Hello, played it for 45 minutes. Looks nice and atmospheric despite the low fidelity, and I didn't notice any major bugs. Dialogue system worked pretty well for the most part - I especially like the little encyclopedia hyperlinks to tell you about the world you're in.
Stuff I noticed:
Tiny thing, but you'll want to name your folder something like "Project Arcane" instead of just a version number. It's easy to lose it if you just extract it in a folder with a bunch of other stuff.
Pressing enter when entering a name for your save should really count as pressing continue, instead of adding a line break.
You really stick to stuff. Like if you jump into a wall, you don't fall down until you let go of the movement key. Letting you slide along the walls more easily would feel much better I think.
Dialogue choices seem to pop up before the text I'm supposed to respond to has finished displaying. I feel like it'd be good to display the dialogue I'm responding to as I consider my options, anyway, rather than in sequence.
I beat the sign puzzle by accident and I'm not sure how I was supposed to work things out properly. Kind of annoying that the top sign says "downtown" but that's not an option you can select - like how am I supposed to know Main Street counts as downtown but not the Dockside?
I hope that sign puzzle was the one thing you were supposed to be able to solve in the demo, cuz in the junkyard I can't even figure out what the question is after going through the whole place two or three times.
Anyway, my brainlet inability to solve puzzles aside, game seems promising; just needs to work out some of the kinks and burrs and then it should be smooth sailing (for people who don't suck at puzzles, anyway).
Really liked the look of it, the graphics and ui visuals are great. Sadly, it's too hard to play and maybe just unfinished. I had to look at the comments here to figure out you could walk through the grass to find the beach signs. Then the sign puzzle itself made no sense either. I had a eureka moment where I thought maybe the nail holes matched with the signs, but then I realized that they didn't match either. Watched a twitch stream to find the answer. Not sure if there is anything to do yet at the junkyard. I'll assume most of this is down to the gameplay being unfinished. Would probably be better to just hide all of the tutorials and UI if it isn't being utilized in the gameplay yet, because otherwise it's information overload. I'm looking forward to seeing this game in a more functional state.
I had some issues with the sign puzzle. I'll also echo that the movement gets stuck too much. It's needlessly aggravating. Looking forward to when more of the game is added in.
Made some notes during second approach, I see what you're going for and I'm certainly buying the game when it's out. Hopefully some of the brainstream will be useful. First puzzle
4 options - Dockside Road | Deermouth Trails | Junkyard | Main St
1. Top sign says Downtown - Downtown includes Main Street and Dockside Road, must be either
2. I found torn sign, it's got two bolt pattern, there are 2 suitable places for that on the sign post, unless it's a trick and it's n-th iteration of the sign
3. Map - If those things on the East are mountains, why is the town the same color | There are two possible locations that could technically be this crossraods
4. Solution is only possible if you find footsteps and the river, it does give you satisfaction if you find it, but people who wasted time on thinking within constraints of 4 given locations will be irritated
My takeaway from this puzzle - First search the available space thoroughly, THEN get to solving, otherwise you're wasting your time.
Second puzzle - Junkyard ledger
Blondie caught me off guard, aside of that it works well, once you get used to UI
Sprint might be good idea.
Why is currency tied to 2.1 loafs of bread, does it have something to do with replacement fertility rate, some lore plz.
The style, graphics, clear UI, great writing. This game is easily going to be a hit if you continue with the passion.
I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it. I'm willing to admit that the signpost puzzle is nonsense at the moment -- it was very hastily put together because my focus is elsewhere right now. It doesn't work because it's supposed to be the first challenge in the game, and that generally has to be a freebie for the players -- serving to teach them the mechanics, not so much to test their skills.
The "map" is a travel screen, not a clue. And even though it's possible to get some clues from it, I realized from watching players that it's ultimately too distracting from the actual puzzle so I will lock it in future versions.
The Blondie confusion is very common which I find funny. To me Blondie is always going to be Clint Eastwood. That version of the ledger puzzle ultimately isn't going to appear in the final demo anyways so I'm not worried about it.
Adding a sprint might break the game. I think it's going to become necessary as the game moves over into the bigger locations but it's a big problem that it encourages players not to pay attention around them, since the full game is going to be much much denser with details.
The footnotes system is there to solve a very real problem for the game -- since it's both a detective game AND doesn't take place in our world this combination carried the enormous risk or breaking the game. Context is everything, and since I can't expect players to know common knowledge from our world, much less from a fictional world, the footnotes were introduced to provide context. As the game grows in complexity it's going to become very intertwined in figuring out some solutions. It's nice to know the value of the currency since it's very easy to assume wrongly how much it is worth. An American would assume that a bread costs 2 units of a currency. Someone else might assume it costs 10 units of a currency. It's stuff like that.
