Blackwell Unbound - ** More prizes 'n stuff **

Dualnames · Thu 06/09/2007 00:17:09

Good job, all. Wow I'm really thinking of buying this game. I was going to save some money for Bio-Shock, but when I saw this I said what the hell. And this one is cheaper than Bio-Shock. Good job all. Mostly Ivy. You still rock , girl.

voh · Thu 06/09/2007 02:11:35

Quote from: The Ivy on Thu 06/09/2007 00:04:35
Now hopefully I can put these skills to good use and get some of my own games done...

*makes swooshy motions with his arms*

whooooo.... Send voh the screenshot of the spooks sequel.... whooo...

Dave Gilbert · Thu 06/09/2007 04:27:21

The first review is up! Click!

That was fast.

Anyway, I'll just add my two cents to the "we love Ivy" bandwagon. Her work, dedication, and enthusiasm was above and beyond what I expected. Despite a six week stint in Europe, a week at Mittens, a PT job doing comics for a newspaper, and a hectic schedule of her own, she gave everything she had to the project and more so. Rarely a day went by when I didn't hear from her, whether it be with an update or with news or just to say hi. She was an absolute pleasure to work with, and it's a shame she's got all that school stuff to deal with or I'd snap her up again in a heartbeat.

I also have to mention Thomas Regin, since he's not a big poster of this forum and not very well known. Like Ivy, his dedication and enthusiasm surprised me. Every tune he sent me was brilliant, but he was never happy with them so he'd redo them even better. The guy juggled a wife, a baby, a day job, and band gigs and yet somehow managed to find the time to write the most amazing tunes I've ever heard for this game.

Both Erin and Thomas believed in the project so much that they kept me going when I was down and frustrated and dirt poor and ready to give the whole thing up. Things are going well now, but I couldn't have gotten here without the both of them. So any kudos they get are well deserved. Way to go, guys.

-Dave

voh · Thu 06/09/2007 12:21:43

Oh man, of course, the music.. Let's just say that the first time I started playing the game I couldn't believe you had someone compose this stuff for you. So kudos to Thomas as well.

Especially the duets (both the used and unused version) were beautiful..

Pod · Fri 07/09/2007 00:47:23

I'm 10 minutes in and all ready a bit annoyed -- mainly with the phone book.

Spoiler

Why can I look up the name of the company using just it's first name, yet I can't look up Harriet Sherman by using just her last name (because I kept spelling her first name wrong! oops). Until I read someone elses spoiler block, I had disregarded that line of enquiry. Why? Because you but the name of that club in my notebook, with a vauge hint of using the phonebook. So I type whatever Ivory's into the phone book...no dice. Why didn't you put Harriet Sherman in the clue notbook? Also: why could I not look up the myself of Ellen Kaplan? If you go to the trouble of saying the company is out of town, couldn't you have gone to the trouble of saying Ellen Kaplan is unreachable or something?

Ps: I ended up randomly walking about hoping something scripted would happen because I didn't realise the Sax and the Player were two distinct things. Oops

[close]

I just feel that the first game was more rewarding/supportive about completely wrong leaps of faith, whereas this one just ignores you completely unless you're 100% spot on. I understand that there are time constraints and you can't record dialouge for everything, however. Anyway, I'll get on with the game. I am, after all, only 10 minutes into it.

Speaking of which, with regards to a new adventure game play I feel that the tutorial is more of a hinderence rather than a help, as I kept expecting it to walk me though things, instead it just pops up at useful (questionable) times. eg:

after "Look at the case list in your inventory" I expected to then get a further instruction, telling me to talk to Joey about it.

or, my favuorite so far is:

"YOU HAVE A NEW CLUE!! But guess what, you can't use it yet! So why did we tell you?"

SSH · Fri 07/09/2007 13:53:40

Pod:

Spoiler

The phone book is used a lot, and in New York there are loads of people so of course you need the whole name for both people and businesses

[close]

Pod · Fri 07/09/2007 21:21:17

Quote from: SSH on Fri 07/09/2007 13:53:40
Pod:

Spoiler

The phone book is used a lot, and in New York there are loads of people so of course you need the whole name for both people and businesses
[close]

Yes, but my point was, in the first game it felt like if you guessed at something, Dave G would go "almost, just a bit harder!" whereas in this one it just goes WHGAT>?!!>>!?.

Spoiler

Also, the fact you can look up the company just using one name, but not even got a "There's loads of Shermans" response is inconsistent.

Spoiler

[close]

Dave Gilbert · Fri 07/09/2007 21:42:16

Thanks for the comments, Pod. I tried to make the phonebook take as much input as possible, but of course there are bound to be a few I (and the beta testers) didn't think of. For some reason, the two you mentioned never came up. And now that you mention it, I'm surprised nobody tried to look up "Ellen Kaplan" before. It was put in there as a throwaway line (and as a refernece to someone I know, who I promised would get a mention in the game!) but I can see why it would be confusing. I'll remove the name in the next release and that'll remove the confusion.

