Hello frictional, you may know me as Windexglow. I have been here for a long time; days after Overture was announced (and waiting for the site to go back online weeks before it's announcement)
For me, the Tech Demo was penumbra. Not overture, not black plague. But the 2006 technology demo. It was scary, the monsters were unique and I didn't know what to expect. The puzzles made you think logically, and the scenes were also unique (not their style, but layout)
Even back-tracking in the game was extremely eerie for me.
Than, overture was announced. This was Penumbra's off-beat cousin. The puzzles also made you think, if you played the game as it was supposed to you would have avoided the dogs (which made hte game a lot more fun until you figure out the level)
Than, there's Black Plague. This is Penumbra's step-dad who tries to fit in the family. He tries to act cool with his 'puzzles'. He tried to fit in with his "scary zombies" and fell flat on his face. The puzzles seemed far and in between in Black Plague. The storyline seemed chopped in places, and the notes and stories that made Overture great were gone.
Requirem is not related to penumbra at all. It's the 40-year old virgin pedophile that goes to little kids birthday parties.
But here's a list of things that have bugged me over the course of Overture-Black Plague.
-Level layout. The level layouts are all the same, besides the first (aka: Demo level) of the game. There's a big, maze-like structure with enemies in it. Than smaller scenes that branch out. These smaller rooms are filled with puzzles, items, and no enemies besides scripted. You figure this out the second level of the game, and the scary-factor goes away with it.
-Monsters. You guys said that people called The Roach a flying dolphin. I want what they're smoking. Who cares what it looked like, it was creative and was unexpected. It was used sparely, and we expected the other monster to be in the game anyway. But the commercial versions we got dogs, spiders, and infected. Ick, none of which are scary.
-Puzzles. Personnely, I prefer item puzzles more than physic puzzles. First, they're much easier to design, create, and impliment. Secondly, they can be just as fulfilling as physic puzzles.
-AI. Yes, you are a very small team. But put some work in enemy AI next game. Have the enemy set traps (wait in the dark), have them stalk the player, have them run ahead of the player.
-Fighting. Overture fell flat on it's face because it was exploitable. Weapons should be influenced by physics, not animation. Something which could be fun to have is real-time physic weapons.
Player swings it much like he would any other weapon. WHen it comes in contact with an enemy, it calculates the general shape (is it sharp? is it blunt? What is it's material, is it metal or cardboard), it's velocity, and the body part of the enemy. It than deals the damage. This way would not relay on animations and could make combat much harder to exploit.
-Less enemies. In Black Plague it feels like I'm in the middle of the 'Infected 2008 Convention'
-The modeler who made Requiem skimped in a lot of areas. Faces missing, gaps between walls, and much much more were all present in the least-liked member of the local childrens party.
-Lack of suppotive devs in modding. Yes, you spent a lot of time with the tutorial. But you spent very little time helping people who had questions or bugs. This is the main cause at which killed my attempts at modding. HPL is a horrid engine to work with. Modeling is messy, scripting is messy, playing is messy (well, not so much)
-Scripting. Please, include a GUI or at least simplify the coding laungauge. Even making it not case-sensitive would do wonders.
-Go back to gorilla advertising. Perhaps you guys weren't posting news about it, but Black Plague seemed to get very few reviews compared to Overture.
-Better forum spirit. Host a contest every so often, when a game is coming out host a contest about getting the most members to this website. Users would make a post about this game on another forum, ask users to register here and tell us who told them about Frictionalgames. Winner gets an early demo of Lux Tenebras or a T-Shirt. I recommend the demo, or a full game.
-More News. Feels like every full moon you guys arise from your grave to tell us what you've done underground. We don't care if you talk about not getting any work done because you spilled chicken grease as you were drinking it. Create a good public image, we want to know your human!
-Include some graphical effects for the best of us. Something not done in other games. Something so you can brag "Oh yea, well I bet CryEngine2 doesn't have this feature, and boy does it make a difference!" (Yes, I'm comparing a game with a $55k grant to a multi-million dollar engine)
Please frictional, I don't want to put you on my wait-for-reviews list for your games
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A list of dont's from an average gamer
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