Ladies of Sorrow: Night One (game prototype)

[TheNewSon]

- PLAY IT NOW!!! -



Also available at IndieDB and Game Jolt!


- INTRODUCTION -

Ladies of Sorrow: Night One -- a.k.a. The Matriarch Project -- is a 2D survival horror & point-and-click adventure game prototype. It was developed with Adventure Game Studio (v3.6), using grayscale sketches as assets with a native screen resolution of 1280x720, and featuring voiced dialogues in English. This prototype is but a shorter version of what is supposed to be the first chapter of the full game. It is currently available in 11 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, Polish, Russian, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.

- SYNOPSIS -

Angela and her parents have just moved into their new home: an isolated gigantic mansion, which Angela's mother inherited from a recently deceased grandmother. However, during her very first night in the mansion, Angela realizes there is someone -- or something -- very dangerous within that place... but could it be real? Ou could it be only in Angela's head?

- GAMEPLAY -

The prototype features 3 game modes: 1) exploration mode, when players can safely explore the mansion and freely interact with objects and NPCs; 2) escape mode, when players can only run and hide from the "stalker"; and 3) panic mode, when players must take a quick action to avoid a "game over." Controls are as follow:

Left-click: Walk or interact
Double left-click: Start running
Right-click: Stop moving
Mouse wheel: Select item
Esc: Open inventory menu


- SCREENSHOTS -

(Click on the thumbnails to open a tab with the image in the original size.)






- SOCIAL -

If you like our project, please kindly follow our social pages! Thank you very much! 




- CREDITS -

Spoiler

Writer, programmer:
Denilson Oliveira

Artists:
Flávia Melo
Feier Shen

Composers:
Corey Farr
Tomasz Książka
Mathis Leroulley

Voice acting:
Falon Echo (Angela/Lucia)
Taealdi Vichana (Madam Stewart/Maid)
TJ Cruz (Thomas)

Translators:
Daniel Abeleira (Spanish)
Aurora Mariotti (Italian)
Cassandra Plagelat (French)
Jennifer Rosebrock (German)
Krzysztof Komarnicki (Polish)
Ivan Marishchak (Russian)
Ross Kim (Korean)
Horace Pan (Chinese)
Miteki Niitsu (Japanese)

Proofreaders:
Ryan Burton (English)
Katarzyna Zima (Polish)

Special thanks:
Cas Richards

[close]

- CHANGELOG -

Version 1.1:

Spoiler

- Updated the cursor to display a different graphic when it is over a clickable spot (this should make hotspots more easily discernible).
- Updated the paintings in the dining room, master bedroom and tv room (mostly for aesthetic purposes).
- Fixed the walkable area in the bathroom, so that Angela cannot get past the maid when the latter is still there.
- Fixed Angela turning her back on the poor maid while they are talking.
- Fixed the stalker getting past Angela as the latter attempts to open a certain door in the 1F west wing corridor.
- Now the mannequin head in the wig room should be clickable "on any occasion."
- Fixed two situations where Angela must run instead of walk.
- Added an extra animation for Angela during the cutscene in the wig room (using previous sprites).
- Now there is an actual animation of Thomas closing the door in the end of the last cutscene (using brand-new sprites).
- The Polish translation has been fully proofread.
- Minor text and translation fixes (Russian and Japanese).

[close]

[Creamy]

Interesting style.

Is this the final look of the game or will there be and more details on the faces and in the backgrounds?

With this setting, time period and horror theme, Clock Tower comes to my mind.

[heltenjon]

With this setting, time period and horror theme, Clock Tower comes to my mind.

That's his favourite game, so I guess you couldn't have given a better compliment! 

[TheNewSon]

Interesting style.

Is this the final look of the game or will there be and more details on the faces and in the backgrounds?

Thanks! This should be the final look of the prototype, but I'll be looking for a darker, more realistic art style for the final game. 

With this setting, time period and horror theme, Clock Tower comes to my mind.

That's his favourite game, so I guess you couldn't have given a better compliment! 

You're quite right! This project is a love letter to Clock Tower and a few other horror games, movies and novels! 

[TheNewSon]

PROJECT UPDATE:
- A new artist and two composers have joined the team!
- We have successfully tested running the game directly on itch.io.
- The inventory screen is complete (click on the thumbnail below).
 
NEW SCREENSHOT:
- The empty portraits get filled with items as the player finds them.
- There are 4 key items in the prototype (item pictures are already done).
- Text is the only thing in the game that should actually feature colors.

[TheNewSon]

THREAD UPDATE:
- Added an estimated release date (read below)!
- Added a Credits section with all team members.
- Added a new screenshot (one of the cutscenes)!

