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AG Community Playthrough #33: Scratches

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Izlimak - 06 May 2015 06:25 AM

Download finished, couldn’t get it to work full screen (weird refresh rate issue), but works fine in windowed mode (changed via the cfg file).

Congrats and welcome to the playthrough! Smile
(It is probably worth to give a try in some of the other solutions many people suggested in case the windowed mode takes some of the experience…)

     
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After a little tinkering, seems to run OK on a netbook running windows 8.1 - what would we do without compatibility mode?

This game has a reputation for being a scary - play in the dark kind of game - and I’m in the mood for one of those.

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I enjoy playing adventure games on my Alienware M17 r4 and my Nintendo Switch OLED.

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Fixed the refresh rate issue by setting my desktop resolution to 1024x768 before running the game and now works full screen Smile If anyone is interested, these are the cfg settings that worked for me.

SCRIPT SCRATCHES
PATH .\\
WIDTH 1024
HEIGHT 768
DEPTH 32
QUALITY 1
FULLSCREEN 1
SURROUND 1
LOG 0
VSYNC 1
RATE 0
SKY_DETAIL 2
AUDIO_DEVICE 0
BUFFER_SIZE 16384
NUM_BUFFERS 4
LANGUAGE en

     
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wisnoskij - 05 May 2015 03:59 PM
SoccerDude28 - 05 May 2015 02:54 PM

According to the post, there are 2 patches that were available on the website before it went down. Agustin, do you know if the GOG version has those patches, and if not, what is the implication to the game?

http://www.patches-scrolls.com/scratches.php

Thanks for sharing that, but that still doesn’t answer my question. Does the GOG Director’s cut version include these patches or no? I would hate to apply a patch that will screw up the game.

     
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SoccerDude28 - 06 May 2015 12:36 PM
wisnoskij - 05 May 2015 03:59 PM
SoccerDude28 - 05 May 2015 02:54 PM

According to the post, there are 2 patches that were available on the website before it went down. Agustin, do you know if the GOG version has those patches, and if not, what is the implication to the game?

http://www.patches-scrolls.com/scratches.php

Thanks for sharing that, but that still doesn’t answer my question. Does the GOG Director’s cut version include these patches or no? I would hate to apply a patch that will screw up the game.

Sorry, it’s been a busy day!

The Steam/GOG/Big Fish editions include all the available patches and improvements. I oversaw those editions myself and I can guarantee they have everything, so no further patches are required. More so, the only difference in these editions with respect to a fully patched disc is a recompiled engine (so potentially less buggy) and standard save locations.

Previously Scratches would attempt to save games to a folder in Program Files, resulting in non-existing saves (at least in Windows Vista and above) due to issues with permissions in accounts without administrative rights. The latest version saves to My Documents as it should.

     

Senscape // Founder // Designer | Working on: Asylum | Twitter: @AgustinCordes

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SoccerDude28 - 06 May 2015 12:36 PM

Thanks for sharing that, but that still doesn’t answer my question. Does the GOG Director’s cut version include these patches or no? I would hate to apply a patch that will screw up the game.

I don’t know the answer to your question, but generally speaking both GOG and Steam automatically patch the games with the newest patches, so I would NOT recommend applying these patches to your version.

Edit: Ninja’d by someone who knows better than me.

     

You have to play the game, to find out why you are playing the game! - eXistenZ

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Thanks Agustin for clarifying that Smile

     
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crabapple - 05 May 2015 12:32 PM

The original Scratches offered a choice of “slideshow mode” (similar to what was used in Barrow Hill and Dark Fall: The Journal) and “edge panning,” but the “edge panning” was difficult to control, tending to go from not panning at all to zipping around like greased lightning.

What many don’t know (or probably forgot by now) is that Scratches was originally going to be full slideshow, featuring a very minimalistic style and no music at all. As much as I hate to admit it, the game was going to be very Mystian.

The first teaser released along with the announcement in Halloween 2003 featured this style:

It was Cellar of Rats (called Kerovnian back then) who proposed a dedicated soundtrack for the game and to turn it into panoramic mode. I had no intention whatsoever to include music in the game, but CoR convinced me—and you know what they say about history and the rest. The game went from a very minimalistic style to a cinematic presentation. It also increased in size, as we decided to add one more floor to the house.

Going from slideshow to 360º rotation was trivial programming-wise (CoR was right about that) but the expanded view revealed glaring mistakes in the graphics. We thought long and hard about this, as it was going to mean much more work, but still decided to make the move.

