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The Here and Now of Yesterday
CashmereCat- 03/23/2015 08:39 AM
- 4744 views
The Here and Now of Yesterday
Summary
The Here and Now of Yesterday is a community game curated by Liberty as an event called "Map Manor Madness", which was held in 2011. The entrants were instructed to create maps with atmosphere, and whatever type of atmosphere that was, was entirely up to the maker to decide. And so this project is the collaboration of 18 developers. The maps were compiled by Liberty into a single manor. This series of games is planned to be 8 games long, each game's title being pulled from a line from Liberty's cousin's last poem he wrote before he passed away. This game series is a sort of homage to him.
Story
The game starts with a handdrawn sequence of events detailing how a little girl named Emi is leaving her father to enter a manor. It's a neat and affecting intro, with a touch of surreality, told with immediacy, gripping suspense, and a tone and feel that draws you in instantaneously.
Graphics+Audio+Atmosphere
It's hard to separate this game's story from its atmosphere, because the narrative is driven by the atmosphere, and it's hard to separate the atmosphere from the graphics/audio, so I decided to lump this all into one indistinct, crudely defined category.
The manor consists of a many vignettes ordered in a non-linear manner, many of which are optional to complete. This game relies on atmosphere so much because it's a horror, and when you enter the manor you immediately feel the sense of creepiness pervading the air. In rooms, objects disappear, they dart across the room, and react in unexpected ways. This is coupled with great sound design, with some maps being well composed, and shadows and tints generally being a good tint of dark so that you can see most things clearly.
But, at some point, a strange phenomenon occurred. I became less and less interested in the story because of the nature of the series of rooms people have created trying to use shock tactics to scare me. It's like if everyone is trying to scare you at once, but they can't scare you because the suspense doesn't make sense - it's too disjointed, and the atmospheres don't mesh. It seems like there might be some sort of storyline thread going through this, and there is a series of cutscenes at the end that attempt to tie it all up in one neat bundle, but by then, the contents are a mess and the characters have conversations that you don't really care a lot about.
At first, I felt like the scares had meaning, but they became repetitious after a while, and even grating, until there's that sad feeling where you're hoping that it would end soon. Just like too many jump scares in a horror film will make you sick of them, this game tends to overstay its welcome in the same way. It's hard to criticize this game for being disjointed when it is the product of so many developers coming together to create one game, but that's exactly why it doesn't work. "Sudden graphical change + loud noise = scare" does not a good horror make. After a while, the many things disappearing and reappearing and blood splatters on the walls start to lose their effect because there's nothing that made me care about those scares. The atmosphere which should be relentlessly suspenseful in more infrequent doses, becomes boring. There's scares where the developers like to put overlays over the maps but it feels more like a shock tactic than anything. Other parts of the mansion play like fever dreams and surreal nightmares, but they're contrasted with traditional horror tropes so incohesively that I'm afraid to say this compilation suffers from the almost unavoidable fact for a collaborative project with such a concept - uneven tone and confusing, well, everything.
Horror is such a tightrope to balance on, with the tug-o-war between suspense and payoff playing a large part, but it feels like this mansion was all payoff with no investment made in the process that makes it rewarding in the end, that is, a good involving story.
But speaking of solo rooms, Gibmaker's bathroom was my favourite room, an atmospherically near-perfect scene with very good usage of tints, pictures, atmospheric sounds, and a payoff that wasn't a jump scare but a clever mind screw moment. It's a brilliant scene, but it's not entirely surprising, considering this is coming from the horror veteran who created the fantastic classic The Longing Ribbon. This room is the sign of a true showman.
The following is a quick review of all the other rooms that I can think of right now. I'm away from my computer and thus can't remember all the maps but I will give a review of what I do remember, and upon request I will give individuals more in-depth reviews of their respective maps.
alterego - Chapel and Chapel basement maps - Very story-heavy, unintuitive backtracking required to trigger cutscenes, but the chapel has a nice atmosphere. The code was too difficult for me to figure out without a walkthrough.
arcan - Small Storage room and Instectarium - I can't remember the insectarium but I can remember the small storage room and all I can remember was there was cobwebs and a couple of shadows, which created an atmosphere. I just wish there was more to do in this room.
chana - Living room - I think this one was the one with the ghosts disappearing, and the camp fire? It was a very large room, but it would be nice if there was something to do here other than grab an item.
Deckiller - Garden Maze - The most gameplay-heavy map in the game. It was good to finally see some good gameplay in the game, even if it was a bit unintuitive to know which switches activated which pillars to move, and how easy it was to dodge all the zombies. The statue puzzle was well-designed.
Demicrusaius - Master bedroom - This one was like a fever dream. It was confusing to see how this room worked. I just kept going back to the mirror, using the items, and back again, but there was no pattern to it. It was very Lynchian, but the way these events occurred needed to make more semantic sense.
