Donald Dowell and the Ghost of Barker Manor - BULGARIAN EDITION OUT NOW!

AprilSkies · Tue 17/12/2013 22:38:15

Donald Dowell is a nice old man in his eighties, retired for many years. Donald's life, except for his "intolerable" wife, is quiet. But Donald feels empty. He has the socalled retiree's syndrome : he s bored to death! The only way to cure his boredom is TO GO BACK TO WORK. After many hours spent in his city, trying to get hired for various jobs, he finally finds his calling: to be a GHOSTBUSTER! Donald will try to become Bob Delano s assistant (the most famous occult detective in Ireland), be involved in the investigation of Barker Manor and, hopefully, solve the mystery.

2D old-fashioned, hand-drawn graphics
Third-person
Interaction with multiple characters
Multiple-choice dialogues
Languages: Italian / English

Developed by Ape Marina
www.apemarina.altervista.org

Written by:
Andrea Ferrara and Giovanni Ottomano

Programming and graphics:
Andrea Ferrara

Music:
Kevin Macleod
www.incompetech.com

English Localization:
Claudia Mucavero and Marialuisa Ruggiero
aka RuM Corp.(se) Localisation Pro
www.rumcorpse.com

English Translation Proofreading And Language Editing:
Ross Kevin Moffat
aka Mandle

[embed=420,315]<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h6rPzIC-1h8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME FROM AGS-GAME-PAGE

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CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE GAME FROM OFFICIAL PAGE

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Our WebSite Game Page
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CLICK HERE if you prefere to download the compiled-zip-folder without installer.

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Screen Shots:

Other ScreenShots here.

Update June 23 2014

Donald Dowell is now available in BULGARIAN LANGUAGE!

Thanks to Adventurers Community (http://adventurersbg.info/) and didka222

The Bulgarian edition cn be downloaded here:
http://adventurersbg.info/catalog/game/893-donald-dowell-and-the-ghost-of-barker-manor

And here's the Bulgarian walkthrough:
http://adventurersbg.info/walkthroughs/view.php?id=407

CaptainD · Tue 17/12/2013 22:48:04

I really love your graphical style! Congrats on the release.

Stupot · Wed 18/12/2013 00:05:06

Yay. I've had my eye on this. Congratulations on finishing it. It looks brilliant :-)

Tabata · Wed 18/12/2013 16:38:13

YAY!

That's great news!
Gratulations for the release *clap*, *clap*, *clap*

Now I know what to do tonight

AprilSkies · Wed 18/12/2013 16:46:06

Thank you guys, thank you Stupot+ CaptainD and Tabata

I'm so excited. It's a very good feeling to complete a game and publish it!
It's my Christmas gift for the entire network... (now I've to start spreading it)
I hope that as many people as possible can play it.

and thank you all the forum for the support.

donmartin · Sat 21/12/2013 20:43:17

GREAT work!. Excellent graphics and puzzles. A lot of LOLs until the very end of the credits.

One of the best games since Monkey Island.

Thank you.

sthomannch · Sun 22/12/2013 13:38:47

Yes, an excellent game and very funny! I had a good time playing it. And yes, including the credits :-)

AprilSkies · Sun 22/12/2013 20:09:25

Thank you so much guys

Let pemple have fun is my first reason for making games.
If you finish it you can vote in the ags-game-page, telling what's good and what is not.
Thanx again.

Cogliostro · Mon 23/12/2013 21:45:36

April Skies,

The game is beautifully drawn, with an original main character, and clever dialog. I cannot believe the talent that went into the creation of this game.

My only complaint is the lack of "failed" responses. If something doesn't work, I have to guess why.

For example...

Spoiler

I need to get the shears away from Malachi, and he sets them down on the wheel barrel - a convenient adventure game setup. However, when I try to swap out the shears with any other item, there's nothing to suggest why it fails, nor which item should be used in its place.

[close]

Again, I am greatly enjoying the game.

- Cogliostro

AprilSkies · Mon 23/12/2013 23:30:32

Hi cagliostro,
I thank you cause players' feedback is so important to me.

Spoiler

we made this choice: using a wrong item on a object just nothing appens.
But you're not wrong. Maybe it has to be changed.
Thanx for advice[\hide]

[close]

CaptainD · Tue 24/12/2013 11:17:26

Played a bit last night, enjoying it so far. Love the graphics and the protagonist. There did seem to be a little too much repetition and lack of interactions here and there, but overall it looks great, sounds great and is a lot of fun so far. Nice job!

AprilSkies · Tue 24/12/2013 12:22:13

Thank you so much CaptainD
I hope you'll enjoy the game till the end... it's a bit long, but I hope it can give you lots of fun!

It's my first game using AGS; I love that engine.

CaptainD · Tue 24/12/2013 12:31:59

It's even more impressive considering it's your first game!

I didn't realise quite how big the game was before I started exploring the mansion.

LOVED the Guest Book, btw!

Mandle · Thu 02/01/2014 08:02:21

I said this before (but I'll say it again here nonetheless):

It was a total honour for me to help bring the English version of this game out for the community to enjoy. The whole team's months of hard work have payed off finally!

