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Work in progress In Lucy's Eyes - Full Conversion Mod
Wapez Offline
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Posts: 360
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RE: In Lucy's Eyes - Full Conversion Mod

(08-16-2014, 07:36 PM)Kreekakon Wrote: Ok, I finished your demo, and here are some of my quick thoughts on it. This mod/demo is definitely far from completed so I don't feel that it would be fair, or proper to use my usual reviewing format, so I'll just cut to the chase, and present individual points that I have found worth mentioning:

(These will likely be in chronological order that I have encountered/noticed them. Also don't be dismayed if you notice more bad points than good! This will be normal since if I don't mention something it means it was done alright. Not exceptionally good, but alright. Another thing of note is that since this is mainly a "list of suggestions" there definitely will be more criticisms than positives on it.)

(I played this mod with my "suspension of disbelief" hat on which means that I generally have not gone out of my way to look for flaws to criticize, and have tried to play the mod at the flow it directs me. This means that anything I mention here will be obvious things I still noticed despite trying to be immersed properly in your mod.)

1. Very decent voice acting that has its own charm to it!

2. The names appearing on the screen at the very start seem to be very out of place. This is most likely due to their font, size, and overall position on the screen. It was not done in a pleasing way to the eyes. It may be better to go for a simpler approach when displaying such names (Compare to how Half Life 2 flashed its team's names)

Also another issue is that the text seems to pop up too quickly. As in the text will bounce up, and down as the player's view, which also functions as the camera, was forcefully stopped to properly look at the text. Simply put, the player will have taken "one last step" after the text appears which makes it jump around.

3. The player starts facing a cabin with lights on which makes it the most obvious place to go, however there is nothing inside it of interest, which makes me feel a bit frustrated, and felt like that my time was wasted.

I know you mentioned earlier that you put the cabin here to make it feel less linear, but I did not feel compelled in that way. This is puzzling to me as well, because I do not feel the same level of frustration from all the random rooms in the guest room later on.

I'm no game designer, but my theory on why this is is because it's the start of the mod. In the start of the mod I perhaps expect to be directed to the main area, and THEN have the game open up. It feels to me that the opening should be a more directed experience that eases the player into the main meat of the game.

That's not saying that the cabin should not be there at all. I think the cabin can have a place in the opening sequence if it has something of interest in it. It does not have to be essential to progress, but it could just be "interesting"...make it feel a part of the opening, and not feel jarring from the rest of the opening sequence.

If you do not wish to use the cabin as a part of the opening sequence then I would recommend that you turn the player the other direction to not misdirect them in the wrong way (I will touch more on this later in point 5)

4. The level structure could use some work, because there were a few times that I accidentally walked into the wrong side of the fence, and needed to backtrack. Once I even walked to the side of the map, and could see the grey void of nothingness.

It may be a good idea to carefully plan the fences, and trees out that such things do not seem "logically" possible. You could use blockboxes, but I do not recommend it, because it will damage the player's suspension of disbelief.

5. It is rather easy to get turned around in this mod's opening, and I think the reason for this is the lack of subtle directing of the player in a specific direction.

This is also the reason that in the very beginning of the mod players will be incentivized to head towards the cabin. It is because of two factors that works hand-in-hand: The fact that you start looking at the cabin, and that the cabin has a light in the otherwise mostly dark environment. This combination will subtlety encourage the player to head towards the cabin.

This method could also be used to subtlety guide the player towards the correct path in the opening, and not get lost. A light in the dark can very subtlety but effectively guide the player to where they have to go, especially in the more linear sections.

6. Now onto something that has been talked about a lot in this thread: The resolution of the floor outdoors.

First things first, I appreciate that you took the extra effort to model terrain. It makes the environment feel much better than just using standard planes.

Then onto the resolution. The good news(?) is that the low resolution does not stand out unless you look at it for over 1 second. However, when you see stones, or other entities on the terrain, then it becomes really obvious just how low-res the terrain is when compared to the more normal-res entities.

So I definitely think it is something that should be fixed if possible.