Faenon - Guest bedroom - I don't think I encountered this room in my playthrough.
Gibmaker - Bathroom - My favourite room. It was a bit unintuitive to have to stay in the bathroom for a little while to activate the event, but the payoff was well worth it. A very effective scene with great effects.
Happy - Mistresses Quarters - I can't remember this one.
Julev - Kitchen and Dungeon - I remember this map slightly. Was it the one with the overlay? If so, I felt it was kind of a cheap scare. It was probably the first one I encountered.
Marrend - Wine Cellar - This was an interesting puzzle, but it was slightly unintuitive so I had to consult the walkthrough to get through. I appreciate that the gameplay was present, though.
Max McGee - Solarium - This was such a large room, and it was quite pretty, but I was expecting it to actually be important to justify its large size. It wasn't.
Merlinman - Childrens' room - This one was an interesting little vignette but it didn't make sense with the rest of the story of the mansion, in my opinion.
psy_wombats - Men's room Psy wombats uses his traditional sense of trickery to give you a false sense of direction. I think this was quite a clever room, with doors disappearing and stuff like that. I think Psy could have gone a little more overboard with the mind fcuk, making objects and other things appear/disappear throughout the room, for a more effective scare, but it was a nice change of pace.
SGCN - Attic The graphics in this map were quite scary. One thing that I'm sure Liberty has fixed, is that an important item was only interactible on one square on the map. It was only when I consulted the walkthrough and opened the editor that I found the item. I wonder how others have finished this game without doing the same?
sillydan - Pantry and Cellar - There are a bunch of scenes here. I can't remember what they were.
Zephyr - Large Storage room - Can't remember this one sorry.
Zyntax - Armoury - This map had an interesting minigame, but I felt it detracted from the atmosphere overall. The gameplay was well-appreciated, but it didn't feel scary or atmospheric like the other rooms.
Liberty - Hallways & Main Hall The halls had a nice effect where it would have occasional flashes of lightning and it would reveal splatters of blood. This was very scary the first time, but after a while, the lightning strikes became more annoying than scary, because you visit the Main Hall very often.
Liberty contd. connecting rooms, dead end rooms (hidden room in Mistresses Quarters and Dungeon) Secret passage to the Chapel, Sex dungeon - A lot of these secret rooms I didn't encounter in my playthrough, unfortunately. Although I'm sure they were very good.
Dining room - This room was very cool. I liked the story element of this room, and I felt "yay, the story's starting to pick up, finally!" but then after that it was back to more rooms again.
Servant's Quarters. These were well-mapped and I liked fishing an item out of a chimney.
Gameplay
At first it’s nice to explore everything non-linearly. A lot of objects don’t have descriptions, and it shows that different sections of the house have different styles, but there are entire huge rooms such as the Living Room where you think it’s going to be *special* because it’s big, but nothing much happens there.
The game is non-linear but many of the events don’t have clues to where you’ll find the objects that unlock. There is a nice series of events where you find a knife to unlock a certain other object to unlock another object, but at other times this key-chain effect is not so pronounced. It lends too much to the aimless backtracking with no clue to where to go next. This led me to rely on the walkthrough, and I actually can’t see any reason how a person can finish the game without relying on it, especially during the chapel/cellar portions, and that code...
There's some gameplay, but most of it is just item interaction stuff. Reading the right diary, stepping on the right square, interacting with the right object, etc. Many rooms require you to wait in the room to activate a special event, but there’s no indication that waiting will do anything beforehand. All the gameplay issues lead to an entirely confusing game and not in a good way. I didn’t really know what my goal was at any given moment, I’m just interacting and tinkering with objects until something happens. There’s very rarely an indication of whether a room is finished or not. At times, the game will transport you outside the room once the objective is done, but that is very rare. Optimally, the game should give you visual cues that show you if the room is complete, or lock you inside until it is.
There's no notification (it doesn't have to be an in-game notification, it just has to be any sort of notification, from a door unlocking to a story plot point being revealed) that this zone is complete. Otherwise there is a lot of pointless wandering and backtracking to be done.
I reckon this game could've been a lot better with a linear, storyline-based approach. The non-linear backtracking kills it. I'm saying this even though I'm a huge fan of non-linearity. To make things straight - I'm a huge fan of non-linearity with direction. Making sure there is direction to your actions is often necessary to interact with our minds' goal-oriented approach. Not to mention the fact that (SPOILER but not really) in a later scene you have to enter and re-enter a building multiple times to activate certain scenes. That’s bad design, because there’s no indication that says re-entering the building will do anything.
In the final scenes, the pace is slow because the text has waits in it and it makes things too ponderously long. Not to mention having to enter/exit the room several times in order to activate new scenes. The bookend first and last scenes are clever, though, with a little hint involving a number that ties the whole mess up in a nice bow. The problem is, even if you have the fanciest bow to tie up your present, and it's still messy inside, you've got a problem on your hands.
