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KickStarter Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Somebody ought to create a website for reviewing video game localization companies. I keep seeing indies get screwed over by this (including translations from their native languages to English). It's insane that there's not more public transparency in this area. You have to guess whether they're good or not based on how professional their website looks?
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
I can only speak from my own experience - you just naively assume that, since you'd lose sleep and wouldn't be able to function if someone wasn't happy with what they payed you for, everyone is the same. And you get a very, very rude awakening.

Financially, I think it also disporportionally affects devs in poorer countries, since we're even more limited when it comes to budgets. Other than the Kickstarter money, everything we've put in the game was our savings, which will differ wildly from a Western to an Eastern European country. I don't want to play the "oh, poor Easter European" card, but paying American voice actors for example as a Romanian is, well, not the most advantageous business decision. I'm not saying we jumped at the localization based on cheapness alone, but since they offered a discount for doing even more languages than we had planned for, we (stupidly, in retrospect) thought "Hey, that's so cool - how many adventure games - nay, how many GAMES are localized in Arabic, for example? Or Hungarian?". Our heart was in the right place, at least.

I also spent some nights localizing Gibbous in Romanian since, well, I wrote the damn' thing. It probably was pointless from a financial point of view, but watching other Romanians play it in our language was 100% worth it.

On the other hand, I am blown away by how cool and supportive members of our community are. Someone is translating it into Danish, completely for free, just because they loved the game so much. Same for Dutch. With all the heart ache and stress the localization fiasco brought, seeing these folks become so passionate and involved in something that you cooked up in your attic in quasi-anonimity is amazing. I can't comment on other genres, but fans of adventure games are some of the nicest and most supportive (and patient!) people we've ever come across.
 

newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
Sorry to hear about your negative experience. This might not help now, but might be of use for your next game :)

When contacting an agency for translation services, there's some questions that you have to ask ahead of time.

- Do you use machine translation?
...Machine translation (I don't mean Google Translate, but actual cutting edge machine translation) works pretty well now for very clearly written and simple documents without any ambiguity or wit (i.e. instruction manuals), but is absolute garbage for stuff like dialog. It's even worse between dissimilar languages (for example, English and Japanese).

- Will each language pair be translated by a native-level speaker of the TARGET language?
...This means, for English to German, it is way more important for the translator to be a native-level speaker of German. He still needs to be fluent in English of course.

- What is the QA process?
...Ideally, each translation should be checked by a bilingual checker who is a native-level speaker of the SOURCE language. For English to German, that means the translation should be checked by someone who is fluent in German but speaks English at native level.

- Are your translators in-house employees, or freelancers/contractors?
...Either is fine, but if they are using freelancers, you would want to ask how they will maintain consistency in style among their freelancers, etc.

You also ideally want them to do a trial translation for each language pair, and have those checked by a native speakers to check quality, before you even sign a contract or pay a dime. Any professional translator would happily do this, free of charge, to prove they know what they are doing.
 

agris

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Apr 16, 2004
Messages
6,761
Mr. Underhill I certainly don't think the characters are too wordy, although it does feel like some of your voice actors are speed reading their lines. Also your sound engineer should really make sure to compress and normalize the voice lines to the same general sound envelop, there's a tendency for different NPCs to speak at different volumes, and I don't mean in an artistic "dynamic range" kinda way. Like a "bad podcast" kinda way.

Although this is the minority case, and I'm really enjoying the game. Is Stuck In Attic aware of the actor shadow flickering bug? I've seen Kitteh have it in Lemon's room, and Don have it periodically in chapter 3(?) - the first chapter we control him after the prologue.

Great game overall, except too easy. I understand there's a balance and personal preferences are hard to account for, but I do wish there was a bit more challenge involved. Your method of having the character talk through the logic of interacting with hot spots and certain items is great, I just wish there was more depth and complexity behind the item-use puzzles.
 
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Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
Hey, yeah - we're aware of the flickering, our programmer is looking into it.

Here's what he said: "After the game starts, can you please go in Options and select "Disable shadows and effects" and let me know if that works for you. Might be that your graphics card can't process new DirectX shaders I used."


