A Vampyre Story Discussion
 

A bilingual demo (english and german) was just released this evening, so if you want to try it out.....follow the link!!

Link followed, demo downloaded and installed, game played for about forty-five minutes, demo uninstalled due to boredom. I'm glad that they released it - now I perfectly know that this isn't the game for me!

Oh good, a demo!

Currently downloading now, but the transfer rate isn't particularly good so i could be waiting a little while.

Radott. I moved your query to the Help forum. Hopefully someone will be able to solve your problem.

Why did it take you so long? ;)
I thought the puzzle was a bit convoluted and some of the jokes fell flat, but apart from that I liked it. :)

I just find it interesting what some people consider boring and others fun. For me A Vampyre Story seems to be the most fun adventure since.....well Edna Bricht Aus, so since a few months. ;)
Just played through Blackstone Chronicles which I thought was pretty boring so I fighted my way through it with a walkthrough. I think other people find it more intriguing.

It's easier for me to understand when people hate or love something than when they consider something to be boring or fun.

Ozzie, I'm not much for light-hearted, comedic adventure games. This kind of humor simply falls flat to me. I didn't laugh a single time.

That sure was a short demo. The graphics and animations are great but the voice acting wasn't really to my liking. The humour varies between flat boring and pretty funny. The puzzles wasn't exactly mindblowing and I don't really know what to make of the story although the horror-theme is fun.

Well, I only laughed a single time, but still, overall it was quite amusing.
I can't remember laughing while playing Monkey Island either, it wasn't laugh out funny, imo, but also more constantly amusing.

Well, I take it that it also failed to amuse you. :)

I can see it been more funnier when the full game is here but overall I thought it was okay kinda reminded me of the CMI demo. Besides it was only a demo so they'll not want to spoil the best jokes and leave them for later.

On the one hand, I'm glad to see a demo being released. It means the game is pretty much a wrap. On the other hand, the reception that it's getting right out of the box doesn't sell me one way or the other.

I don't think I'm even going to bother with the demo, but I'm more than likely going to purchase the game when it's available to do so. Maybe first I'll wait for the official AG review, though.

Very weird. It's been a few weeks (which for my memory is an eternity), but I'd swear that's not the same voice for Mona I heard when shown a preview of the full game recently. I'm wondering if (and hoping) the North American version overhauled some of the voiceovers.

I really hope Mona's voice in the demo is not the one in the North American release. I assume she is supposed to have a French accent, but it sounded more like she had a speech impediment. It annoyed me so much that I found myself rushing through the demo to get it over with, so I don't think I can give a proper opinion on the gameplay--I was wincing too much. Maybe I will go back and play it with the sound off. I was really looking forward to this game so this omnipresent annoyance hit me like a ton of bricks. Hopefully, if it is in the final release, the voice is just something I will get used to.

I got the sense Mona was a rather ditzy girl before she was turned into a vampire, and I think watching her prove her mettle would be rather endearing...without that grating voice...

I'm checking on the voice thing with the publisher, so I'll report back one way or the other.

Am I the only one running into a fair amount of glitches in the demo? Maybe it's just my computer...

Well, I had some clipping problems where Mona walked through certain objects...

even though this thread header is kinda misleading towards the discussion (should be changed to game/demo discussion, as it implies a hater thread)

i just finished the demo and am very pleased. the graphics and atmosphere are top notch and make it worth the purchase for me already. the facial expressions of the characters are just stunning and i like the whole art direction.

i'm playing the german voiced version and at first i was kinda taken aback as well with the french accent. however it grew on me and i really like the style now. this isn't laugh out loud comedy, but then again should it be? or should it try? its a very unique style and once you accept that thats what they're going for its a pure pleasure to play. for me at least. very unique advernture. definate must buy on my end.

theres nothing more fun than run around in a dark graveyard in an adventure game, as we've done in the past w/ monkey island. i'm hoping for more atmospheric scenery to come in this game

not sure what glitches you're referring to, the only glitch i noticed is that sometimes her cape clips through some objects that are supposed to be in the foreground. minor issue.

