Adventure Gamers - Forums

Well, Lupin, it’s a good thing you start behaving normally, at least we can discuss now.

let me answer,
@graypierce first.

Please send your DXDIAG as soon as you want to our Support, Artyom manages it and reply in 24H, we will see if your comp cannot support the game, but if your computer is mid range and less than 5 years old it should be ok. We are helping a lot of players to get the game running and it’s efficient. I’d be very sorry and surprised if we cannot find a solution for you.

We are not creating 8 episodes in this Crimes and Punishments, because the business model of game today would be similar to the one of daily press in the late 19th century. We are creating 8 episodes because in this game you are going to be Sherlock Holmes. we have created 5 games, from the Silver Earring to the Testament, playing aside the Detective, but not being him. The Testament being the conclusion of this cycle, where we end up thinking that Sherlock Holmes is not the man we believed he was. I’ll come back later to the Testament.

In Crimes and Punishments, playing Sherlock Holmes, and go to the end of it, we believe that you must be able to fail and live with your mistakes or success. So, yes, Sherlock Holmes is well fitted for episodes, or short stories, but it’s even better if you live the experience beyond them. We have from 6-12 ends for every short stories, that allow you to live a different adventure, something more personal and more involving than playing next to the Detective.
To allow this in a big story doesn’t make sense or the variation in the story must start early and will force us to create many fake leads and follow them, and the cost of such production will be huge and follow a fake lead for 3 hours would lead some players to ask for reimbursement
The reason behind working Unreal engine, is simple and clear, our own engine wasn’t console compatible, we had to port the Testament, and it wasn’t perfect, another company made the port and the game suffered from this, while they did a great job, the job couldn’t be made excellently because the engine wasn’t cross platform, in it’s core and the console version was to be handled by another team totally with a delayed planning compared to the PC version: slightly less quality and delays= time for a change.

To go over this, we choose to work with Unreal, but actually it’s a side decision, caused by another game.

You might not know it,  Frogwares is not one studio, it’s four studios : the adventure studio, doing Sherlock Holmes titles. 3AM games, doing Magrunner, another adventure game, a first person puzzler, crowdfunded on gamesplanet lab. Waterlily, doing casual games. World of Battles studio, doing a F2P RTS called, well, World of Battles.
Every Studio has its own team and its own head, Waterlily guys even don’t know what is the planning for The Adventure Studio and vice versa.

@Monolith
When starting to work on Magrunner, a first Person Puzzler, we wanted to have a technology with an acceptable physics engine, good graphics, affordable price, and possibility to go on console eventually. We started to work Q3 2011 with it, and step by step we gained some experience with it. Finally, during 2012, the idea of going for the next Sherlock Holmes with Unreal seemed more and more logical, the engine is WAY better than our own, we can improve the graphics/Animation/interfaces greatly, and we can develop internally the consoles version. So your analyse was right, we take this Unreal engine to do better and to give players more while avoiding ourselves more trouble.

@Lupin
Casual games are not real games, they are time killer, there is no real challenge, no deep learning, barely deep emotions than they can cause, they are the Mc Donalds of the games. However there is something good in the Service (not the food) that Junk food chain proposes, you don’t wait, it’s cheap, and you are welcomed always politely (go to eat in one Paris brasserie and you’ll know what I mean). Casual game showed the way to treat players more nicely, not to deliver better content, you have to keep it in mind.
The accessibility provided in the Testament is NECESSARY in a modern adventure, that’s our way to welcome people politely: loading time is optimized, interface is simple to navigate, you can skip puzzle, we make sure you are not stuck in the game, etc… We focus test this and make sure players, that are not familiar with the genre, can find their way in the game. Before this to play one of our adventure games, you should have already played an adventure to feel comfortable.
Accessibility is the only thing that was taken from the casual studio, the fact that our games don’t have to be impossible to play through.

