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[beto]

HEY!!! WE'RE IndieCade FINALISTS!!!

Thanks for everyone of you that helped us make it possible!!!

Hello everyone!
Our studio, Aduge, has just released its first fully fledged game! =]

It's called Qasir Al-Wasat - A Night In-Between, a Stealth Action-Adventure where you control an invisible creature summoned to perform an assassination mission. The game is settled on a fictional 12th century Syrian palace, locked in-between planes (and in-between two palaces that really existed), and evokes a Dark Arabian Nights theme.
More info can be found at the game's site.

Checkout the game Trailer!
And if you'd like to watch the old ones to see how the game evolved, there is the first one, second one and this third one.

Here are some screenshots (right click and view image to see them large).

   

   

   

   

The default controls are:
Arrows - Movement
A - Action
S - Stealth movement (hold)
Space - Investigate and advance text
Enter - Pause menu
Esc - Cancel

The game is available at Indievania, Desura and our own site.
I still don't know when we'll have a torrent available (since we're against piracy combat, and we believe that as many people get to know our game the better and then hopefully buy it). Probably we'll wait the upcoming patch.

Thanks again to everyone that provided feedback (and feel free to keep doing it, even if you hadn't before)!
=]

Our game is on Greenlight too! If you liked the game and have a Steam account, give us your vote =]

[Pandara_RA!]

This is such a charming stealth game I'm currently testing, the dialog is well written, and there is actually a pretty in depth storyline to the character as well, I'll of course give my feedback below when I finish another full play through.  

[Morroque]

I added in my report for the game. I think this one, when finished and properly bulletproofed, may be one of the best indie stealth games out there.

Please inform me if you update the public beta for further testing. I would very much like to remain interested.

[beto]

This is such a charming stealth game I'm currently testing, the dialog is well written, and there is actually a pretty in depth storyline to the character as well, I'll of course give my feedback below when I finish another full play through.

Thanks! I showed this comment of yours to the content designer and she got very happy! =)

I added in my report for the game. I think this one, when finished and properly bulletproofed, may be one of the best indie stealth games out there.

Please inform me if you update the public beta for further testing. I would very much like to remain interested.

Oh, man! That's awesome! Thanks! =D
With the feedback you're providing I'm almost sure I'll manage to polish it enough to fulfill it's expectations =)

This week I'll post here an updated build.
I'm intended fix many level design issues and other stuff.
Also, we'll have two mini-game puzzles, one is a dial rotation puzzle that you're supposed to match the dials to form a picture and a pipe puzzle that you need to form specific alchemic solutions out of some components and filters.

[Morroque]

Also, we'll have two mini-game puzzles, one is a dial rotation puzzle that you're supposed to match the dials to form a picture and a pipe puzzle that you need to form specific alchemic solutions out of some components and filters.

I actually managed to get into the tin door via cheating where I found the basics of the said dial puzzle. I know I've already said it in my reports, but I think the puzzles might be a little bit of a waste -- especially the version I saw. Since you already have such a fine-tuned and indepth main engine, any departure that doesn't involve it feels a bit jarring; like that Towers of Hanoi that kind of comes out of nowhere in Mass Effect.

The pipe puzzle to form alchemic solutions sounds a bit more promising, if only because the notion of alchemy has a theme in the game. However, I wouldn't make it a "cut to puzzle" thing. I would actually involve the game engine a bit more with it, including carrying vials of specific alchemic substances from one room to another while avoiding guard detection, only you can't place them on the floor otherwise the glass would break.

... Hrm... Right now it's pretty possible to speedrun up to the final target in less than 15 8 minutes, sometimes without even a single triple alert from an armed guard. (The only one where you can come close is the one with the cutscene before it. You can get around by ESC'ing out of the cutscene, using a poison attack on the left facing guard, and carrying the key around.) (Also, when I do that, leave the room, and come back, the cutscene goes to play again, even if the man I killed isn't there to talk.) I do hope you take my recommendation for more random events as the game occurs. Even if the game can go quickly, it could at least be spontaneous.

If someone were to play the game on a joypad that had the directional buttons assigned on turbo, the game becomes pretty broken. Even if it is just emulated by just rapidly tapping the buttons instead of holding down it can still work. You move at 2/3rd the speed of normal walking, but you don't make any noise -- even in water. I would've never thought true stealth was so caffeinated and spazzy in nature!

[beto]

I actually managed to get into the tin door via cheating where I found the basics of the said dial puzzle. I know I've already said it in my reports, but I think the puzzles might be a little bit of a waste -- especially the version I saw. Since you already have such a fine-tuned and indepth main engine, any departure that doesn't involve it feels a bit jarring; like that Towers of Hanoi that kind of comes out of nowhere in Mass Effect.

The pipe puzzle to form alchemic solutions sounds a bit more promising, if only because the notion of alchemy has a theme in the game. However, I wouldn't make it a "cut to puzzle" thing. I would actually involve the game engine a bit more with it, including carrying vials of specific alchemic substances from one room to another while avoiding guard detection, only you can't place them on the floor otherwise the glass would break.

