Falling Dark - An adventure game with RPG elements

[FransisKransis]

Hello, I just finished yet another indie-y style game. This one not only has some RPG elements, but also features 'Point and Click'-style puzzle solving and combat. Which is good and not bad. Also, this game is not rated by the ESRB, but if it were, it would be a hard M.

It's a love story with political undertones, which are both themes that gamers really like and can relate to.

For marketing purposes I'm also required to inform you that my game, ‘Absin', got the AGS pick of the month back in June. This game isn't as good as that one of course, but that's PR for you.

The box-blurb thing is thus:

“The year is 1999. The underground culture of the nineties is coming to an end. It is being replaced by a corporate-driven growth of technology and a culture of distraction. In the last dark streets of the city, people stand against this change to preserve their own ways of life. However, as entities start to sell it out, it becomes only a matter of time before the underground is divided and conquered.
In the midst of this, is Taylor. A simple person of an older time, struggling to keep their head above water as they're sucked deep into the heart of this conflict, and this division.”

‘Falling Dark' is a point and click adventure game with RPG elements, featuring:
• Several branching narrative paths.
• A blend of 'Point and Click' puzzle solving and combat.
• A variety of hidden side-quests and encounters.
• And an original soundtrack.

So if that sounds interesting to you, please do check it out.

Screenshots straight from the Itch.io page:










And a link to the Itch page:
https://thinking-of-cremation.itch.io/falling-dark

Cheers,
Fransis

[Kastchey]

Awesome! I really enjoy your narrative.
Congrats on meeting your target release date

I'll leave my feedback here when I finish the game.

[Jack]

Definitely sounds interesting.

Hope to give it a go sometime.

[Frodo]

Looks interesting.  Need to give this a try.   


"point and click adventure game with RPG elements"
So... like Quest For Glory?

[FransisKransis]

I'll leave my feedback here when I finish the game.

Sounds good, Kastchey, I look forward to your thoughts.

Definitely sounds interesting.

Hope to give it a go sometime.

Thanks, Jack!

"point and click adventure game with RPG elements"
So... like Quest For Glory?

And Frodo, sure, it's definitely in a similar design vein as far as stats go. Though if I recall correctly, I think Quest For Glory had turn-based combat? This game's combat is run live.

[Creamy]

I've finished chapter 1. Quite gritty.

I'm not sold on the graphics but I'm curious to see where it's going.

I like the blend of different gameplays too.

[lanchong]

This game is brilliant, as far as a free game goes. Don't trust the screenshots and try it for yourself.
With a bit polish,  character portraits and voice acting, it would be a decent commercial game too.

[srnickolas]

Hello friend, I am really enjoying your game.I encountered a bug in chapter 2 after I spoke to the dude (lady?) with the broken car(he is accesible when you approach the location with the question mark on the map). Game exits and an error pops.It Happens after the dialogue,when my character goes to check the car.At the bottom of my post there's a link of an image of the error.Also may I ask,in the first chapter a couple is requesting if i can eraze their debt in the vhs store.But after I went there and used my seductive skills on the owner,my character auto-exits,the location vanishes  and I didnt have the opportunity to complete the side quest.Is the location accesible later,so i can complete said side-quest? If no can you update the game so you can freely access the place? Thank you and congratulations on your release.

https://imgur.com/CKJFUSZ

[FransisKransis]

Hello friend, I am really enjoying your game.I encountered a bug in chapter 2 after I spoke to the dude (lady?) with the broken car(he is accesible when you approach the location with the question mark on the map). Game exits and an error pops.It Happens after the dialogue,when my character goes to check the car.At the bottom of my post there's a link of an image of the error.Also may I ask,in the first chapter a couple is requesting if i can eraze their debt in the vhs store.But after I went there and used my seductive skills on the owner,my character auto-exits,the location vanishes  and I didnt have the opportunity to complete the side quest.Is the location accesible later,so i can complete said side-quest? If no can you update the game so you can freely access the place? Thank you and congratulations on your release.

https://imgur.com/CKJFUSZ

Hey srnickolas,

Thank you for the detailed bug-find, that it made it a very easy patch! The car encounter should work now, and the VHS store should be freely accessible in chapter 1. If you find anything else, you can let me know, otherwise, enjoy the game.

