itch.io

Fascinating, thank you. I suppose it's silly to ask "do you feel that the AI passes have brought your composition to a place you dislike", because, if it did, or rather when it did, you edited it to a place you did like, naturally. :) many thanks!

I find myself fascinated by the difference between your sketch for the room with the telescope and the final product, because I get a clear sense of hierarchy in the sketch (the telescope, the window and the table command my attention as a player, and everything else fades to the background with a few odd objects popping up) that I don't get in the final product (everything seems to be given equally importance, so everything seems almost banal; my eye is drawn everywhere and thus nowhere).

May I ask, was AI involved in the transition of sketch to final product? Because I'm trying to figure out what effects AI usage may have in composition that may dilute the original intention of the artist. And this is a great example, since you clearly drew the original room yourself (and if you didn't - why ask the AI to render a sketch?). So I'm curious about the journey from sketch to final, and whether the changes were your idea, or whether it was an AI thing, or whether it was an AI thing that you looked at and went "yes, as the original artist I approve".

The graphics are simplistic, but that's not a problem, they are functional. Although the "Last Item" box really should say nothing when it's displaying an item, it's messy to have the item overlapping. From what I played, the story seems rather ambitious emotionally in scope, and I don't think it works, because instead of seeing drama, I'm seeing an author going "look how dramatic this is."

The problem is the puzzles, though. I gave up pretty quickly, and by the way, if you're going to have an "easy" and "difficult" mode, you should really say somewhere what that means. Easier/harder puzzles? Timers? Action sequences? More/less hinting? But that's not the issue. The issue is that the puzzles seem to be quite firmly "read the author's mind", and the author seems to have mistaken that for difficulty. I brute forced the first puzzle (finding the locker), selected the open to break the locker open (and having read the hint for this one in the hints and tips thread in the AGS forum, I just have to say, no. Just no. It's not good), and then had to find the author's intended correct three words out of a handful.

It's enough to tell me what kind of experience this is going to be, if this is the author's idea of puzzle design.

It feels like there's a story here to be told. I did particularly like the whole fox thing at the beginning, and with the numbers. That was pretty nice, and it shows me that the author does have a story they want to tell, and they want it to be told a certain way. That I do like. That I like a lot. But not with puzzles like these.

Visually attractive, and the verb coin works great, but the PC doesn't feel like a bear waking up who needs to get his breakfast and needs to get to work; he feels like a generic adventure game character. The PC doesn't sound like a bear waking up etc etc etc; he sounds like the game designer coming up with things for adventure game players to read. Worst of all, this is not a house, it's an adventure-game-puzzle-place. Case in point: why would there not be an option to open the whistle case? Instead you have to do something with no motivation and which is something you're quite unlikely to do with something you own and it's in your bedroom right next to your bed? It has all the hallmarks of An Adventure Game Puzzle That Doesn't Need To Make Much Sense So Don't Think About It Too Hard Kay Thanks.

What the game has in visual charm, it lacks in character - in a way that interferes with solving the challenges. I mean, who except for an adventure gamer trying things out for no reason would do what I previously said on their own house without even trying to open it first? I got to it because I was strating to brute force, and then I spotted a connection, and I told myself "no, surely not, that can't be right", then I went and tried it and it worked. I can't call this good design.

This game has some ambition to slickness, which leaves a very positive impression. In this DotT-style-cartoonish game, characters have multiple talking views, particularly noticeable on Trinket, which works great for variety. Camera functions are used to look cool, and look cool they do! The visual style is arresting, and the one-click-mode-for-touchscreens is essentially a streamlined verbcoin that works really well.

It's not without issues, though I suspect the most obvious issues I experienced were because I was using the AGS Player for Android, so I won't mention those. My biggest non-interpreter related issue, though, was that the writing was so convoluted, so purposefully and comically artificial, that I had a really really hard time understanding most of what was going on until I was well underway in the game. Now, this type of writing is not inherently bad, and I don't think that, as it exists in this game, it's bad at all; it works particularly well in the EdWoodian intro. But when it appears in the mouth of the characters we're going to play, it makes it all feel artificially dense; hard to get into. It's like, "I want to understand what these characters are like, and what they're talking about, but I can't because the story is straightforward, the visuals are cartoony and inviting, but the writing itself is presenting an obstacle".

That said, this is clearly a style that the author is going for purposefully. And the author does manage not to make everyone sound alike; every character has their own voice and personality and style. So I can't call it a problem. It's a style. It didn't mesh very well with me, but it's an artistic choice that commits and follows through consistently. That's pretty good.