If not, it might be a certain video card doing that. We're also looking into upgrading to the most recent version of Unity, that might solve some problems (and possibly add others, but we're willing to take that risk). You've probably checked if you have the latest drivers installed - if not, it's worth a shot, it has solved some weirdness for some players.


Regarding voices - yeah, we've worked with 3 different crews, plus locally - we were a bit overwhelmed from a technical standpoint. We'll definitely need to set a technical standard for our next effort, make sure everyone sounds the same. It's tough, since it's not just volume diferences - everyone has very different set-ups, some sound warmer, some don't.... We'll have to figure it out, but we're definitely happy that we've voiced the game, and we want to keep doing it if we can afford it.

As for the puzzles... It was a tough call. Sure, we wanted it to be a classic-type experience, but I went out of my way to avoid moon logic as much as possible, and probably leaned too hard in the other direction. This was a bit intentional, too, I must admit: it was our goal to make the game as approachable and friendly as we could. If it could work as a gateway for people to discover adventure games, that would make us very happy. You can't really lower the bar without irking the hardcore crowd a bit, obviously.

Also, I must admit I really enjoy the lightness of puzzles in Wadjet Eye games, and that probably influenced me more than I realized. I am very aware that they go harder into other aspects that we haven't... Balancing these things in narrative games is way tougher than I first imagined :) But I'm happy to say that I think I know how to approach this in the sequel, if we do get to make it.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
It's interesting to me the way that the player reviews are fragmented across platforms. GOG is 4.5 among verified owners -- which is quite high for indie adventure games, a bit higher than Unvavowed and Lamplight City, for instance, tied with Whispers of a Machine. Steam is 83% -- which is iffy for indie adventure games, which tend to be at or above the 90% mark. Metacritic player reviews are are 5.6, which is very low. I wonder what explains this fragmentation? My best guess would be that as you go into more and more mainstream pools, the player reaction seems somewhat worse, probably because mainstream players can no longer grok adventure games with puzzles, but I'm not sure it's more puzzle intensive than WOAM (96%). Could be that international players review more commonly on Steam/MC?
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
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Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
I knew we had to brace ourselves for some vitriol, but I honestly did not expect 0/10 user ratings on Metacritic :lol: Oof!

I think it's the fact that Gibbous looks like it would be a hard-core, 90s throwback, break-your-brain-puzzles title... And it's not. I expected backlash from the ending, which I knew would be divisive, but not for the puzzles. Apparently fans of classic adventure games felt like it was some kind of bait & switch when they got what I guess are relatively easy puzzles.

I can't be objective, since I designed them. Comparing them to the most recent adventure game released I've played that's in a more classical vein and has an inventory, Unavowed... I think they're actually a bit more difficult than those (note, I am not comparing my work to Dave's, just strictly puzzle difficulty). I think people knew what to expect with Unavowed, but thought that just because it looks more "classic-like", Gibbous would be on par with 90s adventure games puzzles-wise.

I believe that as a first time no-name dev releasing a narrative game on Steam and intending to make this your living, you need to take into consideration the fact that it's 2019 and you have to try and appeal to a larger, maybe even more casual audience. Two difficult puzzles in and a lot of players will bounce off your game and never come back. That is the last thing we wanted. I'm honestly much more about the characters and the story than I am about the puzzles, so I was Ok with maybe leaving some people feeling like it was too easy if it also meant more people were likely to actually finish the game. I think this kind of drama is inevitable when you're trying to appeal to both a hard-core and a casual audience. I've done my best to throw a couple of bones to the veterans, too, but it seems it wasn't enough. And when players turn on you, they turn HARD.

Then there's the LucasArts comparison, which is a bit baffling to me. Yes, we did say that we're inspired by LucasArts a lot during the Kickstarter, you only need to see one screenshot and it's obvious... But nowhere did I compare ourselves to them, Jesus Christ! :hahano: I'm reading these reviews going "the devs lied, this isn't even close to LucasArts!" ...How the hell could it be? We're a bunch of people in an attic in Transylvania :| It's our first game. We did our best, we made a bunch of mistakes, we did some things right, some not so much... Saying that you are very influenced by someone you admire should not instantly trigger comparisons to them. Anyway...