[srnickolas]

Hello friend, I am really enjoying your game.I encountered a bug in chapter 2 after I spoke to the dude (lady?) with the broken car(he is accesible when you approach the location with the question mark on the map). Game exits and an error pops.It Happens after the dialogue,when my character goes to check the car.At the bottom of my post there's a link of an image of the error.Also may I ask,in the first chapter a couple is requesting if i can eraze their debt in the vhs store.But after I went there and used my seductive skills on the owner,my character auto-exits,the location vanishes  and I didnt have the opportunity to complete the side quest.Is the location accesible later,so i can complete said side-quest? If no can you update the game so you can freely access the place? Thank you and congratulations on your release.

https://imgur.com/CKJFUSZ

Hey srnickolas,

Thank you for the detailed bug-find, that it made it a very easy patch! The car encounter should work now, and the VHS store should be freely accessible in chapter 1. If you find anything else, you can let me know, otherwise, enjoy the game.

Thanks for the quick patch!I'll replay the first chapter to get the side quest.

[srnickolas]

Hey I found another weird bug while replaying chapter 1,if you finish the first chapter without spending any money(I had 70) you start the second (after the graveyard scene and watching the tape) with 20.Maybe it resets the money? I replayed the graveyard portion just to check and it happened again.Its no biggie though i'll just spend my cash before the end of the chapter at stuff

[Kastchey]

Okay, I've finished it. I always enjoyed your games but you have outdone yourself with this one, this was fantastic. The story took a while to deep dive into but it was worth it. I felt the game world was sort of an alternative reality dystopian 90s, which was pretty awesome. The genre mix was well balanced and fun to play. Writing and dialogues as brilliant as always, great job keeping the balance between the grim, gorey details, the subtle tarantinesque sense of humour and the psychological drama elements. The characters and plot were somewhat eccentric and took a while to get a feel for, but after a while I was hooked. The collectibles are a nice touch, I also loved the fact that there were places you could only (optionally) explore if you had certain skills. What impressed me the most though was the attention to details: the multiple street encounters, the radio news that always reflect the recent events and even the idle animation that would change every time I took the elevator. The soundtrack was fantastic too, I had it stuck in my head for a good while after I finished the game. Really cool!

As for the graphics, I understand why others have said it is somewhat subpar, but I like the visuals. They are simplistic, but consistent and clearly a lot of love has been put into details and animations.

I do have some complaints too, but that's probably just because you set the bar so high it is nearly a commercial quality product. What I felt was lacking was some time to walk around, speak to the NPC and explore the surroundings in between the main storyline parts. Street encounters partially compensated for it but I would have liked more "in between" content that involved the key NPC. The pace at which the story developed was very fast which admittedly contributed to the game's dynamics, but at the same time some of the plot elements felt rushed and lacking proper introduction.

Spoiler

I guess ending A is what you get if you manage to dispose of the army in the ending sequence? This time I wasn't even close (I couldn't afford the best weapon even when I sold out everything I had, my firearms was way too low and I didn't have enough medicine), but I'll try on my second playthrough. Tombstones during the ending sequence were a nice touch, it was fun to calculate the age of the characters in hindsight.

[close]

A minor glitch: the locations tab from the final map does not show when you are actually traveling to the final location, and instead it pops up and stays on top of the cutscenes after the ending sequence.

(Side note, I think I can tell which pen & paper RPG you play )

[FransisKransis]

Hey I found another weird bug while replaying chapter 1,if you finish the first chapter without spending any money(I had 70) you start the second (after the graveyard scene and watching the tape) with 20.Maybe it resets the money? I replayed the graveyard portion just to check and it happened again.Its no biggie though i'll just spend my cash before the end of the chapter at stuff

srnickolas, that was a weird bug indeed, but thanks again for the find, it has been patched.

Okay, I've finished it. I always enjoyed your games but you have outdone yourself with this one, this was fantastic. The story took a while to deep dive into but it was worth it. I felt the game world was sort of an alternative reality dystopian 90s, which was pretty awesome. The genre mix was well balanced and fun to play. Writing and dialogues as brilliant as always, great job keeping the balance between the grim, gorey details, the subtle tarantinesque sense of humour and the psychological drama elements. The characters and plot were somewhat eccentric and took a while to get a feel for, but after a while I was hooked. The collectibles are a nice touch, I also loved the fact that there were places you could only (optionally) explore if you had certain skills. What impressed me the most though was the attention to details: the multiple street encounters, the radio news that always reflect the recent events and even the idle animation that would change every time I took the elevator. The soundtrack was fantastic too, I had it stuck in my head for a good while after I finished the game. Really cool!

As for the graphics, I understand why others have said it is somewhat subpar, but I like the visuals. They are simplistic, but consistent and clearly a lot of love has been put into details and animations.

I do have some complaints too, but that's probably just because you set the bar so high it is nearly a commercial quality product. What I felt was lacking was some time to walk around, speak to the NPC and explore the surroundings in between the main storyline parts. Street encounters partially compensated for it but I would have liked more "in between" content that involved the key NPC. The pace at which the story developed was very fast which admittedly contributed to the game's dynamics, but at the same time some of the plot elements felt rushed and lacking proper introduction.

Spoiler

I guess ending A is what you get if you manage to dispose of the army in the ending sequence? This time I wasn't even close (I couldn't afford the best weapon even when I sold out everything I had, my firearms was way too low and I didn't have enough medicine), but I'll try on my second playthrough. Tombstones during the ending sequence were a nice touch, it was fun to calculate the age of the characters in hindsight.

[close]

A minor glitch: the locations tab from the final map does not show when you are actually traveling to the final location, and instead it pops up and stays on top of the cutscenes after the ending sequence.

(Side note, I think I can tell which pen & paper RPG you play )

Kastchey, thank you very much! Your write-up evinces much of what I hoped to get across in the game. I think point and click adventures are in a unique position to play with the bounds of RPG elements, because so much of their design lives or dies on narrative as opposed to mechanics. But also I think your point about in-between content is a very good one, definitely something to think about.

Spoiler

As for the endings, to keep it brief, Ending A is actually total prevention ‘of things' at the end via dialogue, Ending B is ducking out via dialogue, Ending C you already know, and Ending D is if you beat the tricky fight. The best way to do that is with all the health upgrades + some of the drugs from the dealer Aldys. Firearms skill is more important than the choice of weapon. (Just like real life, right?)

[close]

That glitch you found was shown to me by a colleague recently and it's an ugly one, but it has now been patched!

(And yeah, I figured someone would notice  )

[Kastchey]

Spoiler

As for the endings, to keep it brief, Ending A is actually total prevention %u2018of things%u2019 at the end via dialogue, Ending B is ducking out via dialogue, Ending C you already know, and Ending D is if you beat the tricky fight. The best way to do that is with all the health upgrades + some of the drugs from the dealer Aldys. Firearms skill is more important than the choice of weapon. (Just like real life, right?)

[close]

Spoiler

Oh, nice! I didn't think there was a way to prevent the entire mayhem at the end. I guess I wasn't gentle enough with Crow to even have this option pop up the first time round. On the second playthrough none of my social skills was high enough to convince him, but I'll get there the third time. I did manage to beat the ending sequence though, I wasn't as far behind the first time as I had thought.
Do the rest of the gang always die, or am I just a lousy shooter? They seem to fall at the same moments but perhaps I'm just equally slow each time

A few more observations from the second playthrough:
*In the doctor's house, if you kill the patient you can keep clicking on her body to produce an endless supply of keys, which then you can all sell at the pawn show.

*If your intimidation, lockpicking and seduction are all beyond pathetic when trying to enter the tower there is no way into the room on the 5th floor (that I could find). Items from the pawn shop are no help. The only way in is with the $450 drug, which can only be purchased if you discover the dealer's location at a place that is no longer accessible at that stage. I am unsure if this is a potential dead end or if I'm missing something.

*Aldys' special gave me +8 lockpicking on top of what it said it would do. Is that intended?

*And finally, light machine gun has an incorrect description in the pawn show inventory window (5* firearms instead of 3*)

[close]

[SCO]

This was a incredible free game, and very topical right now for obvious sad reasons.

Small bugs at the start if you still care:

There are exploits to get infinite items and lockpick level ups with at least one in lockpick ability in Dave vhs store by picking the lock of the cabinet, exiting the door, rentering the door, etc.

Similarly there is a infinite athletics glitch in the first bar\club back alley where you place a container \ bin under the window to get +1 athletics every time.

Which is actually good, because there is a athletics check that (I think) can't be passed without repeating that at least once.

