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AG Community Playthrough #36: ASA: A Space Adventure

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Congrats everyone! I’m so happy you managed to reach the end of the journey. I hope you enjoyed the game despite the difficulty.
How long did it take you to reach the end?

I don’t want to comment too much about the end, and I’d prefer that you all find your own explanations to the events. There might be a few answers in Catyph, or in other projects later, so I am afraid to spoil if i start babbling about your decisions (and Forte’s!)
However I confirm that there are only 2 possible ends. The “leave” ending is only available if you collected all the memory cards in the game (which was obviously your case). People have not always found them all and get stuck on the Ark.

If you have more questions about the game, now that you know everything about it, I’ll do my best to answer.

I would like to thank you all for your participation and for inviting me. The days I spent here for the CPT have been great days and allowed me to rediscover my game, somehow. With your help, I managed to create a kind of Post Mortem of ASA, which is nothing else than a summary of all the explanations I gave you in the previous 19 pages of this topic!
You can read it on the all new Black Cube site:
http://www.theblackcube.fr/asa-post-mortem.html

Please tell me what you think (if you are courageous enough to read it)!

@Mikekelly
I have been talking of an iOS or Android version of ASA with Andy (who developed ASA Remastered with me), and unfortunately it won’t be possible in the time being. The reason is that the Mobile License of Visionaire Studio is too expensive (490€!!)
http://www.visionaire-studio.net/shop/article/visionaire-studio-4-mobile-license.html

Maybe later? Anyway, many thanks for your encouragements.

     
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Thanks Simon, for giving me the game free in the first place and all your comments throughout. I really enjoyed ASA and look forward to playing Catyph when released.

Thanks to Sefir too for leading the playthrough.

Cheers
Nod

     
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Simon_ASA - 21 November 2015 12:49 PM

@Noddy
This puzzle mainly requires observation.

The basics:
There are 12 lenses. Each column of 6 lenses contains a single theme. Each row of 2 lenses shows a “similar object”.

There are 2 possibilities to solve this:
1- use your notes about the Command Room, where you could find “sculptures”
or
2- proceed with logic with the column on the right first.

In details:

Solution1:
Rebuild the sculpture “Anterrans plan for the Monolith” found in the Control Room (where you can’t go anymore if you have the Cube), in the column on the left.
Find the correspondance in the column on the right. The first raw is given already: the black box corresponds to the monolith. You should be able to find the other raws.

Solution2:
Focus on the column on the right. It contains “photos” of different places. The first photo is given (the monolith). Then just place the other ones in order from top to bottom, on the idea that it always needs to be a largest place than before. So you should guess that the last line is the space.
Then find the corresponding object on the left: each of the real places are represented by a geometric shape. You have to find which one.

I will give the full solution later if you need.

Simon_ASA - 23 November 2015 04:35 AM

@noddy
The relationship between the rows tells the meaning of the anterran sculpture in the command room.

I think that it was a mistake from me to prevent access to this room, to check the sculptures. If I had to change ONE thing in the game design, it would be this.
On the other hand, I thought that most people would have taken notes on these strange sculptures at that point of the game.

Anyway, in the command room you have 2 sculptures:

- The first one is a representation of the solar system by the real mathematician Kepler (you can easily find on the net the Kepler Platonic Solids sculpture). It was supposed to represent our planets with geometric shapes, according to some god plans, or something like that (I don’t remember exactly).

- The second sculpture doesn’t exist in reality and was created for the game: it represents (in the same way) the anterran plans for the monolith. So it’s like the Kepler sculpture. Instead of having the sun in the center of the sculpture, we have a representation of the monolith.

Each geometric shape of the Anterran sculpture represents a real part of the world. The half-sphere under the monolith represents the monolith room. The box of glass around them is the central room. These shapes are all in a metal box that should represent the Ark spaceship, which one is inside a last box of glass that represents the universe. If I didn’t make mistakes.

Well it’s more or less the last true puzzle of the game so I didn’t want it to be that easy, it had to rely on your observations during the whole game.