Although it is a bit jarring that the characters are so verbose, but many interactions (especially regular old LOOK AT interactions) just return "Ginchy" and "Swell" when I expected actual responses.

The only other thing, naturally, is the fact that the game stops just as it's getting good. Which means, it makes the player want more. Which means, it successfully achieved its goal as a demo.

I would quite like to see the story continue.

This short game treads an interesting line - it's partly relaxing and partly dull, while portraying a somewhat urgent situation. Kinda weird. The prose (which is where the game gets its personality, since the AI-assisted graphics don't give it much of that) is interestingly convoluted, in a way that would get tiresome in a larger game but works in this short mini-romp. Same for the music; it has just about enough time to get on your nerves before you complete the game.

I had a hard time motivating myself to finish it, though. The pipe has burst, it's 2am, the toolbox is right there, the key to the toolbox is right there, but you have to solve a puzzle/challenge just because your roommate is napping and he hears you take the key and he wakes up long enough not to let you have it? Dude, the pipe is leaking, I need the tools, there is no discussion, all I need to do is take the key and I'm taking it. Unusual adventure game logic is one thing, like how to get past the dog, but this kind of motivation gap is very off-putting.

Apart from that, and many hotspots having the same message for "look" as "interact", it's... it's an inoffensive time waster, basically.

EDIT - Apparently the text is AI assisted as well. So the personality of the game is in all the things I didn't like - design, implementation detail, annoying music.

I wasn't actually enjoying the game all that much until I got to the end, which I found very fitting and satisfying. The game appears to have an odd quirk when you click once to get closer to what you're interacting with and then click again to actually interact, don't know what that's about. Apart from that, the graphics and the music are both "simple but functional", and do a good enough job. The story is short, the puzzles are obvious - this is essentially a short story told in an interactive format. And having reached the end of the story, I kinda liked it.

Empty-ish game (fun fact; when you've got a game that's this empty with a resolution that's this high and makes the mouse travel that much more along an empty screen, that's just an inefficient use of space), with too-fast text speed I couldn't slow down and a close-up which I couldn't seem to leave, effectively ending the game.

Classified as a "prototype", so probably it's best not considered/reviewed as a "game". That's fine. I can see this being a testing place for a few techniques. That's good, I hope this was useful for the author. 

Disappointing. You get more story in the itch.io page than in the actual game. The graphics are fine, though the walkcycle looks strange; the text is too small; and the GUI interferes with whatever hotspots happen to also be on the top part of the screen.

Those are all things that could be glossed over if the game were interesting, and the thing is, what is there is interesting, if very sparse. And it literally ends just as it gets to the good part.

I usually gripe about games that don't allow you to save, but in this case, it really doesn't matter. There isn't enough of anything to require saving.

The main menu has a "load game" option but I couldn't figure out how to save, so I don't know what's up with that. But I played in ScummVM so I could save. Anyway, it's fun to look at MSPaint graphics! Nostalgic. The game itself is short and sweet, quite responsive, has sensible puzzles. Some care also went in arranging the GUI, and interestingly also the dialog GUI. Pretty neat overall. The story is very straightforward, but not devoid of character.

Overall, a nice way to spend a few minutes - and not just mindlessly clicking, either. 

A strange game that relies on its imagery. It's not bad, but it's glitchy - it may be possible to complete, but the solution to one puzzle eluded me.

So, there's all sorts of interesting things here. Screwy reality. As far as I got, the game didn't really want to give you an explanation of what's going on; so you're free to make up whatever you want. I'm not a fan of that as a storytelling rule, but it does mean we watch nice lunatic graphics, and that I'm a fan of. Visual presentation is the best thing about this game. Plot coherence... meh. Puzzles... mostly ok.

Glitches... well, in my first playthrough I apparently got to retain an inventory item (mask) that should have been used up; there are at least two places in which, instead of "clicking" to achieve its interaction, you must "use item on". And we're talking about situations in which this doesn't make sense; one of them is a simple "click here to move to the next room", and the others are a series of bricks on a wall. It doesn't matter whether you use the matches or the hammer or whatever in these hotspots, but you must have an inventory item instead of the regular cursor.

When, partway through the game, my inventory box entirely disappeared and only reappeared on one particular room, I assumed it was meant to be. But it does mean that there was one room I couldn't reach any more, because... I couldn't ready an INV item because my INV was turned off. Even if this is by design... it's not good design, it looks only like a bug.

