Reviews - Kreekakon

Mapping/Setting:

For starters, there is a lot of of great mapping in this mod. Hallways are well detailed with no shortage of interesting room designs. There is also a great deal huge set pieces which frankly are not all that often seen. Nothing much more to add, because it's just flat-out good in most areas.

Scares/Atmosphere:

There is a new(?) monster in this mod, and I think his disturbing appearance greatly contributes to the fear factor in this mod. His disturbing design is one of the main things that I dreaded facing while playing this mod, and one of the greatest sources of my fear.

There is no shortage of ambient music, and sounds in Eternium. A lot of which is custom it left me wondering if some cues were pre-scripted, or just coincidentally aligning with my actions. Either way it caused me no small amount of paranoia.

Storytelling:

The story is told primarily through notes. There is a surprisingly good amount of clever writing in many of the notes, and at least one line had me chuckling at how clever it was.

However the story just doesn't feel like it has any life to it. The concept of the story is a good one, but when you only almost have text as the only way of telling your story explicitly, then it loses charm when there's nothing much to haul it up besides notes. Voice acting, or events in the world may have greatly strengthened this aspect.

Gameplay/Puzzles:

The monster timings in this mod I feel were very adequate for the most part.

There aren't really that many complex puzzles in this mod, and many of them are quite straight-forward rarely having a huge twist, or turn.

I will have to say though that quite a bit of the level design, particularly in the second half, can be extremely confusing. I sometimes would find myself lost, and have to circle around for a very long time.

Full review turned out too long for me to abridge haha, so just visit here for the full review: Frictionalgames.com

Full review: Frictionalgames.com

Mapping/Setting:

I'll start off by saying I think you did a pretty decent job in this respect. It wasn't really anything awesome, or mind-blowing mind you, but I think you captured plenty of the settings quite nicely enough. I can see several places where you tried very hard to add variety to the maps, and I applaud you for that.

Also a lot of great standout moments in set pieces are really good!

The level design however has a bit to be desired, and I'll note a bit of that below in gameplay.

Scares/Atmosphere:

This was for the most part done VERY well, both atmosphere, and actual scares. Custom sound helped a lot in this aspect. The atmosphere was in certain parts absolutely chilling with moderate use of jumpscares as well as subtle happenings in the background.

Storytelling:

Maybe I didn't find everything, but I personally found the story incredibly hard to follow. I really had not too much of an idea what has happening. I could kind of guess where the story had gone, but not enough clarification was given to make it satisfying alongside self-interpretation.

The parts that i did get however, which were mostly in the front half of the mod I felt were delivered fairly well without too much glaring issues. For sake of a spoiler-free review I'll refrain from commenting on them for now.

Gameplay/Puzzles:

The puzzles I really enjoyed. They were mostly riddle-ly, and were easy enough for me to figure out by my own while still retaining satisfaction when I did.

The level I feel could get positively confusing at many times however. More than once I was completely disorientated from some hallways looking far too alike, and had to spend a good amount of time re-acquiring my bearings. It's not a huge issue though since it usually doesn't take incredibly long to do so.

Oil, and tinderbox placement was perfectly adequate I feel, and well balanced (If it was intentional that is)

Mapping: The thing that I think suffers most in the mod is your sense of lighting. There are multiple levels, if not all which lack a boxlight. This will cause many things to difficult to see, and makes the lantern a MUST in these cases which is not a good idea if it's such the case for all maps.

Overall indoor mapping is okay in my opinion with a few tweaks needed here, and there as well as addition of more detail. Also be sure to mess with tile values so they don't get repetitive.

Outdoors mapping was quite lackluster as there was very little detail throughout the whole thing. Add vegetation, rocks, or the sort to liven it all up a bit.

Story: The premise of your CS I feel like could've been expanded upon to make for something interesting if you decided to flesh it out, and make a believable environment. However, in your CS we are treated to little, or no backstory on what exactly the castle itself is, with there only being slight nudges such as the sacrifice chamber. It's just not enough to intrigue a player into being interested about what exactly is happening in the castle.

I haven't played part 1 yet (Actually I'm unable to because my internet hates the moddb Gamefront links), so I might be wrong on some aspects. However I cannot deny that this chapter lacks a lot of plot.

