I live in a mansion alone after my wife divorced me. I had kids too. I work in the wine industry every weekday and then have a peaceful slumber to awaken to the next day. But, that day it was different. Everything changed. One thing, don't believe the title. I'm surely sane why wouldn't I be? Well, let's take a journey shall we to prove I'm most certainly not mad.
This is a great custom story, that's sadly brought down by how buggy and sometimes unintuitive it can be. Let me go over the problems first. The first problem doesn't actually present itself for a while, the custom story starts off with a strong presentation. Don't expect top-notch voice acting as it's about what you'd expect from a fan-made mod without professional equipment, this doesn't take me away from the experience at all though. Anyways the custom story was going strong with your typical "mansion with a bunch of locked doors" scenario where you enter an area and find key items to progress (mostly keys :P.) You're trying to make sense of your current (insanity?) and find out what the hell is going on, the story eventually reveals itself slowly over time with good pacing! The map design I had no problems with, it was well done enough with very negligible gripes. Now... back onto the issues; the first problem presents itself in the graveyard level, the tree collision is unmodified from the original game which means it's very easy to get stuck/clip out of bounds. Thankfully the story autosaves so you can just reload if some bs happens, but still I find it odd how this wasn't addressed. The next problem is game breaking and makes me realise why the custom story got such a low rating, by far the most janky and unfinished... puzzle? The Church. After leaving the main area you get this sequence with a suitor where: what's supposed to happen is you run from him through a secret area, hide in a closet, dialogue plays and he will leave and break open the door you need to go through, as I found out via walkthrough.
What actually happens is: there's a chance he'll chase you into the room where at this point you have to die and try again as the dialogue probably indicates. If he doesn't follow you, you can play out the scene as intended, you go hide in a closet and the scene unfolds. Unfortunately the monster is given no AI or pathing, so he'll just bump into walls and objects a bunch and even try to break down the indestructible closets. So when the dialogue finishes and a key spawns, you grab it and now you'll have to do an exploit to progress, which involves putting yourself as close to the door as you can and letting the monster hit you, he will also break down the door. So yeah.... how this went unnoticed during "testing" is crazy, maybe it works as intended in the total conversion but in the custom story it certainly doesn't. So I proceeded on for a while anyways.
Another issue is the wine puzzle. The note you're given doesn't mention that you have to boil the water on the burner, ONLY the wine, so this was a pretty silly mistake, a bit of tinkering and you'll figure it out though. The final issue is when you first grab the hammer. You're supposed to smash down debris, but I tried it at first and it did nothing; turns out the hitbox is very specific and if you don't use the hammer on that point, nothing happens and I got stuck when I really didn't.
My final minor gripe is I find the orb piece placements a bit strange, but eh it's not terrible, it just sees like a few were thrown around as the author wasn't interested in making cool sequences for all of them.
Now with the negatives out of the way, I'll get onto the positives. I actually dig the voice acting. The main character, John has a pleasant voice, and whilst the other voice acting is passable at best, the guy with the fake british accent (crazy scientist) is also pretty good. The level design is fine, I had no problems with it, it's fairly well thought out overall with no super hard puzzles. (if only it were bug free)
My conclusion is this would've been a top-notch custom story if it had no bugs, but because it does, it leaves the story wounded and damaged beyond repair, if you go into this expecting bugs everything else about the custom story was great, I loved it otherwise, great story, premise etc. A damn shame.
Btw this custom story is crazy long, clocking in at over 2 and a half hours, so tuck yourself in if you plan to tackle it.
Неплохо для первого раза,но могло быть и лучше
Voice acting was absolutely terrible, and the maps were ugly. I was really into it until the terrible writing and voice acting game along.
I really like this custom story. Jumpscares and puzzles, all on point. And with the newest version I definitely recommend this
One of the best and unique custom stories I've played. The voice acting and the story really stood out to me. Most of the maps were pretty atmospheric too. Well done :3
Its a shame because this mod started out fantastic and was quite scary but the bugs ruined it. I was actually considering this a as the best story ive played in months until the bugs, and things not making sense started to become prevalent. Did not even finish the story because of the extreme glitchiness of one particular area.
Its worth a try i guess, especially since if you manage to avoid all the bugs, it probably is worthy of an 8 or even 9, but from my experience, I can't justify a higher rating
I tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.
(cuz some glitchy bullshitt stopped me)
Really sorry for this low rating, but this CS it's not tested. There's tons of bugs and glitches.
Missing blocks (you get out of the map), the monsters remain blocked (wrong paths, floor with invisible stair), glicthes on the walls.
I can ignore all these errors, only if the gameplay it's good.
The gameplay is ****** up with this glitches, it's really boring to discover "how to do" to bypass the glitch.
Cannot save anything here. Gameplay totally dead.
A total disaster!
I really liked this mod - Some puzzles were pretty hard to figure out, but everything else kept me playing. The voice acting was good and the music did contribute a lot to the creepy atmosphere. The level design was great, most places felt very alive and not empty at all. The story also was really good considering that this is "just a mod" and not an entire game. I'd happily give this mod a 9/10.
Positives:
- Some nice scripting
- A few areas looks decent
- Good voice acting for the most part
Negatives:
- The level design is mostly terrible
- Super repetitive gameplay
- 80% key puzzles
- A huge amount of glitches and bugs
- Can sometimes not hear diary readings because of the music
- Lack of mementos
- Often not clear what I have to do
Neutral: (Does not affect the score)
- I didn't like the custom music. It felt like a lot of soundtracks didn't fit the maps, or was way too loud which caused me to not hear the voice acting sometimes
What to improve:
Level design and glitches:
I know it's not "reality", but even so, the quality of the levels are really low. For the most part, at least. Some areas are decent, like the church. Other maps on the other hand are so glitchy and bad it makes me wonder if you even tested your story before you uploaded it.
For instance, a lot of areas have "holes" in them (floors and walls not correctly connected to each other). I went into a prison cell only to see that only half of the cell have walls around it. Are you serious? Then I look up at the ceiling and sees that it's made of 0.01 meter thin wood.
The worst bug I found was when I went into the church, the suitor spawned and a cave in appeared at the corridor I came from. I ran into the room and the suitor got stuck and couldn't do anything. Eventually, I decided to let him kill me so the chase music and his glitchy *** could go away. I respawned behind the cave in and could not continue.
Lack of mementos:
I have never been in the level editor so many times to finish a story as I did with this story. The lever puzzle made no sense to me, and many other puzzles seriously lack mementos or made no sense.
I turned three valves in the sewer and thought the water would drain. Instead, a key came down from the pipe. Since it was under water, rusty, and no memento was given, getting that key took way longer that it should have.
Another great example is the village map (with the graveyard). I found three ladders and had to place it against a wall. You gave me no mementos at all or no other hints where I had to place the ladder. I thought I had to climb over the fence to the graveyard and eventually decided to check the level editor after ten attempts to use that dam thing.
Gameplay:
Find a key, solve a puzzle, find a key, chase scene, use the key, find a new key.
It was really difficult for me to continue. If it wasn't for the voice acting and the storyline, I most likely would have stopped playing after 2-3 maps.
Every map is the exact same thing. You should variate a little more, or it gets really boring after a while.
Conclusion:
If you are looking for a story with great level design or intresting gameplay, this story is not for you.
However, if you want a special story with good voice acting, this story might be for you though.
All in all, the story is below average and needs a lot of fixing to be good.
4/10 - Okay