Even after this, I still didn’t fully understand how it worked, so I gave up after 12 attempts and looked at a walkthrough.
I was *close* with three correct ones on the left and all correct on the right, but with little feedback on whether I was getting close or not, I didn’t feel like trying longer…


I’m ready to tackle the numbers puzzle now. I hope to finish the game this evening.

     

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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Noddy - 25 November 2015 05:56 AM

Thanks Simon, for giving me the game free in the first place and all your comments throughout. I really enjoyed ASA and look forward to playing Catyph when released.

Thanks to Sefir too for leading the playthrough.

Yes, thank you so much Sefir for your work here, and for inviting me (and special thanks to Timovie too).
Thanks a lot to you Noddy and to all of you who played ASA during this CPT, or before. I hope you understood through my previous comments that I had a lot of fun here, and when working on the game too. Discussing with you brought back good memories of the development. Even if ASA is not perfect in the end, it was my very first game, so I’m really happy with the result, with the feedback, and despite the low sales it encourages me a LOT! I really didn’t create this game for money, but passion first, and I’m glad that you somehow felt it through the whole game (well, I think? according to your comments). It’s all thanks to everyone’s kind words that I made it. Catyph wouldn’t have existed in other circumstances, so you should be proud when you are able to support indie devs just by your words. It’s probably much more beautiful than giving money on KS, and much better than criticizing games negatively like we can see too often on the web, everywhere. Let’s keep being enthusiastic, and more good games will come for sure!

TimovieMan - 25 November 2015 07:14 AM

I’m ready to tackle the numbers puzzle now. I hope to finish the game this evening.

Did you succeed to finish the game?  Smile

So it’s going soon to be the end of the 36th CPT… It’s so sad! (for me - because it was really fun) How does it usually end with other games? Do you discuss about something specific, or do you just close the thread and go on?

Please everyone, before you quit the CPT once and for all:
- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.
- do you think the game was too difficult?
- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?
- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

Anyway I’ll be around (I visit AG on a daily basis, even if I don’t often have the time to come on the forums), so don’t hesitate to ask me what you want! If after some time I didn’t reply for some reason, feel free to get in touch by email on my website, or PM, or via The Icehouse collective.
For the moment, I’m still right here!

     
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Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

thank you so much Sefir for your work here, and for inviting me

Thanks for the nice words, but you have to realize that you made my job, much, much easier with your everyday replies. You were BY FAR the most active developer we had in an AGCP.  Thumbs Up

Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.

Most of my feelings can be seen in the introductory post and not much changed since my 2nd play. I loved it. A 8.5/10 game for me. While there were beautiful planets, the Ark and the space is were the game exceeds. Two things remain in my head for me. The first is the riddles. While the storryline is a good one, it is pretty rare to find such…difficult yet absolutely logical riddles in an ag these days. The DOS puzzle for me was the epitomy of that. The second is the feeling of loneliness. It was perfectly done.

Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- do you think the game was too difficult?

Yes. As it should. We are full of easy-medium difficulty adventure games and most people when stuck will go to find the solution online. I remember riddles that took me MONTHS to solve. I took my time out of the game, thinking in some corner of my mind some kind of possible solution…that is a feeling that I haven’t had since Riven and it is EXACTLY what you need to preserve with continuing creating games of the same difficulty.

Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?

Of course I’m curious. You are a serious developer in a well-designed first game in my favourite genre. What I would like to see in Catyph is less Riven references. I know it was a tribute (and an extremely well done, too) but someone could say that there were too many similarities (the mine cart ride and the village in Kepler, the Dome, the ride and the water-y world of Forte, to name a few) and accuse ASA for lack of originality. But keep the same spirit and feeling.

Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

Oh no….Nonononono!!!!! Please, don’t do it!!! Of course I’ll still be interested, since I like 3rd-person ags too (like the ones you mentioned), but I also believe that first-person is superior (mind you, we 1st-person lovers are a minority in these forums) in terms of atmosphere since it is trully YOU who see and play. As I said earlier, the atmosphere was one of the main reason of this game’s quality. Can you imagine ASA in 3rd-person? IMHO it would have been awful!!!

     
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and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)?

Oh - now I would be lovin’ this big time!