I don't think it's a good type of game where you have to interact with everything in a room and find something useful, and if you don't interact with everything, you miss something. That's not my idea of a well-designed game. Even though this game wasn't so much designed as compiled, it still feels aimless and frustrating. A good game will give you a clue as to where you’ll find something. There’s some elements of that in this game, like finding a note that says “this thing is hidden under the couch”, but there are so many red herrings and loose strands that fray in all directions, that it makes things more frustrating than astonishing.
Conclusion
+ Some well-crafted rooms
+ Unique concept & layout
- Disjointed atmosphere
- Confusing gameplay and direction
- Lack of suspense
In summary, the concept of a collaborative horror game has a large allure to me because of its possibility for innovation, but in practice I seem to have been proven wrong by a project that, by all means, should have been successful due to the developers that were involved, and yet failed to take off, in my eyes. It seems inevitable that a project that relies so heavily on atmosphere may suffer from a disjointed tone and feel. That's one of the things that horror pins its bets on - to scare the audience, but first to let them be immersed enough and care about the character enough to make things feel more like that of a chilling story, and less like that of a haunted house amusement park ride.
Summary
The Here and Now of Yesterday is a community game curated by Liberty as an event called "Map Manor Madness", which was held in 2011. The entrants were instructed to create maps with atmosphere, and whatever type of atmosphere that was, was entirely up to the maker to decide. And so this project is the collaboration of 18 developers. The maps were compiled by Liberty into a single manor. This series of games is planned to be 8 games long, each game's title being pulled from a line from Liberty's cousin's last poem he wrote before he passed away. This game series is a sort of homage to him.
Story
The game starts with a handdrawn sequence of events detailing how a little girl named Emi is leaving her father to enter a manor. It's a neat and affecting intro, with a touch of surreality, told with immediacy, gripping suspense, and a tone and feel that draws you in instantaneously.
Graphics+Audio+Atmosphere
It's hard to separate this game's story from its atmosphere, because the narrative is driven by the atmosphere, and it's hard to separate the atmosphere from the graphics/audio, so I decided to lump this all into one indistinct, crudely defined category.
The manor consists of a many vignettes ordered in a non-linear manner, many of which are optional to complete. This game relies on atmosphere so much because it's a horror, and when you enter the manor you immediately feel the sense of creepiness pervading the air. In rooms, objects disappear, they dart across the room, and react in unexpected ways. This is coupled with great sound design, with some maps being well composed, and shadows and tints generally being a good tint of dark so that you can see most things clearly.
But, at some point, a strange phenomenon occurred. I became less and less interested in the story because of the nature of the series of rooms people have created trying to use shock tactics to scare me. It's like if everyone is trying to scare you at once, but they can't scare you because the suspense doesn't make sense - it's too disjointed, and the atmospheres don't mesh. It seems like there might be some sort of storyline thread going through this, and there is a series of cutscenes at the end that attempt to tie it all up in one neat bundle, but by then, the contents are a mess and the characters have conversations that you don't really care a lot about.
At first, I felt like the scares had meaning, but they became repetitious after a while, and even grating, until there's that sad feeling where you're hoping that it would end soon. Just like too many jump scares in a horror film will make you sick of them, this game tends to overstay its welcome in the same way. It's hard to criticize this game for being disjointed when it is the product of so many developers coming together to create one game, but that's exactly why it doesn't work. "Sudden graphical change + loud noise = scare" does not a good horror make. After a while, the many things disappearing and reappearing and blood splatters on the walls start to lose their effect because there's nothing that made me care about those scares. The atmosphere which should be relentlessly suspenseful in more infrequent doses, becomes boring. There's scares where the developers like to put overlays over the maps but it feels more like a shock tactic than anything. Other parts of the mansion play like fever dreams and surreal nightmares, but they're contrasted with traditional horror tropes so incohesively that I'm afraid to say this compilation suffers from the almost unavoidable fact for a collaborative project with such a concept - uneven tone and confusing, well, everything.
Horror is such a tightrope to balance on, with the tug-o-war between suspense and payoff playing a large part, but it feels like this mansion was all payoff with no investment made in the process that makes it rewarding in the end, that is, a good involving story.
But speaking of solo rooms, Gibmaker's bathroom was my favourite room, an atmospherically near-perfect scene with very good usage of tints, pictures, atmospheric sounds, and a payoff that wasn't a jump scare but a clever mind screw moment. It's a brilliant scene, but it's not entirely surprising, considering this is coming from the horror veteran who created the fantastic classic The Longing Ribbon. This room is the sign of a true showman.
