Adventure Gamers - Forums

I’ve posted the complete walkthrough of the game:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/396870/discussions/0/350533172683734130/
Hope it helps!

I wanted to do this earlier, but with my broken internet I was stuck:

I know that many of you are not interested in Steam games and prefer to purchase elsewhere. Since the AG Store was closed, I have been wondering what was the best marketplace for indie games. I hesitated to choose Desura again (like ASA) because this shop seems to have problems of bankrucy. In the end I opted for itch.io: it is very simple of use, you can easily purchase the game, there is no need to play connected, no need to install any software. And they don’t take 30% of your money, so I could reduce the price slightly compared to Steam. You just download and play: it’s probably the best option.

https://the-icehouse.itch.io/catyph-the-kunci-experiment

No problem. It is only a bit weird to choose a reviewer who didn’t like ASA, while many people did. But at least this review probably reflects well the general opinion of most players regarding my games.

That is true, my games aren’t perfect, far from it, but I always try to improve myself contrary to what is suggested there (compare ASA original and Catyph and you’ll see a lot of differences).

I used to enjoy Dragon Ball Z when I was a teen, so I see no problem there

On another point, Oscar, even if you don’t plan to play the game anymore, you should know that the next update will contain what you requested: a button to skip the wire puzzle of Darnaha. I haven’t received a lot of feedback and I still don’t know if other people had an issue with this puzzle, but it is better to leave the player the choice. The update is already available in private as a manual patch, and should be automatically applied on Steam within a few days.

Very harsh review. I agree, if the reviewer didn’t like the previous game, chances are they won’t like the next one. Whether the developer has “learned” or “changed” things or not.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think that the reviewer of Adventure Gamers understood well what I tried to do in Catyph. Even if not perfect, the game offers a lot of exotic places to visit, and a lot of challenge for difficult-puzzle-lovers.
http://www.adventuregamers.com/articles/view/30652
As usual it is better if everyone makes their own opinion.

It is sad that with this game it is particularly difficult to release a playable demo without spoiling anything. Since each puzzle relies on the whole discovery of each region, I can hardly show anything that would still make sense if it was separated from the rest of the game.

If some of you are interested, I have also released the game in direct download on itch.io for non-Steam users. This is something I wanted to do for the release of the game, but since my internet was broken during a month, I could never do it before.

You’ll discover that the game is cheaper on itch.io. This is because Steam takes 30% of the sales, while we can choose on itch.io to give 0%, 10% or more…
Another interesting thing with itch.io is the direct download access, which makes it possible to retrieve your game at any time without creating an account. https://itch.io/docs/buying/already-bought
That is very convenient for small developers, and I believe it makes it simple for everyone to purchase a game.

You can also find Myha and ASA Original Edition there:
https://the-icehouse.itch.io/

If some of you decided to play Catyph and liked it, thanks a lot for your support. I would like to take this opportunity to remind that a Making Of was written here on the forums of Adventure Gamers in 2014 and 2015. An updated version (proofread) is now available on the Black Cube site, so feel free to have a look whenever you want:
http://www.theblackcube.fr/making-of-catyph.html

There might be other bonus things and e-readings there. I hope I can continue to work on this project and release more adventure games in the coming years.
http://www.theblackcube.fr/released-projects.html

The soundtrack of Catyph is also available:
http://karreo.bandcamp.com/album/catyph-original-game-soundtrack

Yes I said I learned from my mistakes, and I still think I did. A lot of people didn’t like the navigation in ASA, but I improved it. If I failed to do something convincing, then I apologize and I will try again to do better next time (if there is a next time). However, what was said regarding ASA has been taken into account:

- the cameras were sometimes strange and confusing -> In Catyph I stopped placing cameras too low or too high with strange focals, and I did some more standard cameras that rely on the position and size of the character. You now walk along a path, just as if you were “on rails”. That was not the case in ASA at all, where I only tried to select the best views.

- the gameplay was confusing -> Yes, and that is probably where you will disagree with me, however it has been improved (and it took me quite some time during the development). In ASA there were no icons over the hotspots (they were only available in the Remastered Edition, which was inspired by my work on Catyph -  Catyph was already in development at that time). In Catyph, and on the contrary of ASA Remastered, there is even a color code with these icons: red arrow -> move/walk, blue arrow -> turn head without walking, blue dot -> examine/action.
Also, the video transitions now help you see exactly where you are walking to.
Yes, that is a different gameplay than in Myst, and you might need a bit of time to get used to it. Yet several people liked it, and thanked me for not just copy/pasting Myst. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect, far from it, but it has been improved compared to ASA. 

