[RELEASED] Collapsing Cosmos : The Silver Key

[daortir]

I sure will think about you for testing : your review was very detailed and very constructive, that's incredibly nice from you to take the time to write all this, and every flaw you pointed out is something I can try to improve.

I have a new project in mind but it's nothing I want to rush in ^_^'.

[WALP]

Review of Collapsing Cosmos: The Silver Key
by The Mug

(WARNING: CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS)

Enjoyed the mod greatly, story got me engaged quickly, and though it was quite a simple one when you think about it, I find that it was well told at least when it comes to notes writing, pacing and also environment.

The mod was abselutely gorgeous, especially when it came to lighting, and layouts were often quite interesting. The Other world/dimension/etc maps were also very well made even if you had to improvise a lot with limitations, especially in texture stretching.

I liked very much that the suitor was not just there, but that he was tied into the story, and that soon after the first encounter I thought of him as Andrew(not just an evil thing), and had a little sympathy for him.

The mod overall was light on scares and fear, and did neither feel like it was supposed to be so, so it was fitting. Still there were some pretty tense moments with Andrew and also later when listening to his background cries in the mansion, and sneaking around him in the beautifully reflecting Cistern Water.


This week I looked down, Next week's episode I fall down....Just kidding! It took me only seconds before my bones were crushed and eaten by the breathing tongues of the seemingly green infinite deeps.

Sound went quite good as well, seemed you had some randomized/dynamic elements to them in the mansion and of course the cries were good. When the cries have a source(Andrew) it's called story, I like that. Some levels in the other worlds seemed to lack a bit of that environment ambient sounds as far as I remember though, and things very much went quiet when the clearly from Incompetech soundtracks( that also fitted the mod quite well) stopped playing.

The one aspect of the mod though that I found lacking( and quite an important one) was the puzzles. It seemed as if that they had first been designed and added without much thought of difficulty and player perspective, and that realizing later how hard they were, you simply decided to add some mementos of very ridiculous hand holding, that would give very specific information on a whim and tell you exactly what to do. It's not that I am against making the mod easy and allowing flow in the playthrough, or even hand holding. But rather it is the feeling itself, and displaying it to the player, that I am against. Isolated as puzzles on their own, I did not see them as being anything interesting or particularly unique, rather just filler to make the mod properly paced.

The Boss battle at the end was a brilliant idea, with the damage and smoke from the ground(and quite epic). But it felt untested and was difficult and unforgiving, especially with the red one haunting you down, so I died many many times during this event. The ending(post boss battle) was fine, but I feel it could have been better than having the protagonist tell us something we already know in an ending fitting sence.

Overall Rating: 8.44 out of 10.00

Feedback / Suggestions:

-Before jumping into map editting, put more time into planning the puzzles. Try to make them either Engaging or clever and manageable. If you can, try and see if you can somehow make them tie into the story as well, even if just in faint ways.

-The boss fight should either have difficulty turned down overall, or you could follow a more specific suggestion of mine. Beating the boss now relies on dying 1-2 at least to fully grasp whats going on, I suggest having at least the first few attacks from the ground hit you weakly(like 5 health?) so the player understands the siteration. Also I suggest that, Red attacker, ground attacks and finding the Crystal thing should not be all at once. Maybe have the player avoid for some time, and when the silver key boss needs a little breakie have him go and get the crystal then, while avoiding the red one.

Other:

-I think jumping around in the green lit city may be a bit tough at some jumps for less experienced players. As a modder I broke quite a lot of bones. A lot of structures in the city also hint at being jumpable causing a little confusion for me, but eventually I noticed the key in my inventory.

-I liked going back examining the violin, and this time knowing who this Andrew was, and that was a nice piece of environmental storytelling. So many times in mods things can be examined only for useless information with no connection to progression or story whatsoever.

-Look over your .lang again, use lang tool if you dont have it already. There are some spelling mistakes like Crystal becoming Cristal, and a few more.

-Regardless of how easy install is, or if it is written on the moddb page, instructions should ALWAYS be included with a download.( not saying I had any issues but, it is a golden rule mate. The internet has many people who won't recognize difference between CS or mod, or know where to place either them in their game folder.)

-Were the invisible walls in the river place really neccessary? could you not at least have moved them a little off so you dont bump into them that easily?

-Water fall was cool

-Skulls were cool

-Room upstairs with curtains were you need to climb down into library was cool.

-A crystal bugged into the ground for me and I had to reload, I suggest you make this reset location on death so people wont have to do that because were not all devs with f1 enabled.

-The slime you placed in the green deep was cool idea.