I love a French accent--as long as it sounds like a French accent. Mona's voice is so gratingly high it set my teeth on edge, and I got the feeling that the voice actor was speaking so high up because she was trying to imitate/parody a female French accent. It sounded like the breathy French maids in other adventure games, that are meant to be stereotypes, but ohmygod...so shrill... Even if it is a comedic adventure I don't think Mona herself is supposed to be a joke. And I played the English version, not the German, so there's probably a difference there too.

That aside, I agree with you, tastebud. The art is gorgeous, vibrant colors, atmospheric music, and the facial expressions are very detailed in the cutscenes. :)

Was looking forward to this. Played the demo for a short time (will go back to it later). First impressions:
- superb graphics (as was to be expected) and atmosphere
- the 3d characters are nicely integrated and well done
- the picture quality of the (first) cutscene was not that good though. Haven't seen the others yet.
- annoying 1 pixel white line at the edge of my screen

My biggest complaint though: whoever decided on the voice of Mona should be sacked right away and so should the person who did the voice. Seriously... I don't understand something like this.

What's there seems promising but Mona's voice might actually be the deciding factor in (not) buying this game, even at 20 euro.

Yay, a demo! :) Can't wait to see what this one's like. I'll post my impressions as soon as I can...

I installed the english version. Heard Mona speak five lines and immediately uninstalled it and reinstalled it as the german version. Thank god I know some german. Seriously, how annoying can voice-acting get? Mona sounds like she's squeeking all the time.

I'm also pretty sure I had technical issues. Halfway through the demo the game 'hung' for about thirty seconds. I'm almost convinced a cutscene should have played there, as afterwards a certain door was mysteriously locked.

i'm not sure which version you played, but the german version is not that bad, and it grew on me actually. haven't tried english. if you really have such a big issues with the voice, disable the voice and just read the text, like in the good old days of adventures. If the game otherwise appeals to you i would still support the company as they have obviosuly put a lot of work into the game and we shouldn't be dissuaded from supporting a AAA adventure by a bad voice actor.

You're correct - you're supposed to see a pre-rendered cutscene there.

Had a quick look at the demo.

Good:

Jaw-dropping 2D backgrounds. It's like playing CMI in high res and 24bit color. Beautiful!

Nicely done parallax scrolling and simple but effective weather fx.


Bad:

3D models are mediocre at best.
So-so animation.


The ugly:

That voice of Mona (english version) makes me want to jump of a cliff, sorry.


Definitely buying the full version though :)

I played the english version. I wouldn't mind the french accent but the voice is so high all the time it's annoying. I just can't understand how something like this gets through quality control when nearly everyone on the forum comes to the same conclusion 1 minute after the demo is released to the public. I have huge respect for what Autumn Moon is trying to do but such things make me sad.

I will be supporting the game with my money though. Bill Tiller mentioned some weeks ago that they hired a couple of talented ex Lucasarts programmers so hopefully things will go a lot smoother for Autumn Moon in their future projects. That's something worth supporting.

Biggest problem with this demo(and many other adv demos) is that starts in some random point in the game as opposed to the beginning of the game! This way player doesn't know anything about the characters, plot, setting etc. So I didn't understand what my goal is and much of the dialogue between characters is opened to my interpretation! It makes sense in new FPS where you want to see action and new graphics but in adv game story comes first and that way you can see if you want to experience full story.

Totally agree. A sure way to ruin the player's feeling of immersion.

I just learned there is an "intro" movie in the demo files explaining Mona's quest for grave dirt. For some reason it doesn't activate itself in the demo, but you can view it separately with RADTools

It's in the folder:

...\A Vampyre Story Demo\game\assets\movies\bink

Well I just finished playing it and I am disappointed/relieved that everybody else found Mona's voice as annoying as I did. No offense to the voice actor...


The Good:
1. The art is wonderful, as expected.
2. Cutscenes are short and sweet.
3. The music doesn't blow you away but it does a great job of pulling you into the world. Pleasantly eerie.
4. Dialog isn't hilarious but I was kept interested. Some funny lines if you play around with the objects enough.

