Absent - Now Available on Steam! (September 2015 Update)

Started by FNGames, Thu 03/10/2013 21:49:54

Previous topic - Next topic

FNGames



Absent is a story which follows the character of young-adult and college student, Murray Schull. He and his two best friends, Eve and Steve, attend a college in which students are disappearing daily. It's up to them to find out how this is happening, why this is happening, protect their other friends, and to put a stop to it once and for all.

Steve's girlfriend, Crystal, has mysteriously disappeared on her way home from college. But further into the investigation, and through Murray's new-found paranormal visions, Murray realises that whatever caused Crystal's disappearence was not anything from this earth. Alongside his vision, Murray is confronted with puzzles, with friends turning against each other, and all for one reason. The Reaper.

Special Features:
-A point/click, easy to use interface.
-Approximately twenty NPC's to interact with.
-Around forty playable rooms in the whole game.
-A completely original story with original art and characters created by myself. 
-A game so varied, I flipped a three sided coin to choose it's genre!
-Full Voice Acting.
-Full MP3 Soundtrack.
-It's completely free!
-Six Steam Achievements.





Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW9yVpP_G4o

Promotional Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK0Ypg9aVuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJBCFVCEKO4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaQEjt-ZvCQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qmb5oh6tZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcVApLnr1A

Originally intended as a three part series released monthly, Absent is now a full length adventure game. The game has been in the works on and off for three and a half years and considering that it's my first full length project, I am very proud of the final result. I've learnt a lot from working on this game and I believe that I know the steps to take and improvements to make in making my future adventure game projects.


UPDATE: Grab it from Steam!


I really hope you all enjoy!

-James from FNGames

Nixxon

Will try this tonight, Looks great!

Shadow1000

Looks great from the screenshots and description.

The file host you're using gives you the choice of buying a subscription or downloading using the slow download, which is estimated at 51 minutes. Personally, I will hold off until I can download it, but I am looking forward to playing when I get a chance.

SHADOW

Igor Hardy

Neat. Great to see this got fully finished. I really enjoyed the original 1-episode game - had a lot of style.

Tabata

YAY!

Congrats on the release - downloading now! :cheesy:

miguel

I can't download it... Could you host it in another site?
Working on a RON game!!!!!

SarahLiz

Can't wait to try this!  Congrats on the release!

FNGames

#7
Well, this is a professional way to start the promotion for the game! :p  If you've already downloaded and have started playing, don't use any inventory items with the fully grown tree towards the end. It'll crash your game. Not sure why you'd want to do that anyway, but either way, just something that slipped past testing!

Here's the fixed version, and hopefully an easier download for those that couldn't access FileFactory.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1731/

miguel

Your new link returns file not found...
Working on a RON game!!!!!

Shadow1000

#9
I downloaded this game again after you posted the new link.

I'm really enjoying how the story unfolds. The puzzles are somewhat simple so far. The voice acting is excellent; I would consider it a feature of the game. I really like the background graphics. Murray looks a bit weird how his legs move when he walks.

My only real criticism of the game is that although the voice acting is done really well, subtitles are very important. It really drags things out if all dialogue in the game is read by the actors rather than allowing the player to read and skip the rest of the message. Furthermore, sometimes a few words here and there are missed because of the background music.

As well, there should be a standard menu where the user can save, load and quit the game, and possibly turn on or off the subtitles. Many of us happen to know about F5 and F9 and CTRL Q but I'm sure that many players will just have no idea how to save or restore a game.

Cheers

SHADOW

Limony

Quote from: Shadow1000 on Sun 06/10/2013 14:38:29
My only real criticism of the game is that although the voice acting is done really well, subtitles are very important. It really drags things out if all dialogue in the game is read by the actors rather than allowing the player to read and skip the rest of the message. Furthermore, sometimes a few words here and there are missed because of the background music.
It seems like you can skip ahead with the spacebar.


Shadow1000

Quote from: Limony on Sun 06/10/2013 15:22:28
It seems like you can skip ahead with the spacebar.

This is true. However, if you skip, then you don't know what the player said. If I could read the subtitle, I can know what the person is saying in a fraction of the time and then choose whether to skip the talking.

SHADOW

Limony

Subtitles appear if you turn off speech in setup, but that defies the purpose of voice acting. Another annoyance is that the cursor changes into the use tool spontaneously.

kaput

The game looks cool, promo vids are quite nice so I'll definitely give this one a try. I've been looking forward to a new full lengthish adventure here. Well done on the release bud.

Shadow1000

Quote from: Limony on Sun 06/10/2013 20:02:07
Subtitles appear if you turn off speech in setup, but that defies the purpose of voice acting.

I didn't know that. Which brings up my second point is that the interface should have more user-friendly control. And I agree: the voice acting is done really well and I don't want to lose that.

SHADOW

FNGames

Quote from: Shadow1000 on Sun 06/10/2013 14:38:29
I downloaded this game again after you posted the new link.

I'm really enjoying how the story unfolds. The puzzles are somewhat simple so far. The voice acting is excellent; I would consider it a feature of the game. I really like the background graphics. Murray looks a bit weird how his legs move when he walks.

My only real criticism of the game is that although the voice acting is done really well, subtitles are very important. It really drags things out if all dialogue in the game is read by the actors rather than allowing the player to read and skip the rest of the message. Furthermore, sometimes a few words here and there are missed because of the background music.

As well, there should be a standard menu where the user can save, load and quit the game, and possibly turn on or off the subtitles. Many of us happen to know about F5 and F9 and CTRL Q but I'm sure that many players will just have no idea how to save or restore a game.

Cheers

SHADOW

Thanks a lot for the feedback so far!
Okay, so the big things so far are work on walkcycles (or rather, don't use the walkcycle module (!)) , make turning on subtitles an option and improve the user interface.  Okay, thank you for your input! Thank you for your compliments on our voice actors. Hope you're still enjoying the game!

Limony

Quote from: fentonfilmgames on Mon 07/10/2013 12:08:49
Thanks a lot for the feedback so far!
Okay, so the big things so far are work on walkcycles (or rather, don't use the walkcycle module (!))
But I love the way he walks! It makes me smile every time.

TassieDevil

Quote from: Limony on Sun 06/10/2013 20:02:07
Subtitles appear if you turn off speech in setup, but that defies the purpose of voice acting. Another annoyance is that the cursor changes into the use tool spontaneously.
I disabled voice and music; never use them in a game; I just like it to be quiet. I would be good if game authors oould make the game download in 2 parts; one without VOX

Anyway a minor bug which disappeared after restoring to an earlier point and replayed.
At the scene in school where the canteen door is boarded I could not change the cursor back to "keys"; neither for the lift button - it stayed "use".

Otherwise, great game!

Cogliostro


After having a tough time with the download, I thought I'd post a mirror to Absent.

- Cogliostro
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order." - Dr. Who

FNGames

Quote from: Cogliostro on Mon 07/10/2013 20:10:14

After having a tough time with the download, I thought I'd post a mirror to Absent.

- Cogliostro


And the irony is I can't access that link! :p  As long as it's the new version I put up the other day, I don't see the harm in giving this link a try for others! :)

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk