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[Akatosh]

So, uh, hi everybody. I've been developing stupid little freeware games (adventures mostly) for about two years now, but I've only ever released them to a rather limited audience - the AGS forums, to be exact. And while these forums are a nice place to stay and everything, it also means I'm not exactly getting that much feedback on and attention for them which I'd like to change now. While I've developed some more games, the ones I'd like to take you to take a look at mainly are:


_Access



A not-quite-serious pseudohacking game. It's played a little like a bastardized version of a simple OS - that is, you can run applications, crack passwords, visit different servers (via IP numbers) and pretty much everything else you'd need for some simplish hacking. Think Uplink, but more tongue-in-cheek, less realistic, less repetitive and in a different genre.
 Personally, I think it's a little rough around the edges , but people told me it was pretty fun to play and it won the "Best Innovation" AGS Award 2007 since it's the first game of this sort for AGS. About medium length. Oh, and you might want to keep a piece of paper ready for the last puzzle unless you're the protagonist of A Beautiful Mind.




Washed Ashore Deluxe [UPDATED]




(Outdated)


A rather short classical adventure that focuses on puzzles and dialogue. It's staged in 1917 and lets you play as the commander of an Imperial German Zeppelin Airship who strands on a deserted island after an unfortunate encounter with an American Battleship. I can't really tell you much about it since basically everything further than that would be a major spoiler. Sorry.



There also is what I like to refer as the "Me Go Series", composed of Me Go Store, Me Go Away and Me Go 2008. They completely eschew characters, puzzles, graphics and logics, but I hear people like the weird dialogue and what I substituted logics with. With what I substituted logics. I'm mainly linking to these because there is that game I'm developing right now on which I'd like to hear some feedback.

So, uh... review my games... please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top?

/EDIT: Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the system requirements. As for most AGS games, if you're running a Windows version, you can run them. They're 640x480, 32-bit and use DirectDraw (I think).

[Akatosh]

*cough*
*cough*

C'mon... there has to be something you can say about these.

[Guert]

Yup, I'm pretty sure there's something to say ut your post could be a bit clearer. You're posting like, 2-3 games and you don't talk alot about how to play it. If you don't mind I could edit the hacking game a bit to show you what you mean. I'm pretty sure folks around here would enjoy a game about hacking fighting robot factory... What do you say?

[hroon]

I downloaded Washed Ashore and enjoyed it quite a bit - but i think i ran into a bug, which didn't let me continue the game.



SPOILER



After i assembled all the 5 plates and the bolts i tried to take the makeshift fishing rod apart but he wouldn't let me. Somehow i also could talk to the glowing heap of metal (Dialog with Wilhelm?)



SPOILER END



Other than that i really did like the humor and general feel and especially the adorable player character.

[Akatosh]

First of all, thanks for the nice comments, hroon.  I'll look into that bug when I have some more time. Mind sending me a PM with what exactly you were trying to do or, if possible, a savegame file?

Guert... I'm sorry, but I'm not that sure what you mean, either. Do you mean the controls of the games (explained either in-game or in a readme)? Their gameplay (point 'n' click)? How to get them to start (download, unzip, run)? Or something different altogether?

[Guert]

I'm talking about your first post in this thread. I personaly think you'd get more attention if you would do the following.

For the _Access part:
-Make the font for the download link bigger (size 14 font)
-Explain in a few words how to play , what is the general idea of the game and what is so original with it

For the Washed ashore part:
-Put more than one screen of the game because this one is not much of a seller.

What I'm basically saying is that I have not downloaded any of these games because I don't know what they are and why should I play them. I'll try to give them a spin once I get a couple of spare minutes. I'm sure you'd get a lot more replies if you just enhanced the way you present those games to the community (ie your thread starting post).
Cheers!

[Zaphos]

I tried to download Washed Ashore, but the random shady download site wanted me to sign up or something.

[Akatosh]

Guert: Ah, thanks for the advice. I've edited the first post a bit.

Zaphos: Yeah, esnips is going down a downhill slope on high speed. Until I find a better hosting solution, here's the file hosted on a different shady (but corporate!) filehost. If you could point me somewhere worthwhile I'd be very thankful.

[Zaphos]

Ah thanks, I got the file now.

