Adventure Gamers - Forums

Nope! Playing the DC as I think everyone else is. I’ll get through it. I think because the graphics are much crisper than they were in Pandora Directive. It’s a bit easier, and I use that word with a grain of salt, to “zero” in on an object in this game. Not easy. Just easier.

rtrooney - 15 May 2015 09:26 PM

Nope! Playing the DC as I think everyone else is. I’ll get through it. I think because the graphics are much crisper than they were in Pandora Directive. It’s a bit easier, and I use that word with a grain of salt, to “zero” in on an object in this game. Not easy. Just easier.

I’m willing to bet this is a technical problem as the interface is supposed to be slow. It should be darned easy to play the game—in fact, people used to demand a faster camera.

Make double sure that your video card drivers are fully updated and downloaded directly from the vendor (ie: Nvidia or ATI). Do not use the Microsoft drivers which historically have had lousy support for OpenGL. I believe the problem is that the game can’t enable vertical sync, which results in an hyperactive framerate and camera movement. Some video cards used to force vertical sync off for obscure reasons, so you might want to check that setting in your control panel. If it’s on “force vertical sync off”, then you know that’s the problem.

TimovieMan - 15 May 2015 03:36 PM

Had a small glitch in the game when looking out of the tower windows: in the regular screen, the sky is normal (daytime), but when looking out the window at the detail screen, the sky is black. This happens at both windows.

Yup, missing texture. We had the chance to fix that in the re-release of the game a few years ago, but honestly forgot about it. Although I know that people have been unsettled by this eerie bug, so maybe it would be best to let it be

Anyway, the game absolutely deserves top marks for its creepy atmosphere

I find this game to be similar to a classic horror movie - starts out slowly…........then builds and builds…....then the real terror begins!

As for animations - the lack of them add to the morbid atmosphere of the house.

A very enjoyable game that I will treasure in my game collection!

Agustín Cordes - 15 May 2015 09:25 PM

but first something I wanted to say about that tense first visit to the basement: the credit goes 99% to Cellar of Rats. Sure, we created the scene and that moment was scripted in the story, but CoR insisted on using that unnerving chord upon entering the basement. Personally, I felt it was lackluster—I wanted a more “traditional” approach with a less abstract layer of sound, something more movie-like, a suspenseful theme. But CoR insisted on using that damned chord and, well, you see how that turned out.

I’m marveled (and even a bit envious) at how people were so easily scared with one room and a simple, yet perfectly engineered chord. I sincerely wish I could experience fear like that. I don’t know how it worked, but it did—that basement is one of the most terrifying moments of the game in broad daylight, and all thanks to CoR’s acute sense of mood and dread.

A chord like that makes us expect to be scared *any second now*. Having it throughout the scene makes sure that we’re anticipating a jump scare at every turn, at every action. It puts us on edge like nothing else. And the longer the jump scare stays away, the more we expect it to happen next. It’s the ultimate terror.

Personally, I’m rarely scared with horror movies, but I’m easily scared in horror games. Probably because of being in control it feels like *I* am in danger, and not just the character on the screen. That’s why a game with an atmosphere like Scratches easily rivals the best and scariest horror movies for me.
And that’s also why I’ll never look away in a horror movie or be truly frightened, but a game with actual danger for the main character (like Amnesia) would leave me a blubbering mess with uhm… “brown pants” within five minutes…

Personally, I’m rarely scared with horror movies, but I’m easily scared in horror games. Probably because of being in control it feels like *I* am in danger, and not just the character on the screen. That’s why a game with an atmosphere like Scratches easily rivals the best and scariest horror movies for me.

I find a good horror movie to be quite scary actually. One that reminds me of scratches is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunting_(1963_film)

Which I found to be very scary.

Agustín Cordes - 15 May 2015 09:50 PM

rtrooney - 15 May 2015 09:26 PM

Nope! Playing the DC as I think everyone else is. I’ll get through it. I think because the graphics are much crisper than they were in Pandora Directive. It’s a bit easier, and I use that word with a grain of salt, to “zero” in on an object in this game. Not easy. Just easier.

