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Not much to say really, except congrats on another masterpiece. My favorite thing you've done I think, and the fact that it's the tip of the iceberg is really exciting!

Strangely, I didn't get as stuck as others have on here, and I'm usually one of those who has to have a walkthrough at the ready at all times. I was actually worried I would finish the game before hearing all of the songs and dj portions, but it was timed almost perfectly. It had just started to loop as I went in for the last cutscene.

Yeah, I loved the really laid back, on the spot style of the narration, good job kaputtnik. I did detect an accent But I think it added a lot to the flavor.

One thing that kind of bothered me at first, was the fact that we could hear their voices on the radio, and then when the game actually starts, they talk so silently. But with the sound mixing problems I don't know if there's a good solution to that, and of course doing full voice is a lot more work than just the few lines that there were.

Great job everyone, looking forward to the next part!

Eh, I disagree. I always felt that Dollhouse had an undercurrent of "yes this is wrong", it's just not many of the characters were in a position to say so. People don't complain about other shows with moral repugnancy (or at least not enough to matter), but I guess the fact that most of the shows I'm thinking of are on cable makes a difference.

Gemini Rue is awesome! I bought this without even thinking about it or trying the demo on the strength of the publisher's previous games, I know that if they put their stamp of approval on it I'm in for an experience, and I wasn't led astray. I did pick up on the cowboy bebop and portal vibe, (even before I saw them mentioned) - the influences are maybe a little too obvious, but it's still really interesting going back and forth between the two storylines.

Great job with the artwork too. While some people complain about the low-resolution, I think the subtlety hints at a greater world. It would be much flatter in higher-res. The artstyle seems perfectly suited to its resolution. Attention to detail is astounding, such as with the paths the water makes on the soaked city streets. I don't think I've ever seen rain done so well.

Still haven't finished the game, so hopefully whatever twists there are don't disappoint

Oh, and memento reference for the win!

Loved the game, except for some of the issues that have already been mentioned. The disk 2 thing really bugged me though, because the screen flips and most of the ending screen dialog is unreadable. It kinda killed the tension, which you don't want to happen during a climax!

Don't have a problem with the joke itself, just used it at the absolute worst time

Your artwork is brilliant, I really look forward to whatever you make next.

Lol but it was more memorable this way

Yep, don't let my comments get you down, your games are improving each time, so that is cool to see. I did enjoy this game for the most part!

Yep, adventure games are about exploring and figuring stuff out. It's just there is a fine line between too obvious and too obscure. You don't want to give it away, but you don't want people to randomly click around the screen and solve the puzzle by accident either. What annoys me in games is when I know how to solve the puzzle, but am fighting the interface to accomplish it. When I find out, for instance, that my idea of a solution was correct, but I didn't click on the right pixel and needed to be left one pixel, that is a bit annoying. I am talking about the log stick, yes Also if I remember there was something in the bedroom, where he says "I don't see anything useful in there", but if you click one pixel above it you get the crossbow.

The living room thing is mostly convention. You shouldn't expect players to assume that there are 5 exits off the bottom of the screen without giving some kind of clue or hint. When you are making a game, you know the answer, so sometimes it can be hard to know what things feel like as a player. I kept getting stuck thinking I had been everywhere in the game when there was actually yet another hidden exit I missed. Some games from this perspective will draw outlines of doors. A recent example is Professor Neely, when you are walking around the house. The outline of the door to the basement and the kitchen are visible. The other solution is to use a perspective that shows the exits.

Here's a good general rule: If something in the game should be obvious to the character, it usually should be obvious to the player as well. The puzzles themselves in this game were ok, maybe a little too obvious at times, but the method of solving them required some random clicking on my part. Maybe try and make the challenge come more from the logic and less from the interface, is what I'm trying to say.

I agree with the others here, you did a fantabulous job of making a funny and interesting game out of some really random crap. I am intrigued with this kind of procedural generation stuff, and thought that the added manual touch was able to elevate it, where someone else might have just used the output of the silly story maker as is and it would not have been as entertaining. I have often dreamed of one day having a "make game" button. (Gee that would take the fun out of it though, wouldn't it)

There's definitely improvements that could be made to your version of this silly story creator, but it's pretty close to as good as it's going to get in this genre.

