Quote from: Vexus on April 28, 2012, 12:02:54 pm
Ok finished dunno if it's the good or bad ending. (Probably good as the letter said she forgives me.)
Anyway I got some things to say maybe you could fix them or not up to you.
1 - When you get to unlock the elevator roof/basement you get a message but then nothing happens and you have to press again to go to the unlocked floor. (I know this is a minor thing but wanted to mention it.)
2 - I don't really like the idea of the semi transparent doors, why not leave them full opacity?
3 - I'm not sure if it's only on normal mode but the shadow frequency makes it very easy to dodge it, on the other hand the corridors are not that wide so not sure if you would want to change it. (How come the top part of the wall is not passable? I'm pretty sure you could make priority, no?)
4 - The beeping riddle while pretty straight forward the sound goes way too fast! I don't know if it's all in 1 but you should make some small pause after every beep AND a bigger pause when it finishes before repeating again. (It was very annoying to follow up the pattern when it was speeded up so fast.)
5 - This is a personal opinion but the sound the shadow does when it hits you, when the scene on the tv happens and some earlier cutscenes is far too loud! Lowering the sound made me barely hear the beating heart when the shadow appears on the map.... You might want to test that out.
That's it I guess.
Props for the music, the tilesets where pretty good and matching, I love your choice in blood which you probably did yourself (Would you mind telling me with what font the blood was made?) and last but not least the attention to detail the "scares" from breaking mirrors to doors closing loudly.
Was not bad but pretty linear with little to none exploration for hidden stuff, I give it a 3/5.
Uh, okay. Got rated higher by others, but I guess I'm just being prideful here. And yes, that was the good ending you found.
Now then:
1) Yes, having to examine it a second time is intentional. It's the "Are you sure you really want to?" chance to save before proceeding, especially for the latter of the two floors as you won't have a chance to come back afterward for certain items.
2) Trust me, I experimented with full opaque doors. It didn't look right, and I liked it much better semi-transparent. Especially the elevator doors, as those would obscure the entirety of the elevator otherwise.
3) Her appearance rate is set at random, with decreasing no-shows, increasing number of times she waits for you outside of doors, and appearing in places she didn't before as difficulty goes up. So part of avoiding her spawn points relies a bit on how lucky you are. Also, the corridors are kept small both to be a realistic size and to give a feeling of the shadow closing in on you. Four tiles are just too wide. VXA doesn't allow the top parts of the wall to be a different priority like it is in XP, but even if it did, it would feel off in size because of how the walls are. I personally prefer it as it is, requiring either for you to find alternate paths to avoid the shadow or some thoughtful strategy to lure her to where you can get around her.
4) No offense, but I had several people test the morse code riddle and all of them got it fine, much to my initial surprise. I'm told it's one of the better liked puzzles in the game, so I'd rather not slow it down for them when it's already set at a good pace for the average player.
5) Sounds fine to me and I've not had anyone have problems before, but I can look into it to see if it can't be tweaked.