Featherweight

[Da_Elf]

awsome as usual. i cant even finish one game and you just keep pumping them out

[TheJBurger]

Cool game.  

I liked the set up, I think a lot more than some of your previous games. I was interested to see the conflict play out between the robots and the featherweights, and intrigued by how the kidnap would take place. However, I think it was a little confusing how the game broke from the relation of the narrators after the introduction. I think I just expected those two characters to play more of a central role in the story.

I liked the gameplay premise in how you could keep failing, but never actually die on the way to your goal. The puzzles were nice and logical, except sometimes I would solve them through recurrent guessing and laziness rather than stopping and trying to figure out what was happening.

What I think I would've really liked from the story is if it expanded or revealed itself more during the rescue of the featherweight. Maybe get into some more insights about the robots, the war, the recon on what the robots are doing--just some information to add more weight to the rescue than just restoring the status quo.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot as another great game from you. Good job!

[Leon]

Right, the walkthough is finished. I must say, amazing how you manage to get so much atmosphere into one background. Very well done. Also the score of the Pfallers added again to the effect and the enjoyment. And of course well done to the testers to deliver a solid game! Overall again a beauty. There were some things I liked less:

- The puzzles were repetitive. Four almost identical ones with only brute force to solve them, except for the entrance door. I thought the solution to the puzzle next to 'hangman' could be found in the buildings in the background but no.  Also getting past the sentries wasn't very creative and repetitive. More variety in puzzles would be nice.
- The font, as said by others, is sometimes difficult to read and goes too fast. A few sentences were unreadable because I didn't make it to the end. Slightly bigger font or adjustable speed settings would be nice.
- Too short.
- I couldn't find any typos  Maybe because of the speed, I couldn't read it all. But who cares. I was great to play again.

[ThreeOhFour]

Indie: Awesome, cool to hear you enjoyed!

Markbilly: Thanks! I tried some new things when making these backgrounds, so I was interested to hear whether they'd go down alright, and it's good to hear that they work well! As for the pixel hunting, I made the items that the testers mentioned were too faint stand out a bit more, so hopefully you don't miss anything.

Leon: Heh, I do have other things to do - so much so that I had to really force myself to focus on this game and not get distracted too much! There were points that I doubted I'd even get it done in November, but it's good to get it released. Thanks for making the walkthrough and your suggestions - finding a font that is perfect is really proving to be quite difficult, but I guess I'll keep looking anyway. And yeah, expect some... different... puzzles next time around. As for the lack of typos, I'm sorry to disappoint  .

sthomannch: Cheers, great to hear you enjoyed it.

Crimson Wizard: Come on, trying to pick me up on things should stop after the game is released! And nope, one is enough - trust me, I've gotten familiar with making new threads in here . Thanks again for testing!

Disco: Thanks ! It amuses me to make evil robots that are also pink, so it's cool to see I'm not the only one who likes them.

Sebastian: I hang my hat in shame at this missed opportunity of absolute leetness. I suppose I am always destined to be n00by McN00bster

Arj0n: Thanks again for testing, bud

Anian: Thank you. Glad to hear getting a bit stuck with finding things didn't spoil your enjoyment of the game

CaptainD: Thanks, and also for the review on your site!

Bulbapuck: Cheers . I'm sure you all know how I feel about making longer games by now, so I'll refrain from commenting 

Ryan: Yeah, I know, I spent way more time on this than I was supposed to. Still, I reckon it was worth it. Thanks again for your testing, awesome script and putting up with me talking nonsense.

nihilyst: Heh, I remember seeing a screenshot for Companion back in the day and thinking "I wish I could do backgrounds that good  ", so it's cool to hear you say such a thing! Thanks for commenting

Clarvalon: Thanks! I tried my best to get the feeling of the world just right - to the point where Thadd's lines were done from scratch 4 times before I was satisfied with them. I'll try using the hotspot label font as the talking font in the next game and see how it works Thanks for playing and commenting!

Da_Elf: Thanks man, great to hear you had fun

TheJBurger: It's awesome to hear that the story setup worked better this time around. I'm really keen to try and bring my writing up to a higher standard, so it's encouraging to hear that it is starting to work. It would have been interesting to use Kadar and Eleele more in the game, and I can see how that would have worked... but I guess this is all so much easier to see once the game is done

As for the failing without dying, it seemed the most sensible option to do when Sebastian suggested that Thadd should be able to get caught. Getting caught over and over is something that a few people have mentioned as being frustrating, but as I try to avoid death in my games (mainly because I am a wuss and dying in adventure games often irks me if I feel it is unfair) this seemed a good compromise. Thanks for the comment, and it's good to hear you enjoyed it!