And "whgat" is an awesome word. I'm going to use it more often in conversation.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Sat 08/09/2007 01:05:36

Parser interfaces like the phone book will always be criticised for their lack of depth because, quite simply, it would take hundreds of hours to fully flesh it out in such a way that anything remotely intelligent you type received a reply. This would, of course, take precious development time from actually making the rest of the game as good as it is now. The phone book is a bit specific, but most low-key parser type situations in games are exactly the same. I had no trouble with it, and Dave even threw in a few easter-eggs for people who know what to look for.

SSH · Sat 08/09/2007 13:54:07

Quote from: ProgZmax on Sat 08/09/2007 01:05:36
Dave even threw in a few easter-eggs for people who know what to look for.

i.e. turned on the commentary

Cino · Sat 08/09/2007 22:34:14

Finished it today and then played through it again with the commentaries, which actually made me see a lot of things in the game differently. And it definitely made me yearn for more. The next Blackwell episode cannot come out quickly enough.
The story sucked me right in, very well written, I found the characters interesting and mostly well acted, so I could relate to them easily.
Also as I mentioned in a post before, I loved the music. Quite often I hesitated to continue playing, just because I liked the tunes so much and wanted to hear them again and again.
The graphics also need to be praised. When I first read Daves comments about graphics being a bit less complicated (don't remember the exact words though), I was a bit skeptical if the game could live up to Blackwell Legacy, but in no doubt I was proven wrong. Animations were very well done and the amount of detail of the backgrounds totally amazed me. To be honest, I liked the style even more than BLs.

Thank you all for your hard work. The game was fun and it was well worth the money. Hope to see more stuff from all of you in the future.

thomasregin · Mon 10/09/2007 14:47:38

Hey all!

Thank you very much for the nice comments about my music!

I've wanted to "score" this type of game since my childhood when I played the old Sierra-games, so it's also a dream come true for me!

Dave and Erin's work is really amazing, and I had a lot of fun writing the music! I'm really glad that you enjoyed it!

/Tom

The Ivy · Mon 10/09/2007 23:39:16

Whoa, I forgot to check up on this thread. Thank you voh, Dualnames, Cino, thomas, and everyone else who's said kind things about my art.

This has certainly been one of my more rewarding summer jobs.

And Dave, you shameless flatterer you. We'll definitely hang out the next time I'm in New York.

voh · Tue 11/09/2007 00:33:35

Man, I definitely need to get me a game studio

GarageGothic · Tue 11/09/2007 20:08:12

I KNEW there was something familiar about that loading screen:

Edit: Never mind the confused guy.

Dave Gilbert · Tue 11/09/2007 20:31:29

Thanks everyone, for the feedback (both the praise and critiques)! I'm still new at this full-time developer thing, so that's always useful.

Ivy: Yes, I still owe you that sandwich.

Cino: In what way did the commentary make you see things differently? You can PM me the answer if you want, if it's spoilery. I didn't know my commentary had the power to do that.

GarageGothic: I feel like I'm missing a reference or that I'm totally dense. Or both. I so don't get that.

Nikolas · Tue 11/09/2007 20:35:24

Just want to mention that I received the game today, and I played a little bit, only to be stunned by the level of quality.

Design, music, art, dialogues (and voice acting actually), is pretty much top stuff!

Once I've finished the game I will coment further, but for now, a big thanks to Dave for trying and keeping up creating games. I hope you get to make your dreams come true mate

GarageGothic · Tue 11/09/2007 20:39:16

Sorry for being obscure Dave. I just meant to say that only today, when I started up Blackwell Unbound for the third time, I realized that we're using the exact same font and message on our loading screens. (Though for you to recognize it from a game that won't be released for another half year would of course have been quite a feat

).

I'm happy to see that at least you're not using the font anywhere in-game. Otherwise I might have to change all my menus.

Dave Gilbert · Tue 11/09/2007 20:44:08

Sorry to sound dense again, GG, but which font/message are you referring to? The game doesn't have a loading screen, so I'm a still a bit confused.

GarageGothic · Tue 11/09/2007 20:49:08

How weird. I understand why you're confused then...
~~I'm assuming that I have a different version of my own loading screen in a folder somewhere, and apparently AGS shows that by default. Interesting "feature"~~

Edit: How embarassing, apparently I copied the preload.pcx to the Unbound folder when trying to make the Direct3D version of the engine work. Damn, and here I thought "great minds think alike" and all that...

Sorry for the confusion.