Da Vinci Disorder

About the story : You just moved to a nice neighborhood and you got invited to a party.. What could possibly go wrong ?

The game genre : Horror/Survival.

About the Author : My name is RvD , I have just made it to my 17th year., My dream since years was to create my own first horror game and iam at the moment putting all the effort and knowledge and time i have into this first game of mine. And all the people around gameguru forums are really helping me and i appreciate the help, it will be noticed as an effort in the game.

Extra infromation about the game :The game will be finished in matter of 2 weeks at the most if no bugs has been reported to appear, as iam giving the demo version to my friends to test, but i will release maybe 1 or 2 demos till am done if it took more than 2 weeks.


In game pictures :
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Edit : Link for the demo
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3pd489ihpxkmuu5/Loop4.rar?dl=0

Looks like a neat start! Keep it up

Thank you so much, it is really great to get a nice feed back from nice people like you ^_^

Well so far iam done with 4 levels 1 left and of course i gotta test every level maybe i re-add something or remove a thing.. i hope it is done before 2 weeks xD

Well i though to add few pictures from abit deep in the levels.
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I will be uploading just the first short level from the game to get any possible feed back, the first level i think is the shortest but i still want a feed back, once i upload it i will post a link here.

Here is a demo Version of the first 2 levels of the game, Including the starting level.

Also a tip i left Flash light allowed in all levels incase people can't see perfectly through my lights.
Another one is the second level you just check for the green lighten stuff and collect them.
Last thing this is not the final form of level 2 am planning to rework few things in it.

Please give me an honest unemotional straight forward feed back xD. Especially * You wolf *

Link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3pd489ihpxkmuu5/Loop4.rar?dl=0

anyone tested the demo ?!?!

Don't worry RvD, I will check it out sometime soon, i'm just a little busy at the moment.

Hello RvD!
DaVinci disorder? I'd love to have some of that man's "disorder"
I normally don't do this but since you asked me twice to review your demo here you:

I guess its best to start at the beginning.
the game starts with a little scripted dialogue sequence between what I assumed are the players friends or parents dropping him off/hanging around a party at what I assume is an attempt to simulate a nightclub. This has already given me false hope in this project which left without a trace right away.
I have played a lot of indie titles through the years, some from kids in their early teens but I think that this is the most incoherent so far.

The first map starts tolerable with some houses that don't match placed around to simulate a city. I saw some of Bugsy and my old store fronts used as single elements on a map, without some kinda structure to back them up which looked really weird but hey, first attempts should not be judged too harshly right? Its just that the rest of the map does not make much more sense.

Best way to describe the first level is that it looks like the kind of map you throw together to quickly test a few items. How this whole thing was deemed passable in a WYSIWYG editor is beyond me: You will encounter randomly placed decals, flying holographic signs alongside a chainlink fence, barrels and boxes and a table with some meatrolls on them.

As there are several NPC's, often repeating and skeletons in gasmasks (which might supposed to be people in a costume, which does not work because they have skeletal legs.) There is also a military guy which I think should be a security guard.
Some of the NPC's awkwardly follow me around as I have no clue what I am supposed to do at that party. Sounds are cutting in and out as I run across a cellshaded door. This is not the only cartoon style element in these designs, mind you, but since nothing matches together, why not use the toon models too? Here I get a prompt that I have to "kill 14 more people". Well...charming!
I quickly found a knife behind some boxes where a painting tells me to murder everyone. Which I then do because the game gives me neither context, reason or anything else to do so mass murder it is.

After everyone has been knifed, I can open the door where what I assume should be the police gun me down. I then awaken in a cave with some terribly placed items and corpses scattered around. At this point I can only assume that this is your usual afterlife horror-story but the supposed "real world" level already looked more like a terrible nightmare to me. At least for a level designer.

My assumption is that the current level is a cave because there is a ceiling in solid yellow which I assume is the underside of some rock model. As the other rocks models are placed equally senseless its a save bet. I have kept playing, trying to find some interesting ideas but the game gets extremely boring at this point. I managed to get to the room with the carpets and the flying portraits where I fought some soldiers... before that I fought some zombies. Eh! I have quit playing after getting a rocket to the face from an enemy behind another cellshaded door. I'm sorry but this is just not worth my time at the current state.

The most interesting thing about this game to me is the thought process. If you where a kid I'd understand but you're almost an adult now. How could you think this gameplay would be interesting to another human being? Let alone someone outside of the GG community. What part of you made you think that these levels would be the least bit passable the way that they are? What part of this should be scary other than the item placement?
If you where going for some extravagant "weird" horror look àla Dario Argento you might want to gather some experience first. "Weird, psychotic, colourful" horror games need you to know what you are doing, if not it will end up like this: A bunch of stuff from other artists (a large portion of that being stuff from me, which I appreciate, but still) thrown in a map. Seemingly by random chance.

If there is no way for you to adjust, create your own assets and you don't know how to set up some gameplay other than roam around and search for a key you might want to invest the time in learning how to do so. Otherwise you can also look at what assets you have and which ones work together and then build a game around those.

Maybe you find someone who sees something in this that I don't but for me, I really can't see how this is something you'd want to share at this point in development.

