Topic: Metaphobia

[KyriakosCH]

Hello everyone, thank you so much for checking out Metaphobia! This project was so incredibly fulfilling for me to work on. I was ecstatic to see the download ticker go up to 2 downloads and I can't wait to see where it takes off to. Thanks so much to everyone on the team for letting me write the music and handle the voice acting process!

I've released the soundtrack on all streaming platforms, with spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/album/6dV2tvj7IUCUL891fLdJWl
and bandcamp here:
https://dankoby.bandcamp.com/album/metaphobia-official-game-soundtrack

(it's also on like Apple Music, iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, Pandora, Deezer, Tidal, etc etc)

Here's some fun facts:
There's 2,820 unique voice acting audio clips
3 hours and 30 minutes of dialogue
3079 total sound assets
178 pages of dialogues/monologues

2 downloads? It will go to 2000 downloads in the very near future, cause it is a very well-made game
I played a bit (currently had to stop, and I loved the game up to now; I am about to go to the prison center to interview that shady character ).

[Jojo_the_monkey]

Dkobylarz the music is very nice too!!! How much length is the whole soundtrack?

[Dkobylarz]

Dkobylarz the music is very nice too!!! How much length is the whole soundtrack?

Thanks so much! The soundtrack is 1 hour and 2 minutes

2 downloads? It will go to 2000 downloads in the very near future, cause it is a very well-made game
I played a bit (currently had to stop, and I loved the game up to now; I am about to go to the prison center to interview that shady character ).

Woohoo!!! Thanks for the kind words 

[lorenzo]

I've just finished the game. Loved it!

It has a nice story, a mix of adventure and thriller. I really liked the flow: puzzles weren't too difficult (I only got stuck once, but Vincent kindly saved me! ), and that gave the game a nice rhythm. You always feel like you're making progress in your quest.

Graphics are great! Backgrounds always look good (the ruins background wouldn't look out of place in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis!) and animations are quite impressive. Congratulations on those, some great rotoscoping there.

I can see some influences from Gabriel Knight in the setting and atmospheres. Which is great, because I love that game! Also

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the jail seemed straight out of Silence of the Lambs!

The soundtrack is fantastic, really high quality. Dubbing was pretty good, too.

In fact, graphics, dubbing, music, it was all professionally done. Commercial quality, I would say.

Playing the game was great fun. Puzzles usually made sense and I really liked the

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translation ones.

Story-wise,

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I wish the final section were a bit expanded. You finally find the island and it's over a bit too quickly. I would've loved to explore the place, but we only get a glimpse of what's there. Also, it's a bit exposition-heavy. You get two characters that, basically, tell you the whole plot. It's not bad, but it could've been a bit more involved.
The final cutscenes are great, however!

All in all, I really enjoyed the game. Congratulations to all involved! 

[Grundislav]

Saw this and played through it this morning. Nice work! Great to see other developers embrace rotoscoping, and I was extra impressed by the sheer amount of sub-pixel animation that went into it.

The story was cool, although I have to admit:

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The mustache disguise puzzle was a bit silly and tonally inconsistent in an otherwise serious game. It wasn't so much the concept of disguising yourself with a mustache, but the execution of it. If the receptionist hadn't been looking at you the whole time, or Richard hadn't immediately called and explained to Judy that he had used a disguise to sneak past the receptionist while she was still in earshot, it might not have sparked my nerd-rage. Then again, the receptionist didn't come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer

Again, great work!

[Digital Mosaic Games]

Thanks for all your feedback guys! We appreciate it!

Saw this and played through it this morning. Nice work! Great to see other developers embrace rotoscoping, and I was extra impressed by the sheer amount of sub-pixel animation that went into it.

That means a lot to me. And thanks again for showing us Edwyn Tiong and his connection to voiceactors!

[SarahLiz]

Oh, wow.  I've just started this game (how many hours of gameplay would you say there is?  Just curious...) and I've gotta echo others' sentiment that I would have GLADLY paid money for it.  It's really well-done with an interesting story line and some amazing graphics.  I'm not very far into it yet, but cannot wait to play it further and see how it develops.  Thank you so much for making it, I know it will have tons of downloads!

[sthomannch]

What a good game! Extremely fine piece, nice story, very polished. It was interesting from the beginning to the surprising end. Congratulation. And thank you for giving this away for free. I can only imaging how much effort you put into it.

[KyriakosCH]

Very good game Finished it now.
I suppose there is only one ending?

