Post by Melancholy Marionette in Waterborne: Immersion comments

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Well, you certainly succeeded there in my books! :3 I was just completely in my element playing through it. You'll have to forgive the pun, but I was well and truly immersed :D (Huge thumbs up on the decision to rename by the way!)

I guess it's not so much that I'm not a puzzle fan, more so that I'm just really crap at puzzles, and so tend to get frustrated quite quickly when I encounter them and generally can't solve them x3 I so desperately wanted to play the Zero Escape games without guides, but I stood no chance xD

Oooh, I see! Well, the knowledge was there in my brain to be able to solve it by myself, buuut, whether or not I would've actually made the connection without Googling is impossible to say now because I didn't really give my brain a chance to kick in on that one, I did just go straight to Google xD (Sorry, I'm terrible >.<) But damn, an hour :o That's some playtester dedication :D I think I would've maybe given it max 10 mins before begging for help x3

lazytiger2 years ago(+1)

Puns NEVER need forgiving! :D

I get what you mean about puzzles. They can actually be pretty fun destroying if too hard. I've only been making visual novels for a year but I remember reading somewhere in my travels that the demographic is less likely to want puzzles in their media so I've tried to find a good balance between simple and rewarding. And yeah, in game solutions are a must I think :D AND oh yeah, Zero Escape... so much maths! WHY!

And absolutely no need to apologise, you are not terrible, the puzzle was WAY too obscure. I have no idea why I thought anyone would get it. The playtester in question is actually a huge Michael Jackson fan and especially loves Thriller. So when he didn't get it, I knew I was in trouble :D

Melancholy Marionette2 years ago(+1)

x3 My brother would approve of you saying that since his favourite comedian is Tim Vine!

That's interesting that the demographic is less likely to want puzzles :o I definitely fall into that category of player, haha. I don't really like to be forced into doing any sorta additional gameplay with VNs x3 I like to just read and relax without having to worry about fancy gameplay mechanics or using my brain too much xD But that's because I play other kinds of games when I'm looking for that sorta fix. For me, I treat VNs like books still. So I generally only play them at night in bed, with my little potato laptop on my belly x3 Means if they have stuff like quick time events or anything requiring a lot of key pressing, I'm screwed >.< I make exceptions when playing games from jams I've participated in cos I count that as part of my recovery break/reward so I'll play em on my actual PC during the day as well as at night on the potato!

But yeah, I feel like you got the balance down really well here because I didn't get frustrated at any of the puzzles :3 And knowing that if I couldn't figure them out, the answers were there in the game I think actually made me try harder to solve them without looking just because I knew that I wouldn't need to spend time searching for the solutions = extra time I could use to actually try and work em out, haha. And they definitely hit the sweet spot for me on being not too difficult, not too easy, so they felt rewarding :D

Yeah, eww, maths, dirty word x3 I just cannot maths to save my life T_T

Okay, maybe not terrible, but definitely lazy xD Cos I'm sure if I'd actually sat for a few minutes and thought it all over properly, I would've stood a chance at coming up with the right answer, haha. I don't know why I impatiently charged to Google either because that's hardly any better than just looking it up in-game x3 Somehow it just felt more like I was still solving it by doing it that way, haha. That is pretty funny though about the playtester being a fan and still not getting it x3

lazytiger2 years ago(+1)

I had to look up who Tim Vine was. But he and your brother sound like they have amazing senses of humour!

Yeah, I think you probably represent the vast majority of the VN demographic. They mostly want books with pictures and choices. And here's me wanting to make adventure games without all the tedious walking around :D I'm glad to hear you feel I achieved a good balance though. Including the solutions in game is a small price to pay if it means people may be more inclined to try it out.

Yup, maths is gross all right.

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