The following is a quick review of all the other rooms that I can think of right now. I'm away from my computer and thus can't remember all the maps but I will give a review of what I do remember, and upon request I will give individuals more in-depth reviews of their respective maps.
alterego - Chapel and Chapel basement maps - Very story-heavy, unintuitive backtracking required to trigger cutscenes, but the chapel has a nice atmosphere. The code was too difficult for me to figure out without a walkthrough.
arcan - Small Storage room and Instectarium - I can't remember the insectarium but I can remember the small storage room and all I can remember was there was cobwebs and a couple of shadows, which created an atmosphere. I just wish there was more to do in this room.
chana - Living room - I think this one was the one with the ghosts disappearing, and the camp fire? It was a very large room, but it would be nice if there was something to do here other than grab an item.
Deckiller - Garden Maze - The most gameplay-heavy map in the game. It was good to finally see some good gameplay in the game, even if it was a bit unintuitive to know which switches activated which pillars to move, and how easy it was to dodge all the zombies. The statue puzzle was well-designed.
Demicrusaius - Master bedroom - This one was like a fever dream. It was confusing to see how this room worked. I just kept going back to the mirror, using the items, and back again, but there was no pattern to it. It was very Lynchian, but the way these events occurred needed to make more semantic sense.
Faenon - Guest bedroom - I don't think I encountered this room in my playthrough.
Gibmaker - Bathroom - My favourite room. It was a bit unintuitive to have to stay in the bathroom for a little while to activate the event, but the payoff was well worth it. A very effective scene with great effects.
Happy - Mistresses Quarters - I can't remember this one.
Julev - Kitchen and Dungeon - I remember this map slightly. Was it the one with the overlay? If so, I felt it was kind of a cheap scare. It was probably the first one I encountered.
Marrend - Wine Cellar - This was an interesting puzzle, but it was slightly unintuitive so I had to consult the walkthrough to get through. I appreciate that the gameplay was present, though.
Max McGee - Solarium - This was such a large room, and it was quite pretty, but I was expecting it to actually be important to justify its large size. It wasn't.
Merlinman - Childrens' room - This one was an interesting little vignette but it didn't make sense with the rest of the story of the mansion, in my opinion.
psy_wombats - Men's room Psy wombats uses his traditional sense of trickery to give you a false sense of direction. I think this was quite a clever room, with doors disappearing and stuff like that. I think Psy could have gone a little more overboard with the mind fcuk, making objects and other things appear/disappear throughout the room, for a more effective scare, but it was a nice change of pace.
SGCN - Attic The graphics in this map were quite scary. One thing that I'm sure Liberty has fixed, is that an important item was only interactible on one square on the map. It was only when I consulted the walkthrough and opened the editor that I found the item. I wonder how others have finished this game without doing the same?
sillydan - Pantry and Cellar - There are a bunch of scenes here. I can't remember what they were.
Zephyr - Large Storage room - Can't remember this one sorry.
Zyntax - Armoury - This map had an interesting minigame, but I felt it detracted from the atmosphere overall. The gameplay was well-appreciated, but it didn't feel scary or atmospheric like the other rooms.
Liberty - Hallways & Main Hall The halls had a nice effect where it would have occasional flashes of lightning and it would reveal splatters of blood. This was very scary the first time, but after a while, the lightning strikes became more annoying than scary, because you visit the Main Hall very often.
Liberty contd. connecting rooms, dead end rooms (hidden room in Mistresses Quarters and Dungeon) Secret passage to the Chapel, Sex dungeon - A lot of these secret rooms I didn't encounter in my playthrough, unfortunately. Although I'm sure they were very good.
Dining room - This room was very cool. I liked the story element of this room, and I felt "yay, the story's starting to pick up, finally!" but then after that it was back to more rooms again.
Servant's Quarters. These were well-mapped and I liked fishing an item out of a chimney.
Gameplay
At first it’s nice to explore everything non-linearly. A lot of objects don’t have descriptions, and it shows that different sections of the house have different styles, but there are entire huge rooms such as the Living Room where you think it’s going to be *special* because it’s big, but nothing much happens there.
The game is non-linear but many of the events don’t have clues to where you’ll find the objects that unlock. There is a nice series of events where you find a knife to unlock a certain other object to unlock another object, but at other times this key-chain effect is not so pronounced. It lends too much to the aimless backtracking with no clue to where to go next. This led me to rely on the walkthrough, and I actually can’t see any reason how a person can finish the game without relying on it, especially during the chapel/cellar portions, and that code...
There's some gameplay, but most of it is just item interaction stuff. Reading the right diary, stepping on the right square, interacting with the right object, etc. Many rooms require you to wait in the room to activate a special event, but there’s no indication that waiting will do anything beforehand. All the gameplay issues lead to an entirely confusing game and not in a good way. I didn’t really know what my goal was at any given moment, I’m just interacting and tinkering with objects until something happens. There’s very rarely an indication of whether a room is finished or not. At times, the game will transport you outside the room once the objective is done, but that is very rare. Optimally, the game should give you visual cues that show you if the room is complete, or lock you inside until it is.
