Comments - PostScript

Who the hell are you again?

DEAD

"Are you talking of yourself in 3rd person?"

Of course. ;-)

Absolute agreement from me. Post Script was overambitious, without a doubt, and suffered for it. Nestlings was slight, but much tighter.

It is? How fascinating! No one told me, and I'm making it!

This looks very interesting indeed. Watch watch watch!

"We have a preview from the almighty Rockpapershotgun and one from Eurogamer coming out later in the day"

And one from Resolution Mag already up! Resolution-magazine.co.uk

(Just thought I'd drop that in there, y'know?) ;-)

-Lewis

Hey folks.

Current situation: I'm working on something over the summer which is very exciting indeed, with some other people who are very exciting indeed, after which I'll be working on a reissue of Post Script with two other people who are bloody awesomely exciting (and have some very, very special mods under their belts already) and will no doubt turn this into something very special.

That's all I'll say for now. It's gonna be a "done when it's done" project, but it *WILL* get done.

Thanks for giving it a go, at least. I'm sure you understand that it emerged from a project to create a game in three days, which is why it's intentionally short-form. As for it being a waste of space on your hard drive: empty your recycle bin and I think that somehow, just somehow, you'll be okay.

Fingers crossed, exciting news will be forthcoming. Cheers for your patience, guys...

I actually don't mind the text at all. Reminds me of classic survival horror or adventure games. Penumbra did it too, I think?

Design progress is going just fine. Dan "Dear Esther" Pinchbeck has been chiming in with excellent ideas. I am in need of a "proper" level designer, though. Are you one? Get in touch!

Murdouken: Really interested that you found it to be a cliffhanger. Nestlings was written as an entirely self-contained story. Post Script is the ongoing one, and will absolutely be returned to.

I wonder if something in your own interpretation of the vaguities of the narrative led to you feeling this way. The way I wrote it, there are obviously things left hanging - what /are/ the nestlings, for example? Are they real or hallucinatory? Are they metaphorical, or do they really manifest as an outward realisation of inner turmoil? Why do they only seem to appear in this location? - but the focal point of the story is the tale of the scientist and Annabelle. And that one is totally tied up - in my mind at least. What they did, and what happened to them, is pretty much solidified by that final scene.

Thanks for playing!

There are parts of this I really, really loved. The introduction was probably the best I've seen in any mod. Properly authentic and beautiful. It comes back round to stuff of that level of quality at times, too, but I couldn't help feeling a lot of it felt rather incongruous. Much of the humour fell flat for me, especially when the primary origin story was a tugging-on-heartstrings one. Just didn't quite seem to click. I got lost or stuck a couple of times, too, when the route should have been obvious but wasn't signposted well enough.

I really do look forward to Ep 2, because this shows a hell of a lot of promise. Something just fell a little short this time out for me.

Anyway, I've written up a full review over at UserCreated (http://bit.ly/c8bEHs). Best of luck!

Wait, you're calling Robert Yang a nerd? Pick your fights, man. Come on.

Oh, wow. Probably should have backed up, eh? There's a lesson you only have to learn once...

Yep - the demise of Modmatic was one of the things that led to me conceptualising UserCreated a while back. Obviously you guys were quite specific in the sorts of mods you covered - as in, Half-Life 2-only, single-player only, pretty much released stuff only. Our spread's wider, but if we can hit the same quality, I'll be pleased.

Thanks muchly to the ModDB guys for being kind enough to pimp a competitor ;-) Although we're not really pushing as direct competition. We exist because we spotted a gap that seems to fit neatly alongside ModDB - as in, this is the sort of place you come to check out the news and which new mods have been released, and UserCreated is the sort of place you go to find out what someone else thinks about that news and those mods.

Cheers to everyone for checking us out, as well. I know it's all a bit work-in-progressy at the moment, but we hope to build a really nice community around this thing. We're already planning regular-ish events where we can have online games in some of the best MP mods that aren't getting much server-attention, so keep your eyes peeled for more info.

Thanks again,
Lewis Denby
One of the editorial monkeys at UserCreated.org

Oh, man, I didn't realise it was you guys doing Visage as well. Good stuff!

I thought this was mainly absolutely exceptional. Reminded me a lot of Penumbra, which I've read was one of the big influences. In some ways, I think it's stronger, though - that there's no way of fighting really heightens the horror. Pure stealth and horror go really nicely together.

I also think you absolutely nailed a distinctive, vivid aesthetic, too. The lighting and use of colour are outstanding, as is Jesse's sound design work.

Alive, certainly. Have seen what the guys are doing with it - it's looking neato!

I absolutely agree with you about the way the story was told. I go into quite a bit of detail about that in the dev commentary linked above. Will certainly have a think about improvements in that respect.

Don't think I mentioned yet - I also recently made a mod in three days. www.moddb.com/mods/nestlings - actually think it's far, far tighter than Post Script Ep 1. Do check it out and leave some feedback!

You might be interested to read the developer commentary linked above to find out why things are the way they are. It's five minutes long because it had to be made in three days. And I talk about the idea of using game engines to tell stories in a way not usually associated with games.

I agree that the reading notes system is conceptually flawed, though, for various reasons. It's something I'd like to return to and brush up if I had a brainwave in the future.

Thanks for playing, all! And Merry Christmas!

Oh, man, I was working to a three-day limit! I looked at it, panicked, and zipped up. Sorry, Mr. Yang (and merry Christmas!) :-)

Sorry to have ruined Christmas.

My warmest thanks to the nice human who rated this 1/10 when there is absolutely no possible way they could have played it yet, as the file was still in the upload process when the rating was registered. That's a nice move.

gvazdas: Already noted. General point to everyone saying "fix this" or "fix that" - do have a read of the latest news post, as it explains what's going on in updates.

Assassin 17: When you say there's no skybox, I take it you mean no 3D skybox? One of those, and a correction of lighting issues and the story's introduction, might go some way to improving it. I'm already aware of this. See the big news post above for details about what's going on.

As for making it harder and adding NPCs and weapons, well, I suspect you're looking for one of the several action mods listed on this site. Post Script isn't a "game" in the traditional sense, so there's a good chance some of the reason you thought it was terrible was down to your simply not getting on with this genre.

The one in the screenshots? It's already there! You just have to search around for it. :-)