The McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1

Calin Leafshade · Mon 30/11/2009 11:44:28

in fairness its a pretty poor puzzle... :p

DazJ · Mon 30/11/2009 11:44:38

Quote from: [ Arj0n ] on Mon 30/11/2009 11:39:33
Quote from: DazJ on Mon 30/11/2009 11:37:15
I'm not sure if it's a bug or it's just me being unable to work out a puzzle but:
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I've just gone to sleep for the first time and awoken to a scream but can't do anything. It won't let me go downstairs because he just keeps saying 'I've got to help Sarah. and I can't get in any of the other doors.
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Not a bug, it's you being unable to work out that puzzle

Nothing new there then

DazJ · Mon 30/11/2009 13:55:27

Just completed it! Wonderful game and couldn't recommend it enough.

I like the '5 Days a Stranger' and 'Day of the Tentacle' references - brilliant!

I'm intrigued however:

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Is Chapter II going to be featuring the same main character despite him appearing to be left with no hope at the end of Part I?

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Calin Leafshade · Mon 30/11/2009 13:59:49

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Is Chapter II going to be featuring the same main character despite him appearing to be left with no hope at the end of Part I?

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[/quote]

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its called the mccarthy chronicles :p he's not finished yet.

McCarthy as a character is surprisingly resiliant despite all the self deprication and talks of hopelessness.

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Anian · Mon 30/11/2009 14:16:21

Very fun, like all the Baskerville, several Lovecraft stories and other stuff thrown in but still staying pretty original. The story was kind of compressed for the sake of the episode I thought (though I don't know how long the whole thing will be so I might be wrong) but if I'm wrong and you have a whole lot of it left to tell then bravo to you. Voices and writing is...I won't say perfect but it is excellent IMO.
Oh and one more thing

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You could have avoided showing Tabitha, make it just so we think of a possibilty Mike might be talking to himself.

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Things like not being able to click (not going into the menu) on a door to go into the next room kinda bothered me but not a lot. Oh and a funny "bug" happens during cutscenes - McCarthy starts smoking when

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a) a demon wolf is growling at him and b) when faced with basicallly a zombie

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I was expecting him to start smoking at the end as well, cause he looks so badass for smoking at such akward situation.

Also I didn't hear the scream and some other effects which was kinda of strange. McCarthy for some reason also thinks everything is a Van Gogh copy, which first seemed lazy but then became funny...maybe it's some reference I didn't get. $:-\$

p.s. music is great, atmospheric, interesting...at the end seems to be heavily like the SH theme but still that's not a bad thing.

Calin Leafshade · Mon 30/11/2009 14:20:03

The painting are actually van gogh paintings shrunk down.. but mainly laziness..

glad you liked it

Quote from: anian on Mon 30/11/2009 14:16:21

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You could have avoided showing Tabitha, make it just so we think of a possibilty Mike might be talking to himself.
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I did consider this.. leaving the plot a little ambiguous but decided against it purely for the menace of the last line.. I love tabbys actress..I'm going to marry her

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Quote
Oh and a funny "bug" happens during cutscenes - McCarthy starts smoking when
Spoiler
a) a demon wolf is growling at him and b) when faced with basicallly a zombie
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I was expecting him to start smoking at the end as well, cause he looks so badass for smoking at such akward situation.

..he just likes cigerettes ok? :p

Synthetique · Mon 30/11/2009 15:00:20

Downloading ^^

Azure · Mon 30/11/2009 15:42:07

Excellent, I didn't expect this to be done so quick! I got stuck in some obvious places though which says more about me than the game

Calin Leafshade · Mon 30/11/2009 15:47:30

I didnt realise you had an AGS forum account Azure :p

I'll add you to the credits of the game

Scarab · Tue 01/12/2009 04:52:47

Dammit! I cant download until my bandwidth resets in a week

Oh well, Looking forward to playing it, and congrats on finishing!

Snake · Tue 01/12/2009 05:13:05

Argh! Calin! How'd I miss this?! I'm downloading now, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to play (12:12am here). Can't wait, man

Kweepa · Tue 01/12/2009 05:59:13

Great game, with an awesome atmosphere!
Looking forward to Episode 2!

