it's pretty easy to get stuck without knowing what to ask next, but it's taking shape.
are you planning to have the stock pictures in the final game or will it have artworks?
Play game
Interrogator's itch.io pageComments
24 days ago(+1)
Thanks for checking it out!
In theory there are two mechanisms preventing getting stuck - Hints and Thoughts. If there hasn't been any knowledge update within 8 iterations a hint is supposed to pop up in (Something like that).
I'm going with stock pictures, it's more honest that way. It's supposed to convey aura of being unpolished and rough around the edges, which it's going to be until I get more feedback.
So here we go again....
The game was a lot more fun to play this time around. I don't know if it's because the interactions were more fleshed out of just because I figured out how to navigate the game's logic better but it's something I noticed. The experience felt more coherent and it's interesting to experiment to find out what approaches the game accounted for.
Some cases still gave away their information out of order it seemed. In both Sandy Loam and the sea storm case the suspects just casually mentioned critical evidence that I hadn't brought up or even learned about yet.
Generally speaking I like the humorous tone of the game. It's a nice contrast to the black-and-white noir presentation and the morbid cases you're investigating. I think the format of storytelling you're using works well. I have nitpicks with the writing, but those don't seem critical enough to ruin the game.
Realizing that your name appears in the main menu title was a nice surprise.
Mentalist case was a breeze. Don't know what the deal is with that cockroach freak and I don't think I can crack it. In the evidence entry for that case the text cuts off so maybe there's some information there I needed but did not have.
Main issues I still have are still with the UI.
- Main menu buttons still take two clicks to activate
- Clicking the "Notes" button when at the desk closes the game
- When opening the "Evidence" screen the last page you had opened will briefly flash on screen before it switches to the actual first evidence entry. Not gamebreaking but bad for presentability.
- When flipping through the evidence reaching the last item will not automatically make the "next" button inactive - it needs to be pressed again to deactivate
This is a little misleading since one of the cases absolutely requires you to make the suspect emotional to get any kind of response. Unless there's a second way I never thought about. I don't know.
I'm assuming that you already reached the game's content scope, so it would be a good idea at this point to move the focus to polishing the content and the user experience.
Thanks for playing it again. I'll read the transcripts and see what happened with Sandy and sea storm. Cockroach freak was supposed to be a bit harder, instead of relying on evidence player was supposed to figure the right questions to ask, namely why does he keep repeating the pattern of moving in and out, and why wouldn't he move back with his family. The problem, as usual, is that those questions are only obvious to me and I need to make them more generic, or account for approaches other players take.
UI is certainly something I need to get back to before release. Thanks for specifics, I'll see to them.
You're correct I'm done with content and now I focus on refinement and polish. There's indeed one case you can only solve by emotional abuse, but spelling it out in the help section would trivialize the case, so instead of spelling it out, different wording might be the solution.
Big thanks for feedback!
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