Gameplay/Scares/Atmosphere: I think the gameplay might benefit a bit better from more interesting puzzles. You did add other stuff other than keys, but most of it are just placeholders for them which are still technically just "keys". Thankfully the gameplay is fairly straight forward, and you don't have to worry too much about getting stuck. I still wish you added mementos for what the character was up to at the minute though.

There "was" an atmosphere in the story I'll give you that, but nothing really happened much besides the monster encounters that stood out in my head.

Verdict: Okay mapping which could do with several improvement mostly being in the lighting, and story sections

Mapping/Setting: For the most part I enjoyed this section quite a lot. There were a lot of brilliantly used set pieces, and most of it was structured very nicely. I especially like some of the sewer levels as they were done brilliantly in the mapping section.

Scares/Atmosphere: Sadly the actual scares is when this review might start taking a nose-dive. Many of the scares are jumpscares, and while several others are not, some just have cool concepts which are poorly executed in way that causes them to lose their intended purposes. Actual scares were definitely a weak point in the mod. There were a handful of decent ones though. Just more bad than good.

The atmosphere on the other hand was in my opinion done great. Not masterful, but it was done very good.

Storytelling: Unfortunately this is another low point of the mod. The whole mod is basically a "Wake up in an unknown place" except in a hospital. The story is largely absent in the mod, and you barely have any interactions with the plot, or any hints towards it. While I'd say the whole story is "resolved" at the end, the entire story was still extremely poorly executed in my opinion.

Gameplay/Puzzles: I like the addition of a few interesting gameplay mechanics such as the flashlight re-charging one. I do have to be puzzled at why there seems to be a few extra ones like a phone, and choice making at the start of the game, but later simply vanish. Did you think that they weren't worth it or something?

As for the puzzles, I think you should've given the player a bit more hints, and nudges as to where such things you need might be located so they aren't lost all the time.

Verdict: A lot of interesting settings, and new gameplay mechanics is brought down by confusing gameplay as well as a poor execution of story. 6.5/10

Full un-abridged review here: Frictionalgames.com

I just played your mod, and I'll say my thoughts below:

The main thing you need to improve on is your mapping, and lighting. The lighting is very unnatural in many places with there being huge lights on the ceiling, but complete darkness on the ground. Also, there are quite a few mapping issues too.

Another thing I'd like to note is that try not to make notes speak to the player. If you have to, put something like "If you find this...", otherwise it feels weird.

As for the plot itself, I didn't rally get pulled in there. The plot is nothing special really. I wouldn't even call it a plot. I'd mostly call it "standard issued" motivation, and that's it.

The levels themselves had a decent amount of detail at least, so I'd say good job on that part.

All in all, I'd say your mod isn't horrible, but definitely needs a lot of refining.

Gameplay: This should probably fall into two segments: Combat, and Puzzles.

The combat in short...it has too many weapons, given the length of the mod you will be unable to utilize them all successfully. The guns are okay in this aspect, and you should be able to find uses for them always, although you'll be using the pistol the most due to its abundance of ammo. The melee weapons however are way too many. The Sledge hammer is useless, and once you get the knife, I doubt you'll be using any other melee weapon.

Now onto the puzzles: I actually enjoyed them quite a lot. There aren't that many, but all have their solutions hidden subtlety in places which aren't extremely hard to find if you try. Best part is they will make you feel like a genius when you solve them, which is what I think puzzles should always have implanted in some form.

Horror Aspect: I have to say the opening segment of the mod is one of the creepiest things I've ever played for some time. It set up as a great taster for what might have followed. After the game starts the front half will start to build-up more, and more as you figure out something is wrong with your world; I thought this was done well too, even if it did have jumpscares (Which were effective ones BTW).

However after the mod passed its halfway point...I don't know. the sense of tension was all, but gone. There weren't even any mildly disturbing moments anymore. I can't help, but feel the developers just rushed out the ending segment without putting much thought to it. To make matters worse, the plot, and buildup was never resolved, at least not in my book. Which brings us to the next part.

Plot: Oh man, oh god, oh man. I don't even know where to start with the plot of this mod. It is obviously the greatest con in the entire mod. I did not find the story gripping. Motivation was very weak throughout.

For the entire first half of the story, you have no idea what you are doing. You aren't even given a basic premise to go on about.