bj-pucci 2018-12-03 20:41
Fun Game/Book
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD43 → The Vault
By dwam
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 20 | 4.25 | 29 | |
| Fun | 102 | 3.87 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 193 | 3.61 | 28 | |
| Theme | 384 | 3.64 | 29 | |
| Humor | 3.50 | 12 | ||
| Mood | 8 | 4.46 | 29 |
Fun Game/Book
Hey guys! It's pretty lovely design. I like it)
Very cool! Text based games are always a treat. I used to play escape games when I was a kid, this reminded me of those times.
Very nice
Dude, this work is ungodly for 72 hours. I will be honest with, this is not my type of game at all, but this oozes love for gamedev. Keep that love alive. Btw, the mood/audio is very spot on, I felt inside the Vault :)
Very well done and fun to work through! The story had my attention from the start and the writing and sound effects had me immersed all the way through. Really nice work! ^^
On Firefox 63.0.3 on both Windows and Linux, I get the following error when attempting to play:
Apologies! A fatal error has occurred. Aborting.
Error: no valid storage adapters found.
Stack Trace: e@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/1167782/index.html:1304:13164 @https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/1167782/index.html:1309:9515 j@https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/1167782/index.html:59:29946 g/
It works on Iron so I assume it only works on Chrome.
Right from the start I was drawn in with the aesthetics, and the opening scene had me hooked till the end.
I especially liked the interface, how you could interact with certain items in the description instead of typing commands or scrolling through a long list of actions. I get the feeling you've made a few adventure games before and are at the point where you feel comfortable innovating. :)
Also appreciated the contextual sounds. It's great how modern technology is able to augment such a classic genre without changing too much.
I got stuck for a while, but that's not a bad thing. You know how these games are.
I got stuck, couldn't figure out the code for the safe and wasn't able to interact with anything else. I tried all the dates in the notebook, the date of the case of the man with a hole in his brain, evene Margritte's birth and death years and the date of his painting 'Decalcomania'. Despite that i didn't finish the game, though. i REALLY love this. awesome work. Like the person above said, this has got a lot of soul and love for game dev/storytelling in it. Really creative idea to have blocked dialogue options, just like the turn Alice couldn't make while driving in 2036.great job.
Many thanks to everyone who played it! (And even more thanks to those who took the time to vote!) I'm glad everyone's having fun with it!
@kamekai I just tried to run it on Firefox. No issues, as far as I can see... So far, I've managed to run it there, on Opera and on Chrome. I'm not sure what the issue could be. My apologies. I'm happy you managed to get it working in the end, though.
I must admit that picking of the words amidst the text isn't exactly an innovation of my own. Twine games have had a tendency to put hyperlinks in text to advance the plot. This just seemed like the reasonable next step.
That said, what I do very much take pride in are the presentational touches, and I'm happy that they all managed to come through.
@swanijam Ah, I'm really sorry you didn't manage to finish!
(If you happen to be interested still, [SOME SPOILERS] the part you got stuck is likely somewhere right after getting the code from the frog, yes? Have you tried using that code on the phone? If you have, that particular piece of paper has another use, also with the phone... Pay close attention to what Georg says off-handedly in one of his dialogue options... [SPOILER END] )
In the end, though, I'm really happy to hear you liked it!
Again, thanks for playing, everyone!
That was quite an experience! Well written and executed. Really can't say much more. You got me hooked! Congratulations!
@dwam what version Firefox are you using, and what operating system?
@kamekai I'm running Firefox 63.0.3. (64-bit) on Windows. That seems to be the one that's up-to-date. I've tested it both on Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Seems to be working fine...
@dwam Relevant error in the developer console
``` Request to access cookie or storage on “https://v6p9d9t4.ssl.hwcdn.net/html/1167782/index.html” was blocked because we are blocking all third-party storage access requests and content blocking is enabled. ```
suggests that you have lax cookie policies with Firefox. It is recommended for security purposes never to allow third-party cookies and of course I won't be making an exception here. I'm almost positive this is the default behavior in Firefox as well, so it's worth giving a warning to users that they will need to do so in order to play your game if using Firefox.
@kamekai I've added a note in the opening post.
Thanks for the info!
Wow Impressive! I made tried to make a game with Twine once but this one is actually great! The art style and the level of details in the texts! Loved it!
Stunning. I can't believe you did this in 72 hours. Brilliant concept, great story and exposition. Tasteful visuals, excellent sound design. Ending got me in the feels. Loved the inaccessible options. The best thing I've played so far.
This was amazing! I absolutely love this kind of story. It didn't feel short or simple to me at all. Admittedly, I needed to read your clue in an earlier post to finish the game, and even then I was stumped for a while. The mood was set effectively with the use of just a few colors and simple shapes, and a few audio cues. On that note, somtimes the audio didn't play until I repeatedly opened up the same path (for example the page-turning sound of the journal didn't trigger until I read the same page twice.) And there's a tiny typo "the loud sound of metal scarping behind you" instead of "scraping".
Immersive experience, I got very invested in poor Alice! Being unable to click options is emotionally powerful.
