Les Miserables: the game of the book

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

I just uploaded the first test version of my game. I'd appreciate any comments.

Warning: it's work in progress (= untested and broken), missing important parts (like key dialog and most cutscenes, including the end), and so it is no fun to play.

So I'm not looking for bugs or problem areas (I can find those on my own than you!) I'm more interested in the big issue of what, in general, attracts people, what bores or confuses people, and whether it can be made to work in Linux (I don't have access to a Linux box).

Thanks in advance for any comments. More details, and download link: http://lesmisgame.blogspot.com/

Edit: I haven't added a separate zip file for Linux, but can if you wish.

Screenshots

[Darth Mandarb]

Countdown to lock-down ...

Please review the forum rules and update your post or this thread will be locked.

Thanks.

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

I've added a couple of screenshots below above, but I'm not really interested in what people think of them (I'm too exhausted to change everything again!). I'm also not looking to promote the game, or give a "clear outline of the plot" as the rules require. (Though the entire plot and half the script can be downloaded here.

It's my own fault for not reading the rules - it's not the first time I've posted before thinking. I'm not promoting the game, I don't want feedback on art or script. I just need feedback on the new approach to gameplay (it's a new kind of game) and on how it plays on different platforms. There isn't a forum for that kind of question, hence I should not be here.

edit by darth screenshots moved to first post!

[sthomannch]

tolworthy,
I love the graphics (superb) and also like that there is lot of life in the streets.

I wish you good luck with your work

[Snarky]

Asking for feedback on the gameplay belongs in the Critics Lounge, and is very welcome there (or ought to be, at least). I think it's great that you're getting input on the play style, and if I had time I would definitely give it a spin. Maybe a couple of weeks from now...

And although you didn't ask for it, those screenshots are great!

[Darth Mandarb]

If this is an AGS game that is in production it belongs in here!  So don't worry about that!

I, too, rather like the graphical style. (thanks for posting the screenshots so quickly)

[Matti]

I still don't know what you actually want us to say...

But I'd like to say I love that style and it's all put together and animated so well.

I just tested it for 2-3 minutes, but one can't say much about the gameplay when there aren't clues and descriptive cutscenes. The idea of not having a main character (I think) is okay, as long as one can solve puzzles, follow dialogs etc.

Perhaps this was too early to post, I'll test it again tomorrow.

Thumbs up for the graphics so far.

[miguel]

tolworthy,
I believe you are going on the right direction to make AGS games a unique thing.
I was going to bed (in Portugal is 23.30 right now) but got stuck by the title of your game and downloaded it.
I must say that I was not expecting something so beautifull,
the graphics, as everybody before me stated, are very good and adequate to Victor Hugo's work.
The texts are meaningfull and it is very nice to read because you did not put long sentences.
Congratulations!
I posted a thread on the Adventure Related... lounge where I speak about new ways of doing adventure games, and them becoming something new,
a new art form.
Thank you.

[mintymint]

tolworthy,
First of all, the graphics are great, I love the idea of having a lot of people moving around the street, even though sometimes i focus more on those beautiful animation instead of playing the game.. 

As for the navigation, maybe if the screen can scroll, you can change the cursor into <- (left scroll) or -> (right scroll).

Also, it's good if I can use the map to return to the place I've been before.
Maybe if I click on Paris, it'll open detailed Paris map which shown the place I've been before.

And I hope you include Eponine and Gavroche story as well in the game..

Good luck with the game..

[LeChuck]

Excellent graphical style and animations. Can't wait to see it with music and some clarifications in the interface which I'm sure will be in the final version, but I'm sure you're on top of that already. Ran well here, but I'm just running standard XP so that's no big shock. I pretty sure the first person mode will work well. And I know all about how tiresome it is to work on a indie game for years without no real feedback... 

Again, awesome style. Maybe I'll find out what Les Miserables is really about when playing it?

Edit: Only thing that turned me off was that some of the animations were a bit slow. Maybe I'm just an impatient bastard...

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

Thanks for the feedback. Anything at all is very welcome!

I still don't know what you actually want us to say...

I'm interested in initial reactions, the kind of thing that makes someone interested (or not!!) in the first minute of play:

a) does it work acceptably on your system?
b) is it a real problem that the avatar is invisible? (In later games the avatar will play a greater role, but if this is a real problem I could bring them into it at an earlier point)
b) if you get bored, when did you decide to turn it off?
c) if you get confused, where was it?
d) if you felt attracted to the game, what attracted you?
e) if you decided not to download it, why not?
f) if you expected one thing and were surprised (either good or bad), why?