The Bad:
1. Mona's voice.
2. Puzzle was a bit convoluted.
3. Maybe it's just me but I don't like all of the "ideas" and hints.

I don't expect this game to be the next DOTT or MI but I believe I'll enjoy it. Many thanks to the producers for this game! I know they fought hard to get a publisher and I pre-ordered my copy a long time ago to show my appreciation :D.

Only just tried it for a few minutes, so i can't comment a lot about it yet. Yet again, another one who wasn't keen on Mona's voice. Definitely sounded too high - almost like a little girl. Couldn't detect that much of a french accent either.

No problems with the graphics, but then like i said, i've only played it for a few minutes. I, too, experienced a delay at the start and wondered if a cutscene was supposed to play.

I just hope the voice actress is different in the final version, although i very much doubt it. :frown: Shame really. That one aspect will more than likely ruin my enjoyment.

Cutscene didn't play for me either there. I did skip the Directx install when that came up during the installation, so that may be related.

And now I'm stuck in a room with a gap under the door that I'm sure I could squeeze a bat through... :(

Bad voice acting can ruin an otherwise funny game. What a shame. I hope there's an option to turn the voice acting off.

The acting's OK, it's just the pitch. And if the speech files are cracked (fsb files?) maybe someone will pitch shift them down a little?

Also, I reinstalled with the dirextx files, now the cutscenes show up and things are a bit easier to figure out.

Nice puzzle, overall!

Couldn't understand a damn word Shrowdy said though, the cutscenes could do with subtitles too.

Just played the demo. I have been waiting for this game ever since it was announced. Bottom verdict: I liked it. It has a good feeling for those who liked this kind of games in the past. There are some flaws that have already been mentioned.

The demo starts you are like "hey, we are gonna hear Mona's voice" and then it's like "where did that come from? :pan:". Then I got used to it and I found it kind of cute in the end :P. What really bothered me was the quality of the cut-scenes, the fact that the demo starts in the middle and it even has some spoilers for crying out loud... The puzzle was fun!

Anyway as I said just the feeling of this game is enough to make everything else go away for me. I can't wait to get my hands on my copy!

Yeah, it does make you miss Telltale style in-game cutscenes rather than lower res pre-rendered ones.

Man, some definite solid production values here... with one voice related exception.

And two things I really liked:

(1) Tab button displaying all interactive spots
(2) Idea for putting large things in the inventory without carrying them around. I don't know if any other game has used this idea, but it was about time someone did something clever about this. It was a bit annoying :D

I ran into some that were more threatening. The first one was when

Spoiler:

I couldn't interact with the puddle. It was there, the tab showed it, but I couldn't click it. I started a new game and then ran into a glitch where I could walk out of the room after it was locked. FYI, the game unsurprisingly didn't let me proceed. 3rd try, the game would close after I extinguished the fire. A couple more tries, she wouldn't recognize that the fire was out so I couldn't fly through. Most of these problems were solved when I reloaded the game or retried on a new one and came back to the old one. I have no idea what's causing it.

Anyway, I agree that Mona's voice was surprisingly annoying. But I got used to it after a while and just assumed it was a character flaw. I won't judge the comedy since we saw only a snippet of it.

I definitely intend to buy this game when it comes out. I think we can all agree that the background art is beautiful, and I thought the music was very appropriate and atmospheric. It gave me the same feeling I had when I played CMI, so I have no qualms getting AVS for those factors alone. That, and I do find the story intriguing.

Demo impression: love it!
It really has that golden age Lucas Arts feel to it.

Though, as most have already mentioned: the voice of Mona.. uh.. i had to turn the voice volume down to 20%, to make it bearable.
3d characters looks good, just a bit low-poly to compete with such detailed backgrounds.

Other than this, it's great. While the humor is very light and a bit generic, the atmosphere and whole feel of the game really shines.
It's very, very promissing. Can't wait for the full version.

Can anyone provide a faster download link for the demo? Worthplaying and Filefront are both slow as hell, especially the former. Can't find a torrent for it either.