At one point I had to hit some bricks on a wall in a specific sequence. While I was idly thinking about the sequence (and I have no idea what it is), I was trying random combinations out. Eventually, I broke the game. You see, as you hit the bricks, a certain object goes through a sucession of sprites. I tried so often that eventually it started showing different sprites, including sprites for the PC, until eventually crashing when it tried to access a sprite that didn't exist.

Broken. Whatever else it may do that's good, it's broken.

There is very little here. But what there is, in this extremely simple two-room french-only prototype, is very interesting. The art, the music and what voice acting there is mesh beautifully, with a certain melancholy. The glimpse of plot is compelling. I really would have liked to see more of this one. I think it's the very definition of "there is hardly anything here, but what there is shows promise".

Now this one is interesting, even if its technical gimmick is ultimately just a gimmick and it doesn't allow for saving (play in it ScummVM, though, and that issue goes away) and the option to change the speed text doesn't do anything. It's a barely-interactive short story, mostly working in sheer ambiance.

There isn't much to say about this one. It either clicks for you or it doesn't. For me, it did. If this were in the AGS database, I'd rate it 4 cups.

Gimmicky as the use of the Panorama module is, it does improve the atmosphere. So maybe it's not that gimmicky. Plus, it's always fun to see that module in action, I do wish I could see it more often. That and Easy3D. It's just really really cool stuff to see an AGS game. Games don't need to look cool to be good, but when they do look cool, they're cool.

11 years later, you can also use ScummVM. :) ScummVM will run AGS games. I played this in ScummVM. And when you install it, you will have a krapton of adventure games at your disposal (though you have to provide them yourself).

Essentially the beginning of a "Frankenstein through the eyes of the monster" thing (and more effective and enjoyable than the actual game of the same title featuring the late and great Tim Curry). Has atmosphere in spades, due to the graphics, the setting and old english. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this latter, but accurate or not it succeeds, together with the oddly stilted writing, in achieving a classic gothic horror feel. In a longer game this writing would get on my nerves... but this is not a longer game. But I confess it was starting to get on my nerves already. But the important thing is that it works for the game's length.

The inventory behaved a bit oddly. By allowing me to pick up multiple copies of certain items, when I combined them together I seemed to still have them in the inventory. Of course, what I was seeing was the duplicates. Looks a bit odd; disallowing picking up multiples of those items would have been it look neater. Then again, this is not a neat story.

A one-room game that is surprisingly effective.

It's probably a good sign when a game makes you look up the story online to see whether it's based on facts. And it is; the protagonist and his partner in "crime" are historical characters, engaged in a deeply satisfying deception (as viewed from the perspective of 2026. I daresay that in the 1800s opinions would vary).

There is an effort to portray a reasonable amount of worldbuilding in a few short rooms, with many details and scenery and hotspots. This works well, especially with the interesting choice not to have walkcycles; the latter meant that you didn't actually have to wait as the character goes to and fro from place to place from room to room. Sometimes that can be a relief. Some PCs walk really slowly. This also worked well with the solid, pleasing art style.

If there is anything I didn't quite like, it was the voice of the PC (as in, the written tone and content, not an actual voice actor). It really didn't sound like an 1800s slave. Now, I'm not sure I know what an 1800s slave sounds like, but I know what a post-2000 game developer sounds like, and that's what I kept hearing in his voice. Instead of making Mustapha (Muss) sound like a character, Muss is made to sound like an adventure game protagonist. Some things he says are simply jarring, in tone and content.

It's a short game, with sensible puzzles. I'm glad it won the jam; it deserved the recognition.

I liked the overall style and writing. Pleasantly quirky, and commits to the bit of "animals who use descriptive names for stuff that we humans know very well but they don't". Very nice, pleasing graphics; the addition of the photographs in portraits is very welcome. Also welcome is a verbcoin that works with mouse click as opposed to mouse click and hold.

Has a very, very intriguing system where you click to fly around, and when you stop moving the PC will fly back down to land on the nearest available spot, mimicking a bird in flight who obviously doesn't stay in the air forever but doesn't necessarily walk everywhere either. The execution is almost as good as the idea, only failing when a) the PC flies down to a landing spot in a blocking fashion, so the game effectively stops while you wait for him to get there, and b) occasionally you may wish for a landing spot that was closer to where you actually were. Sometimes you get surprised.

