Adventure Gamers - Forums

Niclas - 05 September 2012 09:03 PM

OK, I downloaded this game the other day, and started playing it last night. I really wanted to give this game a chance, but I stopped playing it after 20 minutes. Way too complicated. I actually never played a text adventure before, but I realised that this type of game is not my cup of tea. However, I think that if you are used to these kind of games, and actually like the concept, you will be in for a treat.

Try playing some well done Interactive Fiction games.  I play these types of games all the time and love Interactive Fiction.  Most IF games you feel free and they will subtlety hint you in the direction of an answer to continue your game.

Character needs to shower? You have many different actions you can take.
> Take shower
> Enter shower
> Get in shower
Maybe you should try taking off your clothes first.

This game doesn’t give you any indication that you’re working towards the right thing.  There just aren’t enough responses or actions coded in, you know exactly what you need to do, but the game doesn’t understand you.  You need to clean off a keycard?  Clean and wipe don’t work, and you have to guess that the game wants you to ‘dry’ off the keycard, even though wipe or clean would work fine in most other IF games.

Try something modern like Adam Cadre’s 9:05, quick and fun to play.  Play free and online here.

I’m interested in the game, but the simulated screen flickering seems a little too much for my taste; is it possible to turn it off or tone it down?

jhetfield21 - 09 September 2012 10:07 AM

yes it’s possible to turn it off

Cool. Thanks.

jhetfield21 - 09 September 2012 10:07 AM

also the music and the guy smoking.

This got me thinking. I thought the graphics with the yellow question marks on the official web site were cropped actual in-game shots. But so far every video I’ve seen has shown something like the example below - text on the left, the smoking guy on the right, and on top on that different items and/or a stamp sized image of the current location.

Is that what the game looks like all the time? I’m fine with the item graphics, they look great, but I would prefer much bigger images of the locations. Big images of some of the characters you meet would also be nice. Wish they had a demo, or at least a screenshot section on their web site (the trailer is not helping much in that regard).

I like that they’ve kept the using-your-imagination aspect of IF.

And this is obviously highly subjective, but in IF with graphics I prefer big images of the locations, and indoor shots when you’re inside a building. With a single, big image of each location, there’s still room for letting your imagination loose. But it’s kind of unique that they’ve focused on item graphics over images of locations and characters, and I see their reasoning for doing so. A combination of item art and character art, and no location images, would be a nice alternative. Well, I might buy the game anyway…

Most locations in a town are riddled with items and objects, so I would have to partly disagree But of course, seeing the items you interact with could be informative for some people. And, as I said, I understand their reasoning.

EDIT: Edited for clarity.

jhetfield21 - 10 September 2012 08:10 AM

you’re right….but if they had to create a graphic for every item it would be better to have a graphic adventure .so they limit themselves to the inventory since they are using the right hand side as an inventory representation among other things.

Well, I didn’t say all items. I simply meant backgrounds - It just happens that backgrounds occasionally include items and characters. I’m not even especially thinking of characters and items you could interact with - preferably the images would be just for flavor/atmosphere, and the imagination aspect would, IMO, be intact. Remember, I’m just talking about one image per location. Then I offered an alternative approach: Art of the interactive items + character art and no backgrounds.

That’s hardly the same as creating a graphic adventure, and quite a few pieces of IF have already done all or some of that. Some with success

But again, I appreciate that they try something different, personally I just prefer a different approach. It’s all subjective, and, as I said, I might buy the game anyway