Death - Episode One

KarjaJr · Mon 21/06/2010 19:24:09

You are Death, aka The Grim Reaper.
In this episode Death gets involved with a demon who wants to steal his scythe to claim unlimited power!

A game packed with bizarre graphics, jokes and dialogs.
Scare, knock-out, talk and solve puzzles to advance.

Prerendered 3D backgrounds beatifully mixed with 2D graphics and 2D characters.

We hope you enjoy it!
Visit our homepage: http://www.hourgames.net/
And if you like what we do, please make a donation!

EDIT: I have uploaded a more compressed version of the game, it is now 77,5mb.
EDIT2: Uploaded a new version. It should be easier to understand what to do next now. I'll post what's new in the Hints & Tips forum.
EDIT3: Uploaded a new version with minor bugfixes.

Adventuregamers.com reviewed our game!
Read the review here: http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1227

Download here!

Anian · Mon 21/06/2010 20:08:19

90mb? Wow, is it voiced?

KarjaJr · Mon 21/06/2010 20:53:15

Quote from: anian on Mon 21/06/2010 20:08:19
90mb? Wow, is it voiced?

No it's not voiced.. I guess its that big because of the graphics, we have tried to make it smaller but this is as small as we can get it

Chicky · Mon 21/06/2010 21:01:45

Hells yeah! Been waiting for this!

Leon · Mon 21/06/2010 22:46:33

Unzipped the game is 528Mb.. :

, the vox file 38Mb.

Graphics look amazing... sound at the beginning is quite annoying and the 'double' texts confusing. But I've hardly started playing so... more later.

KarjaJr · Mon 21/06/2010 23:27:41

Quote from: Leon on Mon 21/06/2010 22:46:33
Unzipped the game is 528Mb.. : , the vox file 38Mb.

Graphics look amazing... sound at the beginning is quite annoying and the 'double' texts confusing. But I've hardly started playing so... more later.

Yeah sorry about that, I didn't compress the sprites in AGS

But if I would've done that the .zip file would only be ~5mb smaller so the download wouldn't go that much faster.. But I'll upload a compressed version tomorrow

karja · Tue 22/06/2010 07:39:03

Quote from: Chicky on Mon 21/06/2010 21:01:45
Hells yeah! Been waiting for this!

I hope you will find it worth waiting for. We sure did have fun creating it, and learned alot since this is our first game.

Tinytim · Tue 22/06/2010 18:37:04

Finished, Great game! Can't wait for episode 2 Well Done

KarjaJr · Tue 22/06/2010 19:12:36

Quote from: Tinytim on Tue 22/06/2010 18:37:04
Finished, Great game! Can't wait for episode 2 Well Done

I'm glad to hear that! Thank you very much

Leon · Wed 23/06/2010 13:30:49

After a bit of what I thought a messy start (intro and dialogs combined) the game turned out to be fantastic. Great graphics, a lot of distraction and fun. Apart from the sometimes difficult to read font (n and h are not much different) and sometimes difficult hotspots on the inventory objects, very well done. I'm looking forward to next parts.

A few tiny things:

Spoiler

after catching the rat, the skeleton is still a hotspot that you need to catch first. After selecting it, it disappears.

[close]

And a typo: it's shampoo.

KarjaJr · Wed 23/06/2010 19:26:04

Quote from: Leon on Wed 23/06/2010 13:30:49
After a bit of what I thought a messy start (intro and dialogs combined) the game turned out to be fantastic. Great graphics, a lot of distraction and fun. Apart from the sometimes difficult to read font (n and h are not much different) and sometimes difficult hotspots on the inventory objects, very well done. I'm looking forward to next parts.

A few tiny things:
Spoiler
after catching the rat, the skeleton is still a hotspot that you need to catch first. After selecting it, it disappears.
[close]
And a typo: it's shampoo.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!
We appreciate all constructive criticism as it will help us make the next episode even better! Since this is our first game we still have much to learn

And I will fix the bugs and upload a new version as soon as possible.

Leon · Wed 23/06/2010 19:38:42

While you're at it, looking at the pizza boxes: Considering thay --> they.

KarjaJr · Fri 25/06/2010 13:10:26

Thanks for the feedback, a new version is now uploaded with all the currently known bugs fixed.
Anyone else who has finished the game? We welcome all thoughts and suggestions!

PuNKKoMmANDO77 · Fri 25/06/2010 14:02:43

wow nice graphic

Sslaxx · Fri 25/06/2010 14:06:38

Run into a problem with cutscene text being behind something. http://sslaxx.twu.net/CutSceneTextIsWrong.jpg shows what's up.

Running in a window in DirectX 5 mode (for maximum compatibility, seeing as I'm running this via WINE).

