Topic: The Shaft (MAGS July winner)

[Kastchey]

Sgt. Reed has been tasked with descending into an abandoned underground facility, activating the power generator and opening the main entrance.
But things did not exactly work as planned...

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DOWNLOAD (v3.1)
Download directly from Google drive
Download from Filedropper
(Watch out for fake download buttons)

Original MAGS competition version HERE

This game was made within a month for the July 2018 MAGS competition: Shocking.

Features:
* Classic point & click adventure
* Hand made pixel art and animations
* Around 40 minutes of gameplay
* Adventure/horror-esque atmosphere

Art & scripting: Kastchey
Music:
* Title screen: Audiobinger - The Darkside (freemusicarchive.org)
* In-game: Myuu - Phantom (Horror Soundscape) (thedarkpiano.com)
Sounds: Lazylids, Davilca (freesound.org)
Proof reading: Durq
Preliminary testing: Mandle, Shadow1000, slumber, selmiak
(also big thank you to everyone who reported non-critical bugs!)
Playtesting: artium
GUI module: BASS LW by Ghost
Credits module: SSH


Changelog:

Spoiler: ShowHide

31st Jul: v1.0: initial release
01st Aug: v2.0: review following preliminary feedback, tweaked game music and fixed several interactions, improved walkcycle
02nd Aug: v2.1: critical bug fix (save/load issue)
03rd Aug: v2.2: critical bug fix (rope/combat knife issue)
30th Dec: v3.0: Final MAGS release (list of changes below)
30th Dec: v3.1: Removed debug mode. Duh.

Changes in the final release of the MAGS version:

Spoiler: ShowHide

*New title screen
*New GUI graphics
*Revised walkcycle
*New animations
*Proof reading
*New hotspot interactions
*All item interactions should now work two ways
*New help menu
*Bugfixes

[selmiak]

...a wild longplay appears...

filled with SPOILERS!!!

[Kastchey]

/hits the longplay for 1 points of view

Thanks selmiak for both the video and the review in the description.
And I've just discovered how useful a playthrough video is for finding spelling errors and missing interactions

[KyriakosCH]

I saw the video playthrough. Nice!
But it ends when things were getting more interesting

[Kastchey]

Well that's MAGS for you Sorry for the cliffhanger.
But it's always nice to get a seal of approval from a fan of the horror genre, so thank you =)

[LostTrainDude]

Congrats Kastchey! A very nice little game with an incredibly spot on eerie atmosphere!
Always a big fan of your work

[Kastchey]

Thanks LostTrainDude! That's really inspiring... I don't want to make promises because you know all too well how this usually ends , but I'm at least *hoping* to expand the game a little after this month's voting phase.

[Kh4n]

Very good one! Lots of inventory interaction and puzzles, very knowledgeable. Those elements and the mystery got me into it.
I really hope you finish it, it's great!

[Kastchey]

Thank you Kh4n! Looking at the feedback so far, people do seem to enjoy the puzzles (which is awesome, given I had thought I wasn't very good at puzzle design) so if I manage to release a finished version there is definitely going to be more focus on that aspect.

[Kh4n]

Thank you Kh4n! Looking at the feedback so far, people do seem to enjoy the puzzles (which is awesome, given I had thought I wasn't very good at puzzle design) so if I manage to release a finished version there is definitely going to be more focus on that aspect.

I find the puzzles very good, complicated enough not to be found too easily but logical. You have to pay attention to what's said and think, and thus it's rewarding.

[Kastchey]

I found cat's post about adding games to DB very persuasive, so I did just that and added The Shaft to the game database.

The version uploaded is the polished version of the MAGS entry which I said I would upload one day. The full list of new/changed features is below.
There are no changes to the puzzles, storyline and length of the game, so there won't be much new content if you have played the original version from July/August 2018. Unless you want to replay it for the extra eye candy, of course =)

Changes in the final release of the MAGS version:

*New title screen (because the old one was a 5 minutes "Oh crap I forgot I need a title screen" job)
*New GUI graphics (should hopefully improve the readability or the inventory window, + added extra features such as dialogue skipping mode)
*Revised walkcycle (still not ideal but not as abysmal as the old one)
*New animations (almost every interaction is animated now)
*Proof reading (Durq did an amazing job, thank you!)
*New hotspot interactions (Not as many as I would like to, but there is an improvement)
*Two ways interactions (I *hope* I pinned down all the missing ones but if I didn't, please let me know!)
*New help menu (Not sure if the help menu will actually help someone, but at least I tried)
*Bugfixes (And lots of them.. =()

****Download v3.1****

[Durq]

I just played through this one again. Nice improvements!

[Kastchey]

Thanks Durq!

I didn't want to make any significant changes to the game because the MAGS version needs to remain the MAGS version, more or less, but happy to hear that the small improvements I made were rewarding enough.

[selmiak]

Just wondering, why do you call it MAGS version in the DB when you just said you finally uploaded the polished version?

[Kastchey]

Because I'm looking to release an extended version (i.e. with more storyline and puzzles) and I didn't want it mixed up with the MAGS one, polished or not. I've seen people do that before.

But the discrepancy did bug me a bit too, so perhaps it would work better to change the title slightly when I add the extended version to the DB - optimistically assuming it WILL ever get released.

[cat]

Great that you added the game and that you gave it some polish!
I remember the great atmosphere but also some of the puzzles being overly difficult because of missing descriptions and two way interactions. I'm glad that this should be sorted now.

Changing the title of the database entry shouldn't be a problem. Just keep in mind to create a new database entry when you significantly change the game (i.e. more than a bugfix but a real extended version).

[Kastchey]

Thanks cat!

Yes, that was pretty much my thinking - a version with real changes would become a new database entry.

[Creamy]

Good game. The craft dimension is probing and it looks neat. I'm curious to see where it goes next.

A small bug:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Once the glass is broken, the up walking view is used when the player is speaking.

[Kastchey]

Thanks Creamy for playing and for the bug report!
And for posting the comment in the DB, too =)