed and I'm uploading the new versions now.

[kaputtnik]

That game crashing bug is simply incredible; I hadn't crashed the game in any of the last betas, no matter what I did. Glad you had time to fix it, auriond, and great that it has finally been released!

[auriond]

I know! It completely floored me too. I was so sure it was an AGS problem. Well, hopefully it's all fixed. Fingers crossed

The uploads are complete so bicilotti and nihilyst, let me know if you still encounter the bugs.

[Calin Leafshade]

I get the same problem as the other guys except it freezes at "ive been thinking about us alot too" on the balcony.

[auriond]

 

Okay, back to the old drawing board...

[Lufia]

The game froze on me each time there was a little pause between two lines in the dialog. That includes the scene on the balcony, and the closing topic in each dialog with Giuseppe. The new version fixed that for me.

I've finished the game now. It feels like an interactive movie more than adventure game given that the puzzles are pretty straightforward. I'm not complaining though. The art is absolutely gorgeous and the music is quite good as well.

[auriond]

Thanks Lufia. If you thought it wasn't interactive enough, you might be interested to know that there are four endings and one easter egg to discover. But I agree that the rest of the game is pretty linear.

[david]

Using Vista I have also freezing problem in conversation between Martin and Giuseppe
Lines something like: blah....blah...from here there is no way back and stuck

[Wesray]

Great! This was one of the games I was really looking forward to! Currently downloading and I'll try it immedeately even if I don't have a lot of time for playing right now.

[auriond]

Just to check: those of you still encountering the bugwith the new version - you're not using the old save games are you? You'll have to start from beginning again if you are.

[nihilyst]

Okay, don't encounter the bug anymore. Thanks.

EDIT: Finished it.

It was a great experience. I love the amount of effort that went into all the backgrounds and the sequences, although some of the bgs were too washed out for my taste. The music was good, and the story well written. It must have really been a lot of work to make this game, but it was all worth it.

[CaptainD]

Wow - this is an incredible game.  Great graphics and music, good puzzles, strong writing and amazing storyline. 

[Igor Hardy]

The bug is dead.

I'm really enjoying the game. I'm half-way through now (looking at the GB walkthrough).

The one serious gripe I had is that having the ability to face locations from different angles often doesn't come of as intuitive - partially because the hotspots that switch the angles are hard to find.

[auriond]

Thanks for the positive comments guys.

Ascovel: the controls is a constant gripe I've faced about this game. But I first implemented it three years ago and towards the end it just got too big to overhaul. Next time I make a game it definitely won't have controls like this.

[mouthuvmine]

Hey, just finished it. Once, anyway. I'll edit this tonight after a few more playthroughs, but overall, super enjoyable. And, to me at least, the controls got pretty manageable after the second location or so, so no big gripe from me on that.

I really liked the graphic styles, though not a few backgrounds (a little too unfocused at times), and the story was really gripping. I don't usually get so into first person adventures, but I couldn't stop playing. And great music. I loved the mood it set.

Thanks!

[Nikolas]

Finished it, and I just can't wait to share my experience...

Story

The story seems familiar enough to understand what's going on soon enough. There are a few surprises, but twists are not the strong part of the game, nor they should.

Martin, an artist, finds himself suddently in a weird place where nothing is *exactly* right. Different scenes overtake one another and a strange character is there to help you but he's full of puzzles himself...

Graphics

The graphics are one of the very strong points of the game. There are very few animations, but the first person view, along with the excellent artwork of Auriond make up for evyrhting. The drawing style is rather personal, I'd say and it's not what one would expect from an AGS game, heck from any game! Every BG, every scene gives a feeling of a separate piece of artwork and this IS stuninng!

Martin is drawn to perfection and the main female character is also very beautiful!

Sound

Sound effects are limited to a handful. This, along with the lack of animation and moving characters gives a very claustraphobic feeling, which is quite difficult to get away from (was playing in a windowed mode, but even so it did capture me). The very limited sfx work extremely well, since they provide the essense of a scene in a single sfx!

Music is very good, the overall quality is way above average! Almost all loops work fabulously, even though each track is quite small (with the exception of the big dialogue ending, where the loop seems to not be working as well as the others). The music style serves its purpose in a great extent and provides a big helpding hand to setting the mood for the game! The music themes work great in each scene, and the stylistic choices are always on spot and very coherent with the rest and the whole game!

Gameplay

The gameplay feels quite natural. I didn't mind the 1st person view. Didn't mind the 'foot' icon when I had to change view. In fact I found it quite normal, and there was large enough hotspots for each corner, each place to visit. The exits were always quite visible.

The icon based GUI also feels quite good. It's a normal GUI which served tons of adventures before, so there's not much to be told.

Each item and most dialogues have extensive choices, and this brings more life to the game. It's not that you get a scissors and go "This is a scissors, duh". Very few items have an actual use in the game, in order to advance, but most provide great assistance to the mood of the game and the setting of the story. It's a story driven game, and the way it's been setup supports this notion.

There are a few puzzles, and me the little ignorant got stuck a couple of times! There are a few inventory based puzzles, a few code based ones, a few dialogue based, but it does feel that the puzzles are somewhat limited and this is an interactive novel, rather than a game. I won't agree to that extent, but I do agree that the puzzles are on the easy side really.

The 'cinematic' cutscenes in the game also work great and do not stop the flow of playing at all! English language is perfect, at least to my knowledge!

Finally it should be noted that the 4 different endings are vastly different, and although based largely on what you do in the last minute, and thus do not provide great replayability, they still give the sense of choice to a player who knows what they'd like to do.

overall

One of my most anticipated games, the work here is highly polished. Didn't encounter any bug (the tw bugs mentioned never happened to me).

The level of attention in this game is quite high, and if the cinematics and music (a composer... what did you expect?) were more impressive (<-notice the word impressive here), I would gladly have paid some money for this game! Dispite of it's rather short size! (If you know what you're doing you can probably finish it in less than 30 minutes (although I didn't time myself)).

A great game, and since this is my ever first review in the AGS boards, I'd say that I think it's worth it!

[CaptainD]

Since we're talking reviews...

I've just posted my review of The Marionette -  http://captaind-pc-gaming.blogspot.com/2009/11/freeware-adventure-game-review.html

Sorry if the formatting of that review looks a little strange - it'll be odd in lower screen resolutions.  I blame Blogger! 

Seriously, this was a fantastic game, one of the best AGS games I've played this year - or, come to think of it, ever (and I don't even like the genre you chose to make a game about!)

[CaptainD]

Found 3 endings btw - are there any more?

[auriond]

I'm very honoured that Nikolas has decided that TM is worthy of him posting his first full review on the AGS forums here Although in the interest of full disclosure, he gave advice and helped out in sound design and editing.

CaptainD: thanks for the review! There are 4 endings, so you're missing one.