Nine Hours to Dawn

[Valentijn]

Just posted some positive feedback on the games page after having just finished it. Thank you for this great game, I really enjoyed it!

Just a couple of minor things:

Spoiler

-You cannot show the star to the ghost unless you have a couple of looks at the plants in the background. I was a bit stuck at this point because I already knew what I had to do from the dialogue with the ghost, but it still didn't work. Maybe you could have added some more pointers here, or have been more lenient with the conditions, or only have that bit of dialogue after having had a closer look at the plants?

[close]

Spoiler

-I'm sure I had the broken flashlight on the first attempt at running through the woods, and I could throw it at the wolf then, but then I had to load and I didn't have the flashlight anymore. The sequence became a bit impossible afterwards, maybe because of that? (Don't know if you really need the flashlight.) Luckily I could skip it. Overall I thought it to be a bit too unfair/hard that the wolf could move through the rocks.

[close]

Spoiler

I thought it was a little bit weird how some dialogue repeated itself at one point, for example speaking to Astrid in the cave: the dialogue always starts with "I don't know what to do about Sal."
Which reminds me: I actually already got this dialogue before finding Sal & tying him up. I thought it was about not knowing where he was at that point, and it works for that as well, but it's rather weird to have the exact same dialogue after tying him up.

[close]

[Cogliostro]

DAVID -

1) I left the options menu available, including the part where you can increase the speed of the play.  That may have been the cause of the problem with the wolf on the thrid screen.

2) Losing Inventory Items -- When I lose the key out of my pocket, I don't realize it immediately.  So, when the character loses something, the player won't notice until they go and look for it.  This is my take on it.  However, this sits badly with most of the players, so in the future, inventory items will not vanish without some comment.

3)  Points 1 & 2 are related:

Spoiler

I intended to make the Escape from the Wolf mini game hard.  So hard that you couldn't just wait for the right time and run for it.  You were supposed to have to throw the dead flashlight and the shears to distract the wolf and get by.  But, you're right, in one sense the shears were needed for somethine else so, this brings us to point 4.

[close]

4) The necklace can also be taken apart by using it on Jack.

5) Sal / Run back and forth to the cave.... Yeah, during some hours there was a lot of running, that's why I left the game option on to increase the speed.

6) Opening the Gate:

Spoiler

The game was unbelievably long, and there were dozens of variables controlling the sequence of action.  I left some "skip ahead easter eggs" in the game to make beta testing bearable.  If I changed so much as ONE sprite, the old saved games could not be used.

Using the COMBO was only one of three such easter eggs.

[close]

VERTIGOADDICT -

The main character's face would change?  LOL!!  I was *attempting* to give both Jack and Astrid different expressions.  When you see the flesh stripped off a human body, some sort of change in expression seemed merited.

Blood in the Kitchen?!  I got so used to ignoring that, I didn't even think that it looked like blood.  My photoshop skills improved dramtically during the course of creating the game.  The ground floor of the house was done first and when I merged two different images together to create the kitchen, the floor was left bloody. 

Ornament stuck behind the tapestry...  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but there's not supposed to be anything left in the house.  It's empty and they're trying to sell it.  That's my BS answer.  The real answer was I was just getting a feel for manipulating objects when I drew that room.

The missing painting == The original story behind the game was some variation on "The Shining", the father was supposed to have gone insane and killed his family.  The painting was worked into that story.  I abandoned the idea early on, but forgot to eliminate the picture until MUCH later.



Valentijn -

The flashlight vanished from your inventory BEFORE you made it back to the driveway?  First, I've time I've heard of that problem.  I'll take a peek at the code.

"I don't know what to do about Sal." - This repeats? I'll take a look.

The ornament:

Spoiler

The idea of using a separate "Ghost logic" to solve this puzzle appealed to me.  Adding a clue when Jack refuses to show the star isn't a bad idea though.

[close]

EVERYONE -

Thanks for letting me know what you thought of the game.

If you're really hard up for laughs, try using bizarre inventory items (Like the piece of string) on the wolf or the zombie. 

- Cogliostro

[david]

NOw I see my problem with the wolf, I didn't know I could throw things on it, I was just running. I thought I was supposed to it properly, sorry  my mistake. 

The speed button I used only after the mini-game, I think it is obvious thing, why.

And finally I realized I could use other items on the necklace as well.

Well, thank you Cogliostro for these points 

[pslim]

Just finished this yesterday, my boyfriend and I played through it together. It was fun, we liked the story, and as someone else already mentioned, it's cool and immersive to get to follow the threads of different characters as we would in a movie.

