Ponderabilia 2.0

Started by moloko, Fri 03/01/2014 12:53:42

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Fitz

Yeah, the zip seems to only contain acsetup. The .exe file works fine, though.

LimpingFish

Moloko, I've merged both topics together to avoid confusion, and you might want to update the first post to point to the latest version of your game.
Steam: LimpingFish
PSN: LFishRoller
XB: TheActualLimpingFish
Spotify: LimpingFish

moloko

#62
Thanks a lot, LimpingFish! This looks a lot better. It was my fault to repost, and I'm glad you fixed it. Feel free to give it a shot when you get to it!

EDIT: Thanks to user Billbis, I solved both problems at once (I was having hosting and audio trouble). You can now download a .zip file with the audio, and it seems to be working fine. If any of you could have a go, too. I'd be much obliged.

n0p

.zip unpacked fine and game started :) Thank you.

moloko

Really hope you're hearing sound now. :) Please keep me posted on the run-through. I love hearing people's gaming experience.

NickyNyce

#65
I know this thread hasn't been touched in a while, but considering it's game of the month, I didn't see an issue with posting.

Ponderabilia will take you on a journey through a beautiful game world. The rooms are gorgeous, and I can only imagine the time spent making them. The music is wonderful, and I loved every track that I heard. I must admit, the story was confusing to me. I'm still not exactly sure what I was doing there, and why. I'm guessing the developer wanted it this way, or maybe I'm just not great at seeing the big picture. I didn't mind too much that I didn't know what was going on, because I felt like you weren't supposed to know. I made it through most of the game without any help, but things got tough. I feel that without a hotspot indicator, and there not being many responses when trying things around the game world, and some very small hotspots, this game turned out harder than it should have been. There was a deep desire to continue though. I refused to give up because so much was done right. But I'm afraid that without the walkthrough, I may never have reached the end. 

Here are some thoughts on what I think could have been better. I'm not a fan of doing things more than once. There was some interactions where you will have to do things more than once to get certain items and move the game along. There was some pixel hunting that cost me valuable time because I missed some items. I think a hotspot indicator would have solved this. I wish I knew a little bit more about what was going on while I was playing.

Please don't let these negatives stop you from playing. These are more for the developer to think about. Not everyone looks at games the same way. The game is still a joy to play, and I'm glad I did. I commend the developer for a well made game, even with some slight hiccups along the way. IMO, the game is a solid 3 out of 5. If these issues that I came across didn't trip me up, I would give this game an easy 4. I would like to thank you for this beautiful game. I think you've done a great job, and with a bit more polishing in the areas I mentioned, I would have been praising this game like crazy. Still well worth playing!

Monsieur OUXX

Also, congrats for upgrading the game to 2.0. I feel like re-playing it now that there is music.
 

Trapezoid

I haven't finished this game, mostly because of the oblique goal. You've created an awesome environment, the graphics and overall effort are amazing, but being plopped into a mysterious world with zero character motivation (other than a vague "get out there and explore!") is inherently unengaging. I hope that's not too damning a thing to say.

Monsieur OUXX

Quote from: Trapezoid on Tue 17/03/2015 23:25:33
I haven't finished this game, mostly because of the oblique goal. You've created an awesome environment, the graphics and overall effort are amazing, but being plopped into a mysterious world with zero character motivation (other than a vague "get out there and explore!") is inherently unengaging. I hope that's not too damning a thing to say.

It worked exactly in the opposite way for me: indeed, you don't know what you're doing, but since it's obvious that you're exploring your own mind, and taken for granted that you don't understand yourself, then it reinforces the suspension of disbelief rather than breaking it.
 

moloko

Thanks, Nicky, for taking the time to rate and Trapezoid for having a look. Unbeknownst to all of you, I am indeed taking notes of all these comments. One thing I'm taking home from this is the fact that an elaborate world is hard to communicate. Ponderabilia evolved, and things got more complex and diverse. I was able to communicate some of what was obvious to me, and other parts fell into places where they weren't obvious from the start.