Until 2007, we were into a different mindset, we were happy about our games when there were dozens of topics on video games forums where players were looking for help, of course the record was beaten with SHvsAL, the puzzles there are so hard, than today replaying it, I wonder what went through our mind at this time. We were proud of the people being stuck in our games, isn’t that stupid?
There is a funny story about this one. At the release time of ShvsAL, a German tester from the biggest game newspaper there, put an average mark on the game, 7 or 7.5, and I could get him on the phone and ask why. He told me the game was too hard, the second quizz about the ship, was impossible to find for him, and at some point, he played with 2 of his colleagues, facing the quizz screen and it was impossible for the 3 of them, being old players, loving adventure games, etc, etc, to solve this quizz.

For them it was impossible to recommend their readers to get the game. Most of the other websites and newspaper said the same. At this time, I understood we were too far into serving a very limited range of players. And it would prevent us not only to survive, but even to progress.
If you take adventure games like the Walking Dead, that for me redefined the point and click experience, I wonder what you can even find interesting about it according to your expectations, the story you can find it good or bad, at your own taste, the difficulty is absent, the production value not so high, and the episodes model is good for business and not that good for the gamers. Well this game is game of the year for many non adventure players, also for many generalist web sites and publications. And you know what, I agree, I couldn’t wait the release of the episodes and we were playing with Aurelie (making cutscenes and cinematics in Sherlock’s game) on day 1. Seeing tears on her face while the story unfolded.
What about The Cave, well, the characters are not bad, but there is really no story, I won’t identify myself with a zozo that can run in 2 directions only, I hate scrollers. But, accessibility. Noone does better than that, the beginning of the game is just fantastic of easiness. There is not tutorial and everything is made you don’t need it, it’s a good sign. We’ll take this as inspiration.
About the Testament now,
You might not like the story. It’s one story, you can find it dull or great. It’s a matter of taste.
For the accessibility see upper
About the puzzles, I didn’t want very hard puzzles for the game and I didn’t want puzzles too tightly linked to Holmes himself, it would have been impossible to make believe what we wanted the players to believe. we tried and it didn’t work, it was forced and didn’t come out great. You say our puzzles are from casual games and from mobile phones games…which took them from adventure games before…
Finally you seem to criticize the game referring to the Awakened or SHvs AL, it doesn’t make sense. The games are different, like all of our games are different.
To date, and since the Silver Earring, The Testament is our best game, we see it in emails we receive every day from players, we see it from the press, and we see it from the sales. It’s not perfect, I agree with you, there is room for improvement and that’s what we love.
Finally, I’ll finish on an ironic note, when we released The Awakened or Arsene Lupin (2006-2007), the reactions on Adventure Gamers were not really enthusiastic, many said the games were not as good as the ones from ‘96, games were in 3D, story not very deep, etc… Please read the review here and the comments from the forums at this time, you’ll find the comparison astonishing.
. The irony is that, with time, our past games became classics for some of the people, with great story and puzzles,and present our newest game as a modern compromise to the genre. We’ve been here and active for so long that (longer than most of the adventure studios), we can start to foresee the future canonization of our games, 10 more years and it will be done
Do you really want new games, or do you want new games that look like retro games, as much as Grimrock did for Dungeon Master? If so, Daedelic is doing that, and pretty well. For us we’ll continue to look forward and pretend we can propose adventure games to everyone.

wael - 28 January 2013 06:12 AM

Until 2007, we were into a different mindset, we were happy about our games when there were dozens of topics on video games forums where players were looking for help, of course the record was beaten with SHvsAL, the puzzles there are so hard, than today replaying it, I wonder what went through our mind at this time. We were proud of the people being stuck in our games, isn’t that stupid?

Yes, it is. But isn’t it just as stupid being proud of people having an easy time getting through a game where you’re meant to play a world-famous detective solving seemingly impossible-to-solve crimes? Is Sherlock Holmes considered a brilliant detective for his ability to use a lockpick and piece together a torn map?

You are questionning the mere possiblity of Sherlock Holmes being a subject for computer games. I’m not sure it’s worthy to look things under this angle.

wael - 28 January 2013 07:14 AM

You are questionning the mere possiblity of Sherlock Holmes being a subject for computer games. I’m not sure it’s worthy to look things under this angle.