If you want to keep up with the game you can follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/gplaysupremacy . I don't post a lot of updates at this point but I'm now at the stage where I'm gradually finishing with the game systems and slowly moving into assets, content, and marketing. I expect (hopefully) that the game is gonna start taking bigger strides soon.
UI, character models, and design in general is fantastic. Investigation mechanics seem fun, and the premise is intriguing.
I got stuck during the first puzzle, though that the map opening was a hint, so ignored the wood marks for a long time. Only now I realize that it was a fast travel map and not a hint. Haven't completed the second puzzle due to a time limit on stream, will try completing it a bit later.
But so far it seems like a great start for a very enjoyable old-style adventure game.
I thought the riddle made sense except that topmost sign obviously says "Brockham" or whatever the place is called, but you can only put "Main Street" as this is conceptually where you came from. Overall kind of dumb that it would not be filled, as the protags should know at least this? (If one had to put Brockham there, it would be more sensible.)
The atmosphere is nice, the setting seems interesting. Wonder what is up with that blueberry cake.
I don’t like the environment/physics/collision much. You learn fast to stay away from the stupid high grass, since it has a huge collision box and will clip you easily. But then part of the riddle is to actually go through some of this grass. Would be nice if the env collision was more relaxed and the movement faster. Just makes for a smoother experience.
Movement needs to be interpolated or updated every frame, it seems to be at the default 50Hz and is a jittery mess at 144Hz.
Walking diagonally is faster. I get that slow walking is better for muh ’mersion but I only moved around by attempting to strafe jump.
Cursor locks at center when UI is opened for me (can be unlocked by alt tab and I think the bug is also triggered by it)
When the path splits into three, whichever way you go a map shows and can’t do anything but close it and walk back.
Found the sign, mentioned the place to the other guy, he says there’s nothing to say about it and that’s where I give up.
Feels like I’m either missing something obvious or something’s bugged.
Maybe “Wait a minute that card” was made for me all along.
Edit: Gave it another go, found some other thing (yeah nobody would expect you could go there), figured out where I am and where the signs go but still stuck. Consider me filtered and out of patience.
I might be retarded but I can't get out of the woods Each path leads to map screen but not a single place seems to be unlocked. Since overall game quality is pretty high, I'd say revealing yourself as brainlet might be the reason why you've got no comments so far.
As for what I managed to see, the bushes, the PS1 graphics (not an insult), the UI, the conversation systems - all of it is working and functional, I'd go as far as to say it's solid basis for good game. There's a lot of mechanics setting up a great detective game, but again, I can't get out of the forest to explore it.
Comments
Hello, played it for 45 minutes. Looks nice and atmospheric despite the low fidelity, and I didn't notice any major bugs. Dialogue system worked pretty well for the most part - I especially like the little encyclopedia hyperlinks to tell you about the world you're in.
Stuff I noticed:
Tiny thing, but you'll want to name your folder something like "Project Arcane" instead of just a version number. It's easy to lose it if you just extract it in a folder with a bunch of other stuff.
Pressing enter when entering a name for your save should really count as pressing continue, instead of adding a line break.
You really stick to stuff. Like if you jump into a wall, you don't fall down until you let go of the movement key. Letting you slide along the walls more easily would feel much better I think.
Dialogue choices seem to pop up before the text I'm supposed to respond to has finished displaying. I feel like it'd be good to display the dialogue I'm responding to as I consider my options, anyway, rather than in sequence.
I beat the sign puzzle by accident and I'm not sure how I was supposed to work things out properly. Kind of annoying that the top sign says "downtown" but that's not an option you can select - like how am I supposed to know Main Street counts as downtown but not the Dockside?
I hope that sign puzzle was the one thing you were supposed to be able to solve in the demo, cuz in the junkyard I can't even figure out what the question is after going through the whole place two or three times.
Anyway, my brainlet inability to solve puzzles aside, game seems promising; just needs to work out some of the kinks and burrs and then it should be smooth sailing (for people who don't suck at puzzles, anyway).
Really liked the look of it, the graphics and ui visuals are great. Sadly, it's too hard to play and maybe just unfinished. I had to look at the comments here to figure out you could walk through the grass to find the beach signs. Then the sign puzzle itself made no sense either. I had a eureka moment where I thought maybe the nail holes matched with the signs, but then I realized that they didn't match either. Watched a twitch stream to find the answer. Not sure if there is anything to do yet at the junkyard. I'll assume most of this is down to the gameplay being unfinished. Would probably be better to just hide all of the tutorials and UI if it isn't being utilized in the gameplay yet, because otherwise it's information overload. I'm looking forward to seeing this game in a more functional state.
I had some issues with the sign puzzle. I'll also echo that the movement gets stuck too much. It's needlessly aggravating. Looking forward to when more of the game is added in.