But I'm afraid I can't give much in the way of feedback, it seems like a really arbitrary adventure game.  All I did was collect some items from the beach and then try to randomly use them on things or with each other.  Most of the time there's no feedback at all, so I'm not sure if the game registers that I clicked the things together.  And then on rare occasions it says "that combination doesn't make sense" or "that combination could make sense, but I'm clairvoyant and forbid it".  Most of the items are relatively indistinct and similar.  Wasn't fun randomly clicking things, and seeing nothing happen, so I stopped playing.

[Akatosh]

Alright, sorry for the long time it took me to reply, but I had some trouble with changing / upgrading PCs and then sort of forgot this thread even existed. 
Now, back to the discussion.

it seems like a really arbitrary adventure game.  All I did was collect some items from the beach and then try to randomly use them on things or with each other.

Personally, I thought it was rather clear what you had to do when or how, but that's just my opinion. If you could tell me some more details about why you felt like that (e.g. did you not "get" the puzzle, did you feel "left alone", did you not even know what to do, ...) I'd be grateful.

Most of the time there's no feedback at all, so I'm not sure if the game registers that I clicked the things together.

It does, but the game lacks the standard mumbled variation of "I can't pick that up." I'll address that issue... once I manage to retrieve the project source thingmabob.

"that combination could make sense, but I'm clairvoyant and forbid it"

Eh. Yeah. Sorry. That's mainly due to the fact a portion of the game was added later on... and that I was too lazy to go the extra mile and make the steel plates freely combinable. I'll try to get around that problem in the next game.

Most of the items are relatively indistinct and similar.

Care to explain this further?

Wasn't fun randomly clicking things, and seeing nothing happen, so I stopped playing.

Sorry to hear that, but thanks for the constructive criticism anyway.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Well, getting feedback tends to be tricky...and annoying. Look at my Barren thread in this sub-forum. WTF?

Anyway, I downloaded Washed Ashore too, and was pleasently surprised. I thought I would dislike the graphics minimalism, but I just loved the style. Maybe I should go that way too. The humor is really top notch. Loved the idea of the pet....well, don't want to spoil the game for others. Hindenburg is just a great character to interact with. Also, playing a German general (?) in WW I. Cool! It took me some 20-30 minutes to complete the game, but it was a fun and rewarding experience. Perhaps the puzzles could have been a bit varied, but some of them were cleverly construced.

BTW, what game are you developing now?

[Hideous]

Well, getting feedback tends to be tricky...and annoying. Look at my Barren thread in this sub-forum. WTF?

You could say it's quite... Barren.

[Zaphos]

Personally, I thought it was rather clear what you had to do when or how, but that's just my opinion. If you could tell me some more details about why you felt like that (e.g. did you not "get" the puzzle, did you feel "left alone", did you not even know what to do, ...) I'd be grateful.

I forget what the exact issue was when I wrote that.  But in general there's just a lot of stuff you should be able to do but it doesn't work, or stuff where you should at least get a response and you don't.  I remember last time I played I thought I needed to cool off the metal plate to take it off the magnet, but when I tried to use the stream to do that I got no response.  The ocean was not clickable.  Replaying it just now, I see that I had to go one more screen to the left to find clickable ocean, and then it works as I expected.

There's also stuff that doesn't really make sense, like why is the sharp piece of metal usable as a hammer?  How would we know that the random hunk of metal magnetic -- it wasn't labeled as such?

Later, when you want to put it on Hindenburg, it randomly doesn't work until you give him the communicator, even though you've already asked him to help get the key.

Stuff like this makes the game feel like random clicking, since you can't get a sense for when or why things will work.

Care to explain this further?

For the first part of the game most of your inventory is just different shaped pieces of steel.  It's not always clear why one piece should work better than another.


Why make the user click the communication device on the main character at the end, instead of having him just automatically use it?  If the player knows to do that, then it's just busy work, and if they don't, it's more bad interface than puzzle.  And there's nothing to do in the world after that -- in fact, the world state doesn't seem to have been updated so Hindenburg gives you old and now-confusing dialog if you talk to him.

Anyway, now I finished the game.  Looking beyond just the puzzles, the writing is amusing but the story feels pretty pointless.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Hehe, odd. I didn't have any issues with this game Zaphos is talking about. I only found the plate usage thing a bit repetetive, but most puzzles felt clever and intuitive to me.

