Scratches

[Tomsess]

Is your plan to stay at the Myst styled adventure games in the future, or maybe some third person view adventures?

[Agustin]

Scratches isn't Myst-styled! ;D

But I know what you mean, and no, we have a couple of projects planned that would make use of third person view. We will make at least two more first-person games though (one being "Untitled Adventure").

We have about four more game concepts right now :o

[Möwe]

:o Wow, sound great! I love people with plans for the future! ;)

[axelkothe]

I guess we'll have to wait for these 4 projects to become actual games quite some time. But I, and I think most will agree, prefer to wait than to play a rushed release, where you can feel that the developers should have been given some more time... its often just a release a few months too early that ruin a perfectly good game...

[Möwe]

you' re darn right!

[Agustin]

Absolutely, these are strictly plans, and some might never come to fruition. Right now we're totally focusing on Untitled, and we'll make sure that no problems appear this time (such as some Pentium 4 issues with Scratches). We're in a better position to work more calmly (but steady) with a proper team so we're not expecting too much "crunching" ;D

[HIddenSanctum]

After being released to a wider anounce and getting lots of player feedback beyond the beta testing, is there anything about Scratches that you wish you would have done differently? For example, it seems like a lot of people missed many of the subtle clues to the story.

[Agustin]

Yes, I think we would have made the puzzles a bit more friendlier. I don't think they are unfair (except maybe the painting puzzle, which wasn't so problematic anyway) but they required way too much patience, which is severely lacking nowadays. I'm not complaining - this might surprise you, but I don't think I would find the time myself to play a game like Scratches right now! An example of this is that many people complained about going too much back and forth - the interesting thing is that wandering around was nearly minimal if you carefully read all the notes and planned your next move.

But other than that, we're very happy with the outcome of the game. The final incarnation follows very closely the original idea we had of it, and even exceeded many of our expectations!


PS: Scratches was all about subtleties in the story, and we would have never changed that!

[HIddenSanctum]

I agree about the patience factor. Walkthroughs are way too easy to obtain nowadays, so patience is no longer something the player HAS to have.

[multitimbral]

An example of this is that many people complained about going too much back and forth - the interesting thing is that wandering around was nearly minimal if you carefully read all the notes and planned your next move.

Back and forth - that's part and parcel of being an adventure player. I'm quite convinced that this is an age-related thing... the younger the player, the less time and patience he/she has! Where's the fun in finishing a game in one night?

Having played adventure games (and other games, of course) since Monkey Island 1 (with 16 colours!!!), I just loved the look and feel of Scratches... it was an old school adventure game that I've missed for years!

[HIddenSanctum]

What was the deal with being able to zoom into one of the pictures in the hallway?

[Agustin]

We simply happened to obtain a portion of it in higher resolution and decided to use it somehow. Actually, the two first pictures of the upper hallway can be zoomed in. The picture of the madman in particular is an easter egg - have a careful look at it during the dream sequence (yikes!)

[multitimbral]

If I remember correctly, there's only one painting in the house that you cannot take a closer look at... ;)