Any feedback on the above will be gratefully received!

[markbilly]

I was pleasantly surprised by it really, however I turned off pretty quick as I wasn't sure what I was doing... I love the idea of an open, large game world where you observe things, yet:

This, along with the fact the 'avatar' is not visible leaves the player wondering how he/she is supposed to play the game.

I was left just randomly clicking on loads of things, whilst every single character said they 'felt watched'. I'm not sure if this would be convincing for a long period of game play. A player mainly wants direction and purpose, something which pulls them into the game world and the story.

In response again to the 'avatar' issue, a player needs identity in a game really. The idea of an observing role is an interesting one, and I think you should stick to it. However it is impossible to do this and still allow the player to have an identity/purpose, and this is what you need to achieve...

Hope all that helped. Good luck.

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

Thanks for the feedback. That's exactly the angle I was looking for. It's what I suspected would be the case, but I'd be interested in seeing if this is the general response.

The real reason for an invisible avatar was the scaling bug in 2.72. Smooth scaling creates a black fringe around characters. It's not noticeable on a dark background, but on a white background it makes smooth scaling unusable. The big is fixed in 3.0 (which uses a completely different method of scaling), but 3.0 does not have Linux support. So I removed Ego and rewrote the back story to make her invisible (for now: the next game will have scenes that are designed to not require scaling).

If others agree with you (as I suspect they will) then I'll need to give this a lot of hard thought. I'd probably add a scene near the beginning where ego can appear in the first person and be given some kind of quest, allowing her to be invisible for the remainder of the story.  But it would take a lot of thinking, to somehow do this while still remaining faithful to the original novel.

[Storygamer]

Downloading this now.  This is one of my favorite novels and I actually thought once or twice about the possibility of making a game out of it (never with any serious intentions, however).  I am very glad to see that someone else has hit on the same idea and is enthusiastic enough about it to put it into execution!  Those screenshots look beautiful.  Can't wait to play this.

EDIT: Ok, after having dedicated perhaps half an hour or so to playing around with it, I second everything markbilly said, with a few further comments:

First off, the positive--as previously stated, the game is graphically beautiful.  The text is well-written, which is pretty important to me (nothing bugs me more than a game with messy grammar and spelling, and your writing is very clear and correct).  I also love that you are doing something new and different.  This game has the potential to be an incredibly support for the games-as-art argument and I sincerely hope you pursue this project to completion.

Okay, now if I understand you correctly, what you really want to know are the flaws--what needs to be improved, right?  If I've misunderstood and as a result come off too harsh here, I apologize (DON'T GIVE UP, THIS IS A VERY GOOD IDEA, IT JUST NEEDS SOME WORK!).  Anyway, here goes:

-MAJOR ISSUES-

- As markbilly said, there is a complete lack of direction for the player, and this is very bad.  I actually don't mind an invisible character but it's difficult to play a game when you have no clue what your goal is.  As an example--I've got no idea what to do in that opening scene with the judge and the distressed woman.  All I can figure out to do is right-click on the woman and then on the judge to get them to talk, over and over again, and they mostly just repeat themselves.  When I try to use the in-game hint system (kudos for wanting to include one, btw), it says "The Conventionary might give you a clue" and teleports me instantly to some library scene in which I have even less success than before figuring out what I'm supposed to do.

- The controls and general gameplay are difficult to figure out.  What this game REALLY needs is some kind of manual to explain how to play the game.  Like markbilly, I found myself randomly clicking all over the place and basically getting nowhere.

- Navigation has one serious flaw: Each time you enter a new screen, you have no idea where you came from to get to that screen or which exit goes back.  This could be easily solved with 2 features: first, show somewhere (My own preference would be the bottom of the screen) the title of the place where the character is, and keep place names consistent.  In other words, give a specific area the title "South Side of the River", display that title when the player is there, and make EVERY exit in other rooms that leads to that place say the same thing on the hotspot--"South Side of the River".  Secondly, it doesn't hurt to have a little arrow object pointing to the exit that leads back to the last area the player was in.  If you're worried about this being intrusive, make the arrow invisible until the player presses a certain key, and when that key is pressed, the arrow appears.  As it stands right now, navigating my way through Paris was very frustrating because half the time I was trying to explore and was instead accidentally re-visiting old areas, and the other half the time I was trying to get back to old areas and instead getting hopelessly lost.

- The dialogue is extremely buggy.  What I mean by this is that half the time, a statement that is supposed to be made by one character is seen as being made by a different one.  Sometimes the character who appears to be speaking isn't even connected in any way to the one who's supposed to be speaking--at one point, I double-clicked a person to hear their thoughts, and the screen actually scrolled to the other side of the area in order to display a completely different character's thoughts.