PROJECT UPDATE:
- Soundtrack is finally complete! There are 8 tracks by 3 composers.
- All illustrations are done! We are currently working on character animations.
- Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Korean and Chinese translations are finished! (5/10)
- The prototype's estimated release date is December 7th 2022!

Also, we have started posting stuff on our social pages! Please kindly follow us! 

[TheNewSon]

THREAD UPDATE:
- Added 2 new translators to the Credits section.

PROJECT UPDATE:
- Spanish, German, Russian and Japanese translations are finished! (9/10)

EXTRA:
Chris Darril, pretty much one of my gamedev idols, started following the game's page on Twitter!
I have no words to describe how happy I am!



ADDITIONAL UPDATE:
- French translation is also finished, which ends the localization stage! (10/10)

[TheNewSon]

Hey guys! It's been a while since our last update, as development sadly slowed down a bit. I'm not sure we'll be able to release it on December 7th as scheduled... but anyway here are some update notes:

PROJECT UPDATE:
- All rooms have been updated with floor and wall textures!
- We're currently working on the last character animations.
- We're also adding basic lighting & shadow to all rooms.

PS¹: We've been sharing stuff on our game's social pages every Saturday at 14pm (GMT/UTC+1).
PS²: I'd be grateful if someone else could leave a comment below so as to break my chain of lonely posts! 

[heltenjon]

I think people aren't leaving comments because there isn't new stuff that's easily commentable (if that's a word). It looks good in the initial screenshots, and sounds nice with more tunes and translations, but without seeing or hearing it, I for one don't know what new to say. But I am looking forward to the game. There could be more Clock Towers in the world. 

Perhaps the screenshots are on your social pages, but I generally won't follow those links. And if I did, it would be more natural to comment or like where the screenshot was posted.

[TheNewSon]

THREAD UPDATE:
- 4 screenshots have been updated to reflect the game's final art style!

PROJECT UPDATE:
- The game should be released tomorrow at 10:00am (UTC-3).
- It should be available on itch.io, indiedb and gamejolt.

[TheNewSon]

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay (in case anyone's been waiting), it's been a busy morning at home, right today of all days... Anyway, the game is finally available on itch.io (link below)! I'll be adding links to indiedb and gamejolt on a later date. Hope you have fun! 

[Creamy]

Congrats on the release.
Here are my first impressions :

Pros :
- nice graphics and animations. Because the resolution is high, it's a bit strange not to see the facial features but I can live with it.
- overall ambiance is compelling.
- good voice acting (the volume for the mother is a little low).

Cons :
- walk speed is too slow. I know you can run, but still.
- unskippable dialogs and uninterruptible actions. Plus, she walks to perform anything.
- I don't like being told everything I have to do.
- linearity. From what I've seen, there's only one way to survive and the interactions are limited.
Examples :

Spoiler

To protect myself, I wasn't able to lock a door for which I had the key.
In the wigs room, I wasn't able to use the scissors to defend myself. That's where I stopped.

[close]

Good luck making the other nights.

[Wiggy]

I have to echo Creamy's sentiments. This game is so linear that it is boring - it is an exercise in left clicking. There is no player thought involved, thus no entertainment value. I can see there has been a lot of effort put in to the development, the artwork is fine, the premise is given but where is the story? Where is the gameplay? Re-think the development and get yourselves some decent beta-testers so your feedback is constructive rather than self congratulatory. It's a crying shame, because I was really looking forward to this release. Underwhelmed.

[eliasdiaz]

When will this game be released?

[heltenjon]

I played the game prototype today. I agree with Creamy on all counts regarding walk speed and not being able to skip/interrupt. For instance, when I was running away and then tried to open a door without unlocking it by mistake.  Perhaps the running speed could be the default walking speed?

But the atmosphere and story is really good. The music fits and makes the game all the more creepy. The voice actors do their job well, even though it would have been nice to not have several characters with the same voice. I also like the overall graphic style and the dark mood of the palette.

As for difficulty and linearity...I died plenty of times before making it to the end, so I guess it's not exactly easy. Even so, it doesn't take long to play through the story, and I guess the linearity is part and parcel of the design of the prologue. The inventory design suggests that you have more puzzle-oriented gameplay in mind later on in the game, while the prototype is almost pure survival game. I wasn't able to escape in the panic mode (after being caught), but died every time. Perhaps I'm not a fast enough clicker.

Suggestion: Make the statement about the missing doorknob the first time the player tries that door, instead of the first time after discovering a doorknob lying around. By all logic, she should know she needs that knob if she's encountered the door first.

Looking forward to see more of the game.