Messages

Wow, that was fantastic! It felt like a cross between Grim Fandango and Flight Of The Amazon Queen (with a far less annoying control scheme than either of them). I loved the story and the puzzles, it goes without saying that I loved the graphics and animation, and the music was great too.

There were a few missing capital letters and apostrophes here and there, but nothing else was wrong with the game. Great work with this - I'm excited for the next chapter!

Woah. Okay, I'm sorry to offend. I used the word "horrid" because I really didn't much like them - I suppose the word was a little strong, but it was hyperbole for an effect.

The effect being that my thoughts about the game were really quite positive overall, despite my dislike of the graphics.

[experience]

I finished this game quite a while ago, and haven't got around to saying anything until now. So, here goes:

The graphics are an eyesore and I don't know how I managed to look at them for the entire game, but I did. And that, I think, is a testament to this game's brilliance.

Even with the horrid graphics, I got immersed in the game. I was compelled to finish it, and I was moved by it at some moments. Even now, months later, I can remember the pivotal story moments clearly. This game was an experience.

I especially liked the name (as many others have) and the potion puzzle (got it first time without a walkthrough). Keep up the awesome work - I hope to play something like this again in the future!

PS: On some level, I think the graphics made it what it is. It was kinda like playing a child's drawing. I'm not sure how well it would've worked if it'd been masterfully illustrated.

PPS: I just went into the game's folder and all the files have somehow deleted themselves (or I did something weird). Does this game really exist, or was it just some surreal dream?

Really? Subtitle speech? Because that's what I want to turn off - I know you can turn off audio speech, but I'd never do that in this game.

Well presented - good graphics, spiffy effects, nice voice acting, and good job with the SFX. Nice job - I'm excited for the sequel!

On the negative side, the textual speech had a few too many grammatical, spelling and punctuation-related errors, and there were times when it didn't match up with the speech too well. This game would not have worked nearly as well without the voice-acting.

To that end, I'd like to have the option to turn off the game's textual speech, so I don't have my immersion ruined by the unsightly aforementioned errors.

The puzzles weren't bizarre and far-fetched, and I didn't get stuck too many times, so that's a thumbs up in that regard.

I think you can also work on the dialogue options - some of the everpresent ones felt as if they should've been once-offs, if you know what I mean (especially with Sarah).

On the whole, it was good. Now finish the second episode so I can find out what happens next! =)

I never used to like drawing background before, but now... You have made an artist of me.

I won last year. 50 087 words in <30 days (started late). Don't have time this year, though.

I noticed a lot of "im"s instead of "I'm"s, but maybe I haven't downloaded the latest version.

I didn't like it, and here's why:
- In my opinion, when it comes to adventure games, good writing is of paramount importance, outweighing even graphical clarity. This game did not have good writing. It had spelling mistakes. Most of which were careless. You're making an adventure game, not MSNing with your pals!
- The hall. I really didn't like that hall. It had a bunch of doors, and that was it. It didn't need to be the size of a sports stadium just for the sake of a few doors!
- The lack of interactions. If I have actions, I should be able to get a response from doing all of them to everything, even if it's just a generic response like "I can't do that". Please put an unhandled_event section and function into your global script. Look it up in the AGS doc for more info.
- The lack of feedback on what could be interacted with. Please, have a hotspot description somewhere on the screen, or at least make the cursor change somehow when you mouse over something which can be interacted with. And please make things that stand out in the room be interact-withable. That lamp and pen in the library really irritated me.
- The backgrounds and characters weren't in proportion. I refuse to believe that anyone has paintings that huge, or a closet with that high a ceiling.

On the bright side, I liked the graphics and animation. You're pretty good with that. Oh, and did you know you got featured by the IndieGames weblog a while ago?

To be honest, I haven't finished the game. It was just too painful. I only played up to when I read that diary in the lounge. Maybe it gets better, I don't know.

Sorry if I came off as a bit harsh, that's just how I felt when I played the game. Please keep my points in mind for the sequel, and any other games you intend to make in future.

Hilarious! I nearly died when

Spoiler

that John DeFoe expy suddenly appeared, when the player character knocked that grandfather clock for no apparent reason, when the dialogue portrait suddenly grew a moustache, when looking at the broken mirror in the bathroom, etc...

[close]

.

As others above have said, this game really suffers from lack of interactions. Also, I think it would really have been awesome if the player had actually picked up the broken vase pieces, because that seemed to be where the (hilarious) interaction dialogue for that was going.

Also, it'd be nice if that verbcoin GUI would materialize a little closer to the cursor, as it was irritating to have to move my cursor so much to use it.

This probably goes without saying, but in addition to more interaction dialogue for ready-existing hotspots, there should also be more hotspots. For example, I *really* wanted to be able to interact with those paintings in the Maybe-Rebbeca room.

Quite nice. Personally, I preferred Annie Android and Shifter's Box somewhat, but that's just a matter of taste. My main complaint is that I had to turn off my computer's sound because the music really grated my ears, but once again, that's just a matter of taste.

