A Morbid New Year (Custom Story/Full Conversion)

[R. Peters]

I think I may have run into a bug while playing the custom story version. On the first floor, after picking up both the meat tenderizer (hammer) and the well key, I approached the padlocked door at the end of the hallway to the right of the huge double doors. I got the massage that I should find a way through it and checked the inventory. Unfortunately both the hammer and the key had disappeared. I checked back where I had originally found them and they were not there either. This made it so that I could not continue the game, despite enjoying it so far.
I hope this is of help.

Perhaps you're just going insane in real life? Try looking back where the key was again (in the hallway with loads of doors either side and one at the far end), or perhaps if you havn't found one or the other within a minute of losing them, have another look by the well door (hint: don't forget to check the floor too!)
If all else fails, let me know and i'll take another look at it. It worked every time after ridiculous amounts of testing for me Good luck, and i'm glad you enjoyed it thus far, you're still in the less interesting half of the game too.

I went back to my most recent save and tried to make it happen again. This time nothing occurred, so perhaps I am going insane.
Any way I just finished it and thought it was pretty good except for the scaling of the rooms. I can understand having large rooms for impact, but some of them were a little too big. Also the hallways could have been shorter so that the rooms were closer together. It isn't a matter of great importance though, it would only make the level design seem more in keeping with reality (unless you were going for something different of course).

I'm glad you enjoyed it And gladly taken into account, perhaps I shall try to keep corridors in check and rooms to a normal-ish size in my next one

[CorinthianMerchant]

Sorry, but i think it's a bit boring

The most custom stories are the same,
Maybe it's a really good custom story, but after a while they get a bit lame, because it's mostly always the same

[Tommyboypsp]

Spoiler below!

Wow, parts of this were either awesome or horrible.
Most of it was awesome. The length, rooms, monsters..
Just a horrible job on the lighting and supplies in my opinion. You give close to no oil, so the player is bound to go crazy in the dark. You don't give many sanity potions either... I had to camp at light spots to stop the gameplay from going annoying (you know how annoying it is to play when your sanity is at '...' and it responds slow to your mouse).
Apart from those things it was an amazing custom story. At one part my screen froze but restarting fixed that.

[DnALANGE]

hammer and stuff are gone...
IF it haas to be like that.. let the player know... by some note or mementory..
thought a hammer and a key form some room...........
Not a really good CS for my opinion....
Make more scripts - details - and notes for what to do....
Lange..

[R. Peters]

Spoiler below!

Wow, parts of this were either awesome or horrible.
Most of it was awesome. The length, rooms, monsters..
Just a horrible job on the lighting and supplies in my opinion. You give close to no oil, so the player is bound to go crazy in the dark. You don't give many sanity potions either... I had to camp at light spots to stop the gameplay from going annoying (you know how annoying it is to play when your sanity is at '...' and it responds slow to your mouse).
Apart from those things it was an amazing custom story. At one part my screen froze but restarting fixed that.

The screen freezing thing was most likely nothing to do with the custom story itself, but not to worry if it worked anyway The lack of supplies was kind of deliberate, I wanted players to be fumbling around in the dark, but if it doesn't prove to work as well as I had hoped then maybe i'll make oil as plentiful as it was in the actual game, in my next story. With the lighting, do you mean there wasn't enough light, or specific parts with bad lighting? Thanks for your feedback, i'm sure it'll all work towards improving my next CS

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hammer and stuff are gone...
IF it haas to be like that.. let the player know... by some note or mementory..
thought a hammer and a key form some room...........
Not a really good CS for my opinion....
Make more scripts - details - and notes for what to do....
Lange..

The hammer and key disappearing thing is intentional to confuse players. It seems to have worked XD There are plenty of notes and clues around if you look everywhere, but I am not too keen on making things too easy personally, it ruins the fun of puzzle solving I agree about the details though, I felt like I could've added more little things, like doors blowing open in the wind, sound effects etc.

[Tommyboypsp]

The screen freezing thing was most likely nothing to do with the custom story itself, but not to worry if it worked anyway The lack of supplies was kind of deliberate, I wanted players to be fumbling around in the dark, but if it doesn't prove to work as well as I had hoped then maybe i'll make oil as plentiful as it was in the actual game, in my next story. With the lighting, do you mean there wasn't enough light, or specific parts with bad lighting? Thanks for your feedback, i'm sure it'll all work towards improving my next CS

Spoiler below!