There's no notification (it doesn't have to be an in-game notification, it just has to be any sort of notification, from a door unlocking to a story plot point being revealed) that this zone is complete. Otherwise there is a lot of pointless wandering and backtracking to be done.
I reckon this game could've been a lot better with a linear, storyline-based approach. The non-linear backtracking kills it. I'm saying this even though I'm a huge fan of non-linearity. To make things straight - I'm a huge fan of non-linearity with direction. Making sure there is direction to your actions is often necessary to interact with our minds' goal-oriented approach. Not to mention the fact that (SPOILER but not really) in a later scene you have to enter and re-enter a building multiple times to activate certain scenes. That’s bad design, because there’s no indication that says re-entering the building will do anything.
In the final scenes, the pace is slow because the text has waits in it and it makes things too ponderously long. Not to mention having to enter/exit the room several times in order to activate new scenes. The bookend first and last scenes are clever, though, with a little hint involving a number that ties the whole mess up in a nice bow. The problem is, even if you have the fanciest bow to tie up your present, and it's still messy inside, you've got a problem on your hands.
I don't think it's a good type of game where you have to interact with everything in a room and find something useful, and if you don't interact with everything, you miss something. That's not my idea of a well-designed game. Even though this game wasn't so much designed as compiled, it still feels aimless and frustrating. A good game will give you a clue as to where you’ll find something. There’s some elements of that in this game, like finding a note that says “this thing is hidden under the couch”, but there are so many red herrings and loose strands that fray in all directions, that it makes things more frustrating than astonishing.
Conclusion
+ Some well-crafted rooms
+ Unique concept & layout
- Disjointed atmosphere
- Confusing gameplay and direction
- Lack of suspense
In summary, the concept of a collaborative horror game has a large allure to me because of its possibility for innovation, but in practice I seem to have been proven wrong by a project that, by all means, should have been successful due to the developers that were involved, and yet failed to take off, in my eyes. It seems inevitable that a project that relies so heavily on atmosphere may suffer from a disjointed tone and feel. That's one of the things that horror pins its bets on - to scare the audience, but first to let them be immersed enough and care about the character enough to make things feel more like that of a chilling story, and less like that of a haunted house amusement park ride.
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...in a later scene you have to enter and re-enter a building multiple times to activate certain scenes. That’s bad design...
Yes and no. Well, yes. Haha! I think I've already explained this somewhere before? I don't recall exactly. But the thing is that at first the idea was for the Chapel to be some kind of central HUB, and for the story to be optional. There's even a save point chucked away in one of the events for this purpose. Naturally, if it was a map that the player had to visit often in order to save, eventually, they'd get to see some or all of the story... But at the end things developed in a different way. =P
That being said, I'm 1000% sure I had already fixed the random nature of the cut-scenes. Now they would trigger just by re-entering the rooms once. (And I even made the solution for the codes a lot easier) Are you sure you played the latest version of the game? ...Mmh, there was a download titled: "SRW update" where all of that was fixed, but I see it's gone now. I guess I could go in a fix it again, but I guess I've already made it into the hall of game design infamy anyway.
-_-
author=alterego
But the thing is that at first the idea was for the Chapel to be some kind of central HUB, and for the story to be optional.
That makes sense. As it stands right now, the Chapel is like a kind of chokehold at the end stopping you from progressing until you activate all its story nodes linearly, so in that way I could see how it could be seen as a little forced, given the format. A lot of the effectiveness of the rooms was affected by the layout and the nature of the mansion.
author=alterego
That being said, I'm 1000% sure I had already fixed the random nature of the cut-scenes. Now they would trigger just by re-entering the rooms once. (And I even made the solution for the codes a lot easier) Are you sure you played the latest version of the game? ...Mmh, there was a download titled: "SRW update" where all of that was fixed, but I see it's gone now. I guess I could go in a fix it again, but I guess I've already made it into the hall of game design infamy anyway.
-_-
Yeah, in the version I have, you still have to enter in and out of the church and cellar, and then outside of the church and back in, to activate many scenes. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't consulted the walkthrough. The direction was unclear. The atmosphere was well-crafted, though, but it couldn't be appreciated with the current format it was in.
author=Deckiller
rip makerscore :P
Good review though.
Haha sorry, Liberty requested a review of this and I felt bad for hurting people's makerscore, but I figured I'd try and be honest.
I can understand where you're coming from with your review, so fair enough, however... "and less like that of a haunted house amusement park ride" - that's exactly what the whole thing was supposed to be!