Also the phoenix looked a little uncomfortable lol. Like he was burning alive rather than just on fire. For some reason I felt sorry for him.

Excellent little game! I thought the art was really good, and the writing really drove the story well. It seemed to want to be a little darker than it was, the allusions to the illness she might have for instance, but then didn't quite cross the edge. Also, it really could have benefited from some sound to set the mood.

Good job!

Far too much pixel hunting. Some of the items you pick up are seemingly invisible too, or attached to another item which the main character cautions you against looking into. If you are going to hide something, make the character encourage the player to look closer at the thing its hidden in, instead of telling them to go away.

Graphics are also all over the place. You should find a graphical style that suits you and stick to it. I thought the characters and furballs looked ok, but some of the objects were hard to tell what they were. Also, the first room is very unclear where the exits are. It's not common to have more than one exit per direction in an adventure game, so if you are going to do so you need to make it clear. Since you never interact with the front door and the windows are just for show, a better idea would have been to draw the room from the opposite view, so that you can see all of the doors you can go into.

I liked the concept a lot though (love the critter movies!) Some of the writing wasn't bad either (or it was obviously intentionally bad, like the dialogue in the movies you are spoofing).

Thanks elizabeth, now I'm stuck where everyone else is

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Pretty sure it has to do with the window, Bot, or both.

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Arj0n... that doesn't help.

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I melted the super ball but can't find anywhere to use it. I have the robot arm missing the battery. Recipe says I need organic material, and bubbly, I know what bubbly is, but how do I get the battery? For organic, I thought to pick the flower, but he says "the flower is in the way" when I try to get it. That message is confusing me.

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Wow, this was really funny. My favorite part was

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when you have the magnet interface with all of the buttons, and he says to just push the magnet button. Then it sucks up all of the bullets in one go.

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Also liked the combat area where both sides are completely evenly matched, just shooting at each other forever.

I did find a very tiny bug:

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You can use the computer to call the idiot boss out of his room after he has already left.

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A lot of other great jokes in there too, and it matched the humor of the song it was inspired by pretty well. Nice job!

Gr8 game! This is one of my favorite genres, alongside adventure games. Sort of the neomodern platformer, which is insanely hard, but just possible enough to make success always at least feel in your grasp. The pseudo 3d effect is really well done, and runs fine on my computer. (Granted, I have a quad core, but still - it's got a lot to do within ags constraints). Balance so far seems almost perfect, the only thing I would change is to make the physics just a smidge less floaty. I have to correct my jumps just a bit much for my taste.

Graphics are a trip too.

Good work!

First off, great game!

Any nits I pick are only because the quality of most aspects of the game make the sore spots stand out more. In a game of less quality, the small issues are not noticeable, because the whole experience is lacking. In a game of high quality, the small issues look bigger.

I found the puzzles to be a bit, well, nonexistant. I actually don't mind this too much, as it's the first in a series. When there is a series I like the first game to be rather easier than subsequent games. I was irritated with Tales of Monkey Island when I found I got stuck on the first chapter far more often than subsequent games. Still, in later chapters I would love to have to think a bit!

I'm not sure if this is intentional, but at times McCarthy says things in the past tense. I found it a bit disconcerting that tense was not more consistent. There are obviously times where changing tense makes sense, but the way this game was set up, I think past tense should be relegated to cutscenes where he actually is narrating about the past, and not during gameplay. Just my opinion. Maybe I just haven't gotten used to the style yet (it took a while before I was used to it in Broken Sword, but at least the past tense was mostly consistent in that game).

Some of the noir lines were a bit over the top and took the tone from haunting to laughable. I suppose with noir it does need to be a little over the top, but I couldn't quite place what tone you were aiming for, as it seemed to vary a lot throughout the game.

The fireplace text for example had both of the above issues, sounding silly and being in the "wrong" tense.

But all of the very minor issues aside, it was a great experience, and I'm looking forward to part 2. A new AGS series is born!

