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[Perrin]

Seasons of Change
by Perrin



An anthology of four short interactive adventure stories in one game. Each story has it's own art and music style but all four are thematically linked.

WAFFLE

So I made this game for Assemblee however, the version I've submitted for the competition is kind of my beta. I plan on working on it a little bit more over the coming weeks to polish it up a bit before putting it out more publicaly.

I was hoping I might get some feedback here, so I can take it into account while I'm tidying up the game. Or even if some of it's a bit late to fix more fundemental problems at least it's stuff I can bear in mind for future games.

I'm not really looking for bug reports. I've got a bunch of test monkeys around here for that. More looking for what people feel about the game experience itself, the four different stories.

TECHNICALS

Windows only I'm afraid. It runs at 1280x720 so you'll need a decent rig.

Controls are straight forward:
Left & Right Arrows = Move Left And Right
Up Arrow = Jump
Z = Interact (Go through doors / talk / take)
X = Run (only in the detective world)

This version has some known bugs. Worst being word wrappin is messed up at the moment, meaning a handful of letters are skipped. Which is a bit of a problem for such a dialogue intensive game. (I'm working on it)

DOWNLOAD

http://www.lockeddoorpuzzle.com/site/sites/default/files/SeasonsOfChange.zip (74MB)

SCREENSHOTS

Overworld


World 1


World 2


World 3



LINKS

Original thread for the comp is here: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9652.0

[Noyb]

Scattered notes (spoilers)...

I like the concept. The four stories fit well thematically, and each feels like a glimpse into a larger game. The art and music are well chosen, and each story evokes an interesting mood.

It's hard to tell sometimes what can be interacted with. For instance, the thief chapter has two scenes with doors, but only one can be entered. The entrance to the burrow is only clear textually and not visually in the bunny chapter.

Jumping is really finicky. Gravity felt high, leading to an overcompensating abrupt jump with a decent height but very little horizontal movement. It's such a sharp, sudden movement that it conflicts with the slower paced feeling of the bunny and knight chapters. I wonder if jumping is even necessary for the bunny and thief chapters? Oddly enough, intentionally broken platformer controls is thematically appropriate for the platformer chapter.

The bunny chapter was the most engaging. Felt like a larger world. Characters got a chance to speak more than once, and both the world and the characters changed over time.

Constant load times between screens breaks the flow of the thief chapter to some degree.

For the platformer chapter, I liked the concept of of an aging platform game hero going on an adventure when he's past his physical prime. Collecting coins felt really arbitrary story-wise (are they a ransom? a self-imposed challenge to prove he's still in shape?) With the importance death has to the meta-narrative, and the initial speech about danger it felt odd that it's treated without importance here. (Though with the somewhat frustrating difficulty, I can see why there aren't lives.)

The ending fit well thematically (accept that over time the world changes, you change, people and friends change --> accept that you will one day die), but I had trouble caring since the knight was the least characterized of all the protagonists.

Bugs (part of my notes anyway)...
Running into the edge of a screen in the thief chapter doesn't trigger a scene change.

Sometimes jumping into the edge of a screen doesn't trigger a scene change in the bunny chapter.

Is it intentional that the characters in the thief chapter are semitransparent?

Typo in rabbit chapter: "Been hear for hours"

If you hold Z when ending a dialogue in the bunny chapter, it makes you talk to an NPC again.

Keeps replaying the door open sound in the platformer chapter every time it appears onscreen.

Hitboxes for the screen edge obstacles in the thief chapter are really large, and don't always prevent the player from passing through them.

[Perrin]

Thanks noyb that is some great and really helpful feedback.

[Perrin]

I'm planning on putting out a final version of this tomorrow, so I can have it done and dusted before I head out to TIGJam UK.

So I just wanted to bump this to see if there was any chance of any more feedback anyone would like to throw my way. Noyb's was really helpful and I've acted on some of the stuff he's mentioned, but tommorow is probably going to be the last time I work on this.

I guess to be fair interactive story things aren't everyone's cup of teas.