Good to see you don't see it as complaining. I'm indeed trying to help you. So here's some more feedback (sorry )

I understand how important darkness is in horror games like these, but in here you just can't see a thing at all at some points. Do you know how the game works with 'getting used to the darkness'? Because in the hallways you have torches hanging not too far from eachother, with a bit of darkness in between. If you walk from one to the other without stopping, you don't have enough time to get used to the darkness, so the player could miss a door. I think you should either make the light sources spread more light, or remove them so the player can get used to the darkness. I hope you understand what I meant by the 'annoying mouse' thing. That's why I think you should supply more sanity potions.

Just keep in mind that this is merely my opinion. The cursor delay when insane annoys me, but other might like it as part of the game.


Another thing is that I didn't quite catch the story. I got the part with the prisoner stealing the orb, how that lead to the monsters taking over to get it back, and you having to replace it. However, at first the room near your bedroom is open, and when you get back upstairs later it's locked with a note from your father next to it. Does this mean your father doesn't know about the monsters?

I also didn't quite see the point in the prisoner being illiterate. I could very well understand if some people find it annoying to read this. Maybe you could just misspell some words, feels like it's overdone (again my opinion).

P.s., I lol'd at the rat in the chest

[R. Peters]

The screen freezing thing was most likely nothing to do with the custom story itself, but not to worry if it worked anyway The lack of supplies was kind of deliberate, I wanted players to be fumbling around in the dark, but if it doesn't prove to work as well as I had hoped then maybe i'll make oil as plentiful as it was in the actual game, in my next story. With the lighting, do you mean there wasn't enough light, or specific parts with bad lighting? Thanks for your feedback, i'm sure it'll all work towards improving my next CS

Spoiler below!

Good to see you don't see it as complaining. I'm indeed trying to help you. So here's some more feedback (sorry )

I understand how important darkness is in horror games like these, but in here you just can't see a thing at all at some points. Do you know how the game works with 'getting used to the darkness'? Because in the hallways you have torches hanging not too far from eachother, with a bit of darkness in between. If you walk from one to the other without stopping, you don't have enough time to get used to the darkness, so the player could miss a door. I think you should either make the light sources spread more light, or remove them so the player can get used to the darkness. I hope you understand what I meant by the 'annoying mouse' thing. That's why I think you should supply more sanity potions.

Just keep in mind that this is merely my opinion. The cursor delay when insane annoys me, but other might like it as part of the game.


Another thing is that I didn't quite catch the story. I got the part with the prisoner stealing the orb, how that lead to the monsters taking over to get it back, and you having to replace it. However, at first the room near your bedroom is open, and when you get back upstairs later it's locked with a note from your father next to it. Does this mean your father doesn't know about the monsters?

I also didn't quite see the point in the prisoner being illiterate. I could very well understand if some people find it annoying to read this. Maybe you could just misspell some words, feels like it's overdone (again my opinion).

P.s., I lol'd at the rat in the chest

Ah I get you, thanks for the advice, I have already begun re-working the lighting in my next one. I think I shall try add sanity potions rather than oil in the next one. I think it's a good compromise as I don't consider the insanity to be a major part of gameplay (in custom stories, at least), but I still like players to feel 'trapped' in the darkness so to speak I think most people do not find it quite that irritating, but i'll try to make an effort to reduce the play of sanity from now on. In fact with that prospect in mind, you might like my next one if/when I finish it, you'll be playing a grown man, with no fear of the dark. I'm kind of working on an idea of 'damage the players sanity, not the characters' at the moment

As for the story, the reason your parents' bedroom was only locked originally, and not boarded over is because the first time you encounter the bedroom is during the dream. i.e, it would be a re-creation of the parents' room based on Christopher's slightly warped memory. A brief summary is that your father was aware of the problem, and after having secured the orb, left the mansion to get aid. Christopher was meant to have returned slightly after this point in time, and unaware of the situation went to his room, only to find out the hard way, and ran down to the well (this is where the CS begins). So your father was aware of the monsters, as you can tell from the note in his room in the 'real' world

I also take your point about the illiterate prisoner. I think this may have been a case of a little too much story detail, but fear not, if I do anything like that again, i'll just put a *The writer must've been illiterate. This is probably something along the lines of what he meant* at the start and write in proper English XD

Thank you very much for the advice once again. For a first custom story this has been very well received by most people, and it's sure been a fun learning experience. Hopefully my next one will be even more pants-shittingly brilliant