- The game needs some kind of audio component.  Appropriate music would be great or, alternatively, ambient sounds that match the visible environment.  The passive-observer mode is an interesting new idea, but I think you will find that without at least something to listen to, people will get bored.

-MINOR ISSUES-

-I have no idea how to leave the initial scene (with the judge and the distressed woman) other than by jumping out to the map.  Once I do so, I can't find my way back to that scene no matter what I do.

-I tried to "tint" the distressed woman, curious to see what this would do.  All it did was turn her into a black sillouette--no matter which color I picked.

-The screen-scrolling is not intuitive--half the time I'm not sure if I've scrolled the screen as far as it will go or not.  Some sort of out-of-the-way indicator that there is more scenery to the right or left (perhaps a small arrow on either side of the screen?) would easily fix this.

-BOTTOM LINE-

The big big problem that you need to fix here is the fact that the player has no idea what he/she is trying to do and, compounding this, has trouble figuring out how to do anything.  As I said before, some sort of manual would go most of the way towards overcoming this.  If you're leery of that particular task, I'd be more than happy to help!  And more clues or even overt statements of what the actual goal is will go the rest of the way.

This game has incredible potential!  I am very, very impressed with the size of the game world, the graphics and animation, and the innovative new approach to game creation.  PLEASE do not be discouraged by any of my criticism, which was only offered because this game has so many good qualities that I've become very interested in seeing it succeed.

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

I second everything markbilly said

That's very good, as it gives me a clear direction.

The next test version will have three main changes:
1. A new intro, where you meet Ego, and the goal etc. are made very clear. I'm really pleased with how this intro is going - it should give a very strong direction to the game.
2. The main clues will be in place (that's what I was planning to do anyway). This still won't be ALL the dialog, but it will be the most important stuff.
3. An improved map, so you more easily jump to different places in Paris (once you've been there). That was the easiest part, I added that yesterday.

I was left just randomly clicking on loads of things, whilst every single character said they 'felt watched'.

When every characters says "I'm being watched" what you're seeing is the first topic in the default "nothing else to say" dialog, when the user clicks on the wrong person. When the clues and others stuff are ready then that will only be a very small part of the mix.

Okay, now if I understand you correctly, what you really want to know are the flaws--what needs to be improved, right?

Please!

- As markbilly said, there is a complete lack of direction for the player, and this is very bad.  I actually don't mind an invisible character but it's difficult to play a game when you have no clue what your goal is.

Thanks. This is obviously very important! (Wasn't it number one on Ron Gilbert's famous top ten list or something?) I think I was trying to be too "clever" (in a bad way), making the main character a mystery, and making gameplay something to discover. Hopefully the new intro will go a long way to fixing that.

When I try to use the in-game hint system (kudos for wanting to include one, btw), it says "The Conventionary might give you a clue" and teleports me instantly to some library scene in which I have even less success than before figuring out what I'm supposed to do.

Hopefully that sort of thing will become clearer as the dialog is tightened up.

The hardest part of the game is the very first part, as everything is so new. And it deals with the most complex situation (nineteen years, five major characters, events that are not in the original book, or rather, are only barely hinted at, oh and the Napoleonic wars!) I may need to make that part super easy just to give users a reason to continue.

What this game REALLY needs is some kind of manual to explain how to play the game.

That's interesting. The gameplay is actually much simpler than other games (there are only two possible actions: double click for info, or right click-right click to combine any person with anything, anywhere in the game). But I didn't make it very clear, or why it matters. It's summarized in one paragraph in the help page, but I'll need to make it a lot clearer. Actually, I think this may be more a result of the general lack of direction, so should be greatly improved by the new intro and adding clues.

Give a specific area the title "South Side of the River", display that title when the player is there, and make EVERY exit in other rooms that leads to that place say the same thing on the hotspot--"South Side of the River".

I'll do that.

Make the arrow invisible until the player presses a certain key, and when that key is pressed, the arrow appears.

Good idea. I'll do that too.

half the time, a statement that is supposed to be made by one character is seen as being made by a different one. ... at one point, I double-clicked a person to hear their thoughts, and the screen actually scrolled to the other side of the area in order to display a completely different character's thoughts.

Sorry about that. I appreciate you putting up with that. That's one of those things that looks big to the user, but code wise is pretty minor (I think!) so I won't be worrying too much about that until later. At this stage, I'm more concerned with the general direction (what are we trying to do) rather than whether it runs smoothly.