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 Mads Michelsen is now reptilian 

[Tampere]

I promise to leave a more articulated review but... those rotoscoped actions are awesome and so fluid!
How long did it take to film/pixel them? Titanic task!

edit:

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Ending was a punch in the gut! I am still crying.

[SarahLiz]

Just finished it!  What a great game.  The graphics are that awesome, 90's Lucasarts-style that I've always loved.  The storyline is really intriguing and reminded me at first of starting out in Lamplight City--one of my all-time favorites.  My only gripe was the second translation puzzle (I know that some people liked it), but if I hadn't screwed it up in the first place, it might have been less frustrating.  And that ending!

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  I assume there's no other possible ending?  That was pretty brutal to come so far, only to be turned into Hitler-Lizard!  What about his daughter & Judy?  I guess not every story has a happy ending, eh?  I agree with another poster that it seemed a little bit abrupt...but it didn't affect how much enjoyment I got out of the game, so who cares? 

Overall, I had a lot of fun playing and you guys are extremely talented...like I said before, I would have gladly paid money to play it.  Commercial quality for sure.

[Digital Mosaic Games]

I promise to leave a more articulated review but... those rotoscoped actions are awesome and so fluid!
How long did it take to film/pixel them? Titanic task!

We could film the actors in front of a greenscreen in 3 sessions. The pixel-work took me about almost 2 years.
I could get through this process because I'm a huge fan of rotoscoped animations like Prince of Persia 1, Sierra Games (especially Gabriel Knight 1), or clocktower.
My love for these graphics started actually with seeing Ben Jordan 1 deluxe as a teenager .

[KyriakosCH]

It certainly is the best kind of animation

[Kweepa]

The pixel-work took me about almost 2 years.

It shows! Great work!

[TheFrighter]

We could film the actors in front of a greenscreen in 3 sessions. The pixel-work took me about almost 2 years.
I could get through this process because I'm a huge fan of rotoscoped animations like Prince of Persia 1, Sierra Games (especially Gabriel Knight 1), or clocktower.

Well dear DMG, next time a commercial game! Your efforts deserve it!   

_

[KyriakosCH]

We could film the actors in front of a greenscreen in 3 sessions. The pixel-work took me about almost 2 years.
I could get through this process because I'm a huge fan of rotoscoped animations like Prince of Persia 1, Sierra Games (especially Gabriel Knight 1), or clocktower.

Well dear DMG, next time a commercial game! Your efforts deserve it!   

_

Indeed!

[luisdementia]

wow, this game looks awesome! it seems to have everything i like from an adventure game, downloading right now

congrats on the release!!!

[Khris]

I finished it and gotta say, the amount of work that went into this must have been pretty insane. This could have easily gone commercial, especially regarding the quality of the background graphics and animations.

Awesome job everyone!

[Shadow1000]

My thoughts on the game:

Overall the game is awesome! The strong points are the graphics and animation which are completely professional grade. I had to look on Wikipedia to find out what rotoscoping is, but I was amazed at the ultra-smooth animation. It's rare that backgrounds and sprites are so well-done that it tops the list of strong points of a game but I have to mention this aspect first. Most of the voice acting, particularly the protagonist and some others could easily be Hollywood-grade.  Someone pointed out

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 the silence of the lambs nod which I also recognized.

I liked the story. Without giving away any detail, the plot and characters were interesting and engaging and the pacing of the story and how the backstory and interactions between characters unfold compared to the game was really good. This is a real art and really impacts how enjoyable a game is. When stories get too complicated or detailed, I usually find myself lost and unengaged but in this case it was spot on.

The puzzles were fun! With little exception, they were challenging enough to be a challenge but almost never to the point of frustration. There's a great variety of puzzles ranging from dialogue to inventory items, to pass-code deciphering and so on. I only had to get one tip from the forum.

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That said, I did need help with the puzzles at the end. I don't want to get into detail because people read spoilers before playing but while the idea was good, I'm not sure how many players would be able to solve those independently

There really is a lot more to be said about this release but it's hard to be specific about many of the aspects that I enjoyed without giving away too much so I'll conclude here.

In all, it's clear that an incredible amount of work was invested into this game by a talented team. All of  you have a lot to be proud of. After the celebration, get to work on your next release!

Cheers

[Two Tales]

I've only watched the trailer and the character animations alone make me want to play it. I'm going to have to give it a go.