What we liked:
-really strong sense of storytelling
-well-crafted suspense that feels very much like a horror movie
-interesting, likeable characters who seem three dimensional even though we only get to see them in this one situation -- we particularly liked Sal and the way that he is used to point out that behaving badly while under psychological distress doesn't make someone a worthless or evil person
-for the most part the puzzles were logical and intuitive
-the whole complex with the endings was a great way to end a horror movie/game and make it about something more than just running away from axe murders, kudos
-the general level of the art was good, we thought -- the models were good, and the animations were better than anticipated based on past experience with people using 3D art in a 2D point-and-click game
-the What Puzzle Am I On? button on the GUI was very useful and appreciated  
-for the most part, the feedback you get from trying to use items on the world and on other items is informative and gives you a pretty good idea of whether you're on the right track or not

What we thought could be improved next time:
-it's worth noting Jack is a tad Gary Stu-ish -- he kind of functions as the narrator and so has weirdly complete knowledge about caves, for instance, and even though you get to play some of the other characters (which was a lot of fun), Jack is pretty much the only one who is going to get them out of the situation alive. Granted, it's a horror game, and in horror films there is usually only one guy who performs all the feats of heroism that rescue everyone who gets to live to the end, but he just really gave off the sense of being the avatar of the game's creator rather than one of the people trapped in the situation. This is sort of exacerbated by the fact that his skin texture is much higher res than anyone else's.
-the art assets, while good individually, are a bit mismatched -- Jack's face, as mentioned, is a lot more realistic in texture than everyone else's, and Gordy's model is not quite as human as the rest, particularly the face; the photographic backgrounds work fairly well usually but their rendering doesn't match the character model renderings in style and so the characters tend to leap out at you from a dark, pixely world that they don't seem really grounded in. Also, Sal's pants model kind of gives the appearance that he's wearing an adult diaper and when the puts his hands on his hips it appears he's holding up said diaper.  
-I thought there was a little too much exposition at the very beginning, before we know Jack or what's going to happen or have really become invested. The magic really begins when Jack starts interacting with the other characters, as their differences of opinion and personality and the stress of the accident cause conflict immediately. I would suggest trimming back to the introductory narration and letting the character interaction fill in the details we need to know before we play.
-the Last Supper painting REALLY seems like it's part of a puzzle; I don't know how many times I went back to that thing trying to figure out what it was for.

Probably the thing that was the most problematic, for me, though, was that in order to have them not walking around like slow-pokes all over the place (and I had to go back and forth between the cave and the house a few times, for instance) I had to turn the speed up, which was an option, but then in the action sequences, before I realized I had a chance to affect the outcome, it was already over. Obviously I could go back through and play it again and switch to low speed when I know an action sequence is about to happen but after trying to get past the wolf several times the legit way, I sort of lost interest in arcade aspects -- but then you're sort of locked into only one ending, I think? Just putting it out there.


Anyhow, hopefully this is useful to you in some way, and hopefully you continue making games, woo.  

[Valentijn]

-I thought there was a little too much exposition at the very beginning

I would agree to a lot of your comments but I wanted to give my opinion on this bit: I actually thought there was a very good degree of exposition at the start. It's hard to get this right in adventure games: you want to start playing as soon as possible and get the story flowing while you're playing it, but it happens quite often that you hardly know anything about the person you're playing for, or what led you to the exact moment when the game begins (an example in professional games: I thought this to be the weakest point in the first two Broken Sword games)
In my opinion, the well written text boxes that set up this game did an excellent job at that.

[pslim]

but it happens quite often that you hardly know anything about the person you're playing for, or what led you to the exact moment when the game begins

I really agree, actually. Maybe it wasn't the amount that was the problem, maybe Jack's wistful angst and mountain talk just didn't connect with me. 

[Secret Fawful]

I've not finished the game yet, as I'm stuck on the blue sphere, but I wanted to give my overall impressions so far. The game is far from perfect. It has a very plastic 3D feel, and there are times when the proportions are off in relation between characters and backgrounds....okay this is only in the shed and axe screen. However the atmosphere is pretty great, and the game did manage to make me jump a couple of times. Other than that I never really felt frightened by the threats the game produced so far. Now, let me get to what I really love about this game.

The multiple playable characters with their own take and perspective on the story. I always love this take on a game. I love to see a story from the points of view of different types of characters, and this game plays with perceptions a bit which is nice. This is also one of the most inventive games I've seen come out of AGS in a while. I can literally remember every puzzle vividly in my head so far, which is a very good thing. I can remember them so well because they're very unique, though not fully fleshed out. I went into this game with low expectations and was floored by the neat concepts used in it. This entire game is almost completely one cool idea after another, and I really really am impressed by that. You need to make more adventure games, because you really have a knack for designing them. I have found the game only moderately difficult, but I honestly don't care.