As for Steam reviews - it's bitterly clear to me that if we didn't make an effort to do 13 languages and stuck to EFIGS we would probably be much closer to 90%. Flying too close to the sun on a crappy budget, etc. If you set reviews to "all languages" and google translate the Russian, Japanese and Korean ones - which make up most of the negatives - you'll see what I mean. I've stopped doing it because I already know what they most likely complain about, and I need to be able to focus on improving the game post-launch.

I do hope this will settle eventually and the game will find its audience. I know a lot of people won't be along for the next game, but quite a few will, and I'm cool with that :)
 
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V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
I'm not sure it's more puzzle intensive than WOAM (96%)
I think it actually is, slightly, if only due to the fact the Gibbous is twice as long so you get twice as many chances not to notice the obvious thing.
I went out of my way to avoid moon logic as much as possible, and probably leaned too hard in the other direction.
It's not that. I have to agree with CryptRat here - a lot of the puzzles are easy not because they are easy to figure out, but because they are easy to bruteforce. If you had more items and longer puzzle sequences, while keeping the sensible logic, the difficulty would be much better.
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
I think the only way for an adventure game to successfully please the hardcore and casual fans (if the developers consider that something worth pursuing) is multiple difficulty settings. Obviously with an adventure game that's a lot of work because you're not just talking about an enemy taking less damage, you're essentially designing two sets of puzzles. It's just that trying to please both crowds in one mode is essentially impossible. Whereas a game like Thimbleweed Park can be hardcore but still appeal to casuals because of the easy mode.

I know that it's a lot of development resources to allot so it's not feasible for every team. Barring that approach I think it's best to pick a lane and stick to it. I think a game like Gibbous can grab a lot of adventure fans. The puzzles rarely stumped me but it wasn't an auto pilot mess like Truberbrook from earlier this year. I still had fun solving them.
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
V_K Yeah, it's possible. That's where we tripped ourselves up with coming up with custom responses for all possible combos. If we went up to Thimbleweed Park levels of red herring items, there is no way we could have afforded voice acting for the game.

GIBTUwR.gif


Double the number of items, consider that there's 60 such screens in the game, voice everything... You see what I am getting at. It wasn't the wisest of decisions in retrospect. However, I've watched some people play it on stream that are absolutely god-awful at adventure games, and the fact that they were still entertained while brute forcing helped. The hint system, while useless to any seasoned point and clicker, helped a lot, too.

Truthfully though, I have to own up to something: we did basically zero playtesting on this game. I know it's extremely stupid, but the reality of it is that nobody in our town / circle of friends and acquaintances has any clue what a point and click adventure is, so there was no observing other people play the game and learning from it. That only happened on the 4 or 5 occasions where we went to conferences, and since you always have someone asking you something etc. it didn't make for any useful information. The reality is that watching people play it on streams was my first time actually seeing how they react, where they get stuck, where they get antsy, and understanding where I goofed up.

It wasn't an "oh I'm such a good designer, playtesting is not necessary" situation, more like a "whelp, no one here to test it, and I'm wary of sending the build out".

That is clearly not the way to go, and it's something that is in bold letters at the top of my "absolute must for the next project" list.

E: Sorry for the gigantic gif, I've tried to use timg tags to make it a thumbnail but it doesn't seem to work.
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
Anyway, there's something that I'm very happy people resonated with: the fact that this was a labor of love. It was never going to please everyone, I'm sure some people expected one thing and got something completely different, but we're very pleased that everyone understood that Gibbous is the result of us giving it 110% for three years straight, sometimes for long stretches of putting in 12-14 hours a day. Which makes it all the more sadder when someone just takes a massive dump on your entire work, and their review reads like you ran their entire family over with a snow plow.

On the other hand, they are paying customers, so I'm grateful for that hard-earned buck they threw our way. Just takes a while to get immunized to some of the more, ahem, radical opinions. Maybe because we came into this doe-eyed and confident that us doing our best to make something cool would surely mean people couldn't be mean to our baby. Oh boy, were we wrong about that! :D

E: Sorry if I come across as bitter. I'm not, honest - the response has been above what we were expecting, and so were the sales. Not to the point that we are confident that we can keep making games, but pretty good for an adventure game launching on Steam in TYOOL 2019. And we are very grateful for that.:salute:
 

WallaceChambers

Learned
Joined
Jul 29, 2019
Messages
311
E: Sorry if I come across as bitter. I'm not, honest - the response has been above what we were expecting, and so were the sales. Not to the point that we are confident that we can keep making games, but pretty good for an adventure game launching on Steam in TYOOL 2019. And we are very grateful for that.:salute:

It's good that you're making a genuine effort to take stock of the complaints. But, yeah, definitely don't lose sight of the fact that most people who played the game enjoyed it. Myself included.

I really hope you guys get to make another game.
 

tenki

Literate
Joined
Jul 31, 2019
Messages
27
Liking: 2d artwork, setting, text, characters, voices.
Puzzles: simple & linear, whether pos/neg is up to player.
Great work, would recommend. Monkey Island take on Cthulhu.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
The hint system, while useless to any seasoned point and clicker, helped a lot, too.
Wait, there was a hint system? I was just going to suggest that it could be a good approach to both have difficult puzzles and make the game accessible to a wider audience.
It wasn't an "oh I'm such a good designer, playtesting is not necessary" situation, more like a "whelp, no one here to test it, and I'm wary of sending the build out".
It's actually really impressive that you managed to put out such a polished game without playtesting.
 

Pyke

The Brotherhood
Developer
Joined
Nov 29, 2011
Messages
1,196
Location
South Africa
Anyway, there's something that I'm very happy people resonated with: the fact that this was a labor of love. It was never going to please everyone, I'm sure some people expected one thing and got something completely different, but we're very pleased that everyone understood that Gibbous is the result of us giving it 110% for three years straight, sometimes for long stretches of putting in 12-14 hours a day. Which makes it all the more sadder when someone just takes a massive dump on your entire work, and their review reads like you ran their entire family over with a snow plow.

On the other hand, they are paying customers, so I'm grateful for that hard-earned buck they threw our way. Just takes a while to get immunized to some of the more, ahem, radical opinions. Maybe because we came into this doe-eyed and confident that us doing our best to make something cool would surely mean people couldn't be mean to our baby. Oh boy, were we wrong about that! :D

E: Sorry if I come across as bitter. I'm not, honest - the response has been above what we were expecting, and so were the sales. Not to the point that we are confident that we can keep making games, but pretty good for an adventure game launching on Steam in TYOOL 2019. And we are very grateful for that.:salute:

I've always believed the people can sense when love and passion is poured into a project. I can watch a film and know that the creators agonized over every decision, every line of dialogue, every cut. Games are the same. You can 'feel' when something is a labor of love, and people often respond well to that. The first in any series tends to be the best for this very reason. It is usually the piece that has the most heart.

Don't let the bad reviews get you down, but if they do don't beat yourself up about it! Knowing which critique to filter out is a skill that even seasoned professionals don't get right.
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
V_K Hint systems... Two of them, sort of :) But they are very diegetic. You can talk to Kitteh at any time about the situation (we didn't really tutorialize that since we figured most people would click her and talk at least once, to see what happens), and Don's Notepad (there's a pop-up in the bottom left when he adds a note to it, and there are audio cues for both adding new entries and scratching old ones out). To be fair, Kitteh is very vague and reluctant since she has to stay in character. Don tends to be faced with more complex puzzles, so hints in his case are significantly more abundant.

Since the game is a bit on the easy side, I didn't want to draw too much attention to the hint systems, figuring that if people were stuck they'd eventually bug Kitteh about the situation or check out everything in their inventory, including Don's notepad. You probably didn't get stuck too much and didn't need it. For example, during the more difficult
books puzzle in Paris
if the game detects that you're taking too many tries and getting stuff wrong, you are getting progressively revealing hints in Don's notepad. Same for the
Butcher's Inner Sanctum
puzzle. Obviously, a lot of people just didn't get what the notepad animation was about and got stuck without checking out the clues in there. My intention was to be as subtle about the tutorializing as possible, but in retrospect I probably should have left subtlety aside and had big-ass arrows pointing out important stuff on the screen (I've seen players who didn't figure out where the inventory is located, and at least one reviewer complained about having to pixel hunt, even though the "Press spacebar to highlight hotspots" prompt is the second thing you are presented with in-game... They probably were looking away or something).

