Post by morozig in Episode 1: Why I Started Building an Adventure Game comments

Episode 1: Why I Started Building an Adventure Game » Comments

Viewing post in Episode 1: Why I Started Building an Adventure Game comments

Hi Zachi,

I've played your demo and even recorded it! I loved the game so far, especially how you handled the camera transitions, the overall style, and the character consistency. I was also very excited reading your article because it reminded me of my own journey as well.

I'd like to share some of my thoughts on the game UI, even though it might be too early at this stage:

Inventory Counter: I got confused early on with the inventory counter. I'm too used to numbers meaning notification counts, so I thought it was showing the number of new/unexamined items and was trying to examine them at first.
Controls: If you are not targeting strictly touchscreen devices, why not use the right mouse button for "look/examine" and the scroll wheel for the inventory, like in Deponia?
Hotspot Popups: When hovering over a hotspot, the popup message stays in place directly under the cursor, which makes it hard to read. It would be better to make it follow above the cursor.
Skipping Dialogue: I'm also very used to being able to skip the current voice line in other point-and-click adventures by simply clicking anywhere, not just on a specific skip button.

Those are pretty much it—just minor UI suggestions. I liked everything else! The puzzles I've seen are well-made, and I wish you the best in completing the whole story.

May I also invite you to a small Discord server for fellow AI point-and-click adventure developers?

Zachi Mann12 days ago

Hey morozig!

Thank you so much for the feedback AND for the video! It is a really great experience for me to actually see someone else playing the game and how they react to things I have been looking at for months.

I've taken note of your comments. Actually, most of them are already resolved in the next build, which I intend to release in the coming weeks.

As for skipping dialogue: I admit I went back and forth on that one. Originally it worked exactly as you describe: click anywhere to skip the current line. But I found that some players accidentally skipped important plot details and hints, sometimes without even realizing it. So eventually I made skipping more intentional. I'm still not completely convinced this is the right solution, though, so this is useful feedback.

One small thing I'd ask: I'd rather not describe Where the Arc Falls as an “AI game.” I definitely use AI tools in the production, particularly for VO, some image upscale and coloring work, prototyping and productivity, and I have no problem saying that. I just don't really see AI as the identity of the game. I've put a lot of work into the writing, direction, puzzles, character animation and overall design, and that's what I want the game to stand on.

AI has been extremely useful in proving to me that a game of this scope and genre can be feasible for a solo developer. If it eventually becomes a commercial project, I'd also like to put more budget into things like professional VO, animation and music.

And yes- I'd be happy to have a look at the Discord. Thanks for the invitation!

morozig11 days ago (2 edits)

Hi! I see, I'm sorry for calling it AI game, I personally like AI but commercially it makes much more sence to ditch this before release. The way I found your game is on this search: https://itch.io/games/newest/ai-graphics/genre-adventure/tag-point-and-click
which is for games disclosing using AI graphics, not any other kind. Like for example the boy's animation on that exact page or the leather seller, I would be very surprised to know that they were hand drawn. If you intend to use AI only for coloring and upscaling I think it is safe to remove AI graphics from disclosure. But the thing I found on reddit is that trying to hide usage of generative AI(even if it was 1%, I'm not talking about upscalers or coloring of hand drawn sketches) makes people extremely angry.
As an adventure game developer and player myself I believe that all crucial dialog lines should be persistent(meaning npc would repeat them as long as you need this information to progress) while all filler lines are safe to be accidentally skipped.