Lamplight City

Started by Grundislav, Thu 13/09/2018 14:16:04

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Grundislav


The Gateway to Vespuccia, the City of Air and Light, Lamplight City—the thriving port city of New Bretagne is a beacon of progress and industrial advancement in the New World. Yet beneath the promises of a shining 19th-century future, the city rests upon foundations of poverty, class struggle, and crime.

For police detective turned private investigator Miles Fordham, Lamplight City's shadowy corners are just part of the territory. But with his former partner constantly speaking to him from beyond the grave, his grip on sanity is slowly loosening. Can Miles find justice for his clients and track down his partner's killer before his entire world comes apart?

Lamplight City is a detective adventure set in an alternate steampunk-ish "Victorian" past.

Features:
- Five cases to solve, each with multiple potential suspects, false leads, and lasting consequences.
- Single click interface and no inventory (gather clues in your casebook)
- An entire fictional city with four boroughs to explore, each with their own unique flavor.
- A whopping 640x400 resolution!
- Heavily inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Dickens.

Brought to you by:


Screenshots


Navigate the filth and squalor of Cholmondeley, AKA "The Chum."


Investigate the homes of the fabulously wealthy residents of Lyon.


Explore the borough of Gascogne, inspired by New Orleans's French Quarter.


Search for clues in Worcester, the working class part of town.


Interrogate suspects and witnesses in a closeup view.


The dead hold just as many secrets as the living.


The residents of Lamplight City make their voices heard.



Steam Store page
GOG page

Snarky

Congrats on the release! Disco, Puddin' and me are discussing breaking off our road trip and skipping a visit to Acadia national park to play the game instead. (We won't, but we have purchased several copies.)

Kini

Congrats on the release! I've been looking forward to this for ages and can't wait to make a start this evening :-D

Bavolis

Congrats! Looks amazing!

KyriakosCH

This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

CrashPL

Awww yeah, glad everything went well! Congratulations on the release! :D

TheFrighter


Today I received an e-mail from GOG.COM with the headline:  Do you like point-and-click mystery games? Then Lamplight City is a must-have title!  (laugh)

My gosh, 1.2 GB is huge!  8-0

_

CaptainD

 

Cassiebsg

Congrats on the release and best of luck with sales! (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

VampireWombat

Congratulations on the release.

Just went to GoG and Lamplight City was the first game it showed to me in the featured area.

dactylopus

Congratulations on the release!  I've been looking forward to this for some time.  Happy to see it finally out in the world.

Best of luck to you, I hope it is a huge success!

selmiak

YAY, Congrats on the release :)

Mandle

Wow, so many major titles coming out on the AGS engine this year!

Congratulations on the release!!!

Stupot

Bought and downloaded ready to play when I get home from work tonight.

Congratulations on the release and may the bucks come rolling in.

AndyfromVA

Bought the game and played it for an hour.  Excellent graphics, interesting story.  A very solid game - what you'd expect from Francisco Gonzalez.

MiteWiseacreLives!

Hurray!
So if I buy a copy, will you release a Blue Cup podcast?

The Outer Zone

That dark main scene really does look beautiful!
Really looking forward to play it - and finish my Grundislav Games cavalcade.

I hope it's a financial success - I'm certain it will be a critical success :)
The Outer Zone - Strange narrative games and illustrated books.
http://the-outer-zone.blogspot.com/

KyriakosCH

Room graphics, character portrait gfx and character animations are excellent! (nod)
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Tigrou

An annoyance:

Spoiler

I got ousted from the Spectre Society.  Now everytime I come back in front of it, I have to endure the long inner monologue (dialogue?) between Miles and "Bill" again. Not sure that's a bug, but a bit frustrating.
[close]

Grundislav

Oops, that's a bug! Thanks for pointing it out, will fix :)

Tigrou

#20
Not a bug, but something that bothered me a bit:

Spoiler

Labelling "liberal" someone who opposes technological progress might be plausible by contemporary standards, but not really by 19th century standards, IMHO.