7. The indoor chandelier event could be handled slightly better. Such as the chandelier being able to be interacted with while the player is still getting up, or that the chandelier does not have reasonable weight when interacted with (Especially compared with how the previous scene implying how much it weighed)

8. Some parts of the mod actually genuinely made me feel scared. There were a couple cues, and scenes that were really effective in subtlety building atmosphere.

9. Now onto the cellar scene. I don't have too much to say about the idea of the scene, but what I will talk about is one very important thing that I think was overlooked:

The scene is not idiot-proof.

What I mean by this is that even though it takes a very long time to die, it is still possible, and some problems have happened, because of this death:

(1) The death message as the bridge's saying "Watch your step"
(2) You will respawn at the very start of the level
(3) The background music will be gone
(4) You can try going back to the cellar and the door will display the same message when interacted with...from the other side
(5) The cellar door will still be locked

It was not such an huge game-breaking here, since it didn't affect overall progress, but it definitely hurt the quality of the mod. It is also something that should definitely be avoided in the final product, because it "would" break the game if it involved essential items to progress in the game.

10. There are some flickering decals here, and there. Those should be addressed.

11. I haven't worked with HPL2 for too long to be certain if this is an engine issue, or not, but the music in the notes stop halfway through, and it becomes silent.

12. In the dialogue after the opening some of it does not have subtitles attached to them.

13. The "Archives" in the main hub does not have messages when interacted with. No noises, or messages.

--------------------------------

So yeah that's everything I have to say on the mod. Basically my verdict opinion on this demo is that it shows promise, but is generally unfinished. It still definitely needs lots of work, but again shows promise!

Another piece of advice I want to give is that in the future before releasing demos like this, it would be wisest to better finish it, and fix up the various issues before showing it to the general public.

A pre-release demo is meant to hype up an audience to be excited for a product. It is meant to be a showcase of the absolute best that the mod will have to offer.

What you have here is more like a "beta test" which shows a work-in-progress, and asks for feedback on how to improve said work-in-progress.

Well that's all the input I have for now! Good luck with your project! Big Grin

Woah, what a great review!

Firstly:
Yes, the demo is somewhat a beta version which will be updated along with the full version.

Secondly:
Every point you made is a great piece of feedback and we'll definitely use what you said to improve. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into reviewing in such a good way.

Founder & Legally Accountable Publisher of Red Line Games.
Environment & Gameplay Designer and Scripter.
http://moddb.com/mods/in-lucys-eyes
08-16-2014, 08:04 PM
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Slanderous Offline
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RE: In Lucy's Eyes - Full Conversion Mod

This is just full of bugs so far, I managed to came back the same way I started my game and here you can view few pics I took.

Were your beta testers fucking blind or what?
Frunken, do you even block box?
08-19-2014, 01:00 AM
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Catalyst Offline
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RE: In Lucy's Eyes - Full Conversion Mod

Hey guys, how to cross the bridge in the start of In Lucy's Eyes?

Ok, no need, I've already figured it out Smile

Great FC Juras, I really like it, I must say that this FC is the most detailed I've ever seen, better than any others I've seen (apologizes for others, there are a lot of CS I should play), I'm playing it right now, voice acting is high qualified, scripting and environment is simply awesome as hell does Smile

Egypt CS
[Image: 27003.png]
(This post was last modified: 06-30-2015, 09:53 PM by Catalyst.)
06-30-2015, 09:47 PM
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Juras Offline
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RE: In Lucy's Eyes - Full Conversion Mod

(06-30-2015, 09:47 PM)Catalyst Wrote: Hey guys, how to cross the bridge in the start of In Lucy's Eyes?

Ok, no need, I've already figured it out Smile

Great FC Juras, I really like it, I must say that this FC is the most detailed I've ever seen, better than any others I've seen (apologizes for others, there are a lot of CS I should play), I'm playing it right now, voice acting is high qualified, scripting and environment is simply awesome as hell does Smile


Glad you're liking our mod, Catalyst Smile Don't forget my team though, Zatchie and Wapez deserve just as much credit for this mod as I do Tongue

Co-Founder & Lead Art Director of Red Line Games
3D & Environment Artist, Animator
http://jurasbatas.deviantart.com
07-01-2015, 07:49 PM
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