Made some notes during second approach, I see what you're going for and I'm certainly buying the game when it's out. Hopefully some of the brainstream will be useful.
First puzzle
4 options - Dockside Road | Deermouth Trails | Junkyard | Main St
1. Top sign says Downtown - Downtown includes Main Street and Dockside Road, must be either
2. I found torn sign, it's got two bolt pattern, there are 2 suitable places for that on the sign post, unless it's a trick and it's n-th iteration of the sign
3. Map - If those things on the East are mountains, why is the town the same color | There are two possible locations that could technically be this crossraods
4. Solution is only possible if you find footsteps and the river, it does give you satisfaction if you find it, but people who wasted time on thinking within constraints of 4 given locations will be irritated
My takeaway from this puzzle - First search the available space thoroughly, THEN get to solving, otherwise you're wasting your time.
Second puzzle - Junkyard ledger
Blondie caught me off guard, aside of that it works well, once you get used to UI
Sprint might be good idea.
Why is currency tied to 2.1 loafs of bread, does it have something to do with replacement fertility rate, some lore plz.
The style, graphics, clear UI, great writing. This game is easily going to be a hit if you continue with the passion.
I'm happy to hear you enjoyed it. I'm willing to admit that the signpost puzzle is nonsense at the moment -- it was very hastily put together because my focus is elsewhere right now. It doesn't work because it's supposed to be the first challenge in the game, and that generally has to be a freebie for the players -- serving to teach them the mechanics, not so much to test their skills.
The "map" is a travel screen, not a clue. And even though it's possible to get some clues from it, I realized from watching players that it's ultimately too distracting from the actual puzzle so I will lock it in future versions.
The Blondie confusion is very common which I find funny. To me Blondie is always going to be Clint Eastwood. That version of the ledger puzzle ultimately isn't going to appear in the final demo anyways so I'm not worried about it.
Adding a sprint might break the game. I think it's going to become necessary as the game moves over into the bigger locations but it's a big problem that it encourages players not to pay attention around them, since the full game is going to be much much denser with details.
The footnotes system is there to solve a very real problem for the game -- since it's both a detective game AND doesn't take place in our world this combination carried the enormous risk or breaking the game. Context is everything, and since I can't expect players to know common knowledge from our world, much less from a fictional world, the footnotes were introduced to provide context. As the game grows in complexity it's going to become very intertwined in figuring out some solutions. It's nice to know the value of the currency since it's very easy to assume wrongly how much it is worth. An American would assume that a bread costs 2 units of a currency. Someone else might assume it costs 10 units of a currency. It's stuff like that.
If you want to keep up with the game you can follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/gplaysupremacy . I don't post a lot of updates at this point but I'm now at the stage where I'm gradually finishing with the game systems and slowly moving into assets, content, and marketing. I expect (hopefully) that the game is gonna start taking bigger strides soon.
UI, character models, and design in general is fantastic. Investigation mechanics seem fun, and the premise is intriguing.
I got stuck during the first puzzle, though that the map opening was a hint, so ignored the wood marks for a long time. Only now I realize that it was a fast travel map and not a hint. Haven't completed the second puzzle due to a time limit on stream, will try completing it a bit later.
But so far it seems like a great start for a very enjoyable old-style adventure game.
Thank you again for everything. There's not a lot of puzzle fans around this community.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2078203645
I thought the riddle made sense except that topmost sign obviously says "Brockham" or whatever the place is called, but you can only put "Main Street" as this is conceptually where you came from. Overall kind of dumb that it would not be filled, as the protags should know at least this? (If one had to put Brockham there, it would be more sensible.)
The atmosphere is nice, the setting seems interesting. Wonder what is up with that blueberry cake.
I don’t like the environment/physics/collision much. You learn fast to stay away from the stupid high grass, since it has a huge collision box and will clip you easily. But then part of the riddle is to actually go through some of this grass. Would be nice if the env collision was more relaxed and the movement faster. Just makes for a smoother experience.
Thank you for the stream.
Feels like I’m either missing something obvious or something’s bugged.
Maybe “Wait a minute that card” was made for me all along.
Edit: Gave it another go, found some other thing (yeah nobody would expect you could go there), figured out where I am and where the signs go but still stuck. Consider me filtered and out of patience.
I might be retarded but I can't get out of the woods Each path leads to map screen but not a single place seems to be unlocked. Since overall game quality is pretty high, I'd say revealing yourself as brainlet might be the reason why you've got no comments so far.
As for what I managed to see, the bushes, the PS1 graphics (not an insult), the UI, the conversation systems - all of it is working and functional, I'd go as far as to say it's solid basis for good game. There's a lot of mechanics setting up a great detective game, but again, I can't get out of the forest to explore it.
Will certainly be back