Adventure Gamers - Forums

tomimt - 08 August 2023 07:31 AM

Tiller didn’t design Curse of Monkey Island nor did he write it. He was the lead artist on that game.

That explains why i like those puzzles then, and his art direction. Like I said I don’t mind the story of vampyre at all. It is mostly just the game play that does nothing for me, and without knowing much else about the game I can tell 90% of it is going to take place in this one Castle right?? which is getting tiresome already.

There’s actually two (or even three depending on how you count) more location clusters so to speak; but they are shorter than the castle. It’s still kinda ridiculous how many scenes and such there are, it’s just that there’s not too much to do there.

But this often happens with p&c where the beginning tends to be quite dense and then towards the end they tend to get kinda thinned out ^^;

Pyoro-2 - 10 August 2023 03:32 AM

There’s actually two (or even three depending on how you count) more location clusters so to speak; but they are shorter than the castle. It’s still kinda ridiculous how many scenes and such there are, it’s just that there’s not too much to do there.

But this often happens with p&c where the beginning tends to be quite dense and then towards the end they tend to get kinda thinned out ^^;

I think there are far too many road blocks to get out of this one location. We did this long puzzle chain to make oil, to get a virgin’s bone, only to be blocked by the skeleton’s ghost.

Yes, it certainly started to drag for me too. There comes a point where you just want to feel like you’re making progress. And as has been said, you basically just run into the next road block, and the next, and the next ...

tbh I don’t think this is unique to the game and it depends a lot on how smoothly you correctly deduce how to continue. Well, part of it is just p&cs; for you. Some breeze through and feel it wasn’t challenging, others get stuck and get frustrated to no end ... but here, yeah, it’s just odd how much time you spend in that first location.

Maybe if it’d been called Vampyre - Escape from Castle Whatsthename player expectations would have been more attuned to what you are getting, but the opening makes it seem like your end goal is getting to Pari (vampires obviously don’t do S) so being stuck in the same place forever doesn’t feel productive.

Pyoro-2 - 10 August 2023 06:55 AM

Yes, it certainly started to drag for me too. There comes a point where you just want to feel like you’re making progress. And as has been said, you basically just run into the next road block, and the next, and the next ...

tbh I don’t think this is unique to the game and it depends a lot on how smoothly you correctly deduce how to continue. Well, part of it is just p&cs; for you. Some breeze through and feel it wasn’t challenging, others get stuck and get frustrated to no end ... but here, yeah, it’s just odd how much time you spend in that first location.

Maybe if it’d been called Vampyre - Escape from Castle Whatsthename player expectations would have been more attuned to what you are getting, but the opening makes it seem like your end goal is getting to Pari (vampires obviously don’t do S) so being stuck in the same place forever doesn’t feel productive.

Exactly, i guess in my mind, the castle was an introductory chapter to introduce the setting, characters, and game mechanics. I figured id already be at a city or village, but nope.

Also the whole i dont need this item now, but i will remember where it is at is an interesting concept, but after a while, i was like lets move on.

Maybe when we play a third time our minds will be more in-tune with the game puzzles, but there are so many puzzle chains that i think are implemented oddly or straight up time wasters, like having to go back and forth between the cat and rats, just to be told to reverse the books in the library.

Baron_Blubba - 11 August 2023 02:00 PM

I tried this game a couple of years ago, put in plenty of time. It started out well and then got worse and worse. The whole game just seems unfinished—very soft, mushy, vague. Like no one played through it and told the designers ‘hey, what you’re trying to express here (whether it be related to plot or puzzle) just isn’t coming through clearly, maybe you need to rework or reinforce these concepts.’

A lot of potential that seems to have been squandered by a lack of resources for proper realization. Time, money, probably both.

The story to me is fine if not basic, I mean it’s just her wanting to get to Paris to return to being a singer and not accepting the fact that she’s a vampire.

It’s the constant road blocks at the castle, that is just getting so tiresome. I do love the art style of the castle, it’s just I’m so ready to move on to a new setting. I agree the company must have ran out of money, like they said, “we only got these 20 scenes…” the entire game has to take place in these 20 scenes, so stretttttttttch it out lol. Which by proxy leads to a lot of unsatisfying puzzle chains, because the game hits you with multiple unsatisfying puzzle chains, literally one scene from where you finished the ones prior. Like I unlocked the door to the second part of the castle and was immediately stopped by the ghost of the baron, two seconds later. I was like wow, I sure as hell didn’t get very far and I’m guessing when this is over I’m going to be hit by a lake monster puzzle, and stopped 5 seconds again after that. you can see the devs grinding their gears, to stretch the game length.

Jdawg445 - 11 August 2023 02:17 PM

... like they said, “we only got these 20 scenes…” the entire game has to take place in these 20 scenes, so stretttttttttch it out lol

No, that’s the weird thing. In terms of scenes and characters there’s easily again as much after that still. It’s just shorter since there isn’t all that much to do (but it also shouldn’t be underestimated ... there’s many p&c games that are just shorter altogether ^^).

You’ll see when you play it. It’s just oddly balanced, but it’s not so easy to say why that happened imo it just wasn’t thoroughly designed through, or maybe the development team was kinda disorganized (like the art for the later parts wasn’t ready until very late so they didn’t have time to do much with it ... ).

Or, mild sequel-that-will-never-happen spoiler territory, you wouldn’t actually have left for Paris, at least not right away. I seem to remember some implications that might have meant Mona couldn’t just leave. So you’d still have been in those scenes again, at least in the start of the sequel, so maybe they used those intentionally not as much.

Wife and i made it out of the castle, thank god. The ghost puzzle was not too bad. Talked to a gypsie and now exploring the local town. Nice to get to some new scenes. Puzzles are once again a long list of fetch quest, but we do like the humor.

Late to the party, but I just want to mention that we had a very successfull community playthrough of the game a decade ago. https://adventuregamers.com/forums/viewthread/2020/