I see... Actually we came up with this as a solution for something we'd like the game to have. One of our goals was to provide means for the game to be beaten through action means and some more slow paced means, and for this one we added (it's not quite complete as you noticed) an investigation branch.
This branch will have more puzzles and somethings you'd have to find out by listening to people talking and investigating (by using the space button mechanic) stuff.
The dial thing is supposed to be a magical seal that the summoned set up to lock some boxes, containing more information and other stuff (we still don't have these assets). And sometimes you'll have to carry small objects to other places so that some things might work. We thought about a missing element or filter to complete the alchemic puzzle and some magic word (in this case you don't "carry", but you have to find out) to activate an extra dial on later dial puzzles.

We'd like to implement this puzzle stuff in a more integrated way, but I'm afraid, for the time constraint, we won't be able =(
But, as I said, we'll try to minimize this detachment...

... Hrm... Right now it's pretty possible to speedrun up to the final target in less than 15 8 minutes, sometimes without even a single triple alert from an armed guard. (The only one where you can come close is the one with the cutscene before it. You can get around by ESC'ing out of the cutscene, using a poison attack on the left facing guard, and carrying the key around.) (Also, when I do that, leave the room, and come back, the cutscene goes to play again, even if the man I killed isn't there to talk.) I do hope you take my recommendation for more random events as the game occurs. Even if the game can go quickly, it could at least be spontaneous.

You killed the three targets in less than 10 minutes? That wasn't supposed to happen D=
Could you be more specific on this? So I could have some hint of how I'd fix it...

As for the bug of silent running we'll fix it. It happens because the sound of the footstep only starts on a specific frame, and I changed the character run speed and forgot to rearrange this.

Thanks for the feedback!
I'm anxious to have the next build! =)

[Morroque]

You killed the three targets in less than 10 minutes? That wasn't supposed to happen D=
Could you be more specific on this? So I could have some hint of how I'd fix it...

As for the bug of silent running we'll fix it. It happens because the sound of the footstep only starts on a specific frame, and I changed the character run speed and forgot to rearrange this.

I'll see if I can take a page from Pandara's notebook and record a video which will recapture my 8 minute speed run. Just so you know, if you cure the silent running bug, it'll increase the speed run by at least 10 minutes because speeding certain rooms just won't be possible anymore. This will bring the game to around 20, but it might still be a bit fast.

Also, if you open invisible doors, you can then chase frightened NPCs through them. They'll be quite content to just run all the way outside of the bounding box.

[Pandara_RA!]

You killed the three targets in less than 10 minutes? That wasn't supposed to happen D=
Could you be more specific on this? So I could have some hint of how I'd fix it...

As for the bug of silent running we'll fix it. It happens because the sound of the footstep only starts on a specific frame, and I changed the character run speed and forgot to rearrange this.

I'll see if I can take a page from Pandara's notebook and record a video which will recapture my 8 minute speed run. Just so you know, if you cure the silent running bug, it'll increase the speed run by at least 10 minutes because speeding certain rooms just won't be possible anymore. This will bring the game to around 20, but it might still be a bit fast.

Also, if you open invisible doors, you can then chase frightened NPCs through them. They'll be quite content to just run all the way outside of the bounding box.

Any game can be speed ran but, I actually feel this is more due to the fact that even if not sneaking guards have a short detection range, I really never felt "at risk" of dying.

[Falsen]

I played for about an hour and I really like what I've played so far. Submitted the questionnaire hopefully my feedback helps.

[beto]

MW if you can do it, I'd appreciate! =)

MW and Pandara, this week I've fixed the guard's contact distance (maybe now it's too short and they touch you very often, but we'll se the optimum soon), now even if you run and start sneaking it's more dangerous do avoid them. And, since they're facing an invisible creature and they know it, they'll do some blind attacks at random after they give chase and find nothing.
(before I did that sometimes you could run in front of the guard that they'd never touch you, unless you stopped and they bumped you)

Also the sound of steps were re-synced. It might still happen, but not as easy as before.

I played for about an hour and I really like what I've played so far. Submitted the questionnaire hopefully my feedback helps.

Thanks! =)
I'll go check it out now!

[Pandara_RA!]

MW if you can do it, I'd appreciate! =)

MW and Pandara, this week I've fixed the guard's contact distance (maybe now it's too short and they touch you very often, but we'll se the optimum soon), now even if you run and start sneaking it's more dangerous do avoid them. And, since they're facing an invisible creature and they know it, they'll do some blind attacks at random after they give chase and find nothing.
(before I did that sometimes you could run in front of the guard that they'd never touch you, unless you stopped and they bumped you)

Also the sound of steps were re-synced. It might still happen, but not as easy as before.

I played for about an hour and I really like what I've played so far. Submitted the questionnaire hopefully my feedback helps.

Thanks! =)
I'll go check it out now!

I actually reran the game just now to see if I could find other bugs, fixing the gaurds is perfect to prevent such speed running...(oh and I had a cool idea, make the ninja guards throw things much like the traps or give the different guards different combat traits). Anyways, here are the bugs I found.

1. Pressing escape during a cutscene causes the cutscene to end but the camera doesn't move back to the character unless you wait it out.

