Donna: Avenger of Blood (warning! nudity! run for the hills!) - curr. ver. 1.5

[Goldmund]

Wow, thank you, David!

I also didn't expect this game to be that long, but I couldn't stop, I guess...

Just wanted to say that the most recent version is up on the site, with all the bugs reported to me gone to heaven.

[Tramponline]

Congratulations all the way Goldmund!
I found it a very mature and literate adventure game. Your story encourages the player to use his mental and emotional faculties even after the game ended.
It felt really good not to be suffocated by patronization or any attempts of overly simple moral conceptualization.
Those endings leave a lingering aftertaste of bitter-sweet ambivalence - simply loved it!

Spoiler

If there's one minor part that felt slightly rushed in the otherwise well crafted game, I've to agree with Urpney, it's the relationship with Milena. From seemingly casual sex to an I-love-you-relationship in that short amount of time seems slightly excessive, though I can see it's function in the overall dramatic structure of the plot.

[close]

I might have found another bug:

Spoiler

At the Roxy Palace Motel when the police is in the lobby:

Once I combined the 'electric cord' and the 'water bucket' while still standing in the hallway, prior to going back into my hotel-room.
Trying to enter the hotel-room after that results in Donna saying that 'she should take the bucket' over and over and not entering her room anymore.


Minor one:
Climbing back into the hotel where the game started. Using the Look option on the window
Donna says something like '"Roxy" is doing a fine job down there' (distracting the two police men). It's not Roxy down there, is it, should be 'Rain' or something (can't remember her name exactly)

Thanks Goldmund, especially for giving me the chance to insult Sartre and his cronies!!!
Seems like a long lasting dream came true after having been forced to fight with their works ages ago!

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[Goldmund]

Trampoline, how fittingly your review makes me jump up and down.
Thanks!
But remember -- existence precedes essence! Or how do you translate Sartre ;-)

Also, you have located the bug I had reported once but unable to reproduce -- the terrible Bucket Bug! It seems I need to make one more update, this is an unpleasant error.

As for the Mil/Donna relationship --

Spoiler

I was tinkering with the idea that maybe their love was an effect of vampiric charm after all... How bitter that would be, but could explain a few things.

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[X-Ty980]

Oh crap, I am in the Dream Girls room with Mulkin having a good time and my saved game is f***ed up. When I load it it is as if I clicked to leave the room (with Mulkin asking me where I am going) then I automatically leave the room and the game crashes, making it impossible to continue playing...


I was really enjoying the game, so that's a real pity Could someone send me a saved game at that specific point?

[Goldmund]

X-Ty980, please send me your saved game and the error message.
I'll release a new version around the weekend that should take care of your problem (along with The Bucket Bug.)

[BLUEKNIGHT38]

Such Coolness!  Looking forward to playing this neat looking game.  Everytime I go to GameStop, I come back disappointed in the game selection for pc's.  I am glad you all makes games for us to play.  When things are better financially, I will probabley send some money to a few individuals who I enjoy their games.  Thanks so much!!  There is a couple ppl I have helped out on here when things was better.  I gave money to help out for Cosmos Quest 4 and Resonance.  Thanks to ALL You Ladies and Gentlemen who are smarter than I am to figure out how to make your Awesome Games.  I might try to see If I can try my hand at one again.  My brother is working on a Cool looking game.  Of course he is really good at artwork, where I am not.  I use to write allot of stories when I had time.  Thanks again Everyone!!

[Goldmund]

Whoa! Here's hoping that you'll become a very, very rich man, Blueknight...

[linus]

FINALLY, I finished it!  What an incredible game... this is one of the greatest examples of what computer games can do. It has not been frequent that a game got me this emotionally involved. But enough of generic praise, here's what I liked about your game Warning! Major spoilers!:

Spoiler

- Many fresh characters outside of usual gaming and movie conventions. It always feels great controlling an edgy and believable character who isn't your run-of-the-mill 30-ish tough-yet-sensitive hero-kinda-guy or your typical 20-ish female attractive light-hearted brunette. Donna is brutal and fragile at the same time. She experiences intense love, intense fear, intense hate... and the game makes you feel very close to her on that emotional journey.
- Fantastic, interesting and challenging (!) puzzles... all the way through. And I wouldn't say many adventures get this right (even the Gabriel Knights games have some horrible puzzles). I could not bear to look up a single clue, it would have felt like ruining one of your carefully thought-out puzzles. It was great that you made extensive use of keyboard entries, so the players had to chew through all the documents and clues themselves instead of just relying on trial and error. Some of the puzzles were of a kind prevalent in old interactive fiction classics. I often though about possible solutions to puzzles on my way from or to work.
- The descriptions and dialogues. Donna is a text-heavy game - another thing few modern adventure titles dare. Of course you might have done that badly and bored us to death, but that never happened. I really tried to get every text message out of the game you put in it. Looking at every detail on screen to get more of Donna's insightful, sarcastic or touching remarks, showing Mulkin all my items, reading minor characters' minds to figure out how they tick. I have the feeling that the coherent world you created through this helped make the puzzles so logical.
- Even with all these dark themes dominating your game, you managed to smuggle a tiny bit of humor in there. You just have to love Mulkin and the guys at LaBookery. Also, the guy trying to commit suicide at the hotel was hilarious.
- The art style. Very expressionist. Did you shoot the photos yourself?
- The relationship between Donna and Milena. Best relationship in an adventure game so far. Period.