The game needs some kind of audio component.  Appropriate music would be great

Music will be a VERY big part of the final game experience. But it won't be added until near the end of the testing process.

-MINOR ISSUES-I can't find my way back to that scene no matter what I do.

That should be solved by your excellent arrows idea.

I tried to "tint" the distressed woman, curious to see what this would do.  All it did was turn her into a black sillhouette--no matter which color I picked.

That's an unsupported feature But I suppose I should add some kind of instructions before the game is released.

-The screen-scrolling is not intuitive--half the time I'm not sure if I've scrolled the screen as far as it will go or not.

That's interesting. The way it's supposed to work is, it either scrolls or it doesn't. And that's how you know. I'll be interested to see if people have the same comment after the arrows are added.

Thanks again for the feedback. It looks like I have plenty to be going on with. To summarize, the next test version will have:
1. Improved map (done)
2. Arrow option to tell where you are/where you can go (I'll add that today)
3. New intro sequence (should get that roughly finished tomorrow)
4. Main clue dialog added (should take about another week)

Thanks for your patience!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

a) does it work acceptably on your system?
Yes.
b) is it a real problem that the avatar is invisible? (In later games the avatar will play a
greater role, but if this is a real problem I could bring them into it at an earlier point)
Yes.  If your goal is to immerse people into this world, they definitely need to 'see' who they are and be able to physically interact with people.  Right now the game plays like a slideshow where you, as God, listen in on conversations rather than directly pose questions to people.  This dissassociated me from the narrative quite early on, in fact, and while I greatly enjoyed the writing I couldn't help but feel that this was no game at all.

b) if you get bored, when did you decide to turn it off?
When I realized that your design has ambitions beyond its capability.  You're basically trying to make Les Miserables into a playable narrative, but at the same time you're almost trying to do a simulation of France where you can wander everywhere.  The drawback of this is that many, many of these screens hold no value to the player at all and many of them have no interactivity.  Scaling back the rooms and general design would eliminate some of this, though you really should consider either:

A)  Removing hotspots like 'tea kettle, sign, bottles' if there is no way to interact with them at all

or

B) Taking on the massive task of giving all of these things at least some level of interaction, even if it is a detailed description like ("The tea kettle appears to have seen much use through the years: the copper bottom is scarred black by the open flame and many dents marr its surface.").  Things of this nature will at least provide some reward.


c) if you get confused, where was it?
When the game AUTOMATICALLY whisked me away from the conversation at the beginning for clicking on the hint.  I could not return to the place and the ponderous ramblings of the guy at the library did nothing to help me.  I really see no connection between 20 lines of diatribe about Napoleon to a woman trying to get her brother out of prison.  We definitely need some physical interaction with this character beyond listening to his ramblings.  The tried and true question and answer system of adventure games would be of great use here.

d) if you felt attracted to the game, what attracted you?
The dialogue and overall presentation are very appealing.  I like the idea of delving into a novel and moving through the narrative as a player who can influence the events, but I don't think you're handling it as well as you could.  I certainly would recommend placing a real character in these locations that represents the player who may question these people directly instead of listening in on their conversations like an omniscient being.  A perfect example of what I see wrong with the game came when I visited the back alley and started listening to the man by the blacksmith, who actually singled me out as hiding behind a glass screen and manipulating him with my fingers.  This unsubtle reference to it all being a game further detached me from a world you are clearly trying to immerse people into.

e) if you decided not to download it, why not?

f) if you expected one thing and were surprised (either good or bad), why?

I didn't have any expectations, actually.  I saw the youtube video you posted of it awhile ago and was impressed by the amount of effort you were putting forth, and that is what made me decide to download it.  As far as things I did not like, I mentioned them already, but there are many things I believe are going for the game as well, both visually and in the writing.

I think your main goals should be to scale back the design (number of areas) to places that either link you to areas of value or are areas of value themselves.  In other words, I didn't see a point in wandering in the forest (because there seemed to be nothing to do there).  Also, some of the screens have illogical exits, like when I enter a room from the left and clicking on the right of the screen returns me to the left room, this often confused me.

As far as the room scrolling goes, I think you could handle it better by having the screen slide left or right when your mouse sits at either extreme for a certain length of time.  You could keep the existing system as well, but this would allow people to quickly see if there is more to an area or not.


Overall, I think you've taken on a very ambitious project here and it shows in some of the shortcomings, but I think with some adjustments you will have a very interesting and memorable experience!

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

Thanks for your feedback. It's very much appreciated.

If your goal is to immerse people into this world, they definitely need to 'see' who they are and be able to physically interact with people. 