The entire scenario of Ponderabilia is about a hundred pages long, with all characters having a background and the surroundings being there for a reason. Hardly anything in Ponderabilia is random. When people were getting confused the first time around, I added tons of extra explanations, and Vergil (the fish) is there to provide extra background on a lot of things. I realise this isn't enough.

Nicky, the hotspot indicator is a great idea, and the only reason I didn't yet implement it is lack of time (I'm running a business, building a house and raising a newborn at the same time, so it gets rather busy.). If you happen to have any great ideas to make things smoother, I'm all ears.

Trapezoid, the character motivation is a valid issue. I think it's necessary to have a look at what Nikee really is. She's the last active remnant of comatose brain, and a complete antagonist to Steve. As such, she's impulsive, easy-going and random. She cannot be aware of her surroundings, as she's never been actively remembered. Every location has to be new to her. I'm thinking of her as a sort of Charlie the Unicorn, where the lead is pushed along against his own will, ending up in places he never had any intention of getting to.

That said, I'm a horrible character writer. IMHO, this is often done by women to far greater success than I can ever hope to achieve. If any female writers among you wish to round the characters, please let me know. You may have some pages of script and notes to plough through first, though.





NickyNyce

#70
I never realized that the fish actually helped you throughout the game with telling you about the game world. I just thought it was an inventory item for trying on things, so that might have helped clear up some of the story. I'm betting I'm not the only one to not figure this out. :-\ Perhaps if it was even more clear at the end what was going on, I might have said...AHA, now I get! But at the end, I was still a bit puzzled. But I was on the right track, I just didn't put it all together.

I think if you had just a tiny bit more information placed throughout the early part of the game, letting people get an earlier idea that this was something going on in your mind the whole time, it would have pulled things together a bit better for me. I was thinking this, but I was never sure of it. Some games benefit from the HOTSPOT indicator, some might be better without it. I think that your rooms are so detailed, that I would have felt better with it. This will vary I'm sure with other people.

When I mentioned that I'm not a fan of forcing the character to do things more than once, I was talking about when you try interacting with something, and the character says, no thanks. Only to find out later, I needed to be persistent, and try again, and again, before she would say, OK, let's do it. For me, this sets a slightly scary precedent for me. It tells me that everything in the game might need this same action. I now start thinking that every time my character doesn't want to do something in the game, I might need to try, and try again. This only happened once, and maybe I missed some important text that she said the first time around, but if not, I think this is fooling the player. Normally when a character tells me no, I don't try again. I mean, who does want to try something over and over again? I know there are games out there, where you click multiple times on something, and as long as the text changes, you should pursue it, but maybe I've fallen into a bad habit of..if it didn't work the first time, I'm done with it.

These things I've mentioned are not bad things, so please don't take this wrong. I really enjoyed the game, but these were some things that I thought might have made my experience even better. I think it's a great thing to talk about games...The good, the bad, the ugly. If we are doing this, it's because the game has so much potential. I think we all need these things to be done and said about our games, not just, thanks for the nice game. Not everyone will feel the way I did, so it's just one opinion. I'm taking the time to write this because this game deserves it, and so does the developer. So thank you again for this cool game.

EDIT: Also, I don't mind getting dropped into a place without much knowledge of where I am or why, I actually love to explore. I don't think you should have to be guided everywhere to save the player time either. I'm not in a cart, that's on a track in a haunted house, and I'm just along for the ride, I'm playing a game where I need to explore. I think this is perfectly fine, in fact, I really like to wonder and think for myself. So bravo for this choice in game design. There is nothing wrong with figuring things out for yourself and wandering around and exploring the environment. This creates tension and uneasiness IMO, and that's what I felt. Again, I just needed a tiny more of a push, to figure it all out. And now that I think about how the game ended, (the very end with the end game button)..LOL...I loved it.

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