XD
See, the story was added only after the rooms were created - and they were each meant to only be atmospheric in nature. Thing is, people went and made small stories and puzzles in each, so I crafted a larger story to encourage people to progress. And the chapel was never meant to be the hub or so story-heavy (though I took the story in it and worked on making it the over-arching tale). Hell, Emi didn't even exist until mid-way through production. It was supposed to be Generic McGenericson - just a random characterset thrown in for the sake of 'looking around' - as the 'character' but once I saw and over-arching thread of a story I had to make someone who fit it better. Enter Emi. Enter story to encourage exploration in some small way.
So, rating the game on story and cohesion is kinda silly, tbh. XD
That said, this game is my white whale and the one I keep coming back to in the hopes of making better and better, so I'll keep at it. When I'm happy with how it is, would you consider doing another review? I've a few ideas that I've been meaning to add to expand/create a more cohesive story. That said, I will not be editing rooms that much - each person made a room and doing so would take away their signature, even if it means cohesion will be hurt for it. I don't have the right to do that, especially since the game was made as a fun 'mapping challenge' and people have different skills in that area.
Now, all that said, would you consider giving WETSS a go? It's the sequel to the game and since Emi was crafted before it was made, and the story was pretty much considered before the creation of the game and maps, it's a lot more cohesive. It has some issues, of course (I gotta fix the fish >.<; ) but for the most part it's a much more cohesive game. So... what say you? ^.^
And thanks, btw. It just shows I still have work to do on this beast. XD
XD
See, the story was added only after the rooms were created - and they were each meant to only be atmospheric in nature. Thing is, people went and made small stories and puzzles in each, so I crafted a larger story to encourage people to progress. And the chapel was never meant to be the hub or so story-heavy (though I took the story in it and worked on making it the over-arching tale). Hell, Emi didn't even exist until mid-way through production. It was supposed to be Generic McGenericson - just a random characterset thrown in for the sake of 'looking around' - as the 'character' but once I saw and over-arching thread of a story I had to make someone who fit it better. Enter Emi. Enter story to encourage exploration in some small way.
So, rating the game on story and cohesion is kinda silly, tbh. XD
That said, this game is my white whale and the one I keep coming back to in the hopes of making better and better, so I'll keep at it. When I'm happy with how it is, would you consider doing another review? I've a few ideas that I've been meaning to add to expand/create a more cohesive story. That said, I will not be editing rooms that much - each person made a room and doing so would take away their signature, even if it means cohesion will be hurt for it. I don't have the right to do that, especially since the game was made as a fun 'mapping challenge' and people have different skills in that area.
Now, all that said, would you consider giving WETSS a go? It's the sequel to the game and since Emi was crafted before it was made, and the story was pretty much considered before the creation of the game and maps, it's a lot more cohesive. It has some issues, of course (I gotta fix the fish >.<; ) but for the most part it's a much more cohesive game. So... what say you? ^.^
And thanks, btw. It just shows I still have work to do on this beast. XD
author=Liberty
I can understand where you're coming from with your review, so fair enough, however... "and less like that of a haunted house amusement park ride" - that's exactly what the whole thing was supposed to be!
XD
That was a way of me trying to sign off the review in a clever way. Personally I don't find haunted house rides all that thrilling. Maybe the Movie World rides, but not the poorly maintained paper-ghost tents in cheap circuses.
author=Liberty
So, rating the game on story and cohesion is kinda silly, tbh. XD
I'm rating the game based on its merits, despite however it was made, and with this type of item-interaction game that relies on atmosphere, story and cohesion are critical. Especially in a genre such as horror where the consistency of atmosphere and slow ramping up of tension is partly where its strength resides. I'm not even taking into account whether this game was good for what it was, because perhaps that may merit a higher rating. I'm merely rating it on the basis of whether I would recommend it or not.
author=Liberty
That said, this game is my white whale and the one I keep coming back to in the hopes of making better and better, so I'll keep at it. When I'm happy with how it is, would you consider doing another review? I've a few ideas that I've been meaning to add to expand/create a more cohesive story. That said, I will not be editing rooms that much - each person made a room and doing so would take away their signature, even if it means cohesion will be hurt for it. I don't have the right to do that, especially since the game was made as a fun 'mapping challenge' and people have different skills in that area.
As this is a collaborative project, it is the sum of its parts working together, and I don't think much of the onus is on you to make this cohesive. I'm sure you did a good job with what you were given, but I was merely giving a review based on what I played.
author=Liberty
Now, all that said, would you consider giving WETSS a go? It's the sequel to the game and since Emi was crafted before it was made, and the story was pretty much considered before the creation of the game and maps, it's a lot more cohesive. It has some issues, of course (I gotta fix the fish >.<; ) but for the most part it's a much more cohesive game. So... what say you? ^.^
Yes, I was planning to do that from the start. Since I saw WETSS on the Review Request thread, and you had requested a review from me for this game on your personal thread, I figured I'd review this one before WETSS.