Liberal politicians have most always been agents and promoters of the industrialist bourgeoisie (they probably still are, even in your country - but I'm not American).  Anti-technology discourse until recently was very much a conservative thing, shared with a fraction of 19th century utopian socialism and anarchism.  It's only when ecologism became a staple of the "left" that boundaries started to blur a lot.
[close]

Another annoyance:

Spoiler
Once you read the "interesting" entries in Ronan's diary, you can't read them again anymore, yet they are not listed in the casebook amongst the documents.
[close]

Overall I found the game very good. The atmosphere is really nice, as is the game system, and the story is actually believable. Congratulations :-)

Spoiler

I liked the fact that you have the player take a stance and vote at the election.
[close]


Moderator Note: Posts combined. In future, please use the modify button to edit your posts. Thanks. :)

VampireWombat

I just randomly Googled "adventure game ideas" and the top news from the search was a review for Lamplight City. Good job.

KyriakosCH

I think that this is a very polished game, gfx, animations and atmosphere are excellent. It is set to do well :)

I do have one non-positive critique, which is about the actual plot (at least of the first case, of which I watched a full video walkthrough) :

Spoiler
In my view the plot is a bit too involved in being PC. In a way which isn't subtle. This - imo - isn't really a good idea for a computer game; furthermore it does take something away from the ability to create a gloomy and self-contained other-world mood when the game tries its hand in politics.
[close]

That said, overall a great game & I wish it goes very well (nod)
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Ali

#23
Congratulations on the release! I got a chance to play a beta version and even though the voices weren't all there it was obviously an extremely polished, well plotted detective game. As a big fan of whodunnits, it was refreshing not to be investigating the murder of a 16 year old blonde girl for once.

I'm posting because I want to disagree with Kyriakos...

Spoiler
I don't agree that the game is "PC". I saw a comment elsewhere from someone who "doesn't like politics" in their games. Which is a silly thing to say, because any game that depicts societal structures is going to have politics in it. "Keep politics out of games" just means "keep the kind of politics I'm uncomfortable with out of games."

Rather than being unsubtle, my only criticism is that the game is too subtle, almost coy, when dealing with racism. I can imagine why Francisco avoided using racial slurs. But I think having the characters deal with race through euphemism and allusion doesn't reflect the way people thought or spoke in the 19th century. Of course, this is steampunk, so it gets a pass.
[close]

sawyer

;) Very nice. Thanks for making this game. Without a doubt this is a huge success!!!

Monsieur OUXX

#25
And then they say AGS is a clunky, dead engine. Off to GOG!

EDIT: bought it yesterday night, but the download took 30 minutes, then I had to go to bed. www.myfascinatinglife.com Long things short : I'm dying to play it but I'll have to wait tonight.
 

Click'd

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Mon 17/09/2018 18:01:47
And then they say AGS is a clunky, dead engine. Off to GOG!
Who does?

eMTe

Does Lamplight City work with Windows XP?

Grundislav


SarahLiz

Just completed the game & left a review on Steam...I honestly cannot give enough compliments about this game. (Or if I tried, this post would never end...)

Bottom line:  money well spent, for countless hours of great, interesting gameplay.  The artwork was gorgeous.  And every single lead in every single case really captured my attention & was just continually intriguing, leaving me wanting moreâ€"-which is what I love in an adventure game.  You could have had 20 “cases” in Lamplight City, and I'd still want to keep right on playing.

I've always loved your games, and will keep supporting them for as long as you continue to make them for us. 

splat44

I notice some inconsistency toward what I see and text in scene 3

Spoiler
At scene where that women is surrounded with fury animals, I find it strange by seeing text description as "fury rats" when looking at them. They sure resemble as squirrels. LOL
[close]

Not a big deal but the overall game is great!

