Topic: Gray (E3 version is here!)

[Fitz]

Thanks I had fun making it, too! The dialogue was a wacky mixture of intense research and insane free-writing -- and I've never once felt limited by the palette. These four colors were all I ever needed. But my finest achievement in 4C is a pixel portrait I drew yesterday of Paul, my proofreader/editor:

[Armageddon]

Save it as a .png.

[Paul Franzen]

The best payment I could've ever received. THE BEST.

[selmiak]

Oh that is a great game.
After first being totally puzzled by the think out of the box puzzles (talking to the sun and the like...) I finally got into the mood for them and really enjoyed it! Actually the challenge made it even better
And the intro and end movies in all their 4 color glory are worth a directors cut with audio commentary

[Fitz]

Paul:

Oh rrrrealy? Then I have some more ideas in mind -- as an advance payment for you proofreading the novel(s) I told you about

Selmiak:

Yes, having the player totally confused at the beginning, and then slowly succumbing to the game's overall insanity, was my basic goal in this project. As such, I declare my mission on this planet a success! And that audio commentary does sound like a plan. I do intend to get myself a proper mic... I'm picturing a special DVD edition of Gray -- with extras! And to make it even more hardcore retro, instead of four colors I would only use ONE! It also could be a full-talkie? 3500 dialogue lines sound like one hell of a job for one person -- but I guess I could do an Indiegogo campaign. Just to finance a yearly supply of sore throat pills

[selmiak]

I don't recall anything interesting with only one color, maybe a turned off TV, but even back in the days movies were black AND white... which is by no suprise... Gray!

Hey, I was having some fun with the ingamecursors, so I thought I'd share it. Hope you enjoy, filled with SPOILERS of locations, don't open if you want to experience this yourself...

Spoiler: ShowHide

x1 x2 x4 x8

x1 x2 x4 x8

[Fitz]

Selmiak:

Oh man, those are brilliant! Can I add them as official game screenshots to the main post?

In other news:

HUUUGE thanks to Cassandra Khaw of http://indiegames.com for the note about Gray!

[selmiak]

sure go ahead, I lay no copyright claim on images made by screenshotting your art (and subverting the game a bit). But I don't know if these images are so representative of the game and not rather scare potential players off

[Saurabh]

Weird and fun with remarkable art style. I really loved the scene with bear, it was brilliant.

[Paul Franzen]

I should've said that it's the SECOND best payment I could've received. Money is the first best 

[Fitz]

Saurabh: Thanks Quirky was definitely what I was going for. Comes naturally

Paul: Oh, but don't underestimate the fame -- and fortune, maybe -- that being a sprite character in an indie game might bring you! If that's not enough, let's say you got 33% of the total proceeds from the distribution of Gray (which are currently at O USD -- but still, 33%... Maaaan!)

[Paul Franzen]

33%?! That's the best rate ever recorded for a proofreader! Let's go, I'm uploading the game to Desura now...

[Anian]

Wow, so much wikipedia, so much references...so much text. Some really nice jokes and very interesting style. Some of the puzzles were a bit confusing, but I got through.
Very entertaining.

[Fitz]

You are too kind - especially when you say the puzzles were "a BIT" confusing

Season's Greetings, Earthlings!



"I'm dreaming of a gray Christmas..."

[cat]

I played this game recently together with my boyfriend, so here comes a short review (some spoilers included):

The graphics are great, the restriction to four colors gives it a unique style. I also like the "palette rotation" where the color of the sky changes with the daytime. The backgrounds are very atmospheric despite the (self imposed) technical limitations, especially the apple trees and lakeside.
There are tons of animations, even for picking up or using objects. My favourite is still the tiptoing one, though. And the woodpecker, with it's fitting sound effect.
The music is great, with the firefly screen one being my favourite. However, the first barnscene tune I found a bit distracting.
The puzzles are clever and make totally sense in their non-sensical way. The only problem was that I somehow missed that my main goal is to have night come. I only realised this after I solved the first sun puzzle. However, we managed to complete it without a hint or walkthrough. The pacing was good and the puzzles fun.