KarjaJr · Fri 25/06/2010 14:43:18

Quote from: Sslaxx on Fri 25/06/2010 14:06:38
Run into a problem with cutscene text being behind something. http://sslaxx.twu.net/CutSceneTextIsWrong.jpg shows what's up.

Running in a window in DirectX 5 mode (for maximum compatibility, seeing as I'm running this via WINE).

That's weird.. I will try to find a solution as fast as I can.
Read below if you want to know what the text says:

Spoiler

Still hidden in the shrouds of darkness, knowing what he should not know. That someone had put his plan into play.

[close]

straydogstrut · Fri 25/06/2010 20:28:29

Finished, got stuck a couple of times but at least once was my own fault for not seeing the obvious.

Great graphics and animations and a pleasing variety in the locations. I especially liked

Spoiler

the ones inside the human

[close]

which reminded me of an old comic strip I loved as a child.

Music overall was really well done, although I found one of the early tracks a bit annoying (the one after the first cutscene I think?), but that's just a personal preference.

I also found the combination of dialogue/text overlays confusing. I kept missing one or the other.

Again, it was hard to click on some of the hotspots and I found problems trying to move between rooms. Getting Death into the right location to trigger the new room was very tricky, especially

Spoiler

when trying to leave the tent.

[close]

Also, a couple of glitches:

Spoiler

1) When Dr. Zombie gives you the Personal Teleporter and you can see it in your Inventory, it's still in his hand until that part of the dialogue finishes.

2) In the human's mouth, there's a walk-behind issue with the leftmost blob of maple syrup/sugar, as can be seen here: can't hide link? - spoiler don't click

[close]

Most of the writing was very good and I really enjoyed Death's commentary on some of his more personal items. I would've liked to see more variety in his descriptions when looking at things though. More often than not, it was just the same as the 'Use' description. Also the fact he says

Spoiler

That doesn't feel right

[close]

all the time got quite irritating as it didn't offer any suggestion as to whether I was trying the right thing/why it didn't work. There were a lot of objects which didn't seem to serve any purpose, even though they could have been used to solve the puzzles, so maybe a better response would've helped.

The puzzles themselves were fine - good combination of inventory items - but there were a couple I would've liked to see done a little differently/found confusing:

Spoiler

1)
When you have to trap the rat, I thought it was a bit convenient that the guy at the dump just happened to have the instructions to create a rat-trap for you, and that it took no bribing to get it.

By this point, i'd already worked out I needed to set a trap, and i'd been trying to combine the box, cheese and rope already. Having the solution handed to me was a bit of a let down.

2) In the same area (alley), when you try to use objects on the open window the response is something like "why should I do that when I can get in already?". That was quite confusing since I couldn't get in at that point so the window was the logical choice and that response made me think I was looking in the wrong place.

3)
You rip the tent to get the monkey to fall through, but I had already discovered this hotspot earlier, even though nothing happened when I tried to use it (I thought collapsing the tent might help make some noise).

Again, a more helpful response than "that doesn't feel right" would've suggested I was looking there too early. Same with the coffin. Why couldn't I cut it with the sword? I wasn't given any response until I asked the DemonHunter to do it later and found out it couldn't be cut.

[close]

Finally, a couple of typos/grammatical errors:

Spoiler

1) When Death comments on the broken mirror in the bathroom, it should be "remember"

2) Also early on, can't remember where sorry, the word "tongue" is misspelt

3) When Death asks for the sword from the DemonHunter he says "just borrow me the sword". It should be "lend" or "loan"

4) I also couldn't distinguish between the h and n's..so when Death says "hihi" I thought it was "hini" or something. Like just a random sound? Or is this supposed to be "hehe" as in a giggling sound?

[close]

Hope this review doesn't sound too critical!=S It really was an enjoyable game overall and i'm keen to see how it works out in part 2=)

Also, kudos for the Scottish connection, even if it is BRAINBURGERS

Stefano · Tue 29/06/2010 02:27:03

It was a very nice first episode. Well done! Looking forward for the next one!

karja · Wed 30/06/2010 09:50:05

StrayDogStrut: You got some valid point there about inventory items and such. We will take your opinions with us to Episode 2 and improve all that we can.

Stefano: We are glad you liked it!

We had our share of first game blues when we put it up for download. So its good to hear that you guys seem to enjoy it even though it might be some typos and wierd bugs in it.

Big GC · Wed 30/06/2010 12:28:30

Enjoyed this game and the art style - Very Jeleous

The puzzles were good,

Spoiler

The only puzzle that seemed 'random' was to throw the rat through the window. I believe most puzzles should have a subtle push in the right direction from the story, or location. To me I just randomly tried all icons as I was stuck and the other locations had nothing for me. Perhaps I missed something - Its known to happen frequently

but that was my only concern

[close]

Other than that - you have a fan eager for parts 2 and 3