- some puzzles were painful -> in Catyph the puzzles might be difficult, hazardous or whatever you want to call them, but I think there’s nothing like the Quiz in ASA, the DOS-like computer, the keyboard to plug by switching wires strangely, etc. They have been created to be solved by logic, observation and thinking. Ok the clues could have been placed differently and sometimes more obviously, but that is not easy to balance the challenge of such a game. My main mistake is the wire puzzle in Darnaha, which has been fixed in the last update since you can skip it.

- the translation was far from perfect -> I cannot afford to pay someone for a translation, but the texts in Catyph have been proofread. They still contain mispellings unfortunately, but if you take into account the quantity of text in the game, it is much better than in my first game.

- the music always played in loop -> in Catyph, the music is sometimes stopped and becomes silent. I was limited by the game engine Visionaire which doesn’t support multi-channel audio. I wanted the music to play randomly, it was not possible, but I think the soundtrack is better integrated than in ASA.

- I had provided the walkthrough with ASA but some people said it was a mistake. So in Catyph there is the integrated help system. Anyway the walkthrough is also available now, and there is also a cheat code for the Blue Matter, and in the last update you can skip the wire puzzle.

Maybe that’s not the changes you expected, I can understand that and I’m sorry.
Oscar it might still be time to ask for a refund on Steam? If it is not possible anymore I can pay you back your money through paypal.

Yes the game is on Humble too. Regarding Gog they are not interested in my games

I haven’t had the pleasure to play your game yet Simon, but i will feedback back the thread once i am done, but please don’t care much for pleasing everyone, everyday i do my part and do my job of playing music to entertain audiences, and many times (many) i get no appreciation for songs i had spent months of covering or practising new stuff to sound as they should, and never gave **** or start wondering how cruel people could be.

Antrax - 19 June 2016 11:02 PM

I’m personally curious why you chose to introduce a puzzle requiring a measure of dexterity into your game. If nothing else, you knew you would get flak for it from the community. What was your reasoning?

(I thought Vince Twelve’s explanation of why Resonance had a maze was fascinating)

I’m afraid I don’t have such a fascinating explanation, and I would love to read it. Was it explained here on the AG forums?
I will do my best to tell you about my own reasoning. As often I lack of vocabulary in such cases, but let’s see.

I knew that this puzzle could be difficult for many people. It is something I have discussed with the Beta-Testers. Actually I personally find it easy to succeed with this puzzle (example) and the testers didn’t complain about it: it was fine for them to play with a more interactive puzzle. In fact it used to be even harder, but I decided to make it easier than the original version, by slowing down the time before the next red light would turn off. I was aware of the problem with such a puzzle.
My mistake was to think that now the puzzle was too easy, and I released it as is, comfident in the fact that it was possible to succeed after 4 or 5 tries… It is very complicated to balance the difficulty of that kind of puzzle. Yet I thought it was interesting to propose a different kind of puzzle for once, something that didn’t rely totally on thinking.

Regarding the puzzle idea and the reasons behind it, you have to know a little bit the story in the game. The character of Germinal wants to test your skills before you will be able to ignite the Kunci. I asked myself the following question: the game is challenging, the puzzles are tough. What would happen if I was left alone on such a planet, where I have to prove my abilities to someone? Catyph is, like Myst, made as an immersion where you play as the hero and see through his eyes, so you are the one being directly challenged by Germinal. If you were really in this situation in real life, with no help, and no other choice but to solve the puzzles to save your home planet, what would you do? Would you give up, complain, or try to solve it whatever it costs? I know I would try to surpass myself. The hero is supposed to be a well trained astronaut, after all (I know, I know, it’s just a game )

There is more. The region of Darnaha where this puzzle is located, is a region where some experiments have been lead in the past. It is quite a strange place where you can discover an illusive representation of this past, and as a result I find the region very special and different of the others. Even if everything is dead around there, there used to be life and animals, and closures all around (fences?), just like in a zoo. With such animals such as “lions”, you can easily imagine that these closures were made of electric wires that would prevent them from escaping. These wires have almost disapeared, and Germinal has used them differently for his challenge. That explains the birth of this puzzle, even though it’s now used to turn on something different. To this, I added the fact that taking care of animals requires dexterity. This, too, was one of the reasons behind this puzzle. My grandparents used to be farmers and I could play near the cows sometimes: I know how dangerous it can be. I also remember very well the electrical shocks that you receive when you touch the wires around the pastures!! (could have had an impact on my mental health lol) Add the fact that I have always liked to tinker all kinds of things, and you start to see how I think.

All of this, put end to end, gave birth to this puzzle. I thought that a bit more of interactivity would be apreciated. Thus, as explained in the first part above, I didn’t realize that it was so hard in the game, and that is why the feedback of everyone is important. That is also why I listened to Oscar’s suggestion and worked immediately on a way to skip this puzzle. It is available in the last update.