Heya ZeroDigitz. I've played through the game and gotten 4 of the 6 endings (excluding scenario C), but I have no idea how to find the password for the computer, even though I know what the computer says thanks to the scripts that come with the game. None of the current year, 15 years ago, the time of the hanging, the time the gas was delivered, the date, or any other numbers I found highlighted in the game worked, so I've given up on getting 100%. (Never mind, I read your previous comment and found ending 6 - silly me not seeing it before. But then what's the password on the computer for?)
But overall I was disappointed in this game. Compared to your first game, this one was much better made, had a tighter story, and was altogether better. Good job doing better than before. The intro to scenario A even got me interested in what was to come. But in the end, I thought it wasn't particularly scary, interactive, or fun.
There's a large number of decisions we have to make in the game, but almost none of them mean anything. None of the dialogues matter, except the one per scenario that determines which bad ending you get. You can't actually fail the "minigames," and they never come up again after the first time they appear in a scenario. In fact, every time "hit Z" or similar appears, it only serves to slow down the pacing of the plot, rather than provide meaningful interaction.
Along the same lines, I didn't feel like I was playing a game, so much as traveling from one part of the plot to another. The difference between a story and a game is player interaction, and I felt like this game let me down on that front.
The "use chair on bookcase" puzzle was the only thing that stood out as a puzzle, and it somewhat fails in that department because every time you examine the chair, it references that puzzle, whether you mean to or not. Why not instead make the Z button move the chair?
More egregiously, the "use tape on leaking gas container" puzzle didn't actually do anything. You can pick up the tape from the table, and use it to seal the leaking poison container, but the following scenes play out exactly the same whether you do or not. Why should we have inhaled too much poison if I spent less than 10 seconds in the room/hallway where it was leaking before I sealed it off? And why does nothing change if I don't seal it off?
Most egregiously, the name of the game is "One of You," but the main monster was not one of us. It spent the entire game out of sight/knocked out, and didn't threaten us in the least. I saw "C - clue" in the keyboard bindings at the start of the game and got excited, thinking I would have to put together clues a la the Jedi test in Knights of the Old Republic, and use the C key to view my clues or something (especially once I knew the game revolved around a shapeshifter), and that never happened. So the biggest plot point never mattered!
And even the camera ended up not meaning anything! There was all this static, the hanging video was made very prominent, we were actually filmed in the one room, and none of it ever mattered. That was a big let down.
Along the same lines, the first thing that caught my eye in the game was the book in the basement that outlines the rules/punishments. I thought the Dad would be the main antagonist, but he wasn't, and the book was pointless, except to explain some backstory. Really, you needn't have bothered making the protagonist his son - it made no difference to the plot. Please don't forget about conservation of detail in your games - if something (a fact, a person) isn't absolutely necessary for the plot/game, get rid of it. Obviously backstory and epilogue get some leeway with this, because explanations are great, but in general the tighter a game is, the better it is.
On a different note, scenario B felt very fragmented. It seemed to assume you played scenario A, and just showed you Maria/Mia's side to the story. But it added nothing to the story, because everything in scenario B - including both the beginning and the ending - was already shown (or at least implied) in scenario A, with the exception of the guy shooting Dad and the demon killing him for that reason. In my opinion, those 2 revelations didn't justify the rest of the scenario.
Also in scenario B, I unlocked the storage room in the basement, but I wasn't able to do anything with the gas canisters, even after I read the computer logs that said the Dad used gas to stun the creature. Why not?
Similarly, scenario C felt less like a game and more like an epilogue. There was no real gameplay (adding "search here?" to every square does not a puzzle make) and no ability to change anything. Further, it seems to assume you took the "go with Maria" option from scenario A, because the demoness has the picture from the locked room (that Fred took the key for).
I noticed that the date in the game was the same as the date it was released. That was cute, but I don't really see or feel the impact of it.
I also noticed the description for the game is wrong now:
Plot
Three individuals wake up inside a cabin with no knowledge of who they are or how they got there. To make matters worse, the cabin has been bolted shut to prevent anyone from escaping. After several failed attempts to escape, the trio eventually discovers some disturbing footage. The video appears to be a snuff film or murder caught on camera, and was shot in the same house that they are now trapped in.
The first sentence only applies to scenario A, and it's only 1 individual. The rest is implied/in scenario B. The trio find the video immediately, not after several failed attempts to escape. And in scenario A at least, the newspaper clipping gave you the same story long before the video.
Not that the newspaper clipping does anything either. Why is it highlighted if there's no point in reading it?
Finally, some other minor issues made the game less fun than it otherwise could have been.
1. Please stop using SRD_SkipTitleScreen. I've only seen it in your games, and I've also had the worst game-startup experiences with your games. Convenience matters more than presentation in a game you have to play multiple times, and is nice to have anyway. The quicker I can get to "Continue", the more fun the game is. And it's especially important to me that when I hit F12, I go back to the title screen so I can restart quickly when I want to do something different.
2. When you finish the game, it autosaves your progress on slot 10. But loading slot 10 sends you back to the title screen. That kind of thing should be in the background and out of sight of the player.
3. In scenario B, Fred goes upstairs. But when I immediately went downstairs, he was already there swinging the hammer. That was jarring, and I accidentally finished the scenario after that. At least put some quest in-between him going upstairs and him being downstairs to trigger the change.
4. In each scenario, the doors that the other person had the key for remained locked even after they would have needed to unlock them. When I played scenario B, Fred had the hammer, meaning he had unlocked the study. But the study was still locked when I went back upstairs. Likewise in scenario A, there's no reason for the door to the basement room to still be locked after Fred gets the hammer, because Maria's already been down there.
On a positive note, I noticed you eschewed the save system of the last game and let us save anywhere in this game. That's great, and it made the game so much better. Thank you for listening to my feedback on that.