No, I’m questioning Sherlock Holmes being a subject in a computer game without the player being given the challenge worthy of the world’s greatest detective. If Frogwares wants to give us the chance to be Holmes without any chance of getting stuck and avoiding anything hard, then it is not letting us play as Holmes at all.

The system requirements really aren’t that bad. Sure, if you’re the type of person who plays mostly 16 Bit pixel art games and have a computer just suitable for that then you won’t be able to play it but any half decent laptop should be fine. I played it before I got my new laptop, on a 3 year old machine with mediocre capabilities (it struggled to play most recent games, and even ran a bog standard 2D point and click game like Chains of Satinav quite slowly; any 3D games from the last few years were more or less a no no at a playable speed, if they ran at all) and it ran without any problems at all. I did have to put most of the graphics settings down to the bottom level but even then it still looked good; certainly better than any of the previous games in the series and certainly good by Adventure Game standards. It just meant missing out on a few fancy lighting effects or whatever; no big deal.  It was pretty much the only modern 3D game I was able to play without any lag on that laptop. Even a relatively old game like Penumbra I was obliged to turn the graphics settings down a little. In my opinion, Frogwares could have gotten away with listing the minimum requirements a little lower, though I respect that they didn’t, because a lot of companies try it on by advertising lower than you really need so it was nice to actually see a company not do that. You absolutely don’t need a specialaist gaming computer to play this game.

wael - 28 January 2013 06:12 AM

@graypierce first.

Please send your DXDIAG as soon as you want to our Support, Artyom manages it and reply in 24H, we will see if your comp cannot support the game, but if your computer is mid range and less than 5 years old it should be ok. We are helping a lot of players to get the game running and it’s efficient. I’d be very sorry and surprised if we cannot find a solution for you.

Thank you for your post cbman and thank you for the offer Wael. First of all maybe I should admit that I haven’t actually tried playing the game. I had a lot of trouble playing Chains of Satinav and since Testament had higher system requirements I assumed it wouldn’t run on my laptop. And for such a steep price (which I’m sure is entirely justified) I didn’t want to buy a game I wouldn’t be able to play. But I’ve never had any trouble with Frogwares games before and since cbman who also had trouble with Chains of Satinav could play Testament just fine maybe I should give it a go. Still it might be smart to send in my DXDIAG first. So again thanks for the offer.

We are not creating 8 episodes in this Crimes and Punishments, because the business model of game today would be similar to the one of daily press in the late 19th century. We are creating 8 episodes because in this game you are going to be Sherlock Holmes. we have created 5 games, from the Silver Earring to the Testament, playing aside the Detective, but not being him. The Testament being the conclusion of this cycle, where we end up thinking that Sherlock Holmes is not the man we believed he was. I’ll come back later to the Testament.

In Crimes and Punishments, playing Sherlock Holmes, and go to the end of it, we believe that you must be able to fail and live with your mistakes or success. So, yes, Sherlock Holmes is well fitted for episodes, or short stories, but it’s even better if you live the experience beyond them. We have from 6-12 ends for every short stories, that allow you to live a different adventure, something more personal and more involving than playing next to the Detective.
To allow this in a big story doesn’t make sense or the variation in the story must start early and will force us to create many fake leads and follow them, and the cost of such production will be huge and follow a fake lead for 3 hours would lead some players to ask for reimbursement

I see. That does sound intriguing. Also I’ve just seen your first batch of screenshots. Am I right to assume that the cases will at least partly be based on short stories. Because the one featuring the body of the bearded fellow near the fireplace with the poker lying next to him is uncannily like a scene in “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” coincedence or not? You probably don’t want to answer that just yet but I’m asking nevertheless.

You might not know it,  Frogwares is not one studio, it’s four studios : the adventure studio, doing Sherlock Holmes titles. 3AM games, doing Magrunner, another adventure game, a first person puzzler, crowdfunded on gamesplanet lab. Waterlily, doing casual games. World of Battles studio, doing a F2P RTS called, well, World of Battles.
Every Studio has its own team and its own head, Waterlily guys even don’t know what is the planning for The Adventure Studio and vice versa.

