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Messages - JD_Mortal

#1
Trying to run the supplied "Demo game"...

I get an error...
"Access to the path 'Speech' is denied."

Then it crashes and exits. There is no "Speech" folder or files... Only 'Music' and 'Sound' folders in the demo. I assume something is hard-coded to "look in folders", but it just assumes the folder exists, trying to look inside a non-existent folder for "something". If not that, than it is coded somewhere in the demo file, which, at some point, may have had 'Speech', but later moved stuff to 'sounds'... But the code still has a path-call for 'Speech', even though it never uses it. (So nothing would have been exported, and the folder never existing. You should check for unused resources and remove them, at compile time. Being used in code is not the same as "being used", if nothing ever calls for that "thing", or the "thing" is not used anywhere other than a declaration of a path, which is never used as a called value.)

Anywho... Back to playing. Since the demo is essentially dead and thus, a demo of what not to do... sort-of.

EDIT: Manually creating the folders got me a little further... Had to create a few... All are missing and it is looking inside for them.
"Speech"
"AudioCache"
"Compiled"

Now I am getting "User access denied", you do not have permissions to write to folders/files in this directory... It is trying to compile inside of the program directory, which is shouldn't be doing. It should be compiling inside of a windows temp-folder with disposable junk, not user folders. (Thus, the permissions failure.) Otherwise the program should be registered as the "User", or as "All users", or the setup should follow with "First, setup your program to run with Admin privileges, or User privileges."... if that is a requirement to "run". (Even a note on first-run, would be sufficient, if it also has instructions.)

Honestly it is odd that it doesn't have permission to edit files in the EXE's own directory. Time to update the installer, it obviously isn't setup to install into windows correctly.

Trying to use the "Horn" with the "Crack in the wall"... Get error... "prepare script: error - 18 (no such function in script) trying to run 'hotspot0_a' (Room 14)"

Honestly, I don't get the demo. What is it showcasing? It is huge unreadable pixels and poor functional click-GUI and no guidance of what is going-on. It is also annoyingly loud and noisy.

One usually thinks of a "demo", as a form of showcase of "what we can do", or "our ability"... Not just something made for the sake of making something, and providing it to look at, with bad examples of function and devoid of "what we are looking at"... It obviously isn't good graphics or sound or GUI interaction, or game-play... Not trying to sound offensive, just telling my opinion of what I saw before I couldn't take it anymore and the demo-game crashed... again, again...
#2
Critics' Lounge / Re: Help for a newbie
Sun 01/11/2015 05:32:13
Not sure what real-estate the GUI, if any, will consume... or other things...

But, as stated, it seems like a wide open space, without any mentioned explanation or reason to justify it.

Good pixel art though.

I would think about the following, when designing a scene...
1: What needs to be seen? (Fridge, Door, Wall, Floor) * Floors are not often "looked at" or "seen", without reason. Eg, navigational purposes.
2: Important "things", (Fridge, Door, Exit-Left, Exit-Right)
3: Feeling... (Close and intimate, part of the scene... or... Distant and observational, third-person "looking in".)
4: Reality-scale + Artistic touch + Ability = The scene limitation.

The fridge, with those corners, looks like an old-old-old fridge... but not like the first electric fridges. (They have chillers on top 1920-1940.) That could be a pre-electric ice-box, or an older fridge from the 40/60's? If that is the time-period, then it is "fitting"... However, police-stations are not often filled with retro-deco or "period" stuff. I would personally square it up and focus on the handles to identify it as a fridge... Bottom vents too.

I would zoom-in a lot more, to turn it into a scene, not a scenery. (Scene = Intimate area), (Scenery = Landscape)

I would lower the fridge so the feet are not aligned with the floor-to-wall corner. Your floor, is simulated 3D, so the fridge, which has depth, would touch outward from the wall. Thus, the front would be touching the edge of the first tile in the horror-version. If it was a side-scroller, there would be no floor, and thus, that would be cement-foundation we are looking at. (Or naturally blackness as it is unseen, like in these classic games.)

I would put the door at 1/4, the fridge at 1/4 and each exit at 1/4, scene-space for width of the screen. Each within those 1/4 cells, but not occupying more than half of each area.

[Exit]---[Door]---[Fridge]---[Exit]
not this...
[Exit]------------------------[Door]------------------------[Fridge]------------------------------[Exit]

Also staying within the "2/3" or "3/5" golden-zone, for heights of the doorway and fridge. Use lights for the ceiling to fill space and make the floor a lot less consuming. We stand higher than 3/5ths of the room horizon, we see more ceiling and top-stuff than floor and bottom-stuff. Plus, time is money/fun... The less time you/they spend walking around to get to something, the better. Walking across a wide screen that is zoomed-out, takes a lot of time. You walk 4x faster close-up. (Plus, if you don't see the feet, that is less to deal with in animation.)

Also adding... Foreground fill-in, will help to bring depth to the scene. Directly in front of the camera, put "stuff"... As if the camera is looking in a window and seeing over a shelf or counter, or the back-side of lockers and chairs and tables. Stuff you might find in a break-room, that does not need coloring. You could get away with using silhouette shadows as fill-in foreground, or even just shadows of things on the floor, to look like there is something just out of view of the camera. (That will occupy some floor real-estate without actually occupying real-estate on the floor.)

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