Adventure Gamers - Forums

Old skies a game from wadjet eye, just released a demo on Steam. I really love the artwork and Animation style of this game. It’s a time-traveling game where you escort person into their past to let them re live a memory. Of course it has some very serious moral implications and I would love to see what y’all think of the end, the demo is quite long and offers a full level, I wish more devs understood that this is what a demo should be. The only downside is the game acts like you get a choice, but I’m not sure if that is legit at all, because I tried all dialogue options and still got the same result no matter what. unless of course it was how I solved the puzzles. But I didn’t see any other way to solve most of them. Speaking of the puzzles they are definitely better than what was in unavowed already, but they’re still on the simple side. They are interesting however. I thought the voice acting was quite good as well. This is definitely on my wishlist.

That was so good. It took about an hour to play, so I definitely recommend checking it out this week if you have the chance. It’s going to be a long wait for next year.

TheLongestJourney - 13 June 2022 01:19 AM

That was so good. It took about an hour to play, so I definitely recommend checking it out this week if you have the chance. It’s going to be a long wait for next year.

I agree and I really like the commentary in the game as well. A really solid hr of play.

I liked all of the most important aspects, the story and world building are very interesting, great VA and music. Gameplay wise it’s a familiar Dave Gilbert mix of simple inventory interactions and clue combining mystery solving puzzles. Simple stuff, but fun to work out nonetheless. Plus, having seen dev streams for the game, I know there’s some puzzles later on that actually use the time travel aspect and seemed a bit deeper.

The artwork I’m mixed on, the backgrounds are gorgeous but the figure drawing and animation are somewhat amateurish. I also don’t like that they’ve gotten rid of the character portraits. Having a full painted portrait and the expressiveness that brings vs a character with just a few lines for a face is a massive downgrade, especially for the scenes that are supposed to have real emotional weight behind them.

I also never liked the Unavowed style of hotspot flavor text where it just pops up when you mouseover stuff. It makes me feel like I’m playing as a mouse cursor rather than a character and I’d rather hear voiced lines for those interactions.

Those issues aside it’s a really good demo and I anticipate that the game will be great. I’m curious to see what the overall story will be like as the individual cases continue.

... I could pretty much just c&p the above post here.

Love the background art, not so much the characters - they are okay, but the facial animations definitely not.

The story seems fantastic so far; I especially like how the mood is similar to Blackwell (well, at least to me).

The puzzles were too easy and I’m a tiny bit disappointed that even early on we’re doing point-and-click-puzzle nonsense (we go to some random restaurant to wet a rag on some dripping fluid just because that magically enables cleaning a lock that otherwise can’t be cleaned ... ). But everything else seemed fairly sensible.

I’d also agree that the “hover text popups” are a bit distracting. Sure, it saves a click. But it almost feels like annoying spam popups when they just auto-pop into your view ... it’s a minor gripe though.

Overall a very positive experience with the demo. Looking forward to the full game.

(ps: there’s a lot of other demos on Steam right now; some p&cs; and walking simulators and whatnot among them - https://store.steampowered.com/sale/nextfest )

PlanetX - 13 June 2022 12:33 PM

I liked all of the most important aspects, the story and world building are very interesting, great VA and music. Gameplay wise it’s a familiar Dave Gilbert mix of simple inventory interactions and clue combining mystery solving puzzles. Simple stuff, but fun to work out nonetheless. Plus, having seen dev streams for the game, I know there’s some puzzles later on that actually use the time travel aspect and seemed a bit deeper.

The artwork I’m mixed on, the backgrounds are gorgeous but the figure drawing and animation are somewhat amateurish. I also don’t like that they’ve gotten rid of the character portraits. Having a full painted portrait and the expressiveness that brings vs a character with just a few lines for a face is a massive downgrade, especially for the scenes that are supposed to have real emotional weight behind them.

I also never liked the Unavowed style of hotspot flavor text where it just pops up when you mouseover stuff. It makes me feel like I’m playing as a mouse cursor rather than a character and I’d rather hear voiced lines for those interactions.

Those issues aside it’s a really good demo and I anticipate that the game will be great. I’m curious to see what the overall story will be like as the individual cases continue.

I actually don’t mind the lack of portraits there’s some decent idle animations and the lip syncing is not bad for a first attempt.

I do agree with you on the puzzles although I think these are already better than what we saw in unavowed, unavowed was a glorified Telltale Game where all you do is make choices, not much of any puzzling there at all. so at least it’s a bit of an upgrade there to me. But you are correct Dave has never been great at puzzles. Although I like the idea of using a computer to search future events to help use in the past but I thought the game automates too much with your companion.

