Lurking Under Life. (Chapter 1 finished)
- Thread starter The Man
- Start date
Nice, this had the effects that I wished for when playing Cell Chamber's intro. Some good were devices used, and really did scare me at times. :> Well done.
One thing I'd suggest though, is to not use a face graphic for it. Since if I remember right, the expression doesn't change, and I think that FM's puffy face takes away from the "horror" feel.
One thing I'd suggest though, is to not use a face graphic for it. Since if I remember right, the expression doesn't change, and I think that FM's puffy face takes away from the "horror" feel.
http://www.rmxp.org/forums/index.php?topic=39163.0 refer to it for a nice idea :D
Erichermit":14samjcq said:
You may be thinking of "Dreams in the Witch House" about the old house with the non-euclidean geometry, the sounds of scratching in the wall, and eventually a completely strange trip into a pocket universe inhabited by an ancient witch. (I <3 Lovecraft, even though he really should have consulted a dictionary and thesaurus occasionally).
Otherwise, there are a lot of spoilers in this thread! Use spoiler tags, for the love of God, that's what they were invented for! I'm looking forward to trying this out tomorrow.
Alright, I finished it. So on to an opinion!
Whew so there you go, can't say I wasn't thorough. :D
The atmosphere was great, you definitely accomplished a lot with sound and the mood and pacing were fairly consistent. The shock value moments wore off after I started anticipating them but I did get a good jump off the first one, you had me paying attention to the text and it sort of came out of nowhere, which was a great bit of misdirection.
The graphics lacked consistency, there was a lot of detail in the wall textures and the paintings but not so much in many of the objects, and the lighting and shading seemed to vary wildly from item to item - also the main character's sprite's hair flips back and forth on highlights while he walks, that's a very simple thing to fix just by copy-pasting his head across. In general the tileset needs a lot of refinement but that's not such a big deal, and fortunately when you do some refining you can apply it retroactively to older chapters as long as you don't rearrange. :D
I did dig the creepy paintings though, I don't know where you managed to find some of them but they worked great. A little more variety would be nice though, I don't imagine even a crazy creepy old uncle would have the same four paintings duplicated so often throughout a house.
Also the mid basement floors, I'm not sure what you were going for with the walls, metallic or what, but they just didn't come across right, really just off looking.
The mapping was decent, it didn't quite accomplish anything that I would call a consistent layout of a house but it go the point across. Lots of pointless objects and clutter were present that didn't really seem to add to it, crates and cabinets all over the place that didn't really add atmosphere or contribute in any way to gameplay. There were quite a few pathing bugs, nothing game breaking but I discovered in multiple areas I could walk into walls, over the sides of the staircase entrance, etc. I would take a closer look at your passability and priority setup, it seems to me like you have some passable objects sitting on higher layers than impassable objects that you are layering over, resulting in non-blocking walls. I'm sorry I didn't make a more thorough note of where I ran into them, I wasn't really in beta-testing mode at the time, but I believe the biggest one was in one of the rooms directly after the basement around the area of the cannon ball trap, where I walked several tiles into the wall and was able to wander around a bit (may have been the stable). Like I said, wasn't game breaking, but definitely needs polish. :D
Oh another little bug was the trick hallway between the upper floors and the basement where you have to take a left through an unseen path indicated by inconsistency in the carpet: the two different halls used to pull off the trick are 1 square off from eachother so there's an awkward flipping effect when you go from one to the other. It would be a much smoother transition and thus better effect if you quickly fixed that up.
The traps were simple enough that I picked up their patterns pretty quickly but I died a couple times in learning so I think the balance was right on there. Puzzles in general were very simple and straightforward, they reminded me of the old adventure games where you just sort of wander around looking at things till you find the right object to click on, then wander around more until you find the right spot to put it - nostalgic in a way, not innovative but at least for me not stale either.
Oh back to the traps, I found myself suiciding a couple times to work my way backward (it turned out to be unnecessary) but you might want to keep track of what direction the player approached from when he moves into a set of traps. Same goes for the torch rooms where you could choose to "go back" if you were out of torches, I actually entered the basement from the far side, forgot I was out of torches, and got spit back out into the hallway on the west entrance.