I see. About that I actually also have a question but I’m not entirely sure if you can answer it since it might not be your department (I’m not entirely certain about your role within Frogwares) anyway I was wondering if you could tell me why the adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles was such a loose adaptation of the original novel. Of course I’m not a game designer but I think the book could have been adapted into a game without changing to much to the original story. It certainly could’ve done without time travel imo. Perhaps this is something that is inherently connected with casuals but then why was it decided that the game had to be a book adaptation? Frogwares clearly proved they could come up with a decent story themselves.

Finally I’d like to say I think it’s great a developer is willing to talk and explain himself to a group of disgruntled gamers. (we really are the most ungrateful bunch aren’t we )

Oscar - 28 January 2013 04:07 PM

No, I’m questioning Sherlock Holmes being a subject in a computer game without the player being given the challenge worthy of the world’s greatest detective. If Frogwares wants to give us the chance to be Holmes without any chance of getting stuck and avoiding anything hard, then it is not letting us play as Holmes at all.

Why not? The idea is to feel like you are holmes. Have all the fun parts of being holmes without any of the annoying parts. Thats why it is a game instead of real life. Getting stuck is one of the annoying parts. Examining scenes, examining objects and making deductions is the fun part.

Rather presumptuous to say that all people who play games are only seeking fun, wouldn’t you say? Even if I gave your assertion a wider meaning than would cover the kind of fun sought by children in an amusement park, it doesn’t explain the keen participation of millions of people in high-level competitive sports, difficult crossword and Sudoku puzzles, the Olympic Games and other highly challenging games where satisfaction comes from being challenged and meeting that challenge.

@Graypierce

please send us your dxdiag, it’s simple and we’ll tell you if the game will run, or if you need to update your drivers, for it. it’s an easy check and the answer is not always “Yes, you can play the game”

About Baskervilles, it was my choice to make it casual, Baskervilles is an excellent casual game, it is one of the most downloaded apps for BigFishGames and I can say that commercially it’s a success, it was also Waterlily first casual to perform extremely well (it is the 5th casual game of the studio), just to say that Casual and adventure are truly different even if they share a lot of common elements.

Why casual because we couldn’t have made a big adventure title of it, without completely rewriting it, and changing the story deeply :in the book, Holmes is absent 90% of the time for one, the locations are few and the character pretty shady, there is no room for puzzle or the main protagonist, what would remain of the mystery after 3 hours of gameplay? if you watch the ‘56 version with Peter Cushing, the story is trampled to the death to fit the needs of an action movie of that time. And that I wouldn’t do for an adventure game.

So as soon as we HAD to modify the story of Baskerville to make a game, we would rather create a completely different story.  I wanted the Supernatural to be really supernatural and so on. You can call us “Heretics” but we choose fun over mild adaptation.

About Crimes and Punishments, some of the canonicals novelettes are present, as they are short, they can be inside an adventure game, we changed them slightly but not too much, their spirit is respected. The gameplay of Crimes and Punishments is adapted to the short stories.

Here the reply is for Oscar too, in Crimes and Punishments, you’ll be Sherlock Holmes and you’ll have the capacities to succeed or fail the cases, not depending on puzzles but on your own intuition and capacity of analysis.

Oscar - 29 January 2013 02:28 AM

where satisfaction comes from being challenged and meeting that challenge.

Yes, the important bit is “being challenged and meeting that challenge”. Make it too challenging and it becomes frustrating. Thats exactly what wael explained—they found that their earlier games were too frustrating for the general player.

Siddhi - 29 January 2013 03:40 AM

Thats exactly what wael explained—they found that their earlier games were too frustrating for the general player.

I would have to agree, given that the “general player” is now the casual player.

I don’t know what we’re trying to prove here. I don’t blame Frogwares for making their games easier. If you want to make games for the largest audience to sell the most copies, then you make it easier because like wael said that’s what they want.

However, I still like Sherlock Holmes vs Arsene Lupin and The Awakened better, and found the difficulty perfect and not frustrating. But I’m obviously in the minority.

I found a review yesterday of the Awakened, that is very flattering, while a little weird