Hey Der, Undy!

[bitmuchmate]

Hi all.

(Please note there is now a v1.3 post below that supersedes some of this information)

This is my first post, but I've obviously read many here, as I've learnt a huge amount to get this game to release.

It's a very short, comedic adventure game, based on a friend of mine. I've had a few people finish it already and they seemed to have a fun time with it.

I used the Thimbleweed engine. AGS engine! And Tumbleweed template.







Feel free to check out the itch . io page, and it is of course free to play:

Itch.io

(I have tried to add it to the AGS database, but after several attempts, I still get a blank screen after completing all the info)

Thanks
BMM

[heltenjon]

I downloaded and played through this. I was surprised by the length of the game, I'd say it's more like a medium size than a short game.

I generally had a good time while playing. The main point for me was the silly story and the humour, even if I didn't get the reference in the opening scene. The puzzles I'd describe as fairly easy, but one could still get stuck a couple of places. More importantly, the puzzles were fun to solve. There's a fair amount of moon logic, but it's consistent with the humour in the piece, so I didn't mind.

Graphics are made by some assets and worked fine without making a lasting impression either way. The music was self-composed and quite good, I thought. But the one thing that will divide people here undoubtedly is the synthetic speech. I found it strange, a bit funny and a bit grating at the same time. I'm sure some players will absolutely hate these voices - helpfully there's text on the screen, so one could simply turn the sound off.

I had the game crash on me once, trying to exit somewhere from the street scene. After that I saved regularly and had no more troubles. I couldn't reproduce the crash afterwards.

As your first AGS game, this one is pretty good, and you can pat yourself on the back. I hope you manage to add it to the database and get a few more downloads that way. An area of improvement could be to add interactions for actions that aren't the solution to the problem. Lots of them now simply has no effect, but there ought to be a message to the player that it didn't work. You could easily put in more humour and funny fails if you want to keep polishing your game further.

Hope to see more games from you.

[Crimson Wizard]

I used the Thimbleweed engine.

I have to clarify, this is not made with Thimbleweed engine, but with the Tumbleweed game template .

I must mention this, because the forum rules don't allow to post games not made in AGS engine here. But this is indeed an AGS game.

[bitmuchmate]

I used the Thimbleweed engine.

I have to clarify, this is not made with Thimbleweed engine, but with the Tumbleweed game template .

I must mention this, because the forum rules don't allow to post games not made in AGS engine here. But this is indeed an AGS game.

Ugh. I'm sorry. Thank you for clarifying!

[bitmuchmate]

I downloaded and played through this. I was surprised by the length of the game, I'd say it's more like a medium size than a short game.

I generally had a good time while playing. The main point for me was the silly story and the humour, even if I didn't get the reference in the opening scene. The puzzles I'd describe as fairly easy, but one could still get stuck a couple of places. More importantly, the puzzles were fun to solve. There's a fair amount of moon logic, but it's consistent with the humour in the piece, so I didn't mind.

Graphics are made by some assets and worked fine without making a lasting impression either way. The music was self-composed and quite good, I thought. But the one thing that will divide people here undoubtedly is the synthetic speech. I found it strange, a bit funny and a bit grating at the same time. I'm sure some players will absolutely hate these voices - helpfully there's text on the screen, so one could simply turn the sound off.

I had the game crash on me once, trying to exit somewhere from the street scene. After that I saved regularly and had no more troubles. I couldn't reproduce the crash afterwards.

As your first AGS game, this one is pretty good, and you can pat yourself on the back. I hope you manage to add it to the database and get a few more downloads that way. An area of improvement could be to add interactions for actions that aren't the solution to the problem. Lots of them now simply has no effect, but there ought to be a message to the player that it didn't work. You could easily put in more humour and funny fails if you want to keep polishing your game further.

Hope to see more games from you.

Hi

I hugely appreciate you even trying the game, and I love this feedback.

In testing, we were clocking under an hour, but obviously with me hovering around and maybe nudging it along.

The moonlogic was intentional...I hate to be meta, but it was my amateur attempt at the monkey wrench puzzle. Glad the puzzles were pretty accessible though - I didn't want it being brutal or anything.

Obviously the humour is based on a specific streamer on Twitch, and absolutely there are jokes that will not fly if you don't know him. It was originally meant for his community.

The graphics did use some purchased assets, but also had my limited artistic input. I don't pretend to be an artist, but there's a surprising amount of my own work in there.

Thanks re the music. There is about 85% that's my music, and maybe 15% that was again purchased from an itch.io composer, much like some of the graphical assets. Obviously, all are credited.

Needless to say...I don't like the synthetic text-to-speech either - hence the joke at one point. But early on I realised I wanted full voice. I had 4 or 5 friends interested in voicing, with a good range of accents, and I may go that route next time if I make anything else.

The street bug was identified early and I have fixed it. I was waiting to see if there were other bugs coming up. As there haven't been so far, I'm going to upload V1.1 tonight with that hotfix.

I think we've solved the problem with uploading to the database, I'm sorting that next.

Re Interactions - yes. Again, a bugbear I share even as the creator. I'm learning a lot, but given my own love of adventure games, I want it to be right. But I realise there were some situations where simply...nothing happens.

I might revisit and improve it, or I might push on and make a more polished sequel.

Again, thank you so much for the feedback.

[heltenjon]

I downloaded and played through this. I was surprised by the length of the game, I'd say it's more like a medium size than a short game.

In testing, we were clocking under an hour, but obviously with me hovering around and maybe nudging it along.

For the database page, short is 30 minutes or less. (For the annual awards, the medium length games are included in the short category.)

[sthomannch]

I had a good laugh on several occasions, liked this game a lot. Well done!

[bitmuchmate]

Hey. I really appreciate that. Thank you! 

[bitmuchmate]

...the one thing that will divide people here undoubtedly is the synthetic speech. I found it strange, a bit funny and a bit grating at the same time. I'm sure some players will absolutely hate these voices - helpfully there's text on the screen, so one could simply turn the sound off.

I've been thinking about this quote a lot lately. I have two VA friends online that are understandably concerned by the rise of AI voicing, and I can't help but feel guilty for doing this.

I have a couple of people who would gladly voice a character for nothing (much like I was glad to make the game at my own expense).

So should I:

a) Consider asking VAs to do it for very limited exposure? They can use it on a reel maybe?
b) Accept that maybe I just can't have voicing in my games if I'm unable to pay for it?

[bitmuchmate]

Version 1.3 is now available to download.

It has:

• Better graphics, with more texture.
• An intuitive interface, with keyboard shortcuts.
• A "jokeatron" button, explaining some of the niche in-jokes in the game.
• Icon hover - cursor changes to inventory item when you are interacting with objects.

n.b. It also is voice-free. The AI voice has been removed.
V1.2 will remain available, should you wish to play it with AI voicing.