Hi, I've just finished demo from GOG, v.2.0.0.2
Before I get to the bug report, let me say that I liked the overall production values of Moebius and I am very much looking forward to continue playing. The music is excellent, as is most of the voice acting, dialogues, deduction/analysis puzzles (though they have been kind of simple so far), and graphics.
The biggest flaw of the game has been already discussed on the Internet and it is the same as in other 2.5D or 3D adventure games, including Cognition or Gray Matter. I'm talking about the sluggish animation loops. The response speed of the characters is usually very slow and the movement is often very stiff and unrealistic.
The similar issue is with the facial animations. I understand that these are probably the toughest tasks to tackle, especially if you're building your code base from scratch. However, I believe that rudimentary character animations, particularly in story-driven adventure games, hurt the sense of immersion and atmosphere quite substantially, specially in dramatic and action scenes.
I'll drop a few links here for your perusal:
http://techreport.com/news/20139/la-noire-developers-reveal-facial-animation-secrets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL9wsEFohTw http://kotaku.com/5803111/think-la-noire-has-impressive-facial-animations-check-this-out/all Needless to say, I'm hopeful that we'll see improvements in this regard in future games, as indicated by the little we already saw from GK remake.
Now let me recount various issues I found that might be worthy of a fix or an update for the full version, a patch, or your future games:
(a part-time tester here, sorry for being pedantic
*** (probably) FIXABLE GUI ISSUES:
1) I found the lack of the "Continue" option in the Moebius main menu noteworthy. I believe this option that simply loads the latest save has become a standard in adventure games a long time ago.
2) In GUI, almost everything has tooltips - except for the action icons and menu items. Since some of them (why not all of them?) have keyboard shortcuts, it would be nice to have tooltips such as "Phone (P)" or "Operate (O)". I believe it would help new players to pick up the controls quicker, compared to reading the help screen which is kind of hidden from sight. These control tooltips could later be turned off in the options menu.
3) Would be nice to have keyboard controls enabled for dialogues - simple arrow keys for navigating and Enter for selecting.
4) When selecting radio buttons for options in deduction puzzles, it would be helpful if the text attached to a button was clickable just like the radio button itself. This is a more user-friendly behavior that does not require users to aim solely for the tiny circle.
5) In the same vein as 4), when researching candidate historical figures during an analysis, I did not understand why the whole portrait (save the minus icon) was not clickable to display information about the figure. Would be more convenient on a laptop screen.
6) By accident, I found that double-clicking fast-forwards the movement animation, which is cool. However, this trick is not mentioned in the help or any tutorial line.
7) The Ecs key should work as a universal "Back" button - to close inventory, phone screen, analysis window, etc. Clicking stuff (if it is not necessary) is slow and cumbersome on small screens or when using touchpad...
8 ) The subtitles contain minor issues. I noticed a missing full stop and inconsistently used dashes for separators (-, --, and —). Also, it is slightly more readable to highlight words with formatting (bold face, color) than to use various apostrophes, quote marks, and grave accents (also used inconsistently from what I've noticed).
I also noticed that one tutorial line in Venice was in white rather than yellow font, and that some tutorial lines were lead by "TUTORIAL:", others by "Tutorial:".
9) When solving a deduction/examination puzzle, the final analysis text almost blends with the data point hints and is kind of invisible, especially on a laptop screen. From what I've noticed, this text could be conveniently put to the left box with the picture, which contains a lot of free space. That way, a bigger font could be used and the text would be noticed by everyone immediately.
10) When doing an item examination, individual data points seem to be ordered in fixed order, sometimes causing the active data point to be out of sight in the right vertical bar. On the other hand, when a data point is visible, clicking the "?" icon duplicates the text on the screen. This could be resolved by always displaying the active data point on top of the right bar.
*** COMMENTS:
11) I found the Malachi character model a little odd. He's got very broad shoulders but is otherwise very skinny. And when he walks, his knees kind of move outwards which looks... weird.
12) I expected a comment line from Malachi when I clicked a person in his phone address book because the cursor got highlighted over the person's portrait. But there's no voiceover. For example, the player has no idea who is Prof. Reed and why is he in the phone from the start. Maybe this is a demo thing?
13) The "Combine" icon looks a little unintuitive. Reminds me of a "Store" action or something like that. I'd use two arrows or intersecting shapes. Similarly, the context "Use" icon looks needlessly complex. I'd use a cog or a spanner but not both (let alone the little nut).
14) The line "That would draw too much attention." was missing voiceover.
15) Brunetta's line directing Malachi to the bridge was noticeably louder than other lines in the game.
16) When the player is done reading help, there's nothing to cancel. I'd change "CANCEL" to "DONE" in the "How to play" dialog.
*** CONTINUITY ISSUES (minor spoilers):
17) When Malachi inspects the FITA flag, he doesn't seem to know what the acronym means. But previously he read its meaning aloud when trying to look it up online. (That look-up can be missed though)
18) While I'm nitpicking, in Bianca's desk, there's a notepad. Malachi calls it a notebook
.
19) When I open a drawer in Bianca's dresser, Malachi utters two lines - one about assortment, the other about oversized gloves. If you open the left drawer first, the second line doesn't make sense, and vice versa. Looks like the first line belongs to the left drawer and the second one to the right.
20) Malachi doesn't introduce himself to Gabriella over the phone but she later addresses him by his name. (Could someone tipped her off?)
21) While playing darts, I was actually able to adjust for the draft and scored more points than Salim, including a triple 18. But he then announced his victory anyway
Okay, I hope I haven't overdone it
Keep up the great work!
Topic: Moebius Available For Pre-Order & Thoughts on the Demo? (Read 7740 times)