And the chapel was never meant to be the hub...
I worded that poorly, I guess. The Chapel was probably never meant to be a hub by you, but that was the idea I had. xD I remember discussing this with you, but then we lost contact, so... =( Another bit of trivia is that I had the impression the Chapel would be above ground, that's why there's natural light coming from the windows; but it ended up being underground somehow. =P
_
Anyway, I checked the game and all my fixes are there, so I don't know what happened... The review seems fair either way so, it's alright.
Well, to be fair, I didn't really give much direction to people outside of assigning rooms and switches/variables. I got a lot of PMs asking about things because of that so I might have let people assume certain things without really thinking about it or changed my mind on things during the layout. I'm pretty sure the chapel was never a hub point, though, as I'd always planned it to be underground. XD
I probably didn't mention that (very likely) and it's understandable to assume that it'd be above ground, seeing as it's a manor and chapels tend to be their own separate buildings.
Either way, I'll work a bit more on making story flow a bit better since I feel responsible on that front. I'm also thinking about how to incorporate visiting the chapel more than once and think I have an idea that will make it a little more of a place you leave and return to after some events, so that the story is broken up a little and not a case of hoping to trigger certain scenes all in a row.
I probably didn't mention that (very likely) and it's understandable to assume that it'd be above ground, seeing as it's a manor and chapels tend to be their own separate buildings.
Either way, I'll work a bit more on making story flow a bit better since I feel responsible on that front. I'm also thinking about how to incorporate visiting the chapel more than once and think I have an idea that will make it a little more of a place you leave and return to after some events, so that the story is broken up a little and not a case of hoping to trigger certain scenes all in a row.
We should finish the 3rd one and do the 4th one early so we can be back on track for the 5th one this Halloween XD
author=alterego
Anyway, I checked the game and all my fixes are there, so I don't know what happened... The review seems fair either way so, it's alright.
Yeah, my gripe was that the final scene required a lot of counterintuitive backtracking, especially the fact that you have to exit the chapel and come back in multiple times to activate certain scenes. That just didn't cross my mind in my playthrough that re-entering would even trigger anything.
author=Liberty
Either way, I'll work a bit more on making story flow a bit better since I feel responsible on that front. I'm also thinking about how to incorporate visiting the chapel more than once and think I have an idea that will make it a little more of a place you leave and return to after some events, so that the story is broken up a little and not a case of hoping to trigger certain scenes all in a row.
I would recommend making the game's flow a lot more obvious. For example, making sure the player knows, "This room is important", or "this room is not really needed", or perhaps even making every room important in the overall flow of the game. Stuff like finding the key item up the chimney and using it somewhere else were cool additions to the game. Even locking certain rooms and finding keys for them is a common trope in horror, to force some degree of linearity and avoid aimless backtracking. It's hard for me to say that, because I love the idea of non-linearity in games, but essentially it only works if there is some degree of linearity and purpose combined with that non-linearity. Even Yume Nikki has a defined goal for each of the zones, and it is implied that if you complete all zones then you will complete the game, thus every zone is important. I don't consider Yume Nikki one of my favourite games, but at least it has a commonly defined goal.
Perhaps you could do something similar with this game. I mean, this may be way outside of your vision for the game, but I would recommend including a mission to collect certain objects that is evident from the beginning. Like a certain sense of "I need to find this, but how do I get there?" idea. The locked dining room was one of those such missions for me, but it seems that the keychain to finding the key to the dining room was slightly counterintuitive. It was because of that single square in the attic map that I happened not to step on that required me to consult the walkthrough and editor to find the key.
author=Deckiller
We should finish the 3rd one and do the 4th one early so we can be back on track for the 5th one this Halloween XD
There's some truth in this. I'd recommend plowing on through the series and improving as you go along. Don't fret too much over this one, is my advice. This is merely my opinion, and it does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the many others who have downloaded this game. But I hope I've raised some valuable points that will enable you to improve the flow of future installments.
Sorry but fuck yume nikki. Fuck it. So. hard. I hate that game's guts. It can go accost itself with a cactus. I will never make a game like it. no. I played a whole 20 minutes of that game before I shift-del'd it off my computer. It is the worst fucking game imo and I will NOT make this one or subsequent games like that piece of puerile shit. I fucking refuse.
Also, it's not that I didn't want to finish the third game but I got a total of, oh, THREE FUCKING MAPS. Yeah. hard to make a collaborative map game when no one makes any fucking maps.
And I've since edited quite a few things you've pointed out - like the one-square monster in the attic, for example - I just haven't uploaded that version since I'm working on it. Not all maps will be important. It's as simple as that - there's always some filler - but a lot of them are more important that you seem to have picked up on, especially to the story.
