The Machine

[Dyloo]

"It is year 1887, you and your wife Nina have been invited to Lord Harris's feast, which was going to happen inside of his own manor at the countryside of Norfolk.
The main person of that event, Lord Harris of Norfolk, was widely regarded as an eccentric and odd engineer due to his researches on steam machines and engines. On that night, 19th of October 1887, after several hours of feasting you felt drunk. You made your way to your guest room, you've laid on the floor and fell asleep... "

What's waiting for you after you wake up? Or will you ever wake up?






Download link (v1.0.4):
http://www.mediafire.com/?vgauq14zblpoh7y

Moddb page:
http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-machine

[Statyk]

I'll give it a quick run. So far, I'm jumping more than I usually do with CSs... XD Great scares so far!

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I'll post what I have as I play and edit as I find anything. I will add "Finished" at the end so you may know when I am not adding anything else.

Bugs/tips as I play:

Spoiler below!

Most of it is cosmetic, but necessary...

1) When you find Lord Jamesson's corpse, when you go to leave, I can interact with some unknown area in the doorway. It doesn't do anything, but a "pickup" icon appears on screen.

2) Perhaps have the flashback in the dining hall match the fadeout of the audio. it would be smoother to have the player revert back to normal as the audio ends. NOT have the audio end, THEN have the flashback end, understand?

3) A landing on the dining hall does not reach the wall (see attachment 1)

4) The billboard in the winery/kitchen(?) is a bit unnatural. Add some more in varying angles.

5) The drawer in the hallway connecting the dining hall to Lord Harrison's office doesn't have anything in it and drawers don't normally reside in hallways. Maybe take it out and put a "round_table" next to the chair instead.

6) There's a window wall at the end of the hallway. It doesn't fit the theme of the rest of the hallway... Maybe just switch to the burgundy window wall instead. (see attachment 2)

7) Spotlights from above where the railings are are coming through the floor, into the hallway. Add something to block the light perhaps. (see attachment 3)

8) I was able to stack boxes up in the kitchen to climb up to the "green vent"... There's no texture up there so I'm assuming I shouldn't be up there. Maybe add a texture, or blockboxes, or just remove the whole thing in general unless it's necessary to the story. I don't know where I'm supposed to be going after I got the hollow needle, so I figured that was my way. It is a game programmers technique to add lights in dark areas to draw the players attention, which this did, especially because the light was a mysterious green. But now I'm out of oil and lost.

9) Speaking of oil... Add some boxlights around the map or large pointlights with dim colors to light up the mansion more. If a lightsource exists in a room, there is going to be light PRETTY far, whether its dim or not. The map is really dark and I had to always have my lantern out. a map can still be dark, but JUST light enough so people don't have to over-consume their oil.

10) Welders should be placed at the bottom of the curving staircase to the basement.

11) The billboards at the window in the staircase are unnatural. Add more and fix the one as it is set to "Point", not "FixedAxis" and it is following the character as I move.

12) Not sure where the falling Large Cogs came from that blocked the doorway back into the mansion >> Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

13) The other pipe needed to open the bulk heads is not attaching to the other broken pipe on the wall. Am I doing something wrong, or is the map ending here for now? (see attachment 4)

~~ Finished(?)

~~~~ Please reply so that I may finish if something is wrong here.

[Dyloo]

Thanks a lot! Its finished, cause you were supposed to use the hallow needle on closed desk (in Lord Harris's office). I'll add some text informing about it. Also, I'm going to apply your suggestions.
Go back and play the rest of game

[Statyk]

Thanks a lot! Its finished, cause you were supposed to use the hallow needle on closed desk (in Lord Harris's office). I'll add some text informing about it. Also, I'm going to apply your suggestions.
Go back and play the rest of game

I can't go any further than the bulk heads, though. I don't know how to open them.

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Nevermind, realized I had to go waayy back. I just got the shit scared out of me XD Surround sound and subwoofer at a high volume... *dies*

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Another thing is getting up into this vent... You either need to make the trapdoor larger or change objects to stack. I've been spending almost 10 minutes trying to just stack the boxes, barrel, and chair and it falls... Add more boxes maybe.

[Dyloo]

You're uncorrect. Try to find a ladder I know that in most of CS you need to use A LOT of boxes, but here you just have to find another way.

But I'll add some hint about ladder.

[Vradcly]

Ok I have now played The Machine for an hour and this is what I have to say.

Overall I think its a really good custom story, well though through and high on details,
both in scripting, lightning, the maps themselves and in story/mood.
Even the Voice acting was awesomely done .

Spoiler below!

And the fact that you waited for so long to introduce a monster encounter made it really tense and always on the edge. In fact I never got an encounter, but I am sure there is one, or is it?

Minor critics comments (Because I didn't find any big ones ):

Spoiler below!

-The intro text that appears on the screen when the protagonist wakes up: "How long I slept?", I would have changed that to something like: "How long did I sleep". I think "How long I slept" has some kind of grammatical error, at least it sounded a bit weird to me.
-Again the text on the screen, when you enter the room where the wife slept.
I would have given her a name and refereed to that instead, I know that the most easy way to get the player to understand that it is the wife we are talking about is to reefer to her as "the wife".
But for a husband that is worried about his missing wife it sounds cold.
"Ohhh no, Nina, by beloved is gone!" - Something like that maybe can fix that if you decide to change.
-Some spelling shit in Lord Harris Diary no.278:
-good lab, then almost directly again - good power source. I would have removed good the second time, or at least not used the same word again so soon.
-and you forgot an "i" in: "...tomorrow we will"be testing..."
-I got stuck in the laboratory - never found out what to do with the saw.
To me it made sense to use it on the iron bars to get up above the sealing, but that was wrong. (And I never found what else to use it on - doors, didn't work.)
Maybe, if its more people that get stuck there you can add a message when player looks at the iron bars in the sealing "I need to find bla bla to open this". Or something like that, or it would probably make more sense if the player gets that message when interacting with it. But I think you get the point .
-And at last, since the player spends quite some time looking to solve puzzles I think that a more "scarymoodforcing" music can be used. Upstairs I miss music overall and downstairs it pretty repetitive and silent. The tension is very high in your story when everything is going fine, but when stuck on a puzzle the tension naturally drops. Maybe some tweaking of the music, or possibly some randomly repeatable scare sounds can fix that, to keep the adrenaline high.

I would really like to know what to use the saw on, so I can adventure on. I must save my wife .

[Dyloo]

Yeah! Thanks a lot... My grammar isn't very good, because I'm not from England/USA, so I'm sorry about it (I'm still learning English and writing with you is some kind of practice for me ) I'll correct those spelling mistakes ofc!

And the same here - try to find a ladder to reach the trapdoor.
Anyway I'll add an massage informing about it, and change wife name to "Nina". It sounds cool

[Statyk]

Overall very intuitive campaign I must say! Some cosmetic fixes like I've described, as well as some plot-progression tips would make this a very nice campaign. good scares! And I love the ambiance in the "Machine" room. =] It's nice to see a map that has time put into it and is NOT based on putting golden statues, barrels, and armor everywhere... >>

[Kman]

It's nice to see a map that has time put into it and is NOT based on putting golden statues, barrels, and armor everywhere... >>

i find this to be semi-loltastic

[Statyk]

i find this to be semi-loltastic

As is this. ahem.... *Lol*.