I’m willing to bet this is a technical problem as the interface is supposed to be slow. It should be darned easy to play the game—in fact, people used to demand a faster camera.

Make double sure that your video card drivers are fully updated and downloaded directly from the vendor (ie: Nvidia or ATI). Do not use the Microsoft drivers which historically have had lousy support for OpenGL. I believe the problem is that the game can’t enable vertical sync, which results in an hyperactive framerate and camera movement. Some video cards used to force vertical sync off for obscure reasons, so you might want to check that setting in your control panel. If it’s on “force vertical sync off”, then you know that’s the problem.

My drivers are up to date from the manufacturer. I did find the vertical sync setting. I changed it to vertical sync on. We will see if that does the trick when we start playing Day Two. Thanks.

TimovieMan recently changed his display to accommodate what he wanted to see. However, that was on the companion Dire Grove playthrough. Maybe he can help. I have the option to make alignment changes on my video card, Raedon, but those changes are not application specific. So, if for whatever reason, I needed to change alignment to accommodate this game, that change would apply to everything. Hopefully someone who understands this better than I will jump in.

rtrooney - 17 May 2015 08:34 PM

TimovieMan recently changed his display to accommodate what he wanted to see.

Well, I had a 4:3 game that became stretched when viewed fullscreen on my 16:9 widescreen. I just looked at all the settings my video card had to offer and simply had to toggle the “maintain aspect ratio” option. Now the 4:3 game plays fullscreen in 4:3 with black bars on the side, like I wanted.

TechnoSpike’s problem sounds like something that’s very specific to Scratches, and has probably got nothing to do with the aspect ratio, so I’m not sure I could help…

Edit: unless it’s a 16:10 vs 16:9 issue. Can’t hurt to check?

TimovieMan - 15 May 2015 07:18 PM

@ Agustín: based on the books I found in-game, you’re a fan of Lovecraft and a hater of Myst, right? What’s your issue with “overrated bloke” King, though? Do you simply not like him, or do you just feel like he’s getting far too much attention within the genre?
Personally, I think he’s great IF you get rid of more than half of his bibliography. He’s just too productive and it has a “quantity over quality” feel. Usually, out of ten books or short stories he writes, 6 are bad/mediocre, 3 are good and one is genius. It’s this last category that does indeed make him the master of horror, imo. When he hits his stride, he has the capacity to truly haunt you, and that’s the mark of a great writer, imo.

I owed you this answer: it’s not that I hate Myst as in hatred, I just found it to be exceptionally boring and sterile. It certainly didn’t offer much of what I seek in adventures, other than perhaps that sense of wonder and exploration. I thought that Riven, on the other hand, was egregiously bad with the exception of the pretty graphics. To put things in perspective, I’ve replayed Myst twice (really) but I refuse to approach Riven again.

As for King, well… He’s clearly a good storyteller. He knows his prose and tends to flesh out his characters tremendously well. The thing about King are his universally bad endings. They’re SO bad they hurt, and to me an ending can make or break a good story. The prime example is It—amazing movie until the incredibly poor last ten minutes. I refused to believe this was King’s fault, blaming the movie producers instead. So I went and purchased the book…

Holy crap… HOLY CRAP. Not only the ending is several dimensions worse, the infamous scene with Beverly in the sewers where the whole team proceeds to have sex with her out of nowhere are the most inexplicably random pages I’ve read in a horror story. They stink of badness and amateurishness.

Yet I still kept reading King, hoping another of his books would impress me like The Dark Tower series or The Dead Zone did. Heck, I even liked The Dark Half to some extent. But then one day I read Bag of Bones with yet another baffling lame ending where King essentially poops on all the time and feelings you invested in his book, and that was the end of it. I realized this was a good decision when I watched Dreamcatcher, which turned out to be a retelling of It. King is so productive he’s already plagiarizing himself.

I guess I agree with you to some extent—thing is, I grew tired of seeking that genius book among all the mediocrity