Stephen Rimmer's Alpha Adventure [Completed] - LAST UPDATE 17TH May

[bobbo]

I just completed it and I really liked it! I had made notes about the maps to give feedback to each one but somehow I must have messed up the order after the hammer/chisel part because they don't match your spoiler-list anymore. I'll try to sort them somewhat reasonable anyways:

Spoiler below!

I liked that it didn't begin with monsters right on the first map! In my opinion, some custom stories ruin the immersion by throwing monsters and scary moments at you right in the beginning.

I liked the note saying "it might become real" combined with the hallucination first and then the real painting monster right afterwards. Escaping the creature was indeed not too hard, but it was a great scare.

I dropped down to the water lurker absolutely unprepared, great idea! When I came there a second time, I could clearly see the hole - was there a trick that covered the hole the first time? A downside on this map was that a lot of doors didn't open all the way. They opened enough to get through of course, but I could only open them to a certain degree while the doors on all other maps opened all the way.

In the cellar map, that door to the pig room that doesn't open because it hits a grunt was nice. When I found the key down there in a room with a locked door in it, I thought: Oh, no, now I have to go all the way back, open the locked door in the beginning only to find a key that opens this locked door here - instead, you provided a nice chase there, great moment!

The statues moving in on the player were just great, superb idea. Unfortunately, the chase got screwed a little when I stepped aside in front of one door and turned around. Iirc there spawned a statue in front of the not yet opened door and there was a scripted bang on the door. I then opened the door could walk off relaxed. I have no clue how the level designer works - but maybe the statue chase could be combined with the damage from the real game's "shadow"? This way, the player would be forced to escape the statues and would die if he tries to outsmart them.

The foggy garden setting was just great (btw, I think this fog would be great to replace the rain in that custom story The Village to improve the FPS), it used the outdoor stuff provided by the editor without making it look unreal at all, great job. I only had a problem with the monster there. Obviously the trees don't work like solid walls because Daniel went insane from looking into the general direction of the monster while I couldn't see it. I didn't escape this one because I wanted to see if it is real. After I died the monster wasn't there anymore, even if I loaded a save game prior to my first encounter, so I couldn't try again.

The same happened with the ceiling monster that killed me on my first try, it just wouldn't spawn again, so I can't say how hard it is to escape from it. Anyways, I think a special note about this creature would be nice. Maybe something like: Alfred (or whoever) always had a passion for climbing... Just something that prepares the player to be on guard for something special.

At that crooked/upside-down-room passage I found some problems. On my first try, there was no hallucination coming from the room next to the crooked room, on my second try there was one. I don't know why I didn't trigger it the first time. In the room the hallucination came from there's a big see-through part on the wall that let me have a look on the upside down room. Is that intended or a bug? The crate stacking in the crooked room was a pain in the neck, but eventually I managed to do it.
On my first try in the upside-down-room there was no banging on the doors left and right, on my second try there was. Again, I dont know why it didn't trigger before.
On my first try on the way back through the upside-down-room I fell down. I landed on the floor and couldn't find a way out so I had to load a savegame. Maybe you could add checkpoints before and after the jumping passage and lower the floor so that the player dies and respawns if he falls down?

The final map gave the old chase a very nice new twist. However, after maybe two stairs I could look back down to see the monsters weren't that near anymore. Maybe this could be made even more terrifying by giving them a little extra speed?

After so much positive feedback I hope you don't mind this negative part: I really think you should get rid of that picture (of you?) on the loading screens. I guess I'm supposed to be in some old castle there escaping from monsters and when I passed a bit I see this picture from the real world which breaks the immersion. Also, I don't understand what the "maze of haters" and "mafia, alphamail" stuff has to do with the story. What's that about?

So all in all a lot of great ideas in it, looking forward to see more of this, keep up the good work!

edit: Hammer and chipper added up without a problem for me.