Weary Witness - An interactive adventure game

uploading to my server ... will be about 30 mins or so.

http://alternatingfrequencies.com/vs/Weary-Witness.rar (394mb approx)

* my server usually works a-ok in general (american host - unlimited upload/download bandwidth)

Thanks a lot... Its working on my dropbox link also

Anyone played it yet?

haven't had a chance yet - just extracted & had a quick look to check it wasn't corrupted before I uploaded to my server.

although did notice you've used a lot of film clips / documentary type stuff in between each scene ... freaked me out a wee bit when I clicked one of the exits after the intro cutscene & it switched to a first person video of walking down an actual street

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Thanks a lot... Its working on my dropbox link also

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you're welcome

I've played it.

IMO the main problem I see IS the graphics / ANIMATION. But maybe it isn't too much important becouse I'm 3d artist and I'm not the best to critique that from a neutral point of view. Is it for a university project or for fun?

Now i played it too. I think this is very well done.

I'm going to continue playing later and write a longer, constructive review.

Could you please write a news article about this game?

Sure... Will do so soon

This game was fundamentally to explore new ways of teaching and understanding political conflicts And the idea was to get ppl above 40 - 50 years old, here in India to play it, that way it worked out well

There are loopholes since its still a beta and ya the graphics may not be great since i'm a film-maker and not a graphic designer, but appreciate if someone could help out with graphics, willing to pay!

Thanks for the constructive criticism

Just wanted to know @Marvel, what kind of news article? Something promotional? A review? Please let me know

So, I played it. In my critique, I will leave out anything about content, unless you explicitly ask me to mention this.

I will comment on: -The Storytelling -The quests -The graphics/animations -The alltogether-expression

The Storytelling is pretty neat. There's an obvious storyline, it's not that hard to follow. Unknown context (which it might be for some) is explained quickly. This, and the clips help to really fast identify with the main char, also creating an intense feeling about the happening. 9/10

The quests are obvious also. There's hardly any chance to fail, and it is at all times clear what is expected. This is a good thing for having a flow, which is also supported by the small areas, but as it's a game there's hardly any excitement created by the gameplay, but all by the clips. Your intention fulfilled, though you might just have made a full documentary, as to this. 6/10

Graphics/animations are simple, but have the right effect. I can't do any better drawing myself, so I won't blame you as to that. What you got is neatly put on the screen. Very effective, but unfortunately what I'm used to still has a huge jump on you. 6/10

All together it is a game defining itself rather about the clips and content than about the gameplay. This is of course your intention. But then: Why didn't you make the backgrounds photos, the animations greenscreen movies? I'd also change the title into "Weary witness: An interactive Documentary" or something similar. Still, you managed to create excitement, though the game was pretty short. That's why I#d give you an overall score of 7/10.

Thanks for sharing!

PS: You think that's a fair critique? Give me feedback also

as Peter said: it would definitely have been nice if you had used photos & videos as your scene backgrounds or for exporting single frames for creating animations etc ...

it would have helped with the general overall flow & feel of the game & I think it would have worked really nice with all the cutscