Trigger [Early Demo / Drama / Intense]

[PatchyDoll]

Wendy just lost her parents' house to the financial crisis. In the process of moving out, she discovers secrets about her past locked away in the attic and within herself.

This is an early demo that's mostly writing, with placeholder character art and two custom music pieces. The demo ends 2/3 of the way through the story. I would love to hear general impressions of the story, characters, and overall vibe. Since the writing is early, I'm not looking for proofreading or advanced style critique. I hope you enjoy it!

Note: The story deals with serious issues like abuse and may be upsetting to some readers. There is also a scene with brief sexuality that isn't graphic.

Download (Mac/PC/Linux)

[Crocosquirrel]

I'll give it a peek here in a bit.

[PatchyDoll]

I'll give it a peek here in a bit.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

[Crocosquirrel]

Okay, I've gotten through a bit of this, and there are a few points I'd like to mention.

1) Transitions-- I like the starburst effect, but you use it rather a lot. Not good or bad, but you may want to consider another option occasionally.

2) You have a few typos here and there. Nothing major, but the gander-switching child in the very early going stood out. A few other places where you could use an editor, but otherwise well-considered.

3) Character art is not present, just detailed placeholders, like text on the alpha map. Not sure why this is.

4) Font must go. Find something a hair less fancy, or make it a bit bigger. This one's hard to read for very long.

5) Judicious use of NVL mode-- This is the way it should be used in my personal opinion. Well done.

6) Story-- I'm not sure what's going on here: We're dropped into the middle of the story, with nothing in the way of normative information. Not always bad, except that

poor Wendy immediately proceeds to go completely off the deep end.

You make a reference to it getting dark, and then they go for a picnic lunch. Nobody seems to own a watch, least of all the Sun.

Whereupon she freaks out again.

I haven't yet seen a pattern to her choices, but then I haven't pulled the script apart to find out.

7) Backgrounds: Photos, either unmanipulated or lightly so. Not good or bad, as I can't see the character art, but you might want to consider asking about for an artist if it would suit.

If you were looking for drama, you seem to have found a way to generate it, and it'll be interesting to see if you can maintain that level of tension without driving driving the readers nuts (

Or at least not quite as nuts as Wendy is going to be if you keep that kind of pressure on her

). Not a bad concept, but personal opinion, it could use a bit more of a prologue to get us into her head some before you apply the vise. I'll probably have more after I've dug through the rest of the demo, and I'll be interested to see how the full game plays out.

[PatchyDoll]

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll keep those points in mind.

If anybody else would like to put in their own 2 cents, I'd love it. It's useful to take in a range of opinions.

[saguaro]

These are my live play notes, they are a little jumbled.

Main menu - would be good to add hover actions (in retrospect I guess you just haven't gotten to that part yet)
Yes/No menu - Do you want to quit has two ?s... Also on the ??? say who label the ?s are duplicated, not sure what's going on there.

I don't know how if you intend to add animations or ATL effects, but there are a lot of scenes (when she gets nauseous, dream sequences, etc.) that could gain a really cool, spooky vibe with some well-placed transforms.

The part where the cellphone rings and the voice mail beeps is a great place to cut the description line and add a sound effect.

I second the font suggestion. I'd use a nice, readable san serif for the dialogue and save the handwritten font for the label on the box or any other letters/labels you add later.

bg pres garage undefined

typos:
"But them mom made it off-limits..."
"I see a little girl walking down the street, his father..."
ice cream is two words

I am normally not a fan of OMG!SoCrazy stories, but I think you handle suspense well in this one, and with some music and added effects it could be downright creepy. Dialogue is clearly one of your strengths.

One problem I did have was I felt like you were giving me faux-choices. I would pick an option (go get water) and then would not be allowed to go through with that option. I'm not sure if this is accurate since I only played through once, but it's the impression I got.

I'm going to keep an eye on this one.

[PatchyDoll]

Thanks saguaro! It's definitely rough around the edges at this point, I plan to get some SFX and cool transforms in there Thanks for the input!

[philip]

@patchydoll

Just downloaded this and went through it. Found it very interesting. I see that it has been over a year since there were any posts to this thread; hope that you have not abandoned the project. Would welcome an update, or a more complete demo.

[PatchyDoll]

Just downloaded this and went through it. Found it very interesting. I see that it has been over a year since there were any posts to this thread; hope that you have not abandoned the project. Would welcome an update, or a more complete demo.

Hey Philip! Thanks for trying it out! I have not abandoned the project, it is merely taking a bit longer than expected The story is a bit personal and I have other obligations so it's taken awhile to write it from start-to-finish. However I'm closing in on finishing up the writing and now have an artist onboard, so it's slowly but surely chugging along. Here's a teaser I made for the game: http://youtu.be/KEwq9ZcqYxU