I hope my review didn't get you in a bad mood, but you asked me my opinion, here it is.

My advice to you that you can heed if you like would be to start with a small 3 Level project to gather experience. Something short that really works. A simple shooter if you want to. You shouldn't just go inexperienced into making a surreal horror game.



-Wolf

Oh my god..
This is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay way way better than i expected !!! D
Although your review is extremely insensitive .. i gotta admit in a way my emotions are lost .. finding a way back BUT YOU GAVE ME IDEAS XDD Lots of them.

I've just played it, and, wow.... I have to agree with pretty much most of what Wolf said.

To start with on the first level:

1. Too many mismatched entities
2. Too much open space
3. Not enough clutter (rocks, rubbish etc)
4. No real direction, nothing and nobody tells you what you are supposed to be doing and why
5. Entities placed with no relation to other entities, ie decals free standing with nothing for them to be stuck to or leaning against
6. Way too many carbon copy NPC's, soldiers can be copies, especially the masked ones, but multiple civilian NPC's with the exact same face and clothes looks odd


The Second Level:

1. This was a little better, the tunnels weren't too bad, they just need to be refined, too many gaps, and a single badly stretched rock for the ceiling just looked wrong.
2. Again, no direction, apparently you need to find two objects to open the final door, but you don't get told that, you're wondering around aimlessly for a while
3. Furniture placement, it was just all over the place, the large room felt like you'd just randomly placed some furniture and rugs. The rugs weren't lined up right and caused glitches, and the paintings were just free standing on the floor, odd plain odd
4. A huge random mishmash of characters from different genres, it's like when you placed them you just opened up the entitybank, closed your eyes and randomly pointed the cursor.
5. RPG soldier, behind the door, open door = rocket in the face, bad move, RPG charactrs should only be used when they have plenty of range on you so there's a chance to avoid them
6. Where's the ending? I finally got through the maze, killed the fantasy NPC's (huh what?) end left through the door, outside was a blue light and nothing, no winzone, nothing.



Don't be disheartened though, it's your first attempt, and I can see you're really into this, every time we make a mistake we learn, and the more we learn, the better we get, keep it up, you've got me on steam, and i'm on here if you want to PM me any time you need help or advice.

disheartned, you gotta be kidding me .. i will put more effort .. i know now my levels main issue.

1- Feels like a puzzle you just don't know what are you doing and why and where ?
2- The map is not actually well made.
3- and yes they were only 2 levels no ending xD cause there is another 2 ..

iam now reworking the first level with the best i can do .. putting a Goal a reason for you to walk and a something that can guide you, a real neighborhood and a real disorder.. that actually happens from Extreme anxiety from a thing.

I can't show how thankful iam for actually taking even a minute from your time beliodas and Wolf to test my game out .. enuf written words in this replay my next one will be the link to the new level.

For your "final" level to end the game in standalone, just drop a winzone without putting anything in the ifused field, that way when you finish it will tell you you've finished and send you back to the menu

Okay i will do this in my current working level, i finished first chapter i will do 2 more chapters then upload it for you guys to see what improved compared to the first demo and what should be worked on

Just remember, with single player games, while people will complain about "invisible walls" and wanting "open world" games, what they really want is to be led by the hand gently through a game, they need direction, even if it's only placing houses in a street so you can only go in two directions, and an NPC saying "thank god you're here, terrorists have taken over the nightclub, go get 'em boss".

And most important of all, if you do need them to kill X amount of people, or collect X amount of items, tell them, let them know what they're supposed to be doing.

There's nothing worse than being dropped into a large open area with no direction, and no clue which way to go or what to do.

It's different with online games, such as MMO's etc, the goals for those games are progression goals; better gear, more cash, higher levels, more skills, so you can get away with less direction and more open levels. With a single player game the goal is to finish the game, and you need to lead them from the start to the end, you can add some open aspects, achievements that aren't part of the main story, interesting side quests that tell another shorter story, and so one, but the main storyline that leads from the staring point to the end of the game needs to have a logical chain of events with plenty of communication and direction.

(obviously this is just my opinion from my experience with playing games, others may disagree)

I totally agree, and sorry i didn't upload first level yet took me so much time to come up with a new idea to introduce the Disorder of paintings .. But am almost done with the first level or first chapter and yes i learnt from you and wolf that part.. Organize your map and make it clear what you are suppose to be doing.. i wanted to make it hard core.. but seems that doesn't suit everyone. in matter of 48 hours i will upload the new level i hope from the bottom of my heart that you notice any difference.

We don't intend to take away your original vision of the game. If you want to make it "hard core", do that... whatever that means to you. We have only been pointing out that what you have presented earlier wasn't enjoyable on any level...and a game needs to be. That there was no clear direction was (in my opinion) the least fault of the game.



-Wolf

Sorry i have been away, and my last year in school will start in like 10 days so i wont be able to finish the game totally, but i should have uploaded the first chapter and i will in this week.. the only thing took me so long is coming up with the new idea..
Where there is a story .. you know what you are doing and why you are here .. the map design should be abit more organized and respected compared to the random map design from the first game i released .. so iam just testing it out now and i will upload it here then i will cancel the project .. but i just want to hear the last feed back on that first 10 minute chapter .