Another issue is that, on the inventory screen, trying to "look" at some of the items can be frustrating. This is because you leave the inventory screen by moving the mouse past its boundaries. And when you open the verbcoin to select "look", it's very easy for the mouse to go past thouse boundaries, closing the inventory and leaving the verbcoin on; and selecting "look" with the inventory closed will not trigger the desired interaction. I am also not crazy about control systems in which the inventory behaves differently (left-click on the main screen to trigger the verbcoin, but right-click on the inventory screen to do it).

But it's a short game, so these issues don't have time to annoy as they would in a longer one. So the charm, and the consistent humour, wins out.

Hi, just letting you know that the newest version doesn't show the introduction. I tried playing it on Fabularium, where it accepts the F and I but doesn't show the intro and then tells me I opted to skip it... and here, on Quixe, where it doesn't recognise the letters at all. Cheers.

Edit: actually, trying to download release 5 seems to get me release 4.

"Thank you for playing!"

I won't be, just FYI. I decided to try the itch.io app to download the game (I do not play games online), and the downloaded files don't run by themselves, I need ScummVM. As it happens, I do have ScummVM, but there are only so many hoops I'm willing to go through to play something, and I've hit my limit.

Of the two reasons you gave, one was related to a frustrating event that happened but is over now; and the other is an admission of bugginess - you are essentially saying "the game is still buggy and I'll still fix it so I won't make if available for download because it's tricker to fix if I distribute it like that". Fine; if it's THAT buggy, it's  best not to waste time on it anyway. Because, from what you're saying, if you'd reached a point where you'd stopped tinkering, you'd have made it available. Incidently, I notice that the last update was exactly one year ago today.

By all means mange your creations as you see fit. This is merely feedback. Consider that for every person who gives you feedback like this, there are a number of people who feel the same way but just don't bother to say anything. Accessibility and availability are key things. It's one thing which you can do or not do; and a plurality of players (the people who, well, are to play the game you made) who are affected. Even if it's only two players being inconvenienced, that still more than the one person who is inconvenienced by putting the game available offline. I hope this has been useful to you.

FWIW: using the itch.io program downloads the AGS data but no interpreter, so unless I use ScummVM or something it's still not possible to play the game. So that's two applications I have to use to play the game offline.

Just an FYI; just stating facts. I personally have ScummVM, so it's fine. It's just interesting to expose how the developer can choose to do one thing, which is make it available for download, and it's one thing they have to do and all the users for the platform have access to the files in a standard way; or the the developer can choose not to do it, and then every user who wants to have it is inconvenienced.

Meh. I've used up enough energy on this one. It's working now, but I do not appreciate having to go through such hoops to play it offline unnecessarily, so I'll just delete it and pass on it.

Ah, a difference in the graphics, I see! Should be worth getting them all and comparing them, then. Thanks!

Hi, what is the difference between the various models available for download, please? Cheers.

I played this years and years ago. I never forgot it, and I always bring it up when I'm speaking to people who I think don't quite get what it's like to have gender dysphoria, and could stand to experience a good, honest, first-hand account. Together with Caelyn Sandel's "Cis Gaze", this game has the power to make the player a better person, through its openness and honesty. It can be the very first step in educating a cis person about something they will probably never experience.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. You've made the world a better place. Like I say, I played it years and years and years ago. I never forgot it, nor its lessons.

Very nice indeed. The strongest point of the game is, obviously, the art - and the animations, while not being numerous, are "just right". While the game is, mostly, visually static - most of the times that something happens, the screen fades out, and then fades in again after it's been done, so that it didn't have to be animated - the art is vibrant enough, and the game has enough life (the Podlings moving around, spiders, small elements of the bacgkround which animate, and a beautiful thunder/lightning effect in rooms with windows), that it really doesn't matter if it takes this little shortcut sometimes.

I preferred to play it in french. I felt that the english version was competent, but lacked the character of the french lines.

The game has a "danger/safety" meter, but it's very easy to stay safe all the time. I daresay you'd only be in danger if you made it so on purpose.

Mechanically, most (not all, but most) of the game is one long fetch quest or another. Now, by rights this should be boring, because you're literally going over to one person to get A; they tell you you need to go to Z to get B; you do, and at Z they tell you you need to go to Y to get C. This is only not boring if the game is interesting and engaging.

Well, I was interested and engaged. Even if the beautiful backgrounds don't have many interactions or hotspots, they had life (those little animations I spoke earlier about); the characters, even though they didn't speak a lot, had personalities. The puzzles were fine and fair (except for a pixel hunt. Hint: look carefully around the kitchen area).