[Akatosh]

Alright, thanks for the quick response. Here are my thoughts:

I forget what the exact issue was when I wrote that.  But in general there's just a lot of stuff you should be able to do but it doesn't work, or stuff where you should at least get a response and you don't.

Yeah, I know. The game needs some more "flavor text" for interactions that don't belong to the direct path straight through the game. Noted!

  I remember last time I played I thought I needed to cool off the metal plate to take it off the magnet, but when I tried to use the stream to do that I got no response.  The ocean was not clickable.  Replaying it just now, I see that I had to go one more screen to the left to find clickable ocean, and then it works as I expected.

Again, I think I was too lazy to add an "ocean" hotspot in all the rooms... sorry. But it's nice to see the puzzle was at least logical enough that you could figure it out! 

There's also stuff that doesn't really make sense, like why is the sharp piece of metal usable as a hammer?

Well, basically anything that's heavy and stable enough can be used as a hammer... and it's not like you had many alternatives to get these bolts in, did you?

How would we know that the random hunk of metal magnetic -- it wasn't labeled as such?

If I recall correctly, looking at it yields the message that it has "chips of metal seemingly sticking to it", which is, as the main character notices, "weird" for a random chunk of metal. Sorry if that hint was too subtle... but I guess you just lost my train of thought (more like a rollercoaster, actually) there.

Later, when you want to put it on Hindenburg, it randomly doesn't work until you give him the communicator, even though you've already asked him to help get the key.

Why make the user click the communication device on the main character at the end, instead of having him just automatically use it?  If the player knows to do that, then it's just busy work, and if they don't, it's more bad interface than puzzle.  And there's nothing to do in the world after that -- in fact, the world state doesn't seem to have been updated so Hindenburg gives you old and now-confusing dialog if you talk to him.

Somewhat lazy scripting again. Sorry. 

For the first part of the game most of your inventory is just different shaped pieces of steel.  It's not always clear why one piece should work better than another.

My train of thought works different again here, I think. The steel things all have differnt shapes, colors, descriptions and names, so I thought them to be variated enough.

Anyway, now I finished the game.  Looking beyond just the puzzles, the writing is amusing but the story feels pretty pointless.

Yeah, the story is slim enough to be almost non-existant, but it doesn't really matter for this game anyway. It's nice to hear that you liked the writing, anyway. 


So, to bottomline it... I'd say the main issues mentioned with the game we could agree on were

• The lack of "flavor text" or interactions that don't make the plot progress, like the good old "I can't pick that up" or "I can't use that here".
• Somewhat lazy scripting on my side, which could be fixed with some effort.

About the problem you had with the puzzles... well... I feel a little like Lachie there (thanks for the kind words, by the way). Maybe you just felt that way because of the aforementioned problems? Or did you get the impression the puzzles were, inherently, nonsensical?

[Zaphos]

Well, basically anything that's heavy and stable enough can be used as a hammer... and it's not like you had many alternatives to get these bolts in, did you?

I tried the pole first, since it felt more hammery to me, and when that didn't work I figured maybe I needed to weld them with the hot thing, and then when that didn't work I finally tried the other thing in my inventory.

I think perhaps part of my thinking was that you can't use a sharp thing as a hammer because you'd cut up your hands.

If I recall correctly, looking at it yields the message that it has "chips of metal seemingly sticking to it", which is, as the main character notices, "weird" for a random chunk of metal. Sorry if that hint was too subtle... but I guess you just lost my train of thought (more like a rollercoaster, actually) there.

I almost never right clicked descriptions in the inventory, so I probably just didn't see that text.

About the problem you had with the puzzles... well... I feel a little like Lachie there (thanks for the kind words, by the way). Maybe you just felt that way because of the aforementioned problems? Or did you get the impression the puzzles were, inherently, nonsensical?

I think my problems were almost entirely either caused by holes in the scripting, or me just not looking at the descriptions of items.  Aside from that I think the puzzles were straightforward.

[Akatosh]

Alright, I put some more work in the game, fixed the scripting holes, replaced a few graphics with slightly less bad ones and added background music, as well as a few sound effects (working frenzy hooray  ).

Any comments?