The Official EP1 Feedback topic

[SoundGuy]

We want to hear your opinion, so please say everything you think about the game - bad, good or great!

Just try not to be an internet troll, we're introducing Kronk the troll in Episode 2.

Oded and the Corbomite team.

[matan]

I am downloading the demo of episode 1 right now. At least I think it is the demo, the front page had an icon that just said "Download now". I hope it's not a bug that you're allowing anyone to download it without buying...

In any case I will try the demo and then give my thoughts. I am really excited for a new israeli adventure game to be out but got a little turned off by the trailer. Hope I'll change my mind after playing the demo 

[SoundGuy]

yes, Matan - what you are downloading is the demo, when you buy the game and input your activation code - it turns into the full game.

what didn't you like about the trailer?

[advance]

Wow. Seriously - this forum has to be the worst forum I've ever encountered.

I've had to attempt registration 5 times to succeed!
First, I failed with the silly "Are you human?" question which I thought was humurous.
Then, I failed with Jackie's name. Jacqueline didn't worst, obviously, and again - I was thinking it was humurous.
Then I discovered that the CAPTCHA had to be typed in case sensitive.
Then - I discovered that my password isn't strong enough, but the password strength isn't displayed as I type it. This is such a common feature nowadays, it is incredible it isn't present.
Obviously, after each failure - all of the fields got cleared out and I have to retype in everything.
Finally, on the 5th try - I managed to register.

Seriously - this is a horrible, horrible experience. The only reason I bothered registering is because I met Oded once and I cared enough to go through this and comment. Most users will simply give up at the 2nd try.

You would want the forum to be without registration. CAPTCHAs are okay, to prevent spamming and bots. The rest of the "measures" are horrible and will prevent users from using the forum.

Now - on to the game.

The voice acting is great!

The style is nice, even though it does have its downsides. An example: opening the fridge causes Jackie to do her door opening animation - but the fridge doesn't budge. Then, suddenly, it is magically open in a flash. Hmm..

The walking animations are pretty bad.. Most animations are okay, though. They aren't very distracting.

The music is nice, but the way it is cut on the Corbomite logo is not very professional. It should fade out, and it shouldn't restart immediately at the start of the demo.

The "conversation baloons" don't seem to point in the right way, most of the time. They point AWAY from Jackie.

I've seen some "animation" flashes during the Pizza summoning phase. Jackie is on the floor, then she appears to be standing up for a single frame, then a "stand up" animation appears. The entire sequence seems to have various "skips" and "jumps".

The demo is way too short. I finished it in 10 minutes. I thought you wanted Episode 1 to be free?

Anyhow, all the best for you guys.

[matan]

The trailer just gave me some really bad vibes about the games, I'm not sure why. Maybe mostly because I didn't like the graphics so much. However, after playing the demo I see the game looks and feels much better than I thought. I liked the comic-book style, including the "Goal" displayed in the corner and the talking balloons for the dialogs (although I was also bothered by how the balloons often point the wrong way). I also really liked the voice acting and the music. The graphics are definitely the Achilles' heel of the game - the models look okay but not great, and the animations sometimes look too "robotic", especially the walking animation.

In any case, the demo convinced me to try the first episode. Will there be a "season upgrade" option if I buy the first episode separately?

[SoundGuy]

Hey Matan and Advance  - Thanks for your comments.

Advance - I'm sorry it was too hard to register to the forums, but we seriously had the worst spammer problem here, which only went away after adding all those captcha's and are you human's .
If you volunteer to be a moderator, and spend a few hours a day, each day removing spam, i'll consider removing the anti spam measures

Do remember that this game was done independently, no publishers, no million dollar budget, and yet, i think we did a very good job with whatever resources we've had.
I've seen games with much higher budgets, and worse graphics. not to mention worse writing, voices, or game play.

Matan - I still need to work out the technical details of how to give out the season upgrade option with our store provider (plimus). once we do we'll enable that option.

again - thanks for the feedback, and i promise, episode 2 will be better

[davelgil]

EastWood, whatever criticisms you have were just invalidated when you brazenly admitted to pirating the game.  Shame on you. 

[advance]

SoundGuy,

You want to cater for your customers, I think. Or do you want your customers to cater for you?

The forum is here so that the game players can talk to you. You should listen to what they have to say. It should be your prime motivation.

Anyhow, you should note next to the CAPTCHA that it is case sensitive.
You should note next to the "Human" and "Jackie" questions what their purpose is, and what to type in.
You should note what password is considered strong and acceptable next to the password box.
You should have JavaScripts that verify what the user typed is correct prior to submitting.
Or you should move to another forum that has less spam problems.

Anyhow - on to the game.

I am not saying anything to bring you down. All I am saying is that you should perhaps listen to the criticisms and perhaps take what you can from them.

First of all - fix the conversation balloon direction bug. This should be a primary action item.

Then - the rest of the issues. Most are cosmetic, but distracting.

Finally, you should be very careful when communicating with your users.  Be careful of being cast of the same mold as Derek Smart, if you know what I mean.

[SoundGuy]

Advance,

Thanks again for your comments.

I've changed the registration page to be more human friendly.  I hope it is more to your liking now.
It was hard enough to setup this forum, and if you want episode2 to be better, i don't think it is wise to spend my time changing to a different forum system. SMF is a pretty popular one.

I don't know if you've done game development yourself, but good graphic artists are freakingly expensive, and considering the low LOW budget we had, i'm pretty amazed as to what we accomplished, and like you said, most of the are cosmetic. We'll improve the models and animations in time for the next episode.

I'm not sure what exactly is bothering you with the balloons, please elaborate (maybe screenshot?)

And thanks for the tip, I'm very careful with what i write.

Oded

[davelgil]

Dude, pirating is when you circumvent the rules to play the game without paying for it, which is exactly what you have done.  It breaks the law, as well as the EULA you agreed to when you installed the game.  You say you are a game developer.  If this is true, you should know of all people why this is wrong. It doesn't matter if you don't like the game, the creator, or the price.  This is what he created, and this is what he charged,.  Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you should go and steal it.   So yes, it is shameful behavior.  Especially going onto the creator's forum afterward to brag about it.

[ernie]

Hi,

I am one of those who bought the complete season one. I just through with the first episode. My overall impression is average at best. I have started playing adventures back in the mid 80ties, so I have seen a lot ...

+ Good sound
+ Nice backgrounds
+ Good cast
+ Above average story (?)

- Length
- Awful animations, especially the character "face-on" ones
- No puzzles
- Bugs (no voices, error messages in voice boxes) when dealing with the watcher and trying to get the remote
- Repeatings of phrases
- Price (deduced from this episode)

Taking into account that this is your first shot, give it another four much better ones ;-)

Ernie

[SoundGuy]

Thanks for the comments Ernie!
We'll take them into consideration!

Epsiode 2 will be longer, puzzlier, and less repetative.
We've also hired some new animators instead of the old ones to improve the visual aspects...
Hopefully, it will also be less bugyy, but as any software project or game, there are bound to be bugs. I've played buggier AAA next gen titles ...

Oded

[maigrane]

Hey
I'm Oran,
I'll be leading the 3d art for the next PM episodes
Will try to fix everything I just read here in this forum for EP2 and make the game more fun !

Feel free to post comment and write about changes you'll like to see in the graphical aspect of PM2
and 10x for playing!

[DDClarke]

Ok just finished a full review:

http://gamerpants.com/?p=173

Thanks,
Daniel!

[davelgil]

EastWood:
If you have no problem doing what you did, then there is nothing else to say and you have no business being a game developer.  Do unto others, etc.

Daniel:
GamerPants is the best name for a website, ever.