I have to be honest, the ending was so sad, it actually made me cry. As much as I love unconventional games, I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to the death of adventure game protagonists at the end of a long story. I didn't mind though. A happy ending probably would have been out of place (kind of like the Blade Runner Non-DC).

[close]

Currently, I don't have a PayPal account, but I guess I might create one to make a donation for the great experience I had with your game.

[Goldmund]

Dear Linus, thank you for this!
The words like yours make every minute of working on Donna not a wasted time.
Granted, I enjoyed myself, but it's so fantastic that there are people who also got a kick out of this grim tale.

I didn't shoot the photos, I can't believe how long it would take me if I did. We only shot the frame-by-frame animations (me being men and my wife being women and then pasting faces and clothing.)
Actually, it might make for a cool BTS to show you some photos from that session (an umbrella serving for a gun or a liner as a knife...)
Also, the angel at the cemetery is a photo my wife took.
The other photos I stole from various catalogs and advertising sites and transformed them in Photoshop, making a kind of cut-outs (pasting a photo of a cabinet into a photo of a room etc.)

Again, thank you for making my day! 

[Dave Gilbert]

Played this all weekend. Lovely game that's dripping with atmosphere! I'm at the beginning of Day... 6, I think. Looking forward to playing the rest.

[Goldmund]

Damn! Praise from The Man. Now everything is possible ;-)

[Dave Gilbert]

I'm "The Man" now? Uh oh.

/goes off to play loud rock music and drink heavily

[JSH]

This is probably the most overall enjoyable free AGS game I have ever played. Amazing work Goldmund!

Solid writing with a truly engaging story and perfect puzzle balance/difficulty. I like how you stay clear of all hollywood conventions and formulas with your characters, it truly feels like a breath of fresh air. The puzzle balancing/difficulty is perfect in my opinion. Varied puzzles, fitting in the story with just the right amount of hints to get you through them. I did get stuck at times, but never to the point of it being frustrating. This is the first game in a long time in which I didn't resort to walkthroughs at all, because even when stuck I had gotten to the point where I trusted your puzzles to be fair, and it turns out I was right.

Works like this truly inspires me to make my own game even better, although I really hope it won't take me 10 years to finish it

[Goldmund]

Cheers, Krusbert!

I'm happy you weren't frustrated with the puzzles, I was worried about some of them.

As for the 10 years, well, there were long months when I didn't work on the game at all. Donna was in development for 10 years, but this doesn't mean I actually worked on it for 10-years worth.

Good luck with your project.

[Barbour]

Easily the most challenging adventure game I've ever played - Did large chunks without a walkthrough but Jesus Christ, people relying on timing and basic piano playing knowledge amongst other things could maybe see it putting some folk off.

The fact that you are close to death instantly in an adventure game is something I've never seen before, but it sets the tone of "this will be hard" straight away

But I was enthralled in the story and felt annoyed that I didn't finish it before going a little holiday across some of Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia & Hungary) managed to finish it on Sunday before starting back to work on Monday.

Can't thank Blaze Dzikowski and everyone else involved enough for the delightful 3 weeks of solid distraction.

[Goldmund]

Hey, you're welcome, Barbour!

Thank YOU for a nice comment.

Your Eastern Europe trip must've given you some appropriate background, I imagine.

I love what you say about being close to death instantly; I did a lot of things wrong, but I like the game's opening.

As for the difficulty... I really loved that moment when I was a kid stuck at one point in an adventure game and suddenly found a solution. There was no internet, so no walkthroughs. I think modern games are too easy.

[FamousAdventurer77]

I just finished the game-- holy crap, it was AMAZING.

Hands down, Donna: AoB has one of the best-- if not THE best-- stories I've seen in all the games I've played this year. It seriously gripped more than most adventure games of all calibers I've played, period.

There were a few puzzles and design bits that threw me off a little,

Spoiler

I totally cheated using Wikipedia for the La Bookery quiz, and had to hit the skip commands for the sound-based puzzles because both my speakers and my hearing suck...thanks for thinking of the hearing-impaired to get around that!

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but otherwise I felt it had the perfect level of challenge. Love the soundtrack too-- the songs fit perfectly.

The tone and atmosphere were set impeccably, and Donna made for a refreshing protagonist whose pain and anger you can feel

Spoiler

which makes the longer, and I'm guessing canon, ending grip you even harder. It's a bittersweet but satisfying ending, that also makes a nice departure from the classic happy endings and pyrrhic victory endings.

[close]

It was also so awesome to see how much attention was paid to detail, like Donna talking to items, getting different reactions showing your items to people...in today's TL;DR world, this is such a precious rarity in a good game!

I'll stop here because I can't praise enough. Awesome job!

[Goldmund]

Heh, I don't think checking the Wikipedia is a cheat.
I don't expect everyone will remember the same bits and pieces of trivia from the formal education as myself!

Still -- there's a way to cheat in another way there, without leaving the game.

Thank you, FamousAdventurer! Your praise means a lot. It's uplifting to hear such positive remarks on your work.

As for TL;DR... I did cut some 1/4 of the dialogs

[Goldmund]

I was wondering, would anyone be interested in Donna's OST? I could remaster some tracks and put together an album. If there's interest.

[Sslaxx]

I was wondering, would anyone be interested in Donna's OST? I could remaster some tracks and put together an album. If there's interest.

Please do!