Heart Eyes

     

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

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Thanks a lot for your answers Sefir, it’s perfect!

Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)?

Sefir - 26 November 2015 05:45 AM

Oh no….Nonononono!!!!! Please, don’t do it!!!

Mikekelly - 26 November 2015 05:57 AM

Oh - now I would be lovin’ this big time!

Ahah, that is going to be a difficult choice Yum

But noting’s decided yet. The way I see it, it would more likely be a “break” for me in making FPA games (First Person Adventure), and try to tell stories differently to reach more people (and bring more diversity in my work, which is important too). If I don’t try something different, I’m not sure I can continue to expand the Black Cube series, because Myst-like is quite a “niche” market today, and it doesn’t help me reach more people. But of course, even if I stopped working on FPAs for a while, I would try to come back on it someday. Catyph will leave place for other “sequels” just like ASA did for Catyph (even if I shouldn’t use the word sequel, because it’s not directly) and I know I would love to create a 3rd ASA game (Another Space Adventure Again!).

On top of that, making a break would benefit to my work: it would give time to the developers of Visionaire Studio to continue improve their soft, or just for me to learn Unity. As a result, there might be the possibility to create 360 spherical panoramas somedays, and thus make a game like Myst IV. I think it would be a logical stage after Catyph and the transition videos… unless I chose to work in realtime 3D. I’m unsure of what will happen in the near future with Unity, Unreal Engine and Oculus, and it’s important for me to wait and see if people love Virtual Reality a lot, and if it would still make sense to keep making pre-rendered games, whatever the engine I use.

Also I’d love to “lend” the Black Cube world to other indie devs who would potentially be interested in it (if I find some), and let them create their own game in the series. I would just supervise them at distance (help writing the story, and probably work on some puzzles too), to make sure the story and world is respected, but that would be interesting to see what others can do in this vast sci-fi story. I am in touch with the developer of Roonsehv and I hope that someday I could convince him to work on something with me. Maybe if enough people asked? I don’t know if some of you had the opportunity to play Roonsehv already, it’s a free Myst-like developed with the Unreal Dev Kit, and it’s incredible. I just loved it. So why not work with him later, if he ever accepted?
I had also discussed a project in the past with Luminy Studios who is a Member of my collective The Icehouse, and who released Bloodwood Reload recently (free too). I know they’re too busy with their own projects for the moment, but there’s still a door opened…
That’s one of the things that make me excited in creating indie games: everything looks possible. Let’s see what really happens… Time will tell.

First I need to finish Catyph Innocent

     
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Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

Please everyone, before you quit the CPT once and for all:
- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.
- do you think the game was too difficult?
- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?
- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

 

1- Great looking and sounding game, specially refreshing in a indie world where most game are about big pixels. Took me 8 hours but I went to the walkthrough more times than I liked. Not going to fault the game, it’s just that last couple of weeks I’ve been completely burned out due to work stuff and anything that requires more mental work for me the brain doesn’t respond…(That’s why I’ve been mostly entertaining the brain with shooting stormtroopers lately…) But I did push through it and I’m glad I did.
The Ark is probably the best part and some puzzles like making the cube.

2- It was difficult but Not too much, maybe the DOS and last puzzle (the fact that you couldn’t go back didn’t help). It’s Myst/Riven -like game so it does have to feature a high difficulty but I think most of it made sense. The difficulty came because you couldn’t really brute force to solve it like most 3rd person games.

3- Definitely curious about Catyph Tongue you should really finish it!

4- Yes, would follow closely but this Myst-like genre is really lacking on games now so this is probably a more unique genre. It does seem to very niche right now…

Thanks Sefir for leading and Simon for a great feedback. Didn’t participate much but I enjoyed it

     
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Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.
- do you think the game was too difficult?
- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?
- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

Fist of all, thank you for the donated copy of the game.

- My overall impression of the game is that I like it, although I’m still playing it, and can’t give a timetable for when I expect to finish.

- I don’t think the game is too difficult. I do think, though, that it was a difficult game to start. The garden took me forever. Unfortunately I didn’t find the game so compelling that I stuck with it. If I got stuck, I simply took a break for three or four days. I did that multiple times.