The first half of the game didn't really excite me much, but I really loved the part after you became a fly. I've never seen anything like it in an adventure game before, good job!

Can't wait for your next game!

I think what I loved most about this game was the menu song. That is what sold me. Not to say the rest wasn't great as well.

Cirque de Zale, for me. It was on a magazine cover DVD. Then after that I played the King's Quest Remakes (also on a magazine cover DVD), and the Maniac Mansion one (which I Googled, because I was in need of some LucasArts to balance out my Sierra). And then I also played Enclosure.

Before that, I had played some free SCUMM VM games (Beneath A Steel Sky, Flight Of The Amazon Queen, various demos), and a copy of the original, EGA Police Quest I found on a stiffy disk lying around the house. Oh, and Lure Of The Temptress, which I never played much, due to it being rubbish.

Around this time a year ago I was referred to 5 Days A Stranger by a friend's review, and that's what really got me into playing AGS games. 5DAS branched out into the rest of Chzo Mythos, and then into the rest of Yahtzee's games, and then into Ben Jordan, and then, and then, and then.

I now have well over a hundred adventure games on my computer. Yay!
--

At the time I played it, Cirque De Zale really amazed me, or rather, its credits amazed me. I was astounded that one person could be so multitalented as to make pretty much the entire game by herself.

I was a bit annoyed by the length of the game, though, having been spoilt by epics like Beneath A Steel Sky and Flight Of The Amazon Queen.

Overall, though, I think Cirque De Zale has made me try to hone as many skills as I can. I program, I design, I write, I make sound effects, I pixel graphics (not terribly well, but I'm getting there), and should really start trying to make music.

Cirque De Zale also showed me that adventure games don't have to be 15 hours long in order to be enjoyable. =D

I'm sure she had The White Chamber when you were done.

It's a little complicated.

Okay, here goes. I first discovered AGS sometime in 2005 when I saw a friend playing around with it. It's a bit hazy, but I think that, combined with playing Cirque De Zale (got it off a magazine cover DVD), got me interested in it, and so I copied it from said friend (he had version 2.62).

At the time, I was trying to make an adventure game in Game Maker, a program I had been using for only a few months, and naturally, was having difficulty. So I decided to switch to AGS, to see if that would make things easier.

It did. However, and I'll be honest here, I HATED working with AGS. The mixture of function_names_like_this and OnesLikeThis, combined with the iffy room editor with three seperate sections, in addition to the global and local messages, as well as the whole process you had to go through with strings, not to mention that horrid interation editor and the old resolution issues made me despise every moment I spent working in it. Yuck.

Anyway, I went back to using GM for the game after a while, and scrapped it a while later, for entirely non-technical reasons. But that's not important.

In April last year I read about AGS 3.0 in DevMag and decided to give the program another chance. Thank goodness I did.

The changes in version 3 are brilliant, absolutely marvellous. You (Chris Jones) have transformed a patchy, inconsistent, old-fashioned, clunky, illogical, and downright painful program into a streamlined joy. I salute you.

On the subject of wordy writing, it would do you good to get a copy of The Elements Of Style by Will Strunk Jnr and EB White. That book has a lot of clear rules you can memorize and use to cut down on unnecessary wordage.

Not bad, overall, but I do have a few issues with it.

"One difference you might notice..."

There's something I don't like about the way you phrased that. I think it's a bit long winded.

Perhaps you should try something like: "The people farmed like we do, they traded like we do, they feasted like we do, they praised... well, no, they didn't. Religion did not exist in their world."

Just a rough example, there are many other ways you could rephrase.

"<sentence about trained and untrained eyes>"

I felt that sentence was long winded, and not optimally constructed. I feel that something akin to "They appeared equal, but a trained eye could see that the older one was doing slightly better".

Also, your use of the word "imagine" could do with removal. It's a given that people reading a story need to imagine things, there's no need to remind them.

Are you sure about using the name "Gaia"? It's hardly original.

Some of these points are finicky and nitpicking, but take that as a compliment. It shows I can't find much major fault, so you did a good job. Well done.

"Friends don't let friends be eaten by yetis."
- Jessica Plunkenstein

"You'd make a great parent!"
- Jessica Plunkenstein (upon trying to eat bleach)

That game was soooooo funny.

"Hi!"
- Odysseus Kent (default talk response)

"Hey kid, are you digging up that ground?

No, it's just the grass has been naughty, so I'm punishing it."
- Odysseus Kent

That game was hilarious as well.

"Heh, some people would say we're all a bunch of hippies down here (Southern California).

Those people would be correct."
- Nanobots

Well, that's embarrassing. Turns out I left out a "return". =) Oops...

Mine's a fairly trivial wish:

Seeing as you can now use ordinary code in the dialogue editor, and that code can have errors in it, which are reported in the usual way, I think it would be nice if the dialogue editor had numbered lines like the script editor does.