Still on holidays myself, but looking forward to downloading the final version and playing it through again (I'm a bit of an expert on solving the game after playtesting through 6 or 7 incarnations of the English translation)

Enjoy all! It's not every day a game this brilliant comes along!

AprilSkies RULES! Ape Marina RULES! Rum Corp(se) RULES! and last and least:

Mandle RULES! (just a little)

AprilSkies · Thu 02/01/2014 09:45:55

Mandle ROCKS! (a lot, not a bit).
I think we couldn't release it without his help! Thank you Mandle.
I take this opportunity to thank CaptainD for his kind comments and for thinking of this game for the awards.

And for you ... a little "art"; this is The FULL CAST:

miguel · Thu 02/01/2014 12:48:41

Wow! Great first game ApriSkies and team!
I'm really enjoying playing it, love the graphics!
I do miss on some comments on hotspots, I know it was meant that way by you but I think it really adds to the experience.

Anyway, what a great game, thank you!

AprilSkies · Thu 02/01/2014 13:34:47

Thank you so much Miguel!
It's a real honor to be complimented by a good game maker like you.
(I played months ago your game "Ancient Aliens"; I downloaded it from an italian site, called FreankExpo.. and I Loved it!! If you'l be nominated on the Awards I'll vote Ancient Aliens).

miguel · Thu 02/01/2014 13:58:28

Spoiler

You are very kind, there are lots of good games this year, but thank you.

[close]

But we are talking about your game, and what a lovely game it is. The cartoon feel in the start of the game (when he's looking for a job) was just like watching TV, very cool!
The humour is refined and polite, I love when the characters stare at each other when Donald gets too senile!
From now on you'll only get better my friends. Good job!

Shadow1000 · Fri 03/01/2014 03:02:53

I completed the game and I really enjoyed it.

Just my thoughts on the game:

The areas that the game stood out are the art/environment and the story. The length was perfect. The quality of the characters and the detailed backgrounds is exceptional. Not just in the drawing but in bringing both Donald and the NPCs to life. I could go on about how Donald's walk cycle really captures how the elderly walk and how each character really plays their respective role perfectly for this game. I think that the receptionist was the only one in the game with no personality

I can't remember the last time I laughed so often throughout playing a game. The humour was right on and consistently entertaining right to the end. The plot was engaging and developed at a good pace for the length of the game. Many of the puzzles were just right, being a good balance between being challenging yet solvable with a bit of thinking and trial and error, often having to think out of the box. You've also struck a good balance between inventory and dialogue-based puzzles with the hints being for the most part accessible to the player.

The only points to consider in a possible sequel (hint, hint) would be:

First, I said that the humour was funny and entertaining. While it's true that I enjoyed it for the most part, frequently laughing out loud, some of the jokes were just repeated too many times and the funniness wore off that way. One example of an overused joke was

Spoiler

the play on words of the title "Count". By the way, SOME people might find that term offensive, but either way, I felt that the pun was just repeated too many times to remain funny.

[close]

Second, I feel that while most of the puzzles are really clever and creative with adequate hints, many of them had a "read my mind" arbitrariness to them. Even once I found out the solution, I found myself thinking "did he really expect the player to guess that...?". This game has a fresh and creative out-of-the-box wackiness to it, which made it really fun to play but sometimes the expectation for the user to guess the precise nutty solution was just not realistic.

Finally, just something to consider: while the majority of players have no colour vision deficiency, many players have trouble seeing identifying colours making certain colour-based puzzles impossible without a complete walkthrough.

Spoiler

The time machine

[close]

puzzle is probably difficult to many players, (judging by the questions in the hints forum) but insurmountable to players who can't tell colours. It's really a design decision for the developers whether to include puzzles that cannot be solved by a minority of players to have a wider variety of puzzles or to eliminate colour-based puzzles to accommodate all players. There is no right or wrong and I don't think that having one puzzle that required a complete solution posted really diminished my experience but it may be something to consider for the future.

In all, I think that the the most difficult parts of the art of creating a good adventure game were expertly accomplished in this game and just the highest commendation for those who clearly put in a lot of talented effort to this game.

On behalf of myself and probably most others who completed it, I really hope to see a sequel!!!!! The story certainly leads itself to be continued where this game left off!

Bravo to the developers!

SHADOW

AprilSkies · Fri 03/01/2014 09:39:15

Hi Shadow,
How can I thank you for those kind words?
I'm so happy it gave you some funny hours and that it enjoyed you.
These things lead me to continue to create games and especially to improve my techniques.

I also thank you for telling me what to make best, such as the colour based puzzles. I'm thinking to solve that writing on hotspot's description the colour of buttons, 'cause I didn't think about people who can have problems in distinguishing colour. So the description "button" may become "orange button" or "red button" and so on. Or ... including a button "easy solve the puzzle".

Anyway I'm so happy for your words.
If you don't mind, It would be also great if you rate the game in the game page.

I would like that many people as possible would play the game.

P.S.
The characters were so well characterized thanks to the terrific work done by RumCorp(se) (www.rumcorpse.com). They have been great in transforming the original characterizations (in Italian, with typical Italian humor). In my opinion, now characters feel almost real in the British/Irish context. I will never finish to thank them.