The werewolf girl can be found outside her room in another area of the house. A hint about one of the base stories (and a hidden area) can be found in the mistresses quarters (with the bear and jump scare) - in the hidden room off of it.
The kitchen ghost has a story all her own, which is tied up with Anastasia's and mentioned in both the mistress's quarters and hidden sex dungeon (in the masters' bedroom). This is all in the version of the game you played.
Granted, I do have to add a few more areas to the 'list' of story-relevant areas and maybe spell some things out a little better, but I am not going to make it so that someone just running through will find everything. There's no challenge in that - if they think the game is shallow because they didn't take time to explore, fuck 'em. That's their issue.
Also, it's not that I didn't want to finish the third game but I got a total of, oh, THREE FUCKING MAPS. Yeah. hard to make a collaborative map game when no one makes any fucking maps.
And I've since edited quite a few things you've pointed out - like the one-square monster in the attic, for example - I just haven't uploaded that version since I'm working on it. Not all maps will be important. It's as simple as that - there's always some filler - but a lot of them are more important that you seem to have picked up on, especially to the story.
The werewolf girl can be found outside her room in another area of the house. A hint about one of the base stories (and a hidden area) can be found in the mistresses quarters (with the bear and jump scare) - in the hidden room off of it.
The kitchen ghost has a story all her own, which is tied up with Anastasia's and mentioned in both the mistress's quarters and hidden sex dungeon (in the masters' bedroom). This is all in the version of the game you played.
Granted, I do have to add a few more areas to the 'list' of story-relevant areas and maybe spell some things out a little better, but I am not going to make it so that someone just running through will find everything. There's no challenge in that - if they think the game is shallow because they didn't take time to explore, fuck 'em. That's their issue.
author=Liberty
Sorry but fuck yume nikki. Fuck it. So. hard. I hate that game's guts. It can go accost itself with a cactus. I will never make a game like it. no. I played a whole 20 minutes of that game before I shift-del'd it off my computer. It is the worst fucking game imo and I will NOT make this one or subsequent games like that piece of puerile shit. I fucking refuse.
Yeah that game ain't all that. I do't love Yume Nikki either. I probably don't hate it as much as you do lol. But you don't have to make your game like that game. To make a better comparison, remember in Remnants of Isolation where you have to activate 5 crystals to continue? I think a game like this would benefit hugely from something like that. Less mindless wandering like Yume Nikki is a good thing. So perhaps a solution like that might mitigate the wandering?
author=Liberty
Also, it's not that I didn't want to finish the third game but I got a total of, oh, THREE FUCKING MAPS. Yeah. hard to make a collaborative map game when no one makes any fucking maps.
eek
author=Liberty
Granted, I do have to add a few more areas to the 'list' of story-relevant areas and maybe spell some things out a little better, but I am not going to make it so that someone just running through will find everything. There's no challenge in that - if they think the game is shallow because they didn't take time to explore, fuck 'em. That's their issue.
Fair enough. Get that balance right, and you got a good game.
Look, I'm not going to make a linear plot that you have to follow from start to end. There are going to be rooms that are just that - rooms. Places to look around and explore and just jump at. It's the way the game was intended. I'm not putting in magical mcguffins or making people have to get x to go y any more than I already have. It breaks the feel of the game to do so.
What I will do is add more reactions from Emi, have her comment on things and seem more of a character than just 'the player sprite'. I will also find a way to force people to explore off-shoots, and thus offset the repetitive back and forth for the chapel. The story already exists - it just needs to be a little more promenent in some aspect. And that is all I'll do. The game was never meant to be a story-heavy one. It was never meant to be more than 'look around at these awesome maps people made' with something to make people want to check stuff out a bit - just a small direction.
There are already lots of references telling people how to (and TO) find the chapel, that there are hidden mysteries and where to find the fucking things, if people would look.
Part of the reason they don't is that I didn't make distinction as to what is checkable and what is not - so I'll work more on making everything 'say' something, so that the player knows to check anything that looks out of place or interesting.
And that is all.
What I will do is add more reactions from Emi, have her comment on things and seem more of a character than just 'the player sprite'. I will also find a way to force people to explore off-shoots, and thus offset the repetitive back and forth for the chapel. The story already exists - it just needs to be a little more promenent in some aspect. And that is all I'll do. The game was never meant to be a story-heavy one. It was never meant to be more than 'look around at these awesome maps people made' with something to make people want to check stuff out a bit - just a small direction.
There are already lots of references telling people how to (and TO) find the chapel, that there are hidden mysteries and where to find the fucking things, if people would look.
Part of the reason they don't is that I didn't make distinction as to what is checkable and what is not - so I'll work more on making everything 'say' something, so that the player knows to check anything that looks out of place or interesting.
And that is all.
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