Adventure Gamers - Forums

DCast - 22 August 2021 05:38 PM

I just finished chapter 1, and all I can say is that this adventure is a bit on a bizarre side, but has a certain charm to it, for sure.

Thank you! It is for sure not meant to be “classic” in this sense. I’ve worked hard on the “Charm” part

DCast - 22 August 2021 05:38 PM

I also have a sort of a mental hang-up with the fact that cursor reacts (aka shows you the action) AFTER you click. It’s a bit strange to click on something you think might be worth looking at and only then you see “the eye” - like “yes, you can examine this, player, so proceed”. I’d agree with BB’s suggestion on making cursor reactive to hotspots prior to clicking on them and, even better, have them have names. Nothing too major but it stands out during playing.

Yeah, ouch - I think I really might have made a bad decision there. I’ve added it to my TODO. Thanks!

DCast - 22 August 2021 05:38 PM

I was also wondering if the manner things are named in this game is purposeful. (I’ve noticed the dialogues come out a bit off-kilter, and it’s hard to say whether it was something lost in translation or specifically made this way, since we’re playing an alien.), but for example, when I was working fabricating machine everything that came out of it was named “tool”. Considering the fact that it’s already an alien environment and no hotspots have any description - it was confusing more than anything. If that was a deliberate move, maybe I just didn’t “get it” this time, it’s quite possible. Other than that - I feel like there are either no descriptions, or some that are using made-up words (alien worlds, I suppose), so they aren’t very helpful either.

It’s purposeful. I’ve tried making everything sound as close to how I imagined this alien would see the world - without sacrificing the big picture and the understanding of what things were. It’s a design decision that was hard to make since I knew it could come out as “lost in translation” or give it a weak point in regards to the language. My translators (which includes myself) has also found it a bit challenging at times. Baron_Blubba has caught a few places where my English hasn’t been strong enough for sure.

I’ve written the alien protagonist’s dialogue the way it is on purpose to help or guide the player better in the storyline - since the player might feel just as puzzled as the alien about being warped around randomly to different places before getting a feeling of “the big picture”. I think the mix might have come out a little unfortunate in some places. I’ll see what I can do to maybe ease it up a bit!

DCast - 22 August 2021 05:38 PM

The bar with running timer at the bottom was also confusing. For the first few times it made me feel like I’m running out of time for a task until I realized that it’s reacting to all my clicks? So sort of like an action bar?

Yes this one is new to most people
It indicates how much time is left of the action (chain of events) you’ve just triggered.
This is to aid players that isn’t too fund of long dialogue/action passages.
It can be disabled in the settings menu!

DCast - 22 August 2021 05:38 PM

Now with that being sad, there’s a particular appeal to this indie visual style. The first chapter was relatively easy, but it made me look forward to more puzzles further down the line, and while the music in the first chapter felt a bit loopy, I already liked what I heard in the second one much better. There’s definitely “something” in this game, so I’ll keep on exploring.

THANKS! Just what I’ve hoped for. I’ve worked hard to let the game progress in a way that make people curious!

(The soundtrack is available for Streaming BTW - if you fancy that kind of thing. Direct downloads is coming!)

Alright, after another long “work break”, I had the chance to come back and finally continue working my way through a few games. I have now completed Ch.2 of non: The First Warp.

I figured what it is about lack of cursor highlighter that was especially bothersome. It’s that a click on an empty spot is an action for two major things in this game. You click on the empty spot for walking, or you click on the empty spot in hopes that you’ll be able to pick something up. If there were a cursor highlighter - I would’ve known that I’m hovering over an item, instead of guessing whether hero is going to walk to the spot or look/pick-up something. It became especially apparent with all the mess of cords leading to the amp. After clicking on those cords, half the time my little alien just walked all over them, and in a few spots, he actually picked something up, but there’s no telling which was going to be which at any point. Getting back to this game after a long break made me even more aware of the learning curve needed to proceed.

I’m going to say that at this point it’s all a bit unintuitive. Some things definitely make sense, mostly because a hero makes a comment about it, but as far as general progression - it is largely “what do I do next and why? I don’t really know, so I’m going to try this thing over here and see if maybe this works”. The aforementioned stuff with a bucket also threw me off, because that is what I attempted to do fist as well - fill it with water from a lake (or a river?), and it didn’t let me do it only to use a small puddle later. I’m not sure if there’s an intent behind this - to make player feel as lost as non, the alien, in this world or not, but while I liked the “open the door” solution (because that’s not what I was thinking I’ll be doing AT ALL), the rest so far is a lot of wacky guessing.
I have come across a few times when certain parts of the puzzle just don’t trigger on the first or even second try, so maybe that adds to the overall unbalanced feeling as well.

There are a few grammatical errors here and there. And some “lost in translation” moments too, but it comes out almost endearing because I play an alien, and it sort of matches his attempts to communicate.

On the positive side - I enjoyed the musical component here, it was cool and relaxing at the same time. And I did like the time device introduced as an additional game mechanic, so I’m looking forward to chapter 3 and see how it will make puzzles more interesting.
So far - very indie game, not without its flaws, but that bizarre charm is present throughout, and lots of TLC it was made with is almost palpable.

Ouch. The large puddle of water in back was meant to be the ocean - so far away in the horizon that it should’ve come out as background graphics. I can see that it’s frustrating when it’s .... water. I’ve never looked at it like that