So far I give it a six out of ten. Would play again.

[Cogliostro]

Pslim:

The compliments:
When I started off, my goal was to create a game that was heavy on atmosphere and story, I'm delighted to know this came through!  Especially since the story development was done "on the fly" while I was writing the scripts in AGS.   (I had an entire plot written out, but abandoned all of it except the characters and the way they got stranded in the woods.)

The mistakes:
Jack / Gary Stu: I can't tell you how much this observation bugged me, not because I disagree, but because it's so dead on and I didn't see it coming?!  My problem with graphics was accidental and the super-cave knowledge skill can be dialed way back.  However, even without those points, Gary Stu is still there somewhere and I'll need to address it further.  The art discrepancies largely reflect how much I improved with my tools during the year I was making the game.  A map is a must have feature in all future games.  It was starting to bug me near the end, and that should have clued me in that it was going to bug everyone else too.  Suffice to say, all of your comments are appreciated and are being given careful thought.



Valentijn:

I'm glad you liked the introduction.  I felt it was important to know who was doing what and why.  Otherwise you find yourself asking; why is the main character leaving his truck behind to chase a stranger through the curiously abandoned town?  Without the backstory it seemed pointless.  However, pslim is right, there's something wrong with the introduction.  I used inspirational quotes to set the tone for a game about supernatural horror.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?!  That had to kill the sense of dread and fear more than anything else. 



Secret Fawful:

You thought the game game was almost entirely "one cool idea after another"  WOW!  I can't image much higher praise than that.  There are future games in the works.  It's my hope that people would play *THIS* game, be convinced that I could actually design a decent game, and then agree to help out when I sent out a request for animators or graphic artists on my next game.  Incidentally, the title will be "Bone Island".


- Cogliostro

[stepurhan]

Good game. Hopefully this will help it reach a wider audience.

[faerieevenstar]

I've just played through this game twice  in one day so I've seen two endings now... but I have some thoughts.

Spoiler

I just played it through the second time and I saved Astrid as I didn't realise I had a chance to the first time! (oops) The epilogue at the end though still said they found her body. What happened to her? The 'being' at the end said she was ok?! Also they said they found Gordy's corpse, but I assumed that even though he seemed fine when I left him, he probably bled out and died.

[close]

My only criticism is the spelling and grammar errors throughout, and, more minor, the fact I finished it and then played it all the way through again in one day (and I'll probably do it again after I've posted this to see what happens when I'm 100% evil!) makes me think it's a bit short. But for a home-made game I found it amazing, and I'm a seasoned adventure gamer, so I DO get through games quickly.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to see more games from you. Perhaps even carrying on from where this left off. I'm not sure where it could go, but I'd love to find out!

[Cogliostro]

stepurhan -

A friend of mine told me about a web site called http://AdventureGamers.com last Friday.  Yesterday I had some free time and checked it out.  I was shocked to find I was already there.   It brings whole new meaning to the phrase - "getting ahead of yourself."  Also, they've done a better job of describing the game than I ever did!

I just checked my webstats - I've now cleared 2100 downloads!  Pretty good if I do say so myself.

EDIT: I just re-read your posting and realized you were the one who posted 9H2D on Adventure Gamers!  Thanks for the gorgeous write up.  8)



faerieevenstar  -

Short Answer: If Jack isn't there, things go very badly for everyone he left behind.

I still have spelling and grammar errors?  I would have sworn I hunted every last one down.  I am married to an English teacher after all.

The game was short, after all it is my first game.  I wanted to learn the subtleties of AGS and see how my style went over before I dove into the larger story.  Additionally, I needed to find a couple of beta testers who I could work with.  Finding good beta testers proved to be much harder than I anticipated.  (Thanks guys!)

Finally, yes, I have ideas for two sequels.  The story I originally had in mind was too big for a first game, and now I've broken it into two separate games.  In addition to the reasons I've already mentioned, "Nine Hours to Dawn" helped flesh out Jack's background.

- Cgoliostro

[stepurhan]

stepurhan -

A friend of mine told me about a web site called http://AdventureGamers.com last Friday.  Yesterday I had some free time and checked it out.  I was shocked to find I was already there.   It brings whole new meaning to the phrase - "getting ahead of yourself."  Also, they've done a better job of describing the game than I ever did!

I just checked my webstats - I've now cleared 2100 downloads!  Pretty good if I do say so myself.

EDIT: I just re-read your posting and realized you were the one who posted 9H2D on Adventure Gamers!  Thanks for the gorgeous write up.  8)

I can write the descriptions to your future games for a reasonable fee if you like. 

< Guess the tag over there isn't as obvious ss it should be.  :