This Clandestine World: Build One
Added 2024-02-03 19:44:17 +0000 UTCGet it on PC here, Mac here and Linux here. There's an instruction manual and guide pinned to this post if you get stuck.
It's been a long time coming, but on behalf of Kal and myself at Switchverse games, we're proud to present the proof of concept demo for our second game, This Clandestine World! Set in the same universe as TRW in a city beyond Castlewood, this story follows Roman Graves and his exploits as a sex-addicted private detective.
Here are a few bullet points for your consideration:
-This is a very short alpha intended to be expanded on with new assets in the months to come. Each build will get bigger but you could probably finish this first one in ten minutes or so if you explore everything and don't get stuck.
-If the voice acting feels random as to when its implemented and when its not, it's because we're still working out how much we can consistently budget per build. We have also yet to cast anyone for Roman, so he's quiet for now.
-This is also our first time working in Unity! Kal has made huge progress as a programmer in a short time, teaching himself the software through Youtube tutorials and forums. But this is still new territory and any critical feedback about the gameplay and interface is welcome.
-On that note, story/character critical feedback is welcome too, of course. What do you think of the new characters? Especially our new leading man? We're very open to input. Anything about the game that you liked or didn't like is welcome if you'll share it with us.
-Since the launcher is new and has yet to be downloaded a lot, be aware that many antivirus programs may indeed assume it is the devil. For what it's worth you have my word that we are not attempting to insert our trojans or whatever the hell it is that viruses do now.
-We currently have no way to test the Mac and Linux builds ourselves. Please let us know if you have trouble starting them!
-Lastly, bugs! If you have any to report, please do. We have a whole channel just for that on the Discord server but if you don't have Discord access, the comments here will work fine.
And that's all for now! Thank you for trying out our game!
Comments
Right in the beginning, I almost got stuck because I was looking around for a cursor, and there wasn't one. You just have to click and the opening scene progresses. I'm glad you included the steps to walk through the demo, because I got pretty stuck without them. One thing I don't like about adventure games like these is that frequently you will be in a situation where you have no idea what to do and there are no hints and you can't go anywhere else until you figure out the solution. I never felt boxed-in like that in TRW, which is one of the great things about it. Hopefully you can achieve something similar with this game. I'll echo others complaining about how dialogue appears - as more characters appear the earlier characters shift position and on the long lines it re-flows, so the whole thing is unreadable until it appears. In the TRW game, the text starts at a fixed location on the left of the box and never re-flows as it appears. Since it doesn't move, once a word appears you can start reading it. The audio is good, but in the default mix the music is much louder than the dialogue. I would reverse that. I do like how the music gets quieter when there is dialogue, but the dialogue volume should still be louder. The voice acting that is present is pretty good. The backgrounds look nice, but the characters seem too "flat" in comparison. I would like to see more shading and depth on the characters. I don't like how the main character bobs up and down slightly when he is standing there. The animations are pretty good!
Deus
2024-02-19 19:18:00 +0000 UTCHey thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback! Glad the characters are resonating with you so far and we'll do our best to keep it up! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-10 08:42:18 +0000 UTCAngelo, That worked. opening the .zip with The Unarchiver allowed me to run the program (after the usual security warnings). Thanks!!!
Patrick Furlong
2024-02-09 00:40:18 +0000 UTCGood to know, I'll give that a try.
Patrick Furlong
2024-02-09 00:34:51 +0000 UTCIf you extract the file with the default Archive Utility it won't work. I used The Unarchiver to extract and it worked after that. You can download it for free off the APP store.
Angelo
2024-02-06 23:29:44 +0000 UTCI restarted the game to ask for the hint first. And assumed that I could have looked at the storage boxes. It just wasn't obvious that the closet was 2 sections.
Hexmage
2024-02-06 00:51:16 +0000 UTCYou should still be able to find the storage boxes if you interact with the promise signal, even if you have given Friday the chocolates. Let me know if you can't and I'll take another look at my coding. Thanks for the report :)
kaldonis
2024-02-05 23:54:50 +0000 UTCThanks for the report. I'll do my best to look into the problems. However I'm currently away for a couple of days. Without having a Mac myself I've got no way of opening the program.
kaldonis
2024-02-05 23:51:24 +0000 UTCI can’t get the Mac version working either. 2016 MacBook Pro. Monterey 12.7.3. “This application ‘TCW - Alpha Build - Mac’ can’t be opened”. It’s not a security block I checked that. No other useful errors that I can find.
Patrick Furlong
2024-02-05 17:21:43 +0000 UTCWe're going to try and figure that out for sure! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:57:13 +0000 UTCNoted! Thank you for the feedback! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:56:56 +0000 UTCNot too negative at all, we're after critiques. Thank you! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:55:42 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback! We'll keep at it and try and get those issues addressed!
