Subterranea (Work in Progress - NEED FEEDBACK)

[Penguinmaster]

Ok, so I downloaded this last night, played through it, composed my thoughts and here's some feedback. I'd like to start by saying I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just telling you what needs to be done to improve this and I'd expect you and anyone else to be just as blunt as honest to anything I post.

Story
Ok, so it starts off saying that the player is a spelunker and came across an old abandoned city, rummaged an old shop and searched the church for signs of why people left. Ok introduction, I liked the presentation with the text on the dark screen, set it up well. Few problems though. The back story of the player being a spelunker is either unnecessary or inconsistent. With the character being a spelunker, I assumed that the town was underground, but that can't be true since there was light coming in from the church windows, so since there was light, it's above ground rendering the spelunker occupation nul. If it's above ground then the player should be a hunter or hiker, something a little more relevant. Also, if the player was a spelunker who found a town, then I'd assume you were currently exploring, but anyone going to explore caves would have a light source and would not need to find a lantern and would instead use their flashlight they already had with them.

Lighting
While the general lighting was ok, there were a few glaring problems. Firstly, I'm going to go back to the light from the church windows. Once again, if it's underground there shouldn't be any light there in the first place, and also, if it is above ground, there should only be light coming from one direction. There is one sun, giving off one general direction of light. All the lights from all the windows lead inward, indicating multiple light sources. Something needs to change about that. Secondly, the lights in the hallway. the lighting goes from well lit to pitch black instantly and it really just looks bad. You need to add a bit of ambient lighting to fix that. Also with the torches in the hallway, it's too symmetrical. These are torches fixed into carved rock. You need to offset each torch horizontally AND vertically to remove the mechanical 'perfect' feel of the build. I would also recommend rotating the torches a bit to conform with the direction of the rock wall it's attached to.

Prop placement
Okay, the starting church area was great, I'll give you that, but the quality isn't as good later on. Back to the hallway (yes I have many problems with this damn hallway don't I?) I already mentioned the torches so no need to reiterate, but my comment is now on the tablets hung on either side of the walls. First of all, there are too many. Since it's noticeably the same model, the strange creepy feeling meant to be given off it taken away. Seeing one or two strange tablets is creepy, seeing a bunch of the exact same thing in the same area is weak and has next to no effect. Ok, now to the final map, the living quarters, I could write a whole essay about this area, but I'll be short (too late). I'll talk about my three biggest problems. First, the beds. The beds are all constrained to the exact same grid piece, are all facing the same way, and are bland. This is meant to be an old abandoned place where people used to live. Displace and rotate the beds somewhat and it'll give a much needed boost of realism. Never in life with you see a bunch of beds perfectly lined up. Secondly, the barrel room. Oi, I don't like this room. 1. Why are the barrels scattered? Ever seen a storeroom? Whether it's boxes or barrels, you will never EVER see the containers carelessly placed around. They will be neatly placed together for easy inventory and access. 2. Why are the barrels on both sides of the room? I understand you don't want a big empty chunk or room wasted, but it looks odd. You have a bunch of identical barrels stored on two sides of one room. You need to put it all on one side or change up the barrels on one side, scale them or change the model. 3. Why is the note in the exact middle of the room? Now this is my biggest problem. The note is in the center, facing the door... This is a note was lost or dropped here, so why is it so precise? You need to change this, and once again, it just simple displacement and rotation and it'll be better. Onto my third and final problem with this map, the bottles. I want to slap you for this one, not even joking. If my best friend made this mistake I would slap them too. You have the bottles arranged dark green, light green, two dark greens and then two light greens. It's like the on each shelf. Each bottle is the same distance away from the others on every shelf, they're all the EXACT same distance from the edge and I'm sorry, but that is shit. I can't be anything but mean here when I say that is just terrible. NEVER! EVER! Do this again! since it's only a 10 second process of displacing and reordering the bottles, there is no reason what so ever for this crap to ever happen. If you do nothing else, take a single minute from your life and fix that.

Okay! That's the end of my extremely long rant, I bet by now you hate me and other readers do too, so let me end off with this. I'm not trying to be mean, excluding the part about the bottles of course, I'm just trying to help. I can tell you put a lot of effort into this and by now means should you stop, you my good sir, have potential, and if you were to just spend a little more time onto details like that, this could easily end up one of the best custom stories here. Good luck with the rest of your levels.