You can get a max of 1 athletics in chargen (afaict, may be mistaken might be 2). You can get as many as you want but let's say 1 with that exploit. Then on chapter 2 you scrounge up the money to buy the shoes\sneakers for a extra +1. So you have 3-4 max athletics when you go to the hospital (and no other missions in the chapter get you more). BUT when you try to attempt to climb the vent in the hospital records room, I think the check is 5 (or impossible in other words). As I said I'm not sure because I'm no sure about chargen.

Speaking of the hospital, the dude who you can speak to get his records back so he can get more drugs, and that rewards you with a analgesic, that guy can disappear if after you talk to him you get the key from the nurse, enter, get the records and come back to the lobby. Similarly, if you don't talk to the nurse, enter the window, leave the patient room, enter the records, get them, and go back to the lobby, he will still be there, and you can complete his quest, but I wasn't able to talk to the nurse then (which is a loss of a intimidate levelup). I avoided that by (I think) talking to the nurse first after getting into the situation where both are in the room and you got the records. Might have had to leave the hospital to avoid the bug, not sure, it's a longish game for what it is.

I was curious what happens if you get all the lighters (I missed one I don't know where), and if 'seeing god', or tzeentch in the special drug trip affected anything (instead of ending it in the usual way of freeing the captive in the bed-chair), since the old woman encounter seemed to show supernatural forces without any drugs. For a while I was certain there was a hidden ending F because of both of these.

I thought it interesting how to see every room\maximize stat gains you had to backtrack wherever there was a fork and try the other path.

I couldn't bring or find a shiny item to signal to companion you phone to in the ship sequence.

Reiterating, great game, and I'll play the sequel. I'm sure your more recent professional games are even more ambitious.

[FransisKransis]

Hey SCO, it's interesting to hear that you thought Falling Dark still seemed relevant to the modern day, and I appreciate the kind words. As you pointed out I made this duology of games quite some time ago (or at least it certainly feels that way!) but I'm happy to try and answer some of your questions about it.

The stat exploits that litter the game are largely a result of me not implementing systems for flagging contingencies, and instead trying to do everything manually, that's sort of a consistent technical problem for the game. I just pulled up the table for the character creation survey, and you actually can get up to +3 agility from the start, but suffice to say that doesn't really fix the underlying issues of balance. In retrospect the game is often too strict, and it ends up heavily encouraging you to just pick one or two skills to always focus on.

Not sure about the hospital thing, but as for being locked out of skill-checks by using alternate routes that is intentional- however much the implementation lacks.

I can answer the lighter question though, if you find all 8 Taylor makes a quip and then you get a little 'All stats + 1' message. Granted that happens probably a little late to be super useful, but would have worked well for a newgame+ mode...

The unknown drugs item was just for fun (and to contact tzeentch, lol), but there are a fair few supernatural references throughout both games, perhaps that's a given when writing about evil cults. But in reality I was very heavily inspired by Troika's "Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines" and so I toyed with the presentation of environments that were completely contemporary, but still 'haunted' by human foibles and superstitions. Also Falling Dark 2

Spoiler

actually does have an ending involving Taylor's family, that is fairly magical if I recall correctly.

[close]

In the ship sequence, looking through the code now, apparently there's a tiny metal piece on the table in the torture room where Taylor wakes up. It's only like four pixels big, but I believe it can be used to signal Lilith for support in the next room.

Falling Dark is special for me because it marks an uptick of effort, trying to make a full length game for the first time. Maybe somewhere down the line I'll bundle the two of them together with some fixes, and QOLs. Or perhaps even Taylor's stats could in part carry over from one game to the next, that would be pretty cool.

All the same, thanks again for inspiring this little retrospective on these games!

[SCO]

If you're thinking of a update, one problem I have with graceward\stormwater from the demos is that they go further in the shooter direction and ditch the unified mouse interface (click to move instead of only awsd).

That is a problem to me because I like playing in android with scummvm on a tablet. Scummvm in android... can't work as well with its on screen keyboard and a mouse as a PC with a real keyboard and mouse. Their (and only theirs) problem is twofold, they can't map their onscreen controller to virtual keyboard keys (instead they have a limited set of keystrokes they can map,which doesn't include awsd - something I complained about before in their tracker).

And there can't exist two onscreen controllers at the same time (except on screen keyboard and something else, but it obscures much of the screen with a alpha transparency and is not that useful. Since graceward removed the inventory on top (to select items, weapons) it's a pain to play not on PC unlike falling dark where it's only more of a pain in boss fights and on not being able to move around with a weapon out.

