Rabbit Hill

[Stupot]

Yeah, keep trying, man. I did it first time using just the track-pad of my laptop (I only take the mouse out for special occasions).

[Joe]

Played and finished it! I have to say that I really enjoyed playing this game, it has a nice and clean story, very immersive. I like this kind of "horror" as it's very psychological. I even suggested some friends to download an play this game

The only bad thing I would like to say is that mixing resolutions won't give very nice visual results. In this case I could play it down, because the story was immersive so I "forgot" about resolution. Anyway congrats on your release. And best of luck in your next projects.

[mkennedy]

Managed to solve the game, Though it could have used more responses when clicking on stuff instead of doing nothing. Puzzles were decent and I didn't run into any dead ends which was good.

Spoiler

After the shoot out with the birds I was kind of worried because I used up all my ammo.

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[sthomannch]

Very well done! I agree, very immersive. Also some of the nice, little additions were really cool

Spoiler

cat and fox

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It took me a while to get through, but in general, the puzzles were solvable. The more difficult parts

Spoiler

Believe it or not, but for a long time, I did not find the entry to the kitchen and I was sure, there was another room within this building

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Spoiler

The meter from the ghost hunter, was in a way intuitive, but it was not easy to find the tower, even after having seen the map on the leaflet

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Congratulations on this one

[Joe]

It took me a while to get through, but in general, the puzzles were solvable. The more difficult parts:

Spoiler

The meter from the ghost hunter, was in a way intuitive, but it was not easy to find the tower, even after having seen the map on the leaflet

[close]

Actually:

Spoiler

Jack White's notes were very well written. That was a very nice detail in the game, in his notes was explained how to get to the tower and many other things. If you omit reading his notes you might miss big part of the plot.

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[Two Tales]

Cheers for all the kind comments and the feedback.

The only bad thing I would like to say is that mixing resolutions won't give very nice visual results.

This is something I battled with for a while and in the end I decided that some close up scenes (in first-person view) just would not work in a lower resolution. I know a way around it now but I'll save that learning curve for future projects.

[Joe]

Well, I just hope my comments serve to motivate and improve in future projects. By the way, are you thinking of making another game in this style? I'd be looking forward to playing it.

[Two Tales]

By the way, are you thinking of making another game in this style? I'd be looking forward to playing it.

It's not out of the realm of possibility but first I'm taking a couple of months off from developing to play through some of the interesting looking games others have made here at AGS.

[cat]

I'm usually not into horror games, but I enjoyed this one a lot! The atmosphere was great, the backgrounds and how you could explore the surroundings were immersive and the soundscape was creepy. Gameplay was really good!

A few thinks that could maybe be improved:
The exits were sometimes not clear. Not only were they on strange locations sometimes (in front of the petrol station, behind the station when entering the woods), but sometimes I didn't even realize that there were several different exits, especially when in the front of the screen.

Spoiler

I only figured out there was a body in the toilet because of the walkthrough. I didn't know that the exit lead the another room.

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It was good to be able to skip walking, but right click felt a bit weird. Usually this is done with double click.

The time of day sometimes seemed to change from one screen to another, especially at the farm and tower.

Spoiler

Instead of warning the player to save before the shooting sequence you could have just implemented an autosave feature and showed the messaged "Autosaved". This is easy to do with AGS.

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Spoiler

Having to a loong puzzle chain just to get a jar when there were so many containers lying around everywhere felt weird.

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[Cogliostro]

Brilliant, just brilliant.  I enjoyed Barrow Hill, and thought it awesome that someone had decided to make a game inspired by that, instead of Gabriel Knight.

I read through the comments from everyone else, and by and large agree with them, so I won't belabor those points.  Instead let me bring up just a few points no one else touched on that might tighten up an already tense experience.  Please take them as the constructive criticism as they are intended.

LITTLE COMPLAINT

Spoiler

I played the entire game thinking surely there must be some OTHER definition of the world TREACLE that I was unfamiliar with... and I was wrong.  Was this mess-with-the-tourist nonsense an homage to one of the works that helped inspire this game?  If not it runs the risk of breaking the atmosphere.  Though apparently, judging from the comments, not much of a risk.

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TINY SPOILER

Spoiler

After Kate vanishes... Tim needs to panic a lot more, perhaps the game takes over and has him run down the road a bit yelling Kate's name.  These are the situations where people discover that they aren't always in control of their own actions.  Option two, have Tim give himself a pull-yourself-together speech.  Also, when he next talks to Dan, it should be more along the lines of "You little shit my wife is missing!" and less of "Wow, he must smoke a lot of pot."

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BIG SPOILER

Spoiler

For the big finish I think you should have given the players a little more of Tim's fate inside the tower: an image of the ghost closing in on our hero, the ghost killing him or possessing him. THEN cut to the news report.  This is the final image you're using to haunt the players, fade-to-black can be part of it, but not all of it.

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Hoping to see more games from you in the future,
Cogliostro

[Two Tales]

Cat: Thank you for the helpful feedback. Now you have mentioned it I have no idea why I didn't just put an autosave at that point. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Cogliostro: Thanks also, all feedback is helpful for the future development of games as it helps me to realise things that I may not of otherwise considered.

Spoiler

I didn't realise at the time of writing that many people would be unfamiliar with treacle mines. It was inspired by folklore of a tower that is local to me and linked with treacle mines in the area. I thought it would be something cool to cover as I hadn't seen it done in a game before. In hindsight may be I should of added an extras option in the menus where players could read about it in more detail.

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