It's a nice game, with terrific visuals, and a story that manages to progress somewhat unpredictably, and which echoes the heart of the main film.

No reason not to play this. But if you can play it in french, it's simply better. :)

Ah. The Stranga universe. Thanks for that clarification!

Helps a lot, many thanks! :-D

Incidently, if you could be so kind as to indulge my organizational crazyness, would you call this the "Big Sister" trilogy/series, or something?...

Or, is it recommended to play both the original and the remaster? As in,

1 - My Big Sister, 2 - Ashina, 3 - My Big Sister Remastered, 4 - Red Bow?

Hi, between the prequels and the release dates and there not being a "series" name I'm getting confused. I enjoy playing games in the order they were released, because that's usually the order that makes most sense in terms of how the information is given to the player, although it may mean it's not chronological.

So let me see if I've got this straight. What is your - you, the author, the person who will know best :) - recommended order to play your games?

1 - My Big Sister Remastered, 2 - Ashina, 3 - Red Bow?

Or has the Remaster of Big Sister made it so that you recommend playing Ashina first? If I understand correctly, My Big Sister came first, so that was the first game that showed your universe to players, so I am going on the assumption that that's the way to go, and that Ashina may be best enjoyed if you already know a teeny little bit about it.

About your other series, that one isclear enough, "Just ignore them" first and "Brea's story" second, knowing that it's a prequel.

Ok, I'll consider BtDC1 to be kinda like Leisure Suit Larry 4, then. ;-D Thanks for the clarification!

Hi, just want to confirm, the game file is "Before the Dark Crystal II". Is there a "Before the Dark Crystal I"?

Well, since I did say "there should be a way", I appreciate the reply. Now I know there's a way.

I still don't think it's a good idea for the designers not to make an offline version available, and I'm certainly not going to download an application exclusively for the privilege...

...but you addressed exactly what I said, and provided me with a possible solution. Much obliged.

Did you consider making a page for this at BoardGameGeek, Print and Play category?

You can get 200 more points. Just to give you something to hunt for. :)

Pretty nice. Unfortunately, having been spoiled by Portal (and Complex really looks like Shodan), I was rather waiting for a twist that never came.

Also, the notice by the elevator door doesn't seem to be readable. That's a pity; it's the thing I was most interested in, since it's something outside the area of the experiment.

There wouldn't happen to be more than one ending, would there? Just the one?

(my final score: 1400 + 4 eggs)

Thanks for the reply, I must say I'm surprised; I thought the save function in AGS was always present, and if you didn't specifically disallow its F5 shortcut it would still be there. I re-downloaded AGS and I see that the empty game template doesn't include that, what a strange choice. Not a good one, I'm afraid. I'd thought you'd specifically gone there and removed the function.

Well, things are quite unclear when we're beginners, so whatever happened, happened, and that's the end of it. Thank you very much for the clarification.

I am writing this post in the spirit of constructiveness and giving pause for thought.

Have you considered that, being in the position where you are giving a player a cheat-code (or debug-code, I believe) because the game doesn't allow saving, it's a more awkward and less desirable position than if you have allowed saving at all? After these many years, what are your current thoughts on that particular design decision?

Consider that players can play the game through ScummVM, and can save the game that way. Do you figure those players are having more or less enjoyment out of the game? And are they having the experience you envisioned or is your vision crippled by this save-game functionality?

(An afterthough: if there was a glitch, and I'm not saying there is, in which Antik-sova couldn't complete the game because of a bug, that would be another circumstance in which it's usually a good rule of thumb to allow saving - there could have been a workaround, possibly. The other usual rules of thumb are the well-known stuff like power cuts or batter depletion, unexpected game-crashing or game-breaking bugs - sorry, but they come up even when designers think they don't -, real life intruding unexpectedly, and just plain needing a to take a break. I'm afraid disallowing saving is a design choice fraught with peril. What are you thoughts about it these days?)

Just FYI, a readme file that's all in caps is not easy to read.

Thanks, you just cleared almost 700mb of storage space for me! :-D

Great to know, cheers!

I read LotR and watched the films, but no more than that, it's not a "thing" for me. Is it still possible to enjoy and play this game to completion, or is Rings of Power knowledge necessary?

(if you're wondering "how did I find this game then?", the answer is AGS. AGS is certainly a "thing" for me)