Messages

Thanks for the feedback, Tabata!
I've always used the "Wait, what?" response as a default "no interaction available, try something else" -response, but apparently some people dislike it quite a bit. I'll probably change it into something a little more neutral.

I might also end up combining the candle and the lighter into a separate item you can use to set and light the candle with only one visit to the inventory. This should make things a little neater and easier to use.

[> See that door to the right? Go through that!]

-----

> See that door to the right? Go through that!

Geez, no need to get hasty!

You follow the command of the anxious voice in your head and head back SOUTH, into the kitchen.
The water has begun forming a pool around the drain you entered the kitchen through earlier. No way all that water came from the freezer, though. Something seems to be flooding the sewers below!

Who can fix the search? Why haven't they? Is it a big issue or a small one that nobody has just gotten to?

@mkennedy: I can see what you are getting at, but I don't quite agree.

I want to make it so that no matter what the player chooses, the game should still be possible to complete and a valid ending should be available. If the player can just use saved games to see where all the choises go and can then pick the one the player likes the most, that just diminishes the importance of the choises the player gets to make and deduces from the atmosphere.

I am intentionally trying to make the game so that the player has to make decisions and so that the results of those decisions can be seen only after some time to discourage trying to see everything in one play through. There will be multiple endings, but only one of them is true for YOU. It's the one you encounter on your first play through and it was formed from YOUR decisions, be they good or bad ones.

Well, at least that's the theory and that's what I am aiming for.

@ Grim: I implemented some keyboard shortcuts in the latest version, those should make the inventory at least a little bit easier to navigate (there are quick buttons to open and close the inventory).

The green inventory screen is a mistake, I will reupload a new version right-friggin-now. It seems I keep forgetting to remove my debug features from the demo every now and then, this is one of those.
EDIT: reuploaded now, no more green debug-screen... Sorry about that!

@ Snake: I'll darken the bars on the signal part. I tried to make them darker than the basic colour because at least on my cell all the bars show all the time, but only the correct amount of bars is highlighted. I tried to replicate that, but maybe it's not clear enough.  

@mkennedy

Why do you need to name them? And why do you need more than three?

The reason so far I've limited the number of saved games is to at least slightly prevent save scumming and backtracking through saved games. If I could, I would limit saved games to one per user, but as that is a bit too difficult to do, I have decided to go with 3 saved games.

I made a design choise not to include light sources you can carry on with you when you move. Some explanations I thought of were: "candlewax is hot and uncomfortable on hand" but you could just wear a glove or wrap the candle in something. "Candle burns out" but then that would make it too easy for the player to run out of candles and the candles will indeed be a limited resource in the final game. Then I decided on "cannot carry the lighter when moving because the light is not strong enough and goes out with the movement of air around it". It's good enough for Sarah.

Another, better, reason is that I just didn't like the look of the light when Sarah was moving around with it. Since the light is created with transparent layers drawn over other graphics, I always had a little lag between how Sarah moved and how the light moved. Moving light also makes the lack of realistic shadows from characters and objects far more obvious.

And most important of all: if you can just walk around the rooms with an active source of light all the time, then there would not be dark places in the game by default, and that wouldn't be scary. Now that I know the light is off by default and has to be requested by the player, I can better manage how things react to the light and using the light to spot items, hotspots and such that are hidden in the dark becomes a valid gameplay mechanic.

Come on, in what horror movie do you see the main character in a dark place with a steady source of light? There is also a flickery flashlight or something!

@Snake: Cool avatar, dude! And no, no matter how much people want to, there will be no way to carry light sources while moving. You can use the lighter at any time, though, to create light for as long as you are standing still.

@mkennedy: I actually have something like this in mind for the full game. Don't worry. 

ERROR: Unable to go EAST
Do you want to use the DOOR to the SOUTH?

I should really add a GUI element: a compass. Then again, I would always forget to update it and it would point all over the place, so maybe not...

I have payday tomorrow...
I haven't played any of the previous games...
The DVD comes with all the previous games as well as the new one...

Hmmmm, I can see a pattern emerging!

Reuploaded the game and updated the download link in the games page.
Thanks to Khris for his great help!

[> move the shelves]

-----

> move the shelves

You try to move all of the shelves, but they move mere millimeters and the wheels make a horrible screeching noise. As far as you can see through the shelves, there are only more of the blue boxes on shelf 1, although you can't read any labels on them.

Thank's a bunch Khris! I think I can get it working with your... well... readymade script.
I didn't want to start another thread about this and couldn't find anything with the search function on the forums down, so I went with a workaround earlier. If you notice the demo has been reuploaded later today, that means I got this fixed! 

Anyway, great stuff anyway! And yes. very Silent Hill feeling, which if you didn't know, is my favorite franchise!

Glad to hear. Silent Hill games are one of the sources I use for ideas and feel of the game, along with a few others. I never had the nerve to finish any of the Silent Hill games myself, so I want to try to catch that same nervous and anxious feeling that kept me from finishing.

Great stuff, very Silent Hill!

Will comment further but gotta run.

Just two small issues:
-Opening a cellphone document doesn't update the top bar although the phone is in DocReader mode.
-You should add code so right clicking to de-select inside the inventory works also if not over an item.

Thanks for the feedback!

Issue 1: That's a bug right there, will fix that and see about reuploading the game later on

Issue 2: I tried, by Ye Gods I tried! After failing and failing I just added a deselect inventory item button in the inventory. If you have an idea on what I should put in on_mouse_click to do what you described, feel free to give me a hint, man! I recall trying some variations of the mouse_click_inv or something, but I didn't get it working.

EDIT:
Not sure if you'll notice this, Khris, but here is what I have in the mouse_click script at the moment, and this is what I thought would work, but as you can see, it only works if the player clicks on an inventory item, not in the empty inventory window. The issue might also have to do with how the GUI is built, though...  

Code: ags

if (button == eMouseRightInv) {
    if (player.ActiveInventory != null) {
      player.ActiveInventory = null;
    } else {
      InventoryItem *ytem = InventoryItem.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
      ytem.RunInteraction(eModeLookat);
    }
  }

Well how boring would a horror game be if you could just create light everywhere and keep the light on all the time? The way the light is created with overlays and such also limits what I can do with it.

After your CV is done, whatever it is like, READ IT YOURSELF, find errors and fix them thoroughly.
After that, ask your girlfriend/boyfriend/pet monkey to read it and give feedback and point out typo's, fix them thoroughly.
AFTER THAT: ask you mother/father/distant cousin/alien abductor to read the damn thing and make damn well sure there are no typo's in it!

One typo in your CV, if noticed, can sometimes be the difference of getting a job / interview / anal probe.

Hope this helps. 

I do admit the scrolling room stutter is an eyesore. I think it should be possible to overcome it by manually controlling the viewport, but I haven't looked into it yet. I think there was also a smooth scrolling module somewhere, I think Ali did it, but I haven't used it yet.

This is actually kind of awesome. Does this mean I can go home from work now and start coding He Watches some more?

@ Gameboy: Glad to hear you are liking the demo so far!

@ Domithan: I recommend you play the demo. It comes with a request for feedback which might end up altering the future of this game, so all feedback is good.