@tpamir Thank you very much! Presentation is always something I strive get just right in whatever I make.
@agwblack Wow, I'm really happy you liked it so much! Thank you so much for playing!
@firebug Thank you for playing! Glad you liked it! Unfortunately, there's not much I can do in regards to the audio. Mainly because I don't know what could be causing it, as it works fine on my end (including the example you gave me). I can only hope that it didn't bug out during the important moments!
Again, thanks for playing everyone! Really glad so many people are enjoying it!
[SPOILERS] So I'm stuck, I have spent an hour or so on this and can't seem to figure it out. I've got the code from the frog, I got an SD Card, I shot out the light, got shot, etc... and I've been trying to figure out the Safe and Phone Puzzle. I've tried the code in the phone and safe. No result. I've converted the code to Binary, (011100111101) which converts to 1853, this doesn't work. I've played with the order of the code, flipping it, flipping it then converting it. Etc. No dice. 1101 converts to 13, or the character D. "SD"? SD Card? CAMP CURRTH, same number of numbers as a standard phone number. 226-728-7784. Nope, no result. Game is very well polished, the interface is exceptionally well put together. I can tell a lot of work went into making this feel polished! The story is engaging, the writing is spot on. I'm gonna recommend my wife play a bit tomorrow, I think she'll enjoy it. Suggestion: If there's information that gets dropped when not in the puzzle loop, it means I can't escape it other than to restart. It's effectively a Soft Lock. Unless I've missed something vital in the room which is certainly possible. Great job!
@occultone I'm happy to hear you're enjoying it.
[SPOILER] I appreciate the effort you've gone into attepmting to decode the message. However, I'm afraid the solution was far simpler. The note is, taken at face-value, a number. All it takes is reading it. What does an "S" look like? (After reading it properly and using it, you will once again have to do something with the note. For this, I've provided a hint fairly early on in this comment section. Good luck!) [END SPOILER]
As a general note, I was very careful to make sure the player never found themselves in a position where they'd get locked out of information. (Since it's unreasonable to expect they'd know to write something down the moment it's told.) As such, you should always assume you have the information necessary.
Thanks for playing it so far!
Superb entry. I love mind-transfer fiction like this, and this game in particular reminded me all the good times I had with the Zero Escape series and Sammy Madafiglio's No One Has To Die. I'll take that the "Alice" name is not a mere coincidence ;) That being said, as I'm not really a pure adventure text adept, I felt a severe lack of graphics. I'd have enjoyed to see some photorealistic depictions of backgrounds or key itens or moments. However, having absolutely none was also a joy, because I delved deep into imagination imagery that I'd otherwise be unable to (such as when I try to read a fantasy book, for instance). Puzzles were just hard enough even though I felt stuck in a particular part with the frog code. It's a bummer I couldn't find out how to get to the other branch of the narrative, but I think presentation-wise it'd be more interesting to not be able to read the other option's descriptions while you can't take them, since that takes away from the surprise. I mean, if that's even possible, that is. Maybe the point is not having any other option, so it makes sense to be able to see things you could try doing but are unable to (due to having her emotions supressed maybe? 2deep4me!)
Also, please give it a try on our game again. We got the link up and running, and I noticed you tried to play it. Thanks a ton!
Holy Moly. I have just played this with a little friend who is 12 who normally plays Fortnite. I am going to let him take the review from here: it was annoying... a thought provoking, engaging game with lots of different aspects that really made you think. Definitely a recommendation from me.
Although I couldn't play it through (got stuck at the symbols/code-thingy), I think it's a really cool idea to make a story-based game. I could definitely feel the mood and enjoyed reading the well-written texts. A game that really pulls you into its world. Will come back and try to solve it together with a friend.
Update: In the end my friend and I were able to solve it. (SPOILER) The note from the frog really gave us some headaches but we made it through. After that it went pretty smooth. Great game!
Original and polished, awesome work! The story is engaging and the sounds are excellent. A lot of details and details... Congrats!
Alright, here's my thoughts:
It's pretty darn fun and compelling for a twine game. I don't mean to be offensive, but text-adventure games are rarely compelling to me, and even some of the most polished and creative ones rarely stick out to me more than an exposition dump at the beginning of any other game (mostly because they are one big exposition dump). Heck, my only steam release currently is a text-adventure hybrid, and I still don't like playing them. However, for a twine game, this is very well done! My rating: 4.5 stars.
Uhhh... Nope. No innovation here. I mean, maybe if you squint your eyes at the story, there's something, but not really. My rating: 2.5 stars.
The theme doesn't really even fit this. I suppose you **[SPOILERS]** "sacrifice" yourself at the end of the game, but sacrifices have to a) be trading one thing for another, bad or good, and b) they should really be willing. I don't think this was a sacrifice so much as a clickathon. I can see where you tried, but the result is just too contrived. My rating: 3 stars.
You killed it with the mood, and I suppose that's the point. My rating: 5 stars.
Overall, it's a polished entry, but the foundation is shaky. It's aimed at a stagnant genre and brings little to no innovation to distinguish itself. Additionally, it doesn't adhere to the theme hardly at all. My rating: 4 stars.