A few thematic inconsistencies: In your introduction you note that the location is Antarctica, but then refer to the house as being built "up there", which read sort of weird, I was thinking, am I actually in the Arctic then, or am I up in some mountains in Antarctica, or whuh?. Also, it's "We treasure hunters" not "us treasure hunters" :D Um, other than that, the big long mine-shaft like hallway in the basement that leads to the locked door you can't get through, when the lights go out there's a clearly electric sound effect where you mention earlier in the game that all the lighting in the house is gas, unless that's an intentional inconsistency it came across weird, especially since the light on the wall is a torch. The sputtering sound from the fire traps would probably work just fine.
Oh yeah one last thing, where in the world did you get that crazy Shoggoth on the roof song? It was awesome.
The graphics lacked consistency, there was a lot of detail in the wall textures and the paintings but not so much in many of the objects, and the lighting and shading seemed to vary wildly from item to item - also the main character's sprite's hair flips back and forth on highlights while he walks, that's a very simple thing to fix just by copy-pasting his head across. In general the tileset needs a lot of refinement but that's not such a big deal, and fortunately when you do some refining you can apply it retroactively to older chapters as long as you don't rearrange. :D
I did dig the creepy paintings though, I don't know where you managed to find some of them but they worked great. A little more variety would be nice though, I don't imagine even a crazy creepy old uncle would have the same four paintings duplicated so often throughout a house.
Also the mid basement floors, I'm not sure what you were going for with the walls, metallic or what, but they just didn't come across right, really just off looking.
The mapping was decent, it didn't quite accomplish anything that I would call a consistent layout of a house but it go the point across. Lots of pointless objects and clutter were present that didn't really seem to add to it, crates and cabinets all over the place that didn't really add atmosphere or contribute in any way to gameplay. There were quite a few pathing bugs, nothing game breaking but I discovered in multiple areas I could walk into walls, over the sides of the staircase entrance, etc. I would take a closer look at your passability and priority setup, it seems to me like you have some passable objects sitting on higher layers than impassable objects that you are layering over, resulting in non-blocking walls. I'm sorry I didn't make a more thorough note of where I ran into them, I wasn't really in beta-testing mode at the time, but I believe the biggest one was in one of the rooms directly after the basement around the area of the cannon ball trap, where I walked several tiles into the wall and was able to wander around a bit (may have been the stable). Like I said, wasn't game breaking, but definitely needs polish. :D
Oh another little bug was the trick hallway between the upper floors and the basement where you have to take a left through an unseen path indicated by inconsistency in the carpet: the two different halls used to pull off the trick are 1 square off from eachother so there's an awkward flipping effect when you go from one to the other. It would be a much smoother transition and thus better effect if you quickly fixed that up.
The traps were simple enough that I picked up their patterns pretty quickly but I died a couple times in learning so I think the balance was right on there. Puzzles in general were very simple and straightforward, they reminded me of the old adventure games where you just sort of wander around looking at things till you find the right object to click on, then wander around more until you find the right spot to put it - nostalgic in a way, not innovative but at least for me not stale either.
Oh back to the traps, I found myself suiciding a couple times to work my way backward (it turned out to be unnecessary) but you might want to keep track of what direction the player approached from when he moves into a set of traps. Same goes for the torch rooms where you could choose to "go back" if you were out of torches, I actually entered the basement from the far side, forgot I was out of torches, and got spit back out into the hallway on the west entrance.
A few thematic inconsistencies: In your introduction you note that the location is Antarctica, but then refer to the house as being built "up there", which read sort of weird, I was thinking, am I actually in the Arctic then, or am I up in some mountains in Antarctica, or whuh?. Also, it's "We treasure hunters" not "us treasure hunters" :D Um, other than that, the big long mine-shaft like hallway in the basement that leads to the locked door you can't get through, when the lights go out there's a clearly electric sound effect where you mention earlier in the game that all the lighting in the house is gas, unless that's an intentional inconsistency it came across weird, especially since the light on the wall is a torch. The sputtering sound from the fire traps would probably work just fine.
Oh yeah one last thing, where in the world did you get that crazy Shoggoth on the roof song? It was awesome.
