Snowed In (Custom Story DEMO RELEASED)

[bobbo]

Wow, Streetboat, this really is an incredible work!

DamnNoHtml has used a good feedback structure there, I'll tell you my opinion sticking to this.

Spoiler below!

You should consider making an outdoor area that displays the blizzard that the player runs through in order to get to the house.

I recently was allowed to play a story in beta stadium that used a "winter escape" setting as well. I told the author of that story that an outdoor area would help to create a realistic feeling, too. But I don't think this is necessary in Snowed In. The heavy wind sounds throughout parts of the map with windows combined with snow making its way into the house through broken windows now and then and of course that amazing idea to have a tree being blown down absolutely create a great feeling for the blizzard outside for me. I don't think there's an outdoor scene needed in the beginning to intensify this feeling.

The opening room
Just simply well made.

I would expand that for every room that I saw here. The lightning and shadows were just absolutely great whereever I went (only the red from the oven might have been too red, I think it should be more orange). Each room was packed with details, creating the feeling there was really someone living there. I especially liked that crates and cabinets were filled with things as well, this way I was fishing out useful tinderboxes out of a messy crate the house owner had left.

Oh, speaking of tinderboxes: I'm afraid some players won't like the huge amount of tinderboxes. Personally, I think it's just fine: in a household that relies on candles and oil lanterns as light sources I'd expect to find a lot of them.

Story
It is hard to make a story where you are forced to descend deeper into a scary castle area. The character in this story would seemingly stop in front of the fire to gain warmth and wait out the storm. It is possible he would look for someone else, but after the first monster his realistic intentions would be "I am getting the hell out of here, there is no reason for me to be here."

Unfortunately, this really is one of the very few negative things in this demo. If I remember this correctly, one ingame message in the beginning told me to get out of the starting room because it was too cold. I was surprised that I gained sanity then for firing the oven. I was wondering: What now, is this warm enough to stay or do I still have to get out?

The first serious encounter with the grunt was really nice (I don't know if this was scripted: He banged on the cabinet next to the door where I was hiding). But then my character says „I should investigate“ and I thought the same like DamnNoHtml: „Really?!“ To get back to the lovely details one more time: It was great to see the study door being ripped apart.

The curved dagger
Alright, so I find a dagger on the floor. Hey, I know, let's go stab some corpses! I just felt this was completely unrealistic, which contrasts the rest of the realistic nature of the game. Why on Earth would the player start stabbing corpses for no reason?

This was strange indeed. Especially because the charcters starts to cough (because he finds the view sickening I assume) and says something like „This is Wilhelm?! Horrible!“ You should implement a reason to use the dagger, a note giving hints about it maybe.

Continuity of monsters
I enjoyed the fact you avoided the "oh, I'm in the next room, monsters vanished" idea that plagued the original Amnesia. The fact that the monster keeps slamming on the door in a completely new map creates continuity and urgency.

This is absolutely true. The idea to have this single monster roaming the house and following you was great and well implemented!

The grunt in the broken door
That scared me genuinely, a feeling I haven't felt since the original Amnesia.

Unfortunately, this didn't scare me much. To me it looked like a quick flash of a grunt-jpg behind the hole in the door because it was placed so low. I think it would have scared me more if it had been placed at the original height of the grunt.

The brute
There were several buggy things with the brute.

I didn't experience any bugs there. I crouched and sneaked behind the bookcase, took everything from the safe room without him noticing and continued. But of course it must be annoying if the player doesn't take the key here and then can't do anything about it in front of the door. I don't know anything about the level editor – but could the whole „Run!“ scene be triggered only when the player has picked up the key?

The end
Obviously it was a demo but what was with the incredibly annoying ringing at the end? Turn that down about 400 decibels.

I didn't find this too loud. I'm not sure how I would have liked the scene if the sound wasn't there. Could be that it would have been „too empty“, don't know. But the sound didn't bother me.

All in all this is just incredibly well designed, probably the best looking story I've played so far!

edit:

Spoiler below!

One more declaration of love to the details: The sheet of paper blown away by the wind in the first room was amazaing. And the stoves on fire had smoke, great!