So basically I'm asking no input system updates unless they're optional. One change that I think it's harmless -and useful- is to be able to move with the weapon out instead of shooting into the void, unless you're 'near' a enemy or shooting a item that can interact with weapons (such as the glass in the photo store in falling dark 2). Indeed, there is a sort of 'cheat' in that one of scummvm controller modes is the 'mouse' (this is the icon). Unlike the finger drag mode, that mode jumps directly where you touch, very useful in gunfights in falling dark 1\2.

I understand this was probably so people were able to wildly miss\not get accidentally near enemies during gunfights, but a combat mode switch would make it less annoying to be ambushed without a ranged weapon out in combat situations by being able to move from one screen to the other with the weapon out, and you could even make it backfire in social situations (like the conference center) for further roleplaying\consequences. melee weapons you already get near enemies if you click on them, but you still can't move with them out otherwise.

Another way that would allow you to move with click during combat would be even better but that starts to interfere with 'player skill', or lack thereof of wasting bullets, although I think that's not that important in these 2 games to be honest, especially on the boss fights where avoiding that special sand effect that damages is more important imo.. . in bloodlines you could waste bullets shooting at nothing but famously (infamously for many) you could be totally on point of a enemy, shoot and miss because of a skill roll.

[FransisKransis]

I have used scummvm before but only to get some old adventure games working, so I'm not too familiar with it. The situation you describe makes good sense though. However it almost seems to me that for Graceward/Stormwater what would work best for a tablet interface is just a dedicated mobile port.

Anyway you're right that I ultimately hit a design wall with the falling dark combat system for many of the reasons you describe. Save the bosses, every fight in those games is essentially a glorified turret section or shooting gallery, and in turn what AI I could set for enemies was highly limited.

Full movement was needed to make things more dynamic. Though of course, if one is partial to a full mouse interface I can understand seeing it as a downgrade.

For Falling Dark I agree, I think giving the option at least to disable missing and allow mouse move in combat realistically wouldn't make that much of a difference, and would be reasonable.

On the other hand, for Graceward/Stormwater I don't think a mouse move mode alone would be too difficult to implement. The issue there lies in the many other keys also used, and that seems to ramp up the complexity quickly. LSHIFT sprints in those games, Q changes weapons, SPACE dodges, F melee, RCLICK examines, etc. There comes a point where the mouse alone becomes insufficient for inputting complex patterns.

Still though, I'll think on all that, and I appreciate the feedback. I always thought it would be cool to have a proper mobile port of Graceward honestly, I just never made the time.

[SCO]

A small clarification, I'm not suggesting disabling missing for falling dark, although it might seem like I am.

Missing is a valuable part of the game because there are a lot of weapons who are balanced around it, like the cursed revolver, where they are powerful but after shooting move the cursor a wide extent out of aim, or the Uzi (as a aside, I think the Uzi doesn't work that well because as far as I can tell, you can't keep the mouse button pressed to spray - at least in scummvm).

Instead I'm suggesting that instead of moving the cursor, or in addition (if you can find a way to memorize it was on target before the shot to stop movement if you want cursor movement in combat, which I feel would work best with that and jittery aim\shooting), the 'misses' can be skill based, firearms to be specific, exactly like bloodlines is. The jittery weapons would simply have a penalty to accuracy (not damage ofc).

I'm unsure if the game already works this way, could be with how the fights can be so variable in damage to Taylor and bosses (sometimes I kill the two bosses in falling dark 2 with Taylor with 10 hp left, sometimes even a full 30 hp bar wont work).


As for mouse only interface for Stormwater\Graceward, I think this is scummvm problem to solve. If they finally finally allow users to map ANY keyboard keycode to their virtual controllers most of the problems would be solved (the other problem is that their virtual controller appears where you put your finger in, left zone for arrows, right for buttons... this doesn't work with finger drag cursor mixed games like Graceward, unfortunately, and they would have to make a fixed virtual gamepad that allows the finger modes, or allow finger drag and a real controller (I didn't try because of the other problem, might work though - but only for controllers with a mouse zone, like the PS4 ones, because otherwise... well I don't have 4 hands, so touching the screen while holding a real controller to move and aim is not practical).

Ironically, for using the current graceward in scummvm in android devices the best single solution might be getting a USB hub and mouse and keyboard, or a least a serious gamer mouse with custom buttons after scummvm unlocks remapping any keyboard keycode.