Whew so there you go, can't say I wasn't thorough. :D
@ Rows. You could have just posted for help, but the laws the law they say. lol
@ Nphyx: Thank you for the report. Very detailed which is very nice. Yes, the tilesets are (Even now) a WIP. Some will be used in my main projeect when finished. Come to think of it this entire LuL project is a testing ground for my main one. It's also given me back some motivation to work on my main project.
Anyhow. A lot of what you posted has been fixed already. A lot of what you posted I never thought of or didn't notice. I will address these things ASAP. From what you said I kind of accomplished what I was trying to do. After the first (Jumpy scene) I tried to keep you paying attention for the next one. Even if it didn't come. That's why there are scenes you think something is about to happen then it does not. Very hard to keep it up. I know. I do have some new surprises for the next chapter though. As well as some fun puzzle idea's. (At least I hope so). Thank you for the detailed report.
@ Nphyx: Thank you for the report. Very detailed which is very nice. Yes, the tilesets are (Even now) a WIP. Some will be used in my main projeect when finished. Come to think of it this entire LuL project is a testing ground for my main one. It's also given me back some motivation to work on my main project.
Anyhow. A lot of what you posted has been fixed already. A lot of what you posted I never thought of or didn't notice. I will address these things ASAP. From what you said I kind of accomplished what I was trying to do. After the first (Jumpy scene) I tried to keep you paying attention for the next one. Even if it didn't come. That's why there are scenes you think something is about to happen then it does not. Very hard to keep it up. I know. I do have some new surprises for the next chapter though. As well as some fun puzzle idea's. (At least I hope so). Thank you for the detailed report.
Xathia Vastar
Member
That first screen creeps me out o.o
adelaidechoc
Member
I definitely won't play this....Alone
That baby pic IS scarrrryyy~
That baby pic IS scarrrryyy~
NeoSamurai
Member
You think it's creepy now, wait until you see it close up. :tongue:
Shenrai Iarnehs
Member
Wow. I played this game about a week ago but never thought to say anything. Now, since I'm bored and have nothing much else to do, I shall.
Very impressive. I myself have always been a guilty fan of horror-themed stuff. (Explains why I watch SciFi channel all the time...) Anyway, the atmosphere was indeed top notch, and as far as I can tell you really suceeded where you wanted to. I was indeed reduced to plugging in headphones WITHOUT actually putting them on just so I wouldn't be so suprised. (And let me tell ya, if my headphones had been on, the screeching body in the bathtub would have killed me right then and there.) It's just that effective. And those two times that the face went sliding across the screen nearly sent me through the roof!
Overall, it was a pretty darn good scream. I really look forward to the next part.
Very impressive. I myself have always been a guilty fan of horror-themed stuff. (Explains why I watch SciFi channel all the time...) Anyway, the atmosphere was indeed top notch, and as far as I can tell you really suceeded where you wanted to. I was indeed reduced to plugging in headphones WITHOUT actually putting them on just so I wouldn't be so suprised. (And let me tell ya, if my headphones had been on, the screeching body in the bathtub would have killed me right then and there.) It's just that effective. And those two times that the face went sliding across the screen nearly sent me through the roof!
Overall, it was a pretty darn good scream. I really look forward to the next part.
Thanks a lot. My real goal was to try and keep up the atmosphere. A few parts where you think something will happen then it does not. Anyone can make the jumpy parts, but trying to keep the edgy feel is what is hard. I hope I pulled it off. Right now I'm working on new puzzles for the second chapter. Ones that are a little more fun. (Everyone seemed to like the shadow of you puzzle at the end of the chapter. So I'm looking do make more like that)
Again, thanks for the remarks and don't be afraid to add suggestions and comments.
Again, thanks for the remarks and don't be afraid to add suggestions and comments.
I played through again (I didn't save the first time.) and I still love it. It's completely creepy, and I still jump at the painting when it transforms!
A suggestion, however. You should make it so that players are given the option to save their game at the end of the chapter, instead of being sent back to the title screen without saving. (That way they don't have to play through again to get a complete save data like I did. :tongue
A suggestion, however. You should make it so that players are given the option to save their game at the end of the chapter, instead of being sent back to the title screen without saving. (That way they don't have to play through again to get a complete save data like I did. :tongue