Adventure Gamers - Forums

VinceTwelve - 26 June 2012 05:01 PM

Trust me, I thought about this! But considering all the reviews out there who found it super annoying to have to backtrack to something to add it to your STM, or having to walk to another character to share an inventory item with them (I guess the alternative would be a magical inventory that all characters share?), I can’t imagine how much flack I’d catch if I made the characters need to explicitly give information from one character to another in order to solve password or code puzzles when the player already knows the solution! But yeah, I definitely considered this!

One place where something similar comes up is when Bennet needs to know that Tortoise wants the will, so that Bennet can go and ask for the will at the City Archive.  It’s a really tricky balance!

Thanks again, everyone!  Let me know if you have any questions I can answer!

as i say, it was only a minor gripe in an otherwise almost flawless adventure game. I’m not a huge fan of retro graphics in games but to be honest i barely noticed i was so engrossed in the story.

The death certificate/will puzzle was actually the one that i was thinking about when i wrote my last post, as it struck me that you could have Ed or Ray find out you needed the will and death certificate, then have Anna deliver the DC to Tortoise then have Bennett get the will and give it to Tortoise so two characters who had no knowledge of the puzzle at all, just solved it without knowing why!

I agree though that the extra legwork of having to tell each character everything before they can do certain actions would be counter productive but perhaps if you’re planning on making a sequel to the game, following on from whichever of the endings makes most sense for a sequel, you could give each character a phone with a synced memo pad (can do it in real life on android) and then just add relevant information to that for one character so all characters have a reason to know it

marcd2011 - 25 June 2012 06:22 PM

looking back on Resonance a day after playing it, one thing did bug me about the game, which was how the characters all instantly knew things that one of the other characters had discovered. For instance i could find out a password with one character one place on the map then enter it with another who’s somewhere else, or find out about an item i needed and then fetch that item with a character who wasn’t in the room when i found out about it in the first place.

I really liked that aspect of the game - it was one of the player not seeing each character exchanging information but gave a sense that they were all totally working together & communicating behind the player’s back (i.e. us!)

Just to add I just loved the game, it had a great story, nice voice acting & some thoughtful puzzles but was all the more interesting because of the variables - it’s just great to finish a game & know that you can go back, try a few things a different way round & find a few things that you didn’t find before!

Castledoque - 23 June 2012 04:06 AM

Most adventure games nowdays seem to have adapted a mechanical sort of gameplay. You can actually sort of sleepwalk through their plot and their puzzles by clicking mechanically on hotspots and mindlessly using and combining inventory items, except for the occasional spots where you get stuck and actually have to think yourself out of a more difficult puzzle. Although Gemini Rue is one of the better adventure games of later years, it doesn’t escape this mechanical clicking altogether. Not so in the case of Resonance. While playing it, I was constantly thinking and making smaller or bigger decisions, even in the easiest parts of the game (and it’s not that difficult of a game really). I was constantly making decisions on which characters I would use for each puzzle and which items in the environment could be suitable for keeping in my short-term memory inventory. Long-term, short-term memory inventory is actually ingenious groundbreaking stuff, that brings control of characters, dialogue and decision-making back to the player in ways we have not seen since the adventure games of yore and that is perhaps the main reason I find Resonance a much more interesting game than Gemini Rue.

I just posted this same thought as a comment on the game’s review page and then came to the forums and saw my exact feelings written down already.  I agree completely that the game play mechanic is what really sets this game apart.  It truly is groundbreaking as you say and it really ramps up the challenge/difficulty of the game while still keeping it fair.  When I think about all the different pieces you need to put in place to get the lab blueprints from the police station, it just puts a smile on my face.  That has got to be one of my favorite adventure game puzzles in I can’t remember when. 

I keep thinking about Dark Fall when I think about this game.  Both games have an innovative designer who is really thinking outside the normal adventure game box.

Also, I don’t think I’ve seen this posted, so I wanted people to see the Kotaku love the game has gotten.  Hopefully, people will give the game a try.

http://kotaku.com/5919787/brand+new-indie-game-resonance-is-the-best-1990s-adventure-game-ive-played-in-years

@Interplay
just read your comment under the Resonance review. Spot on! Couldn’t have put it any better!

That is precisely why Resonance stands out from the mass as an extraordinary playing experience.

A game driven by your OWN deductive reasoning based on the subtle clues at hand and not vice versa!

The game never withholds or lacks clues, they’re all there! If I got stuck, it was due to me not looking close enough or even the opposite, thinking too much based on “standard adventure game conventions” (in opposition to simple ‘real world’ logic).
 
I just hope for more games as intelligent as Resonance in the future.

And, I know I’m out on a limb here, I wish for more games that are equally intellectually CHALLENGING!
If all riddles/puzzles in a game where as demanding as ‘Juno Labs pins’ or ‘blueprints’(and some others in Resonance), I would literally jump with joy!

I finished Resonance the other day and enjoyed it quite a lot.

Haven’t quite figured out how to get all points yet though.

I finished the game yesterday, and it was every bit as brilliant as the demo led me to expect. The story was strong and, I thought, really cleverly constructed, and it didn’t bother me at all that I saw half of the twist coming (I expected Ed to have a secret agenda; his shooting Anna, however, was a total shocker). I got what I guess is the “good” ending (kill Ed, expose Antevorta), or at least the best you can get with the cards you’re dealt; I’ll definitely replay the end part to look for the other endings.

As many have said, the gameplay was fantastic: rich puzzles, challenging but always fair and properly clued, and incredibly satisfying to solve. This is how you make an adventure game. And I really liked that, despite what the game’s retro look might lead you to expect, the gameplay is not just looking to the past, but actually being very fresh and innovative. For years, it’s felt like, as far as adventure gameplay was concerned, the only alternative was between either getting stuck in the past, doing it “like in the good old days” being an excuse for tired, punishing and nonsensical puzzles (I’m looking at you, Runaway), or puzzles getting constantly less challenging and satisfying, seen more as an impediment to the flow of the story than something you’d play the game for. Resonance shows that there’s no such thing as a Golden Age and that innovation and progress are still possible, even when it comes to adventure gameplay. And that’s a great thing.

My score was 325/340, and 27/38 achievements, which I guess is OK for a first go. I’ll definitely be replaying the game, both to try to get full points and to listen to the commentary.

I picked this up last night and just put it on my laptop for a flight tomorrow. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Steam version appears to be DRM free so I don’t have to worry about offline mode not working, which happened to me once out of dozens of uses, while I’m without internet access.

I only got to play the first 30 minutes or so, but so far I’m really enjoying it. I’m looking forward to seeing how far it goes with the long term memory mechanic.

Excellent! Fien is on a ROLL! (..been bitten by the Resonance bug, ay? )
Enjoy your second go, that’s when all the nuances and subtleties become much more ‘tangible’.

For everyone wanting ALL achievements. The INSANE ACHIEVEMENTS prevent you from gaining FULL SCORE, since they include brute-force solutions originally not quite intended for a ‘normal’ playthrough.
You’d simply lose out on some points by not following the “step by step” reasoning & logic leading up to the solution of a problem/puzzle.

It can be done by save ‘n reload, but purely for the enjoyment of the game and it’s flow, I’d definitely recommend to ignore the insane ones.
They can be added anytime on another playthrough…

GOG also has the game for download - DRM free!

Resonance is coming to Steam at the end of July. For now, if you buy it from the official website (either the download version or the boxed version) you’ll get a free Steam voucher that can be redeemed right away. (It’s in Steam’s system already, just not available for purchase there yet.)