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:55:24 +0000 UTCI may expose my ignorance here by admitting that I don't know what a web version of a game is or what the benefits of it are but anything's possible as we go. It's all a matter of what Kal can figure out on his own.
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:47:07 +0000 UTCDepends on how it's received and what we're capable of keeping up with as the project goes on. Will keep you posted!
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:45:44 +0000 UTCFor sure! We want to have a scene gallery at the very least in the future! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:45:14 +0000 UTCThank you! And thank you for the feedback as well! :)
Reinbach
2024-02-05 16:44:42 +0000 UTCSo I've just played through the demo and I have to say, it is really good. As someone with their own sex-addicted noir-adjacent detective getting involved in supernatural stuff I can tell you I found Roman really fun. He's kind of weird in the charming way all your characters tend to be, which negates some of the potential frustration that a guy who wants to just sleep with as many women as he can could cause. I like that we got to see some sincerity to him, and he doesn't seem to take himself too seriosuly. He's endearing. I like how organized and fastidious he seems, that's a fun subversion from the slobbish, barely holding it together stereotype I feel is more typical. Also, I enjoy how the rug in his bedroom kinda looks like a giant puddle of cum, nice design touch. Friday is a lot of fun as well, she's got a lot of personality and I like how her eating is so much of a thing. Also, Promise Woman is such a weird inclusion in so many ways, but I love her. She's very much the kind of random weirdness that's accepted as completely normal that I've come to accept from this universe. I hope we see more of her as the game goes on.
Sophia Dearden
2024-02-05 10:33:16 +0000 UTCI can’t get the Mac version to run, also seeing directories saying not to ship. Not sure if that’s part of it.
MAR
2024-02-05 07:35:10 +0000 UTCFound one bug. If you first give the chocolate you cant ask about the bulb.
Hexmage
2024-02-04 21:57:47 +0000 UTCGreat start, really impressive that you're doing this along with the comic! One thing that might be helpful is perhaps having the cursor icon change to know which objects are clickable?
crowspeak
2024-02-04 14:56:10 +0000 UTCA very promising start. Personally, I quite like that Roman is silent. For me it's more immersive if I imagine the main character's voice rather than hearing someone else speak. I agree with Graci that the animated dialogue is quite hard to read. I found myself just clicking ahead. I also agree that some kind of highlighting on the clickable objects would make it more playable. Other than that, it's looking great so far.
Spam_Happy
2024-02-04 10:03:45 +0000 UTCThis is a promising start! As feedback: - The way the dialog text appears makes it very hard to read, at least for me, If each part of the dialogue popped up at he same time instead of an animation I think it would be a great improvement. - I like the old school point and click! But I would recommend to add some kind of highlight to the clickable objects when the mouse cursor moves over them. - The MC walking animation needs a little work, maybe is because I'm used to point and click games that the characters are muuuch more smaller in comparison with the background and that makes me notice it more. To me, the speed he moves is like not coordinated with the movement of his limbs. I hope this did not sound too negative :-) This is a GREAT start!
Graci
2024-02-04 08:01:34 +0000 UTCThis is great! The humor is amazing as always. I especially love that you included dialogue for walking in front of the TV. The door knob was a funny and the inventory being the inside of his coat is really cool! Also, hearing OolayTiger's voice was a very welcome suprise. For actual mechanics, I had a hard time getting it to let me give the items to Friday and the signal light, maybe having an "interact with" bubble to put the cursor in would help. Aside from that one small thing I'm super excited to see more of this game!
Abundance of Radishes
2024-02-04 02:03:43 +0000 UTCSince you’re using Unity, why no web version?
MAR
2024-02-04 00:08:57 +0000 UTCalso any idea of how long the game will be ?
alex baker
2024-02-03 23:25:27 +0000 UTCwas not expecting voice acting i love that the only thing i would add is i would say like after every time we finish with a girl would be great opportunity for like a picture of them for like a gallery or something like that, love the animation..
alex baker
2024-02-03 22:57:52 +0000 UTCHey there ! That's a really nice demo you have here. I enjoyed it very much and I'm here to report 2 little things. I don't know if it is in any way easily "fixable" but : 1) the way the game slide to the right or left when we move seems to cause me motion sickness (which is rare in a game in my case). Maybe with a slide a little slower it will be better ? Just a wild guess. 2) the way the text appear seems to cause my brain some trouble too. Maybe adding something in the back, like a dynamic text bubble to have something to "put" the dialogues on could help. Again, a wild guess, I'm no gamedev, just trying to help. Anyway, this is a huge thing. You guys did great and the voices is a serious plus too.
Naelyth
2024-02-03 22:53:12 +0000 UTCMe too this is very exciting.
Patrick Furlong
2024-02-03 20:15:57 +0000 UTCI’M SO EXCITED! 🤩
Dutch Jackson
2024-02-03 19:52:06 +0000 UTC