Pyke Yes, I get the same feeling, and I actively seek it out. That's why so many of us love indie games. You guys' work is another testament to that.
Doing my best to stay optimistic, although a combination of the game being two weeks old today and August apparently meaning terrible traffic on Steam plus a broken air conditioning unit are conspiring against my sanity :D
 
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tenki

Literate
Joined
Jul 31, 2019
Messages
27

Liked it all the way to the end. Hoping for the sequel.

Personally found it quite cohesive, creatively bringing
disparate influences together; in funny and smooth ways.

Couldn't help but be reminded of The Curse of Monkey Island:
  • Generally making light of "serious" & absurd situations.
  • Drawing/Animation: cartoony, detailed backgrounds, colors?,
    even specific details - like the clouds in Fishmouth docks?.
  • Set pieces / Characters: voodoo lady gentleman,
    masked men guarding castle (cannibals guarding volcano)?,
    picturesque rustic area (Blood Island)?, bizarre final area.
  • References: what is a compass, impenetrable vegetation.
  • Stretching it?: bad-cookie(maggoty-biscuit) long-quest item.
Anyway, just drawing parallels to CoMI as high praise.

Of course there are many more influences and things to like.
Chances are, most players will resonate with something;
e.g. personally appreciated the <spoilers> Knot at the end.

Worth playing through a 2nd time, or see others react to it.
So many things to note... better to see for oneself. Even
left wondering: JohnCarmack/SilentHill/<spoiler> mixed ref?
Think it's an achievement, when a game gets you researching.

Again, puzzles may be simple & linear* compared to classics;
but logical and well presented. It is a difficult topic.
(* If only due to the linear progression of screens. Bigger
budget could mean bigger & open world => more complexity.)
At least there are actual puzzles; which is rare these days.
Personally think it avoided the click-to-continue fashion.

The ending is great. Just great. No spoilers.
Whoever didn't like it probably wasn't paying any attention.

Personal favourite adventure game in years.
This is not just a Cthulhu game; it is so much more.

Damn... was afraid to write this. Hope it does it justice.
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
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Yondo
Insert Title Here
Lesson learned: never, ever contract someone without some kind of recommendation in advance. It was really tempting to be able to provide so many languages at a fair price, and little did we know that entailed what we could do in an afternoon, that is running the text through Google Translate and calling it a day.
Although you seem to have run into some particularly awful scam artists I'd say this game would have warranted a higher quality translation regardless, there was no way you could have gotten this game translanted adequately while being cheap. Mainly becaues there's so many puns and the humour and plot is all in the dialogue, with a mediocre translation all the subtleties would have been lost.

Anway, I purchased the game after reading this thread and it is pretty good. The presentation especially is great and you can tell a lot of effort and talent went into it. I do wish you would have named the cat something other than "Kitteh" though, that in of itself is akin to a cosmic horror and I convulsed with revulsion every time it was spoken.
 

Mr. Underhill

Stuck In Attic
Developer
Joined
Jul 20, 2019
Messages
27
Location
Targu Mures, Transylvania, Romania
Hey Jack! THanks for supporting us. About Kitteh, it's mentioned in the game several times that it's a dumb name that illustrates just what a slacker Buzz is, but she doesn't give a crap about names so it's all the same to her
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
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Joined
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Messages
4,900
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Yondo
Insert Title Here
. About Kitteh, it's mentioned in the game several times that it's a dumb name that illustrates just what a slacker Buzz is, but she doesn't give a crap about names so it's all the same to her
Yeah, I noticed that it was being justified right after being brought up. Even so... If I put the criticism this way, I've gotten about slightly more than halfway through the game now and I've seen that you can do better. Names are hard, that I know, but if it isn't something witty then at least use one that can be spoken without being cringe inducing, especially if it is one of the central characters. If this gig is financially sustainable and you write another game that might be something to at least take into consideration. But this is a minor blemish on an otherwise very enjoyable experience.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
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Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hey, you know you're a real adventure game developer when you have a gaggle of idiots shitting on your game for stupid reasons!! You're a total success man!!

It's a great game, man. Congrats!!
 

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