Big thanks once more to the Indiegames weblog for being kind enough to mention me, the AGS panel for a super fast rating and everyone who has played so far!

[Chicky]

Just finished it, awesome game. Very work friendly  i really liked the lengh and the strong BASS style atmosphere.

More please 

[Isxek]

Hi Ben - Is "Featherweight" the other big project you said you were working on before? Or is it another shorter project like "Awakener"?

Thanks

[ThreeOhFour]

Chicky: Heh, I never thought of the game as being 'work friendly' in length  . Cool to hear the atmosphere worked for you. As for more - it's already under construction (but probably not what anyone is expecting ). Thanks for the comment!

Isxek: Featherweight is a bit bigger than Awakener, but it's not the big project, no

[Chicky]

I wouldn't worry about the length of your games Ben (not that you are) because it means people like me get to finish them. I'd rather play a story split into episodes which each come to their own climax than a long epic i'm not going to have time to finish. I'm thinking more people will play your games this way. Also i just wanted to say that i didn't have any problems with the text or the puzzles, a hint to the pattern for the cell lock wold have been nice but everything else was fairly obvious (and very original!), maybe make the objects a little more pixelated (like the characters) to help them stand out. Sorry for the multiple post, i just really love your style.

[Isxek]

I wouldn't worry about the length of your games Ben (not that you are) because it means people like me get to finish them.

Hear, hear!

[ThreeOhFour]

That's a very refreshing change from "Make longer games!" 

Pixellating the objects is a good idea, I'll keep that in mind.

[Tonic Ink]

f'ing top job! (im stuck )

well done

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks

If you need a hint, you can ask here (someone may have already asked your question, even), or you can refer to Leon's walkthrough. Or you know, you can puzzle through by yourself .

Glad you've enjoyed it so far, though

[Lufia]

That was nice. ^^

But too short. :p I understand that people don't want to get involved in 30 hours long epics but isn't there a middle ground between that and 15 minutes long?

Nice work on the backgrounds. I don't think making hotspots more noticeable is really necessary given that a label is displayed on mouseover. If the big orange letters don't tell you there's something of interest there, I don't know what can.

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks Lufia, I am glad to hear you enjoyed the game

As for this "too short" comment who is basically an old friend of mine, here's how I see it: either I keep making short games which I release regularly and doing what I find fun, or I try to make bigger games (which I've tried, and haven't found fun) and fail and get frustrated and give up.

Apart from the music and sound (and of course lots of good advice and scripting help) most of this junk is done by me. And I have a short attention span.

So, don't think I haven't considered making longer games, and don't think I haven't tried making longer games. I'm still trying. But for the foreseeable future, my games are going to be short.

I hope that people will still continue to enjoy them despite this. (note, this big old whinge isn't directed right at you, of course - I hear this comment loads  )

Besides, there are loads of other really good freeware adventure games out there that are medium and long in scope  

Sorry for the rant.

[Helme]

Besides, there are loads of other really good freeware adventure games out there that are medium and long in scope 

I have the feeling that good short games attract a lot more attention than good longer games in the last time. Okay, Ben's game get a lot of attention because he already made extraordinary games. But for me it's a bit frustrating to see, that Ben's games or other good short game like 'Star Trek: Newton' have a panel review after a few days and other longer good games have to wait for months.

[Clarvalon]

Quite right.  You do what works best for you.  I'd hazard that part of the reason these games are popular is because they're short and focused.  It's also clear to see the iterative improvement between each release.  I played Shifter's Box again recently and, even though it's still a good game, the improvement here is quite marked.  The backgrounds and animations maintain (and in some cases surpass) the level of quality in Awakener.

I think Featherweight more than the others lends itself to an episodic model - it definitely feels like there's a lot more backstory and characters to exploit.  Also, in contrast to TheJBurger, I liked how the opening two characters were detached from the rest of the game.  To have started directly from Callaghan and Thadd would have narrowed the Featherweight universe somewhat.

The escape/peril music is pretty catchy, too.

[kaputtnik]

The escape/peril music is pretty catchy, too.

You just proved my point that 80s trash movie soundtracks will never fail! Alright!

[Cogliostro]

I was going to join the ranks of everyone who was begging for longer games, but then I realized that Chicky is right.  Sometimes having a great 15 minute game is EXACTLY what you want.  

Also, I really liked the interface.

Please keep up the great work.

[DrWhite]

Very nice work again, Ben.
I have to say I like the length of your games, and it´s also good to know your puzzles are never frustrating. So I never hesitate to download.

[Bulbapuck]

I forgot to mention this, which I found funny

Spoiler

Use bomb on barrel - results in: "it won't make a big enough sound"

[close]

...Or maybe it's the fact that it's 2am that is making me find it funny.

Once again, a great game!