Actually my goal isn't to immerse people in the world, but to provide a way to explore ideas. But that is a whole other topic. Regarding the need for a visible avatar, the new intro will go a long way to solving that problem.

Right now the game plays like a slideshow where you, as God, listen in on conversations rather than directly pose questions to people.

This is largely because most of the dialog is not yet in the game. Once the clues and secondary clues are in place, it will become more obvious that most of the conversations are in fact puzzles. Once the combination dialog is in place (what happens when you click on A then B) it will be mnore obious that you can ask questions, but not directly. 

many, many of these screens hold no value to the player at all and many of them have no interactivity.

Again, that will change when the dialog is all in place. Almost every scene, and over half of the objects are essential to the game. And everything will be combinable with everything.

Removing hotspots like 'tea kettle, sign, bottles' if there is no way to interact with them at all

As Is aid, the 'look at' code will make everything interactive. One of the many reasons for the invisible avatar is to make the game MORE interactive. You will be able to combine any character (there are 300 in the game) with any character or any object (80 scenes multiplied by up to 15 hotspots).

c) if you get confused, where was it?
When the game AUTOMATICALLY whisked me away from the conversation at the beginning for clicking on the hint.  I could not return to the place

That problem should be largely solved by the various improvements suggested by Storygamer and others. Better map, optional arrows, more consistent naming, etc.

the ponderous ramblings of the guy at the library did nothing to help me.

Those will make more sense when the other dialog is in place. And with the new intro to give the game more context. And I'm also thinking of having three buttons on the helpp page for three levels of clues: hints (as at present), strong hints (where the character says plainly "I need to see X") and handholding hints ("right click on A then right click on B").

some of the screens have illogical exits, like when I enter a room from the left and clicking on the right of the screen returns me to the left room

I'm sure the game has hundreds of bugs like that. At this stage fixing one bug usually creates two more in unexpected places.  I'll focus on fixing the many small bugs after the big stuff is done. (They are small from the technical point of view, not necessarily small for the poor long suffering end user's point of view!) I'm really grateful to you being patient enough to spend so much time on it.

Probably the best thing now is for me to work on the big stuff (the four items noted earlier) and see if that reduces the big problems. I'll then upload another test version for anyone generous enough to give it another quick look.

Thanks again.

[Storygamer]

Hey, thanks for taking my criticism in the light it was intended!  I was a bit worried I was coming off too harsh.  I really am excited to play your final product here, and only partly because this is my favorite book.

The main reason I wanted to post again though was to very respectfully disagree with two of ProgZMax's well-thought-out remarks (and when I say "respectfully", I mean that very much, as I know from experience he is an excellent game designer).

First, the invisible avatar: I don't feel an invisible avatar "disconnects" the character from the game.  A perfect example is the "Myst" series of games--not only does one never once see the protagonist, one never even learns anything about him/her (to this day we don't know whether the protagonist is a man or a woman).  Rather than disassociating players from the game, this had the opposite effect of helping players put themselves directly into it by bypassing the "middle-man" of a third-person protagonist.  If anything will disconnect players from the game, it's their role as a semi-active observer--but I wouldn't change that either, as it is probably the most innovative and original concept of the game design.  A disconnected feeling is just the drawback you will have to deal with--the unavoidable price of trying something new, different, and brave.

Secondly, I disagree that the game has ambitions beyond its capability.  Yes, you're trying to make Les Miz into a game.  Yes, you're also trying to create an artistic simulation of France at the time of the novel.  No, doing that is not impossible so long as you're willing to dedicate the time and effort--and what you've already provided shows that you ARE willing to.  However, I do agree with ProgZMax that non-interactive hotspots should not exist.  I'm a player who likes having lots of hotspots on the screen, but not if I can't even produce a message out of them.  The hotpots don't have to be essential to the game goal, but clicking them should at least do SOMETHING.

I think one of the most important things for you to do for this game to succeed is to let players know beforehand what to expect.  This game is a very different experience even from most other adventure games--in fact I personally don't even classify it as an adventure game, or put it in any existing genre, for that matter.  Players need to understand right from the start that their role will be as an invisible god-like observer who nudges things in one direction or another rather than the more direct interaction of other games.  All of this can be done quite easily in either a manual or in the introduction you're working on.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I was never drawn into Myst or Myst-like games, so there are definitely two crowds of game players to consider with that sort of position.

[EnterTheStory (aka tolworthy)]

All I can say is thanks again for the comments. There probably isn't much point in asking for further comment until the next test version is ready, which will hopefully address the main issues. I hope to have it online in the first week in July.