Tenebris Lake Full Conversion

[SUMMER^]

After playing it, here's my thoughts on the custom story:

Spoiler below!

Firstly, the game at times has some parts that get confusing because of a lack of notes/mementos that give a clear sense of direction for the player. The part where this was most apparent was in the part where you have to apparently follow the sounds amidst a dark screen. At first, I had no idea what to do and just assumed the game was bugged. Took me a while to actually realize what I had to do. At the very least, a memento making the note that "I should follow the sounds" could have gone a long way to helping me. It's understandable that you don't want to probably hold the hands of a player too much, but sometimes, more information on what to do next is better than no information at all, as it can lead to players getting immensely frustrated. Give more hints next time for puzzles so the player can know what to do rather than get enraged at the story, which ruins immersion.

Secondly, story transitions from real life -> dreams could have gone better. For example, though I knew the character in question was in some kind of hallucination/dream sequence in some of the transitions (for example, after he accidentally kills the prisoner), some kind of hint from the story via notes ("character has been having some weird dreams of late, or took drugs because he felt guilty for what he had done [with these drugs' side effects causing hallucinations/dreams]) or the character's own inner musings via subtitles ("...What's going on? What's happening? What is this place?") could have made it feel more natural. As is, the transition felt more abrupt.

The story in general could have been executed a bit better but I know the effort was there. Providing more in-depth explanations for a player's behavior would have been nice. I know the character had amnesia and wanted to try and recover his memories but just waltzing into a random castle out-of-the-blue sounded strange. A fleshed-out explanation could have been that upon drinking the amnesia potion, he (or another mysterious figure) could have left some hint talking about how the "castle would answer all of his questions." It would make the story feel more realistic/natural, but this is a nit-picky point.

With that being said, I can see there was effort put into this custom story that wasn't just a story hinged on hundreds of jump scares. I liked how you initially see one of the custom monsters and later on, in the morgue section (if I remember correctly), you see the same monster model sprawled on the floor, making you scared that it might just rise up and start chasing you, which happened later but not immediately. The entire section for me was pretty tense.

The custom story overall was a good try but I just feel that lots of the custom story was heavily hinging on the new custom monsters which admittedly, were pretty jarring when you meet them the first time. I just feel that with a more hashed-out story to explain some parts better along with the addition of more helpful notes/mementos could have gone a long way to making the story better.

Hey, thanks for your reply, this kind of constructive criticism is really appreciated. As for your first point about in-game direction and mementos, it's already being fixed, and I have sent several suggestions to the creators of what to say at certain spots where people are commonly getting stuck.

The second point about why he would go into the castle, is not quite properly explained due to a bug that left out an updated .lang file. However, if you look in the cabin at the start and examine the photo, the player notices that he is in it, and completely believes that the other people in the picture are his family, as he can kind of vaguely recollect things (such as the flashbacks you see throughout the game).

Since his family's home is empty and seems like it was damaged, he decides to go out looking for them, and he follows the path that feels most natural to him (which happens to be the only path there is, heh)

But yeah, in game direction/hints is an issue we pretty much already have solved. I've written mementos for about six areas where people seem to be stuck scratching their heads, and I expect that they (along with the updated .lang file that fixes all the grammar and fleshes out the story a bit) will be incorporated into the next patch released for this CS.

Again, thanks for your comment. It's this kind of constructive criticism that is actually of use, although to be fair the creators have been hearing the same complaints over and over.

-Adam,
Beta Tester/Proofreader/Assistant Writer for Tenebris Lake.