So this is me and my friends first custom story ever made, but I hope you will find it scary, and interesting. -IMPORTANT- you need to have Justine expansion pack in order for the custom story to work properly. It is also very important that you are reading the notes. They are very important for the story. THANKS!!
The rating I give on this mod is 7. It is a high rating to hit on your first Story! Keep making more is my advice.
Let's get reasoning. First of all, let me introduce you to the things I rate on the story: The Scares, The Ambience Sounds, the room decoration, the monster AI level (based on path nodes), Puzzle style, the amount of oil given (it is a really huge factor of a nice story), the duration, the story, the monsters used and the effort put.
Let's discuss your story's pros and cons:
CONS:
- No real scares, only jumpscares.
- Very little or no Ambience sound at all.
- Poor room decoration
PROS:
- Nice monster AI based on path nodes (+1 grade - total:1)
- Key quests, but not boring & kinda hard ones (+1 grade - total:2)
- Nice oil amount (+1 grade - total:3)
- Nice duration at about 45 minutes (+1 grade - total:4)
- Kinda cliché story, but complex and nice (+1 grade - total:5)
- Unfortunately no custom monsters, but a variety of default ones (+1 grade - total:6)
- Nice effort put in the project (+1 grade, total:7)
ENDING UP: 7
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I am looking forward of seeing more stories from you and if you do some good job, you can almost easily hit a 10 from me! Keep the awesome work up!
Unbelievably boring key finding simulator. Extremely repetitive, monotonous key finding with the same scares used over and over, long open empty rooms for days, just awful attempt at a custom story. I gave up in the cell blocks as I just thought how ridiculous this was getting. This is how you don't design an Amnesia custom story. I will say that the story was at least interesting but gameplay is FAR more important than the story.
I don't really know what to say. I'm really rather disappointed.
These maps were huge and had nothing in them aside from a few lone pieces of furniture and no lighting to speak of or really any scripting aside from a few kinda badly done jumpscares. This would've at least been visually pleasing if there were lighting or fogs, and if you dressed the levels up a bit. No one's home is as empty as this. Unless completely, 100% abandoned and even then there should be grime and such. The maps were way too big. Spread your custom story over more maps that are smaller in size, and please, for the love of god, keep all your maps under 5 MB. There's no way to make anything run smoothly without culling from level fogs.
The effort put into this was very minimal. Which made me rather sad.
You did a good job with the monsters' path nodes. But you need to spend more time on things, work out a story and play with it for a little while. Play other mods and use the original game as a way point to how things feel. Play with the level editor and script functions a bit. It might take a bit of time to work out the scaling for levels. Almost everyone starts out with really big maps. With a little time and effort I'm sure you guys can make a really good custom story.
Positives:
- A few creative ideas here and there
- Story was longer than I expected it to be
Negatives:
- Very basic level design with zero details
- Cliché storyline we have all heard a thousand times before
- Story had no plot twists at all
- 100% key quests
- 100% jumpscares
- No music, almost no sound effects
- Monsters always spawn when you enter a certain area or pick up a certain object. Hiding spots are always nearby. Way too easy to escape/hide from them
Level design and scares:
You have a few creative ideas here and there, but besides that, the mapping is way too basic and every room is way too big. I don't know why every new mapper make rooms 3 times larger than they need to be. Instead of making huge, empty rooms and corridors, make the rooms smaller, or add more furnitures and details.
I would love to see more details, but also more work with the lightning. Every room was pitch black, or had a few candles here and there.
The only scare you made is jumpscares. I promise you, everyone with amnesia experience have seen that kind of corpse jumpscare a million times before. Not only is it overused, but it ruins the atmopshere. Jumpscares can work if they are cleaver and used in a good amount, but they should never be the only type of scare in a story.
Story and puzzles:
The story is also very cliché, but what ruined it for me is the fact that everything was so obvious. One note and I knew exactly what the story was about. No plot twists whatsoever. You guys tried in several notes to make it mysterious "what is this place?" "Who could have done this?" but it was obvious from the first note who the responsible was.
The puzzles are almost non existing. A story with the same quest (key quests in this case), used over and over again will also ruin the experience, because, like with the story, there are no surprises. Next time, add more quests. You need to find a code for a door, you need to find a secret lever, even the crowbar quest is better than using only keys.
Etc:
Silence. Everywhere, in every map. Add music and sound effects please. Adding appropriate music can make maps so much scarier.
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Conclusion:
You said it's your first story and it shows. Everything, level design, story, scares and scripting is very basic.
I suggest you practice more, and perhaps open maps made by other users and look around, see how they made their maps, see what opportunites you have. I think you can learn a lot that way.
I know the score is low, but that's because I rate every story the same way, regardless of the authors experience. It's not a bad start, you know the basics with scripting and level design. Now, improve it and your next story, if you make another one, will be better for sure.
Oh yeah, one last thing. No need to start a sentence with "but". Every sentence in the notes are very short. Instead of writing like this:
"I don't know where he went. But I know he is here somewhere."
Write like this:
"I don't know where he went, but I know he is here somewhere". Just a tip ^_^
2/10 - Very bad
Basic custom story where "you wake up" and there is an abandonned mansion in the XIX° century... No purpose, weak mapping, weak scripting, screamers (yeah, there is screamers in a custom story of 2015). Average custom story (average below the line). I can't rate above 5.