The Mysterious Device
The mysterious device is up for Beta-test
A strange package is sent from Professor Natuli to our hero. It's content lead to an unexpected and mysterious adventure in alien (and not so alien) worlds. The outcome of the events can alter the apolyptic course our reality is on. Yeah, taht's right - you can save the world.
Classic point'n click style of adventure game, with puzzles, mysterious environments and elements of resource and tool management. Only works with mouse and keyboard input as of now.
Be adviced that the game is still in Beta, so playing is still at test level.
Any feedback is welcome - here, at Discord (Realplej) or email: realplej@pm.me
Development log
- Beta test for 'The Device' availableNov 15, 2023
Comments
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Really nice Lovecraftian atmosphere -- very cosmic!
Thank you - glad to hear that you picked up on those Lovecraftian notes - definitely a source of inspiration for the game ;)
I think there's some overlap between your game and Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes The Awakened (2023):
Wow, thank you that looks interesting.. How could I miss that? It looks really nice, tentacles and the Lovecraftian colours on the ad B) Seems available both on steam and PS as well - must try it!
I think your game shows that you don't need 3D graphics to make a good game
Thank's a lot, youre too kind - as the creator I cant speak for my game, but I do I think that many of my best game experiences have been on 2D games or on lower graphics. I think it has something to do with the imagination being more active - like reading a book versus watching a movie of it.
Btw got the Sherlock game on sale for PS - if not debugging, I'll try it next weekend :D
Er.. I hope you got the 2023 version of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening. Forgot to mention that. The other two versions of it are very much not as good...
Sinking City which is another Lovecraftian game from Frogwares, which is really good. I think it might be the game where they introduced their fantastic "mind palace" mechanic.
Oh, I guess not :D probably that's why it was on sale. It doesn't matter though, tried the introcase with the destroyed paper yesterday and will definitely continue! Yes, sinking city is another splendid Lovecraftian game, had many hours of fun with it. The mind palace and putting together clues in scenes dynamic was great. Would love to see a remake of Dark corners of the earth. Not all that puzzly, perhaps, but such a good storytell
I finished the game but seemed to bypass the temple / control room -- there's a pillar that turns and seems to require some kind of key and a sort of disk on the ceiling that is supposed to connect to it but I never saw those get any use.
Congratulations! Im glad to hear there was no game breaking bug. I will get to the one in the labyrinth , though. To use the rotating pillar is not necessary to complete the game as you discovered, more like an easter egg, feature ;)
Dang, now I gotta redo that part..
Glad to hear ;) I'll solve it and upload a new dist as soon as I can but may take a couple of days, have a lot at hand here - Iäll try to find some time during this upcoming week
After you return, you can reactivate the machine and go back.
After that, if you climb the pyramid, the back arrows don't work.
Oh, you mean after the game is finished, you can jump to Kokteh again? Will look inte that, thanks a lot for these bug reports, it's of great help. You kind of get blind to your own game and it's hard to find bugs after a while.
I also must ask, did you get the short route through the game (jump to one world and then come home), or did you get the long route (go through several worlds? There is a bug that is so perplexing and I haven't gotten my head around it. Sometimes you can just walk up the pyramid and go home. without need to see the other places
Wait, there's more than one alternate world?!? I just jumped to one world and then back. I need to explore more!
Yes, there are more than one... It's kind of tricky but you can activate the device and make the right settings to portal off again. Once you've done it and got the settings in the notebook (small paper bits are moveable - hint), it's easy to do again. If you try and get stuck I'll help you out ;)
Thats how you could got back to the world and pyramid again. If you do the whole game the device can not be activated after returning home. I have not been able to understand the bug that makes it possible to pre finish the game. Many players who get the short ending seems to have a decent experience anyway so I've left it at that and hasn't lifted the game out of Beta status. It's been a while since last tampering with it, maybe I'll see something new looking at the other bugs. Maybe, maybe a string value connected to the device, as you saw something there, it's a trail I haven't analyzed so far...
Cool, I'll explore more!
Hey, I'm in the maze but I can't get out of the room -- I think it's the entrance room. Clicking on the arrows doesn't do anything. I have my save data if that helps...
Hi,
sry it has taken a while to reply, my mail marked the itchio noftification as spam :/. Hm, it sounds like a bug. If fyou see the arrows they should be clickable and lead to a new room/screen. Did you also get the arrow at the bottom? I have suspected there is a bug lurking somewhere in the labyrinth, but has not been able to reproduce one. Did you walk around a lot before getting stuck? If youre still interested I can have a look at the save file,
I did walk around a lot. I got to the end of the maze and realized I left the required object back home (trying to avoid spoilers here). I got back to what I think is the start of the maze and there are four arrows (one of which is at the bottom) but clicking on them does nothing.
Here's a paste of my save file: https://pastebin.com/jJ1BRb5h
Btw, the discord link doesn't seem to work. Server expired?