As great as the above mentioned things are, there is also something we didn't like:
For us there was too much text. The Wikipedia trivia got annoying after some time and if we weren't playing together and waiting for the other one to finish reading, I'd have probably skipped much of the text. The first half of the game this was a funny new idea, but in the second half this started to get really boring. Also, telling the Star Wars bedtime story did not only bore the sun but also us players. Here again it was this "should we read on?" and "meh, if you want, I don't really care anymore".
I think I'd enjoy a short, witty comment much more than this endless trivia. There were a few nice jokes about stuff like gravity affecting Gray, but then they were almost ruined by continuing babbling. I also think the outtro should have ended after the fantastic animation sequence flying through 4-color space and planets. The moon scene spoiled that artistic feeling for me.

Conclusion:
Great graphics to enjoy with fitting music and atmosphere, nice gameplay idea (sun, time of day) but the main character is just too verbose and does not get to the point.

[Fitz]

Wow, Cat, thanks for such an in-depth review It was fun (although time-taking and exhausting at times) making all those animations for pretty much every action in the game. And I myself am a huge fan of the in-game music, Sworofkings and Invisible Animals did some incredible things here, can't thank them enough.
As for the crits, yeah, I can see where You're coming from:
- the goal: perhaps he should say it right away, upon entering the farm -- but when you ask the Sun to move away, he does explain "I presume it'll be impossible to find my ship in broad daylight."
- too much text: yeah, I knew I'd get spanked for that on more than one occasion But I just had such a good time writing it. And theeeen I had to translate it back into my native language, all 100 print pages of it. And now I have to do it again for the German version. So You can be sure I learned my lesson and I'll minimize the amount of text in my next project. One-liners FTW!
- outro: I do understand Your point, I love the calmness of that sequence. And maybe it would've indeed been more climatic to let the scene fade into white when he approaches the Moon -- and just leave it at that. But I scripted and animated the whole thing before I knew I'd use the mellow tune for the outro. Initially, the ship flight sequence was supposed to be accompanied by a fast-paced, intense tune, and only in the Moon sequence would it eventually cool off. As it is, it may or may not work for some. But for me, "My Name Is" just fits with the scene so well. None of it was synced with the animation, everything just sort of fell into place. I had the outro, then I got the music, and it just magically fit together.

Again, thanks for such a detailed review, much appreciated and all crits duly noted I will seriously consider adding a few edits here and there.

IN OTHER NEWS:

- Gray is taking over Facebook. Check the site for updates, video-trivia and random stuff.
- planning to start on a German translation soon
- more extra content is being seriously considered

[Fitz]

The Easter Egg Edition is here! You never knew it was coming -- and it's a week late. But look at it this way: a second wave of alien invasion is not something you'd see coming. Even when it's late. Oh well, let's say it's Easter 2014 Early Edition!

The Easter Egg Edition features:

- Easter eggs, obviously (that includes ACTUAL Easter Eggs)
- two new and fully interactive inventory item (and one of them is... yup, you guessed it!)
- lots of bugs -- such as bees, termites, fireflies, a moth, and mosquitos
- a free pass to places you had no access to, before
- a possibility of Gray dying instant death in some of those places (so... make friends with F5)
- Gray's rise to power -- and the subsequent fall (may or may not include death)
- Gray getting rich (or dying trying)
- uncomfortable questions he was afraid to ask -- finally asked (and guess what?)
- new old cutscenes -- same stories, but each with a little twist (the intro will asstound you!)

The Easter Egg mode is off by default, so that those new to the game could have a fun, safe, straightforward game experience. If that is at all possible with Gray.

How do you turn the Easter Egg mode ON, then? If you're super hardcore adventure gamer -- you'll find your way. For normal, sane people, here's a little poem:

Keep going east, although it's hard

Or pr*ss a butt*n right *t the st*rt

Press it again - and holiday's end

Download the Easter Egg Edition HERE

As luck would have it, MediaFire is ridiculously slow tonight, at about 23 Kb/s -- hope it gets better!

[arj0n]

Nice addition tot the default game!