-Like your mod this review was not properly spell checked.

[daortir]

Thanks for the detailed feedback ! Your criticism is very constructive, and this will help me out a ton in the future.

Right now I think the flaws everyone agrees on are :
-The puzzles being too simple and not creative enough, without consideration for the player's thoughts.

I haven't been creative enough with the puzzles according to HumiliatioN, and I think he's completely right. I am not good at imaginating puzzle elements and I will work on this a lot more for the next mod. I will also try to focus on building the level around those puzzles so that the player understands better what is expected of him.

About the Mementos, it was kind of imbalanced indeed. Not giving any clue in R'lyeh was a clear decision because I hoped people would feel lost, without getting too annoyed by the situation. Maybe it was a bit too rough considering how easy it was to die. Some mementos were pretty dumb I guess, or gave too many clues, while at some areas (ground floor of the library) the player was absolutely clueless about how he was supposed to exit the map/what he was supposed to find.

So, puzzles can be improved a lot in creativity and in the way I make the player find the solutions for them.

The boss battle appears to be a buggy one, I fixed this a little on MODDB (now it is actually impossible to get stuck because of a lack of cristals). It is true that it wasn't a very forgiving encounter, I think though that the patch will be enough to make it doable. Have to agree though, the player had probably too many things to think about at the same time. If I do another one I will consider making its mechanics different (less stuff to do at the same time), and also to make the beginning of the fight a lot more forgiving.

I also took note of what you said about the otherworld's ambiance lacking some sound effects, I'll work on this and maybe learn how to make new sound effects from scratch : >.


I am happy you enjoyed the storytelling and the mapping, they still remain the main things I focused on for this mod !

One last thanks for the feedback, it is really really useful to me : ).

EDIT : one of the reasons for the battle being buggy is that the cristal entity is kind of glitchy : /. It's a converted penumbra model and it collides very weirdly with the environment, especially considering I stretched it. Anyway as I said, boss battle should be fine now but we'll see how it turns out x).

[7heDubz]

Loved it to death.

Was simply, Fan. Tastic.

Loved the mapping, The perfect use of monsters, And great lighting!

The story was amazing (Havent read any H.P. Lovecraft stuff YET <--) But I sure love this mod. Itmust be one of the best.

9/10

[daortir]

Glad you liked it : D

Thanks for the rating and the kind words, it's the kind of things that motivates me to make the next Collapsing Cosmos mod : >.

[larkinsen]

Very nice mod,but I can't find laudanum for healing.I'm at the library part where i have to jump across those library shelfs to get to the other side to pick up the library key.I fell a couple of times and now my character is very badly wounded.Also,after I manage to get the library key ,when I try to leave that place the game crashes on me. ( I don't understand why,coz up until that point it worked very well.I tried over and over but the game crashes everytime exactly on that spot.

[Wapez]

Very nice mod,but I can't find laudanum for healing.I'm at the library part where i have to jump across those library shelfs to get to the other side to pick up the library key.I fell a couple of times and now my character is very badly wounded.Also,after I manage to get the library key ,when I try to leave that place the game crashes on me. ( I don't understand why,coz up until that point it worked very well.I tried over and over but the game crashes everytime exactly on that spot.

Bro. Spoiler tags.

[.spoiler]
Shit people who didn't play this shouldn't read.
[./spoiler]

Remove the periods inside the brackets and you're good to go.

[daortir]

So far, I'm very impressed. Though the lighting and detailing isn't perfect, it's sufficient to work well with the atmosphere, and the level design is very well thought out.
The atmosphere is very well made, and though at times I feel there is too much sound to take in, it's overall very effective at making me tense and nervous of what is around the corner, and behind each door.
Looking forward to playing more, good job man.

Really glad you enjoyed it so far : ). I really respect your work and the fact that you find my mapping good means a lot to me -and I mean it !
I will definitely try to work on the sound atmosphere, because it's something I find very complicated. Some areas are indeed a bit overwhelmed with audio (the library has 2-3 amb sounds looping -the sames as in the Archives from TDD, as well as 1 scratching sound that happens often, plus 1 door-slamming sound that plays pretty rarely).

Some areas, though, lack work on the audio part (otherworlds feel a bit empty when it comes to sound).

I still have a ton of things to learn and I love it : ).

[Chronogyros]

Hey, I really enjoyed playing this mod. Mapping and lighting were really nice. [NO YOUTUBE ADVERTISEMENT HERE]

[Deadon]

Well Done, loved it enough that i would be honored to release a CS with you. (Just Sayin'. But if you do need help, Seriously. Call me up or whatever)