Thank you, and thanks for the save file it will help me look into it. Oh, and I'll look at the discord link too. Haven't been working on this for a while so things fall apart...
OK, enter the maze, go forward and then back. After that, the arrows don't work.
Great, yes, there it is! I've been test running that maze so many times, but missed the closest door, off course. Thanks a lot for the patience and help!
I love these kinds of games; I own a large chunk of Artifex Mundi's catalogue.
Mouse-at-edge scrolling in games needs to die a fiery death. It's cumbersome and unneeded.
That said, the only issue I encountered was being able to pick something up that I couldn't use, had no inventory space for and seemingly couldn't put down.
Ha ha - have a large bunch of Artifex Mundis games to, Secrets at Serpents creek are one of my favourites, but there are so many ;)
Would it be better to put up arrows at the sides (interface block) or something to scroll? (A pro tip is that you can press left mouse button when at the edge - then scrolling is faster)
Ah, yes it's possible to get into a dead end in the game like that,. With all item slots full and picking up a new item. Don't know how to tackle it. If it was just possible to drop an item, it can be anywhere at any screen and that'd be a nightmare to set up - with dependencies to scripted events and progress in game, etc. I added more save slots than just autosave, so you can backtrack if you end up in such a situation (and extra spaces in the shed toolwall). Also good if you warp to a place where you cant refill fluid, and don't have enough fuel to warp again.
Thanks a bunch for the feedback, it's really valuable!
Alice's Journey is the one that hooked me. I still play it regularly although I can almost play it with my eyes closed. But there's just no way I could rank the best ones! I do like the gimmick in one series (I think your character is Susan, aka the Warmistress). Plays through similarly to any other although you have a liaison that helps you out in their world to a minor degree. In the bonus chapter, you play as the liaison in roughly the same events.
An indicator of some kind might help some people but I'd probably never be satisfied with any edge scrolling. I have two major issues with it that I don't think can be surmounted: 1. I have minor sensory issues and the screen scrolling on its own just because I moved the mouse out of the way is irritating. 2. It's too slow when you have to cross a screen width and/or too fast when you just need a little movement; it just doesn't reflect what I'm going with the mouse. I've just never found any edge-scrolling setup to be comfortable. I've never even used Windows' Taskbar auto-hide. I did find the speed-up-when-holding-left-mouse gimmick. But I found it when I tried to click something at the edge which made me miss.
If the right mouse button was unused, I'd request a right-mouse-drag if possible (preferably with the ability to mirror each axis). That works for me because there's a direct link between the mouse and the movement making it deliberate.
As for inventory, I think it would be a tremendous help if you could just set it right back down in the same spot. Not pull something out of your inventory and put back (because I could see that messing with scripting) but set the item you just picked up back down so there's no chance of getting things out of order.
Love Alice´s journey - It's been a while so I might just have a go again! :) Was the one with Susan where she had a cat as a helper? I don't remember exactly. ..
I see your problem with and what could be aimed at regarding scrolling. I'll experiment a little and see if something can be done with the right mouse button. When adding touch screen support it's easier to utilize just one button, with click and double click, but will look at it.
I see, the opportunity to drop an object while your at the same screen could maybe be done. Maybe with a double click, as with the keys in the beginning. If not all objects needs to be mapped in order to reverse it. I'll try some things...
Thanks for the suggestions and ideas, I really appreciate your input!
Happy further hidden object and point n click gaming ^^
Dang, it's been a while since I was on itch. Running a business and all...
Susan was in the Lost Lands series. Which I now know why I had trouble finding it. Lost Lands is FIVE-BN, not AM. Still, they do pretty good work as well.
If I ever get a little caught up, I'll be more than happy to try it again!
Aht, that's it - thx! Yes, they're also good. I have had a lot to do with work and a book manuscript, but when things calm down I'll have a look at the Device - and get to play some old goodies also ;)
Very buggy game. not replaying
Sad to hear, did U experience bugs right from the start or where? This is a Beta, but some testers have played it through and deemed it stable enough. Some issues with interactive flow at some places was noted as well as a possible bug with the load/save function, but it was not game breaking.
If it's to buggy I'll take it down and make an overhaul
Items get stuck in the middle of the screen. Navigation eye gets stuck, can't move right or left, then unfreezes in a few seconds. The box with dials doesn't work the second time, so couldn't continue to discover more bugs...
Sorry to hear that, and really awkvard. None of these problems have shown when hosting the game at my own server (realplej.se), apart maybe for the box (the device?), when you use it several times you have to do some calibrating to it again, and adding fuel,.. I will see if maybe some of the problems are due to porting the game to itch.io. Thx a lot for the feedback and game testing, it's very helpful!
The game should be pretty stable, nut beware that it is a Beta. So consider playing still to be at a test stage. Feedback is dearly welcome! Aiming to add touchscreen version in the near future