Abduction Chapter 1

[Anxt]

I was playing a couple of custom stories today, and when I played yours I couldn't even remember at what point I started. That means it was really long. It was perfect length for what a custom story should be. It took me about 2 and a half hours to play it through (I think, like I said I don't remember where I started). However, this is also a bad thing because it means you didn't focus on the story very much. I actually completely forgot what was going on after I entered the Atrium. I had to look into my notes to remind myself.

My suggestion would be to make a few points of the story forced onto the player, such as flash-backs or custom dialogue sounds (maybe similar to the monsters talking in Justine?).

There are some other poor sides of it, but keep in mind I am putting on my hyper-critic cap when I say these:

Spoiler below!

I don't know why, but people seem to love using cabinets as hiding spots in their custom story. Yours did not seem to change much in this aspect. Almost every single monster in the wings I was able to hide from in a cabinet, and I felt too safe in them. To fix this, I feel 2 changes should be made:

1. Get rid of some of the cabinets and replace them with things like bookshelves or wine racks. Something that doesn't seem repetitive. A room should not have 3-4 cabinets inside of it.
2. Early on, if you have a monster attack a cabinet with a player inside, it will give them a sense that they are still in danger if they do choose to hide in a cabinet. Not to mention it will make them think twice before going in.

The monsters were also very predictable. I remember seeing a chest in some room, and I thought to myself, "There is definitely an important object in there... A monster will come attack me when I grab what's inside, let me plan a place to hide."

Now I personally think that it would be a whole lot less predictable if monsters were scripted not by grabbing an object, but triggered when you enter a room or pass a certain spot in a hallway. I actually feel that monsters should never be scripted to appear when you pick up an object. It is very predictable.

Lastly, the monsters themselves didn't seem all that scary when they appeared. It could have been because the hiding spots were very noticeable when you enter a room (deeming them a safe spot). However, I think the monsters would be much more scarier if you had them just smash a couple things before they left. Maybe break some crates or a cabinet. Just give them some action to make them seem more dynamic. Make it seem like "We will smash this entire castle crate-by-crate to find you!"

Thank you very much for the feedback. I know that there were a lot of standard things in the first chapter, but bear in mind it WAS my first real map, and it was meant to feel like the original game for the most part. Making monsters smash things is actually difficult to do. I can't just tell it to go break a box. The box would have to be in the monster's way, and even then he may just push it with his walking. I have figured out a way to make a monster attack a closet without knowing the player is in it, however, and I plan to implement that at some point.

I would have loved to include flashback-style storytelling, but since I am using the characters from the original game, I would have to record myself speaking as they would, and I just don't do very good impressions of Daniel or Alexander, so it wouldn't have sounded right. I know I neglected the story a bit late in the chapter, but chapter 2 will have a large number of revelations happening to build up to a fantastic climax (I hope) where the player will feel satisfied with the story as a whole.

As for predictability, well, everything is predictable to a certain extent. Pick up a key, a monster spawns. It's been done a million times, its very predictable. But, not all of the items do that. Only some of them. You never know which one will. It is impossible to continually surprise people through a custom story as long as mine was, because while there are many, many ways for me to implement a scare, only a handful of those make sense for a particular spot, and even less if spawning a monster is involved, because the player DOES need a place to hide. There are instances in my story where the intended hiding spot is actually in the light, which is supposed to be the LAST place you want to be with a monster hunting you. I tried to mix things up as best I could, and I really am happy with the way it turned out, but I know what you mean about the predictability. I am trying to make chapter 2 significantly less predictable where applicable.

Again, I appreciate the feedback, and I hope you enjoyed playing it and will play chapter 2 when it comes out, hopefully by the end of the month if all goes smoothly (although with portal 2 coming out I may take a brief hiatus from creating the story to play it )