You and your family just moved in a new, beautiful scottish mansion, that you bought on auction for a small price, full of uncovered and mysterious secrets that are waiting for you. The seller of the house was old, and he eventually died after your dad bought the house. The second day of living in your new house, your sister and your mother went to a trip to visit your grandparents... In Paris. You and your Dad are alone at the house, but you noticed something strange... where is your dad? Where did he go?? You will need to find out, but something is lurking...
Overall, less than mediocre mod. Only had fun in the first few minutes of it, before annoying things started to pop up.
The description of the mod is false advertising:
"Nice design"
Mapping is subpar at best, and really bad at worst. See bottom of the review for details.
"Interesting story"
This stub of a story is cliche, underdeveloped and the ending is very rushed. It has a atmospheric premise, but it doesn't build upon it.
"Challenging and fun puzzles"
Some of the puzzles are straight up unfair, the very opposite of fun. Not challenging, just unfair. See bottom of the review for details.
"Almost no key hunting"
At least 60% of the gameplay was key hunting.
"And pretty much more..."
The scripting is really lazy. E.g. the crowbar doesn't break the door, but it opens it like a key.
The monster scares which you made are really dumb.
If this was your first Custom story, I wouldn't mind most of this. But this is not the first time you released a mod, so you should have already learnt to avoid at least SOME of those mistakes.
I hope you use the criticism from this review to improve your skill and this mod.
The English is mostly correct. The sound was simple, but atmospheric, I liked the rainy vibe.
And the game didn't crash, so I'm giving it a 3.
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Appendix 1: Why the mapping is subpar
Bad usage of assets and none of the rooms make sense. The billboards are terrible; the windows would honestly look better without them. If you wish to make them look good, check the comments for a tutorial link.
The blue lights which you are using for moonlight (I guess?) look extremely out of place and unnatural.
There are many glitching and intersecting models, and you're mixing assets which should not be near each other - e.g. wooden and plaster walls in the same corner.
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Appendix 2: Why the puzzles are annoying
Things appear and disappear without a reason when you interact with some objects. For example an item appeared in some place I already checked before. I was sure there wasn't anything in there, so this was annoying.
The book puzzle is extremely obscure. Asides from the information about the room in which the book is, there's nothing to indicate which one it is.
Make the book stand apart at least, there's even a special model for this puzzle.
Also the key from under the vase glitched through the wall cause I smashed the vase, and I had to replay the whole mod because of this. You should hide the key under something else and add checkpoints to this mod.
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Appendix 3: Minor broken things
-The colorful lights don't disappear after picking up items. Also they're too on-the-nose.
-You don't need to include the music from the original game in your download.
-Instructions.txt also seems like a file which you should remove.
-The map from the thumbnail isn't even from this mod.
Ok...I gave you a mercy 5. purely for encouragement. I finally got it to play after deleting hotel 1 mapcache
The story is only told by notes, which consist some weird grammatical choices and expressions, which could probably fit better inside a dialogue rather than a note. The story did not offer anything really, it did not explain why the player's dad decided to install a secret mechanism for example, and it's pretty much just full of unrelated events, or rather events that do not have strong connection with each other. The ending is very cliched, as well as the fact it's all centered around an orb.
Basically we are only told a plot, and not a story.
The level design is lazy, with lights leaking everywhere, as well as walls and stairs overlapping each other.
The billboard placement is clipping through the windows and the floors.
There is also that weird blue ambient that doesn't make much sense.
Atmosphere isn't really there, but I can appreciate the fact you tried to craft one with ambient sounds.
One thing I can suggest is to read tutorials on the wiki, as well as watch video on some basic level design theory, so you can make something at least decent looking.
Now probably the worst part of this mod are the puzzles, especially that bookshelf puzzle. You literally used a random book without any features that will point that this is a book the player needs to interact with. Really, I was lucky that I found that book in the first place.
One thing you need to understand is that making an object unclear or hard to find, doesn't mean it's a good and challenging puzzle. In fact it's a chore and it's frustrating.
Also, that crowbar puzzle: C'mon, you could at least make that right, instead of using a door unlock sound on it.
In conclusion:
Pros:
-I've seen worse level design, but this one does not offer a good one either.
-You've made a decent attempt to craft an atmosphere
Cons:
-Overlapping walls, weirdly sized entities, unnatural object placement, leaking lights and billboards everywhere.
-Really uncooked story, and an unoriginal at that.
-Lazy puzzle design
I take it you didn't have a time limit for this mod, but instead of trying to release it as soon as possible, perhaps you need to go back to the drawing board, or maybe even re-read a few tutorials.
yes
Not gonna lie to you. This was pretty bad. But everyones gotta start somewhere. I believe you can do better tho. ;3
no good
This is good custom story, I like it. I dont know why It's so bad for others... good luck with other mod! :)
joke custom story
Nonsense, glitched and ultra cliché.