I also love the music very Blade Runner ish.

The character portraits are a big sticking point with me, yeah… I can already imagine certain scenes hitting harder with artwork that conveys emotion better. The rooftop scene at the end of the demo in particular. I just get a lot more out of this vs this:

At the end of the day I’ve played games with worse, but the detail will be missed.

Although I like the idea of using a computer to search future events to help use in the past but I thought the game automates too much with your companion.

I agree, this is something that was actually mentioned in a live stream. It’s a system that works similarly to past Dave Gilbert games where you’d search via the internet or phonebooks for info. In the past games you’d have to remember names or make certain connections & type them in, but Old Skies is being developed for Switch as well, and constantly typing in information proved too cumbersome on console.

In the end they streamlined it to the new system where you get a list of keywords to choose from. I prefer the old way but there’s at least still some thought to how you combine the keywords, if he designs around the new system intelligently it could still take some thought.

PlanetX - 13 June 2022 03:59 PM

The character portraits are a big sticking point with me, yeah… I can already imagine certain scenes hitting harder with artwork that conveys emotion better. The rooftop scene at the end of the demo in particular. I just get a lot more out of this vs this:

At the end of the day I’ve played games with worse, but the detail will be missed.

Although I like the idea of using a computer to search future events to help use in the past but I thought the game automates too much with your companion.

I agree, this is something that was actually mentioned in a live stream. It’s a system that works similarly to past Dave Gilbert games where you’d search via the internet or phonebooks for info. In the past games you’d have to remember names or make certain connections & type them in, but Old Skies is being developed for Switch as well, and constantly typing in information proved too cumbersome on console.

In the end they streamlined it to the new system where you get a list of keywords to choose from. I prefer the old way but there’s at least still some thought to how you combine the keywords, if he designs around the new system intelligently it could still take some thought.

Yeah I figured, it is going a Blackwell series feel. I just wish I could type in more information, but if you get a lot of Clues where it’s not just three or four to choose from, where you can just brute force your way through, than that could be interesting. Im in the middle on portraits, sometimes they enhance the game sometimes I think they take away depending on the game. I also don’t mind the item description, I can read faster than the character can talk. But once again I see it both ways. Either way it was nice playing a game that ran smoothly. And it was also refreshing not playing a glorified cut scene, like a lot of Adventure game demos seem to be.

What a great demo!

I’ve read on Steams’S Q&A thread that game happens in Blackwell/Unavowed universe, but it is stand-alone. Only those “in the know” will get small references and cameos, as per Dave Gilbert.

I actually liked a “text when you hover” feature, if they aren’t planning to voice those observations at all. Saves me clicks through actions and then trying all those actions to see a different response. Of course, voiced version would be way cooler.

Character portraits stood out to me for maybe first 60 seconds, and then I embraced the artful simplicity. It grew on me and felt organic for the rest of the demo.

Agree on wanting to use archive system manually. Typing possible combinations I came up with would have been more immersive.
Also, I liked the music. Don’t know if it will be in the final version, but the soft blues-y track upon arrival to New York really set the mood for me.

I love that we get different time periods - outfits on screenshots are very promising. In the game description it says we’ll be in the World Trade Center on September 10, 2001 - the day before, and I’m very interested how this part of the story will play out.

Also, this demo made me think - imagine, if there are people like Fia and Joe Anderson amongst us now? After all, 2024 is only two years away, and I find it believable that in the future, time tourism would be possible…somehow. Imagine, if you go to a favorite coffee spot,and the person behind you in line is “Joe Anderson”, thinking how unaware people around him are? Cool thought to ponder on.

REALLY looking forward to the game!

Can anyone share the demo? It seems unfair to only learn of it after it’s gone.

What on Earth kind of a business model is having a limited time demo?

Burge - 28 June 2022 10:11 AM

What on Earth kind of a business model is having a limited time demo?

The kind of model hundreds (if not thousands) of games are using for Steam NextFest and many other game festivals. They release demos for a specific period of time, not just to “tease” the players, but also to get valuable feedback. After those exclusive periods, they come back to work on their demos and later re-release them updated permanently. Or not.

Exactly because of this “available for a limited time” model, events like Steam NextFest draw large crowds to it, which brings attention and exposure to many games and developers that never would have gotten it, if they just quietly released the demo on their own permanently. It’s an advertisement thing, and it’s been around for a while.

rtrooney - 27 June 2022 03:29 PM

Which reminds me of a very early WadJet Eye game, Echoes of Sorrow, which was a casual game. Jakal wrote a glowing review of it for tackling some very dark subjects.

That wasn’t a Wadjet Eye game. It was published by Big Fish Games.