THECRIMSONVALLEY'S PROFILE

I think my best tip can be "tone it down" a tad. She certainly should have her own personality and I am not a fan of the "either you're a paragon of the gods who puke rainbows and sunshine or you're a demon worshipping baby killer who kick old grandmothers to death". But some of her comments made me feel like, even if she had her reasons to be bitter, I couldn't care less what happened to her since she didn't really garner my sympathy.

Perhaps just tone down some of the overly bitter comments on everyday items. Her personality should certainly shine through in dialogue or with items that link to her troubles (like the bottles of vine for example) but when commenting on something mundane perhaps keep her comments a little more in the grey zone of things rather than overly bitter.

As said, it's hard trope to pull off. But I'm sure you'll find a good way to make use of it : 3

Just going to leave some quick feedback here since I don't feel I got enough for an entire review. Hope that won't be a bother and I'll stay away from any story spoilers.

The maps are pretty neat, it is clear you got a grasp of what you're doing. Though if I may share my opinion, perhaps make them a tad smaller. The house itself felt as if it was made to house a giant! Spacious or not, I feel like perhaps you didn't need that much space (and I did not understand the top room close to the stairs, it was more or less completely empty).

Also, and this was my main issue, some of the puzzles to further the story means you must activate a certain dialogue option by clicking on a certain object. Problem. You can click on virtually nothing to get a response. As a player, if I realize I can't click and get little comments, I assume that this won't be a mechanism. It was kind of a hazzle to run around the entire house to find one item I could click on and that wasn't even hinted to be an item I should click on. I don't know if the comments are missing because it is a demo so I won't go to hard on it.

Other than that, simply one minor change I would suggest. Change the dialogue for the mother and son in the kitchen once you've spoken to her once. To have them repeat the same lines of dialogue is kind of strange.

Oh, and one final friendly advice, from one horror gamer to the other. Drop the Tsukimori song. As soon as I heard it I could pin point it. Just a general tip, don't use music from other peoples games, be it famous or not.

Well, hope this helps out a little! I'll look into this once it is finished because you got a good base here!

Okay, what am I doing wrong?
Towards the entire : "win games against more than unstable toddler", I win all the games like the walkthrough says but then at the chair game, it always stops in the middle and I end up getting a bad ending, no matter how hard I try? Am I missing something

Pitching in on some feedback after playing through the demo a couple of times with different choices.
There is some interesting things here, I really like the various choices that you can pick in dialogue and such, makes the game seems more alive.
There are however a few map issues as someone already mentioned, the one that stuck out the most to me was walking straight over the curtain in one of the maps towards the end.
And the snow and storm effects do not stop once you enter the basement, it's an honest mistake I've made myself though, just thought I should point it out.

My only other main complaint is the character of Aria.
Now I realize that something has happened and I won't go into spoiler territory but she feels rather unwelcoming for a player to attach onto.
It is hard to pull of the "troubled asshole" as I like to call them (please take no offence to the term, it is just how I describe a character that is very snarky and almost mean spirited towards anything and everything) and I just felt that Aria fell flat on her stomach here.
Despite me as a player knowing something bad has happened I just felt that I didn't really have any reason to feel sorry for or even wish to help her get through or explore it.

Well, that's my two cents, this is a good beginning really!
Keep working hard and good on it : 3

As I sit here with my project, the writing coming along nicely and the concept all fine and dandy and even programming covered I find myself turning to these forums to get some input and advice.

Long story short, and to keep most of my concept to myself, I am going to turn one of my novels into a game with the Adventure Game Studio engine.
I pitched the concept to a friend who has programmed in this engine before and they were all aboard along with two others, my partner who designed the original characters and their sibling who is a talented artist.
So the line-up starts good, I'm an author and have written for game and stage play before so I hold that responsibility while my partner and my other friend oversees the entire project and programming with the sister working on the art.

Now there is only one huge flaw in this and this is where I find myself in the never ending cycle of frustration.
The sister never works.
We agreed that if we were knee deep in school work or occupied with our steady jobs then we were not obligated to do anything with the game, our basic income comes first after all.
But it has now been weeks without anything where I have asked the sister to do one mock up shoot of how we want the game to look so we can see if the art design we chose will work for the atmosphere we wish to convey or if we have to change it all together.
And nothing.
Over one month of me asking her and more or less pushing her and she has delivered nothing.

Now the trouble is this, if she had told me she was not interested or felt this was out of her league, I accept that, I would move on and try to find other means.
But she keeps insisting she's interested though the interest certainly is not showing.

And so I find myself in this predicament.
The idea is solid, the story is good and over all if I can hook a good artist, this can actually be something I would be more than proud of.
I'm not aiming to become the next big thing but there are a lot of personal reasons to get this game done and out there.
However I am not a wealthy person and I also have the moral that an artist should not have to work for free.
Of course the first thing coming to mind would be "why not start a crowdfunding" or "a kick starter!".
I won't do neither of those until I have a project that would be worth that or be further into development.

So what I ask is some advice.
I really wish to get in contact with artists but I have no idea how to come to an agreement or even where to look? I do not wish to exploit someone's hard work after all.
As for the sister situation I have no idea how to approach it, I guess I'm wondering if I should keep beating a dead horse or if I should just pull the plug and try to look elsewhere?

Any advice is highly appreciated.