- I didn’t find this to be a Myst-like game. Or maybe I missed the message where you described why you thought it was a Myst-like game. So I could go either way. FWIW, I liked the Grim remake. I never liked TLJ. So, again, I could go either way.

     

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Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

Did you succeed to finish the game?  Smile

I did!

Took me five minutes to realize that I couldn’t solve the crossworld puzzle in the game and had to resort to pen and paper.


Finished the game, watched both endings. Chose the leave option first since I wanted to avoid the whole “going crazy over the cube” thing and didn’t feel like sleeping for 40 years just to snap out of it. That’s my true ending.
The other is just me wanting to see what else the game holds. Smile


Overall it’s a really good game. Great visuals (and so darn photorealistic most of the time) and sounds, and I liked the music which didn’t feel repetitive (which is a big plus).
I like how professional the menu looks, and I let the song loop nearly each time I launched the game.
Some very good puzzles (one in particular is genius!) but also some poorer ones. Overall a solid puzzle design quality, but a high difficulty, bordering on “relentless” in some cases (Myst-style puzzles have never been my forte, though). I can’t imagine people finishing this game without all the pointers and indicators that were added in the Remastered version.
A solid story too, and one that isn’t too spoiled by that short film, imo. The leave ending is the only one that makes sense to me personally (but I always like the option of alternative endings).

Overall I give the game 3.5/5 (which may seem low, but 3.5 officially rates as “very good” in my book, and one mustn’t forget that Myst-style first-person slideshows aren’t really my cup of tea).

How long did it take you to finish the game?

According to Steam, it took me a whopping 25 hours.
But I’m a slow gamer, so YMMV. And I don’t know how Steam measures. Is “25 hours” anything between 24:01 and 25:00, or between 24:31 and 25:30, or between 25:00 and 25:59?

What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.

The photorealistic visuals, the main character’s Commander Shepard-like outfit, the death rides on the planets and the smelting-and-forming-a-cube puzzle.

do you think the game was too difficult?

It was very difficult, yes, but I don’t think it was *too* difficult. I managed with only one look at a walkthrough (and with a couple of hints from my fellow CPTers). Besides, there should be more games with a higher difficulty. If anything, there’s always a walkthrough to be found somewhere if you’re giving up on a puzzle.

what would you like to be different in Catyph?

Different in Catyph? Well, a tiny indication that you’re in the right direction for the more difficult puzzles would be welcome, but maybe that’s just me. The transition videos are already going to be a big plus in maintaining proper orientation. Not that it was bad now, but one or two locations were a little bit confusing.

Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?

Yes! I’m really curious to find out more about the Anterrans and the bigger picture for the Ark. I’d like to find out more about Forte’s adventures too. And I really want to know whether or not Catyph is going to have something to do with Saturn (because Saturn was called Catyph in the game IIRC).

would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

You should do what you think is best, and what you think best fits the story you want to tell. If that’s first-person slideshow, or node-based, or realtime, or 3rd-person, so be it.
Indie devs that have made quality games are imo always worth following, no matter the format.
Just beware that you don’t “bite off more than you can chew” if you try something very different.

     

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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Overall it’s a really good game. Great visuals (and so darn photorealistic most of the time) and sounds, and I liked the music which didn’t feel repetitive (which is a big plus).

I echo this. I am not into 1st-person games all that much, but I did enjoy this one. Of courese, having Simon as our guide did help quite a bit.

Thanks all for a great and fun CPT.

Heart

     

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I finished the game—played the [spoiler]returning home ending first and the alternate ending after that. I enjoyed both endings.

Simon’s Questions:

- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.

Unlike others who have commented that they mostly enjoyed the time spent on the ark, I preferred the exploration in natural surroundings on the planets we visited. Even if I did get turned around and directionally-confused a fair amount. I thought the story was presented in a relaxed fashion, and eventually decided that I liked Forte’s voice-overs.  There was enough complexity in the diaries that, even though I read them twice, I didn’t remember all the details. (The extent of my forgetfulness I realized especially when taking the quiz.) The best part of the game was finding how Forte’s reactions and knowledge developed and changed.  It took me 15 hours to play the game, but after Kepler I started referring to a walkthrough fairly often. Otherwise it would have taken much longer. The most memorable visual experience I think was the opening sequence, severing the cable and grasping the cube.