Grundislav

They are squirrels, Bill just doesn't like them so he refers to them as "rats with fluffy tails." :wink:

Monsieur OUXX

I'm really enjoying it so far.

If you ever make a version 1.1:
Spoiler

In the "Désirée Lathan" case, there are two letters from a guy who's in love with her. In the pictures representing the sprites, there's the date when the letter was sent. But then in the case book's "documents" tab, the letters are not dated. i have no idea if it's important for the case, but I was slightly frustrated by that, because there's something about her changing her last will in late August, and the lover's letter as written in September of something. By not having the date, I (as a player) feel like I'm deprived of some information that would help me picture the chronology in my mind.
[close]
 

RiotEsper

The game is absolutely fantastic! The second point-and-click title this year that I've been looking forward to, that has subsequently gone above and beyond my expectations.
I think I'm on either the second to last or the last case. I've been reluctant to boot it back up lately, the characters and setting really grew on me and I don't want it to be over. ;-D

Grundislav

Lamplight City is 15% off during the Steam Halloween sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/761460/Lamplight_City/

paolo

I don't usually buy commercial games, but this one caught my attention, so I splashed out.

Great job! The artwork is beautiful and the game is solid.

I have a question:

Spoiler
So far I have got to the end of the third case, but things are unsatisfactory. Fordham seems to be jumping to obvious conclusions after identifying only one suspect and ignoring clues that point to different culprits. I think that this must be part of the story, and I'm hoping that he will get a chance to redeem himself and resolve what look like miscarriages of justice. Without giving too much away, am I right that this is what is going on?
[close]

AndyfromVA

I've played the game through three times.  This is what you need to keep in mind.

Spoiler
Fordham will have numerous opportunities to identify the alleged criminal but many of them are premature.  It pays to delay actually naming someone until you explore all possible avenues, which will become apparent as you continue to play the game.  If you do ID the wrong person it will negatively affect your ability to proceed in subsequent cases.
[close]

Grundislav

The optimal solution to a case will never be blocked off based on accusations made in previous cases.

I'm going to be rolling out an update next week which will allow you to declare a case unsolvable when a suspect is unlocked, in addition to closing off all leads. That way you won't be forced to accuse someone if you believe they're innocent.

Monsieur OUXX

By the way I never had the opportunity to say this, but I loved how immersive is the world you created.

Especially as a French person: Since it's inspired by New Orleans, everything has this flavor of French, without being really French. What I'm trying to say is that for me, this game is dystopian twice : because it's set in this alternate industrial world, and also because it's like my own cultural 19th century but with unexpected differences.
 

paolo

Quote from: AndyfromVA on Wed 14/11/2018 23:25:26
I've played the game through three times.  This is what you need to keep in mind.

Spoiler
Fordham will have numerous opportunities to identify the alleged criminal but many of them are premature.  It pays to delay actually naming someone until you explore all possible avenues, which will become apparent as you continue to play the game.  If you do ID the wrong person it will negatively affect your ability to proceed in subsequent cases.
[close]

OK, thanks.

Spoiler
I felt that I had no options left but to accuse someone I didn't really believe was the criminal, and from Upton's responses, she tends to agree.
[close]

I'll play it through another time once I've finished and see whether I can find the alternative avenues of investigation.

Quote from: Grundislav on Thu 15/11/2018 14:03:02
The optimal solution to a case will never be blocked off based on accusations made in previous cases.

I'm going to be rolling out an update next week which will allow you to declare a case unsolvable when a suspect is unlocked, in addition to closing off all leads. That way you won't be forced to accuse someone if you believe they're innocent.

Thanks, Grundislav, that would be great. Also:

Spoiler
I take it there's no way to avoid what happens to Bill in the very first case and the consequences that follow? In other words, that this is an integral part of the story.
[close]

Grundislav

Yes, the choice at the beginning is the only real "false choice" because it defines the story. However, it will have an effect on certain things Bill says throughout the game.


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