Really great test game! The poorly drawn graphics fit so well with the story. The ending seemed a little abrupt, I think something in this same style but with a bit more meat to it could be very successful.

Crimson Wizard:

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In case you haven't figured it out yet, don't forget to try all of the options on the library!

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Rar does get better compression than zip.  I'm not sure how much better, but it is better.  Both rar and zip can be split into multiple files, which is probably what needs to be done here.

I am confused why in one case with the boat, where I skip through dialog, I get stuck and have to do something to get off the boat, but the first time I played I just went through the dialog... oh I think I know now. 

I knew what to do with the death, but was punished for clicking wrong.  It's not a matter of being too hard of a puzzle, I just thought it was unnecessary.

Thanks for reassuring me about the item collecting

It's a good game!

It's a very good game so far, although there are some things which really get on my nerves about it as well.

Jerky animation:
A lot of the animation is so jerky that it is distracting. It starts with the opening movie and doesn't stop there. I would almost prefer things to be static than to have them animate like this.  Most glaring are things like a car moving across the screen, where it jumps from the left, to the middle, to the right.  Note that the walkcycle, while it could be better, was not too bad.

Silly death:
This is a boo on me, but I had forgotten to save and did an action that did not seem dangerous at all.  I was given a warning as the action took place, but this warning did not give me a chance to alter my action.  This resulted in the game over screen and I had to start over from the beginning.  I would much prefer to have the character tell me that they shouldn't do that, or at least make the outcome of the action less harsh.

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The action was stealing the firecracker.  She should have said, "No, I will get caught!"  Or the seller could have said, "hey, what are you doing with that firecracker?" and she replies, "Er, just looking at it!"  A death and game over seems very unnecessary for the action, as well as how early in the game it is.

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Too many items from random spots

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The grabbing items from the drain was overused.  Now when I play through again from the beginning (since I died) I have to do that again and it is a bit annoying having to click several times on each drain to make sure I got them all. 

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Also, the design worries me that I will easily miss something that I need for later, and have NO idea where I could have missed it.  With 350 rooms, that's a scary thought.  But then again I can always go back to the walkthrough for these situations.

I also ran into the bug, when you first get onto the boat, I pressed escape to skip through some stuff, and the dialog ended.  Seemed no way for the boat to get to shore without being able to go through the dialog, and I can't talk to the other girl anymore.

But I like the story, the scenario is very interesting.  Starting with diving was a lot of fun.  I like long games too, so looking forward to going through this one.  It looks like you put a lot of work into it!

I almost needed help in the winter zone, but after coming back to it I noticed the solution

Add me to the ben fan club, all of your games are great.  I think this is my favorite so far.

Wow, that was great!  It's almost too good for being so short, and worth at least two playthroughs.  As others have said, the walk animation really needs more frames, its jerkiness stands out against everything else.

Some of the puzzles felt a little too cliche, I would like to be a little more stumped in the full game.  Then again, it seems like the choices might be more important than the puzzles, which could be refreshing.

I loved the game, but I have to say I totally agree about the interface.  Just because some people can get used to it, doesn't mean that's a universal.  It's not due to it being different, it's due to it being confusing.  I struggled with the left and right clicks through the entire game, and really didn't like having one of the controls (talk) be relegated to a hotkey. 

It's cool to see that at least talk will be fixed in the next one.  Having two sets of controls for inventory screen and game screen will still be confusing I think though, at least for me.  Every time you move the mouse from one area to another, you have to make a switch in your mind and remember that it switched.

Can't wait for the next one though!

I was enjoying the uniqueness of the game and the interface, until I ran into a slew of bugs.

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I had the stick and the debris, and was in the starting room.  The guards were still in the hub.  I right clicked on the main character, navigated to deep mud, and right clicked on the deep mud.  Suddenly, the main character teleported to this room bypassing the whole puzzle with the guards.  Confused, I went through the rooms, and in the hub, the guards were gone.  Then I saw some random new character in one of the rooms, and clicked on him to look at something.  Suddenly, the main character was in the exit unable to get past the escaped convict. 

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I think it's a result of the interface, but there were just too many bugs for me to continue.  Other than major technical issues, the style and puzzle design of the game seemed very good.