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Some crits:
* perhaps too much reliance on finding something out then going and talking to Michael
* could do with some proof reading and matching of written dialog to spoken dialog

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Thanks!

Calin Leafshade · Tue 01/12/2009 06:13:30

Quote from: SteveMcCrea on Tue 01/12/2009 05:59:13
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* could do with some proof reading and matching of written dialog to spoken dialog
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could do with michaels voice actor reading the bloody lines properly :p

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Kweepa · Tue 01/12/2009 08:23:30

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Well, he's not the only one... Grosvenor was consistently spelt wrong and pronounced with an 's' - it's normally silent!

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Calin Leafshade · Tue 01/12/2009 08:28:28

Quote from: SteveMcCrea on Tue 01/12/2009 08:23:30
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Well, he's not the only one... Grosvenor was consistently spelt wrong and pronounced with an 's' - it's normally silent!
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is it? Oh well thats just me fucking up repeatedly then :p

Synthetique · Tue 01/12/2009 14:05:33

Argh i didn't get far in the game before it started running very slow. Loved the setting and dialog so far though. Sadly, I can't play it on this computer.

Calin Leafshade · Tue 01/12/2009 14:15:48

Don't worry, I'm going to release a version tomorrow which allows you to turn off the visual effects.

GarageGothic · Wed 02/12/2009 03:23:29

Beautiful game. I foresee a bunch of AGS Award nominations. Atmosphere was top notch (despite the overuse of similes in the narration, this is one of the few "noir" games that actually pull off the style without becoming a pastiche). Voice acting was great - I really liked Michael and the groundskeeper. And the visuals, although simplistic, worked great. I share your fondness for coding special effects, so I was also happy to see how much they can add to a game - I was beginning to doubt if all the work I put into this aspect of my own game had been worth the effort.

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Really liked the story. I got the same Hound of the Baskervilles vibe from it that others mentioned, and I think I also caught a Rats in the Walls reference? I love the whole family curse/sins of the fathers type of plot when done well, and this is no exception. Martin is fabulous as a Roderick Usher sort of character, and it was a great choice to make him so young. McCarthy himself didn't really grab me yet, I keep substituting John Constantine for him in my mind, but he's a man with a past, so I'm sure I'll get closer to him as we're told more of his background in future episodes.
And speaking of future episodes, this seems to be one of the few episodic AGS games where the format actually works. Often episodic games come across as cut short and never reaching a proper climax (the original Bestowers of Eternity suffered under this). But this game felt like it ended at precisely the right moment and with an awesome cliffhanger, just like the very best TV shows. Of course I'm looking very much forward to the next episode, but I in no way feel cheated or annoyed with the ending. Excellent storytelling!

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I know this isn't the critics lounge, but I think using the default save/load/quit GUI as well as standard rectangular gray buttons on the title screen detracted a bit from the otherwise high production quality of the game.
Another thing, which I'm not sure there's a workaround for (though I'd be interested to hear which file format you use for the sounds - ogg seems to handle this better than mp3) is that I experience severe audio glitching on room changes. I expect it's the combination of the grain filter and fading to black. For most rooms it means the door opening sound playing two or three times, but it was most noticeable during the credits where the music was chopped to pieces - really a shame since it was such a beautiful ending. This is on a 2.26 GHz laptop that runs most modern games (Modern Warfare 2, Far Cry 2 etc.) without problems.

Stee · Wed 02/12/2009 03:39:18

GG, I think this is a bug in ags not the game itself. Particularly with laptops. Mine does it too, but with every single ags game (except the ones without sound). I know several other people having these issues. I too can run 2009 titles on my lappy fine.

When was the last time you played an ags game ?

GarageGothic · Wed 02/12/2009 03:47:18

Stee, yes I experienced it many times before, but mainly with hi-res games usually not in lo-res. That's also why I suggested that it might be the filter effects that are pushing the CPU harder than usual.
I know that Ghostlady had the same problem with her current game in production (which runs in 640x480 or 800x600, I forget) where the audio would glitch like a skipping record on room changes. I advised her to use .ogg instead of .wav/.mp3 files and it helped. Also, didn't CJ improve the buffering of .ogg files in a recent AGS beta? Possibly updating the engine could make it less grating?