Another major change was the addition of heavy narration, as Michael tells the story in the past time and is quite verbal in his comments and description. All of this—the panoramic rotation, soundtrack, narration—is what set Scratches apart from its main influence at the time, Dark Fall.

While Scratches changed a lot from its first incarnation, that attic released in 2003 still outlines the whole story of the game. There are at least three major elements that were present in the final release, and I will mention which ones as the playthrough progresses (the most obvious one being locked inside the chest).

As a bonus thingie, here’s the very, very first image we did for the game:

Can you spot the differences?

     

Senscape // Founder // Designer | Working on: Asylum | Twitter: @AgustinCordes

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One difference—the weather. Blue sky with fluffy white clouds out one window, lightning and grey sky out the other.

     

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Agustín Cordes - 06 May 2015 07:46 PM

Can you spot the differences?

The light bulb hanging from the ceiling in the bottom picture seems to be missing in the top picture

The desk lamp on the floor is much closer to the player in the top picture

The chair is on the other side of the trunk and closer to the player in the top picture

The spider web is under the window in the top picture

The roof supports are different—in the top picture you see the framework that the horizontal beams are sitting on, in the bottom picture the beams go straight into the wall.

There’s a lot more furniture and other stuff (baby buggy, dressmaker’s model) in the top picture

The window has a spoked pattern in the top picture.

The boards that make up the wall are wider in the bottom picture

And of course the top picture has that whole vanishing point perspective thing going on that adds depth to the scene

     
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Installed the game, and tested it. Works perfectly. Cool


Initial reaction to some minor exploring:

- will need to slow the text speed down. I often realize too late that there’s a line to read and by then the timer’s almost up.
- not sure about the controls, will take some getting used to. Not sure about an alternative control scheme either. Slideshow / node-based games will never be a favourite of mine. But that’s personal and has nothing to do with the game’s quality.
- very atmospheric start, looks like a game that I’ll have to take slowly.


Question for Agustín: if Dark Fall inspired this, then how cool was working with Jonathan Boakes for the voices? Smile


Random other question for this CPT: is there an in-game map, or will I have to draw my own?

     

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark: it scares you witless but in time you see things clear and stark. - Elvis Costello
Maybe this time I can be strong, but since I know who I am, I’m probably wrong. Maybe this time I can go far, but thinking about where I’ve been ain’t helping me start. - Michael Kiwanuka

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TimovieMan - 07 May 2015 06:56 AM

Random other question for this CPT: is there an in-game map, or will I have to draw my own?

There ARE blueprints of the house….somewhere hidden….that serve their own purpose in a riddle… and thus I will not post a screenshot of them. You are free to draw your own map (IMO you’ll get used to the room locations after a while) but PLEASE do not play the game while everyone else is waiting for the flag in 2 days (we are still waiting for some people to appear). Even walking freely into the house and exploring it can cause sone….actions to happen. After all, exploring it is a part of playing the game itself.

     

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TimovieMan - 07 May 2015 06:56 AM

is there an in-game map, or will I have to draw my own?

Its really not a big enough environment to warrant drawing a map of. Its a large house + surrounding grounds, but no expansive mansion by any means. Unless that is just something you always do, I would warn you against it in this case. The Scratches estate is an environment you want to get to know personally on an emotional level, not an alien environment to survey.

     
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Another difference in the pics above—the atmosphere is entirely different. One attic, despite the spiderweb, is otherwise spic and span, as though people are just moving in to the house. One looks like the owners have lived there for decades and have let the attic collect dust and old furniture, etc.

     
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About those screenshots, that was a tongue-in-cheek question. Of course they’re vastly different, as the one in the bottom was the earliest test we ever did for the game! If we’re going to be strict, there are 480,000 differences in those images. Why?

While wisnoskij is correct in that you should get acquainted to the manor at your own pace, I guess there’s no harm done if I share some sketches that we used in the design document. They’re basic and I’m sure that you won’t have to use them at all:

(all potential spoilers have been removed)

Do note that the layout of the manor changed a bit for the final version. Those lakes surrounding the area, for instance, were removed as they meant too much work, and the garage is in a whole different location.

As for working with Jonathan, yeah, that was terrific. I was actually in touch with him way before the production of Scratches even started. Jonathan was very helpful and supportive during the initial planning and quick market research we did for the game—the burning question in my mind being, is this feasible? Turns out yes, it was!

Edit: Oops! The forum software doesn’t resize the images. Make sure you download it, or simply drag it to your desktop.

     

Senscape // Founder // Designer | Working on: Asylum | Twitter: @AgustinCordes

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