2. Sometimes when you die it'll say game over though off screen to the left (on a 1920x1200 res monitor, fantastic settings if that helps)

3. pressure plate's hitbox is either too large, or the characters is not refined enough, as in the part in the other world where there are plates like this

+===+++++
+=+=+++++
==+=+====
+++=+=+++
+++===+++

Spoilers:

+ - real trap
= - fake trap

you'll be standing on a safe plate though it'll shoot anyways because you are just slightly off, though your character model looks dead on, so it confused me which plates were correct.

Yes in the old state you can power run the game extremely quickly, here is a short example of me power running to the first kill(TAKING A PAGE FROM MY OWN BOOK XD <3<3<3).

Link: (it's uploading now)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP2zG0mgOvU&feature=youtu.be

[beto]

I actually reran the game just now to see if I could find other bugs, fixing the gaurds is perfect to prevent such speed running...(oh and I had a cool idea, make the ninja guards throw things much like the traps or give the different guards different combat traits). Anyways, here are the bugs I found.

We wish to have crossbow guards, but I'm afraid we won't be able to have new animations, sprites, programming, and stuff on our time constraint =/
It would be cool if they could throw some smoke bombs to get you dirty, but would be the same problem as the crossbow guards.

1. Pressing escape during a cutscene causes the cutscene to end but the camera doesn't move back to the character unless you wait it out.

We were having lots of problems with the cutscenes (including this one) so we decided to make the cutscenes not skippable (since they're short and there are only a few) and you would have control over all the text by pressing space to advance your text and also the npc text.

2. Sometimes when you die it'll say game over though off screen to the left (on a 1920x1200 res monitor, fantastic settings if that helps)

This is something I wasn't aware of. I'll tell the others tomorrow and see if we can come up with a solution. Does it happen very often?

3. pressure plate's hitbox is either too large, or the characters is not refined enough, as in the part in the other world where there are plates like this

You're right. The collision of the pressure plate is actually larger that the sprite. I've just fixed it now. Hope they're shrinked enough to feel like it's right =)

I think I'll make and upload another build now, since we made lots of changes already, then I'll make another by the weekend.
=)

[Pandara_RA!]

This is something I wasn't aware of. I'll tell the others tomorrow and see if we can come up with a solution. Does it happen very often?

About 1 out of 4 deaths.

I think I'll make and upload another build now, since we made lots of changes already, then I'll make another by the weekend.
=)

I want it, tell me when it's up and I'll play it through and tell you how it all feels/what bugs there are. =] what version number will it be?

[beto]

About 1 out of 4 deaths.

Hmm... this ain't no good =/
I'll tell the others about it and see what we can do (hope it's something easy to fix)

I want it, tell me when it's up and I'll play it through and tell you how it all feels/what bugs there are. =] what version number will it be?

Awesome! =)
I'm uploading it to the server and will post a list of what has changed (that I know and can remember).

[beto]

Thanks to all your feedback we've made lots of improvements to the game. (Thanks again!)
Some of the things you pointed and suggested are still being worked on, some we unfortunately won't be able to do, and some will be done later.

The new build of is available here www.qasir.adugestudio.com/builds/beta/QasirBeta120207.rar (Mac version comes tomorrow, since a Mac is needed to make a build properly)

What's changed?
- Lots of tweaks on the guard's behavior (now they make random attacks after they hear something and find nothing, changed timings for some actions, etc)
- Got rid of the lights when you are sneaking
- Fixed (I think) the "guard smacking" problem when you go back to a room that previously had a guard close to a door
- Fixed the problems with the civilian that goes down the gate when you open it
- Fixed some indications of the alchemic puzzles (even though they're still not in game, now there are means for things to be less confusing)
- Put the lost eye on the central garden on its proper position (it was an Oryx's eye)
- Added some feedback on the levers that change the cross shaped room with the spikes blocking the way (I hope someday we solve this without relying on the levers so much)
- Fixed y position of carpets and pressure plates on the northwestern and northeastern parts of the game
- Got rid of a bolt trap that wasn't indicated well in a room of the northeastern part
- Fixed some grammar issues on some texts through the game
- Changed the logic of the icons that would appear above the character's head (this on isn't complete, since it requires to change things through the whole game)
- Implemented full control over text advance on the cutscenes and made them unskippable
- Changed the graphics of the pause menu and now it is as it should be (the menu itself isn't fully funcional yet)
- Tried to reduce the "baby step" bug, but to get rid of it would need a whole redesign of the character motor and I don't know how we'll proceed about it
- Fixed some bugs (I won't know all of them to list here)
- There are already the alpha versions of the dial puzzles around the game (I'll make a sepparate build to test only the puzzles once we have them working alright)

- Probably many things else, but I don't know all of them because I got sick and worked from home today (and might be some things I just didn't remember)

All of this caused some new bugs:
- The room with the civilian holding a key is acting strange. The civilian spots the key and the alarm goes off, then the guard spots the key (on the civilian) and tries to get it.
- There might be some cutscene bugs (I tried something but I don't know if it was a nice solution)
- Sometimes some civilians (not all of them, to be more odd) won't animate. They will act normal, but frozen.

Your help is being great! Thanks!
o/