- do you think the game was too difficult?

Yes. I thought the puzzles were harder than those in Myst or Riven (it’s been years since I first played these games, though, so my memory probably isn’t the most reliable). Personally, I think a story-heavy game should have easier puzzles than a game that’s mostly exploration and puzzles with small dollops of story. In a game with a complex narrative, I think the puzzles should start out easy, increase in difficulty until about two-thirds of the way through the game, and then ease off the difficulty until the game ends. That way, when I can feel the ending approaching and I’m dying to know the whys and wherefores, I’m not sitting for a solid hour or more solving a truly dastardly puzzle. Also, again for me personally, if the game contains a lot of puzzles and it’s a long game, I sort of run out of puzzle-solving steam in general after a dozen hours or so. (This isn’t an issue if I have unlimited time—take a few days off, then get back to the game—but in a community playthrough, that’s not always possible.)

- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?

Yes, I’m curious! Especially to find out what happens to Forte. I’d like the navigation to be easier. I know an interactive map adds complexity, but if the environments are as large as Kepler, an interactive map would be great.

- would you eventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

Sure. Though the adventure gamers who favor first person games will feel the loss.

One big surprise— I thought the cube eventually completely copied its finder’s brain, driving that person insane and resulting in that person’s quick demise. So I expected to find a storehouse of cubes, and then skeletal remains of different alien types somewhere on the ark. The ark would eventually return to the Anterrans, and they could “play” through the lives of all the aliens who’d essentially donated their brains, letting the Anterrans explore the universe without ever having to leave home. It was an intriguing twist in the actual story that the Anterrans themselves couldn’t deal with what they’d unleashed.

A question for Simon. While creating the game, did you work pretty much from beginning to end in order? Or did you write a storyboard of everything and work on bits and pieces from all over the game’s timeline simultaneously? This game didn’t feel rushed near the end—often adventure games DO feel rushed at the end (leaving the impression that the developers work from beginning to end and run out of time for the very last puzzles and cutscenes).

Thanks for making the game colorful. So many “living aboard a ship” games are rather drab.

     
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Wow, so many replies and comments! Thanks a lot everyone, I’m really moved, and it’s a beautiful conclusion for this CPT. I’ll do my best to impress you with Catyph then, and I hope you’ll enjoy it (at least as much as ASA). We’ll see if I learned from your teachings :p

I don’t know yet what I will do after the release of Catyph, but knowing what you’d like and dislike is very helpful. It would be good for me to create a project that can reach more people, just for a year or two, and then see the evolution of the Myst genre. When I created ASA in 2012, there had not been any Myst-like for years, and except for a few ones like The Five Cores, there still has not been many of them lately. However the public has changed too and got older. Most of the people who liked Myst and Riven are not really following the indie scene, and the press doesn’t relay the information that much about Myst-likes, so it makes it hard to continue. I’m curious to see what will happen with Obduction, Xing, Quern, Haven Moon and many more. I have not played Cradle and I don’t know if there will be other Myst games in the next few years, but I hope. I am certainly not the only developer wishing to see them continue to live! I have seen such a LOT of amateur projects on several forums created with Adventure Maker and Visionaire Studio, and inspired by Myst, that I am almost sure to see more games in the future on the indie scene. The question is more: what will they look like, and will they find a large audience? Being short on sales is really a problem to continue working on these games, because it’s very difficult to create prerendered graphics for so vast worlds. If I could make, at least, one successful game in another genre, it could bring me funds to work on a new and more ambitious Myst-like later. I don’t want yet to fall in the Kickstarter vogue. It might be very useful, but I don’t feel ready to manage a campaign on my own, and I’m afraid to lose my independency because of what backers would ask me to do.

Good news however: in January (9-18th) there will be a Game Jam about Myst. The challenge is to create a Myst-like game on a short time. Of course they won’t be long and great games, but I will participate and take this opportunity to create a short Black Cube game. It will tell a side-story, and of course it will be free. All details about the event here:
http://itch.io/jam/myst-jam
I will have to pause the development of Catyph for one week…

@Becky

While creating the game, did you work pretty much from beginning to end in order? Or did you write a storyboard of everything and work on bits and pieces from all over the game’s timeline simultaneously?

The development has been difficult and chaotic, mainly because it was my first game (but on the other hand, maybe it saved me!). As I said in a previous work, I like to work with post-its. I write my main ideas on them, and then I just place them in the good order on my desk, until I create a region of the game. It is very helpful for the puzzles. However, that is for the general process, but in reality it’s not as easy. When I started working on ASA, i took my short film 2011: A Space Adventure and I got this idea: what happened in the middle, when the astronaut is unconscious after finding the Cube? That became the beginning of ASA and the opening movie. From here, I started to invent everything in the game, and I didn’t write a storyboard. I don’t like working with them and I prefer to invent while I create. So in the specific case of ASA, I had a beginning, an end, my ideas on post-its, the lack Cube novel, and I had to fill the rest of the game. Sometimes during the development of ASA, it appeared that some original ideas were too difficult or complex to produce, so I just simplified or gave up some ideas. I never try to stay stuck to what I imagined originally, and most of the time, my projects are really different in the end than what I wanted to do. We could say there’s a “freestyle” part in my work, so you can never know what it will look like until it is finished! That’s also part of the fun Smile

Oh and Becky, thanks for the review of Prominence! Looks good Smile

 

     
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Simon_ASA - 26 November 2015 04:48 AM

Please everyone, before you quit the CPT once and for all:
- could you leave a quick comment with your overall feeling about ASA? How long did it take you to finish the game? What will you remember the most: a specific puzzle, the story, the world, etc.
- do you think the game was too difficult?
- what would you like to be different in Catyph? Are you curious about the rest of the Black Cube series?
- would you enventually be interested if I stopped working on Myst-likes for a while, and focused on a project of 3rd-person adventure game with pre-rendered backgrounds (like Grim or TLJ)? As you know, pre-rendered 3D is my favorite technique (at work, because I also enjoy playing realtime games) and it would be my number 1 choice for a future game project.

 

- It took me about 28 hours to finish the game according to Steam. I got stuck several times, and had to consult a walkthrough a few times after hours of trying. To me, the game was average and if I were to review it, I would give it a 3/5. It didn’t blow me away or anything, but on the other hand, it wasn’t a bad game. The story was interesting and the puzzles were hit or miss. I must say though that I am not the biggest expert in first person node games like this one. The most memorable puzzles to me were the green and red dots puzzle, and creating the cube puzzle. Both were logical and rewarding to finish. The DOS puzzle had the right idea but the syntax (like using force in some commands and having to prefix everything with P.Forte) , plus having to retype everything made it tedious. Having a programming background, I grimmaced knowing that us humans can come up with a unix shell editor that is 100 times more logical in syntax than the editor of the much more advanced Anteran race.
-Definitely, it is one of the most difficult games I have played recently.
- I would like the puzzles to be more consistent in execution. Some puzzles are brilliant(like I noticed everyone loved the cube creation puzzle) and others are universally disliked(like the final match the right and left column pictures to open the safe). Also the world is barren and dead which can be a little boring to be quite frank. It would benefit from more life (like encountering the villagers on planet Keplar for example).
I am definitely curious about the black cube series. I am curious to know more about the Anterans and the history behind the ark and the cubes. Please have indicators in Catyph. i can’t fathom playing this game without being able to know what’s interactable. Also, some of the navigation, especially in the Keplar village was disorienting, so it would be nice to have a better sense of where i am heading.
- I personally prefer third person games because I grew up in the golden age of Lucas Arts adventures in the 90s, but I am open to try any game regardless of perspective if it is fun. You should really do what brings you the most joy in your work wether it be first or third person.

     
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I don’t know yet what I will do after the release of Catyph

Well, I for one after playing this game am looking forward to seeing more games from you. A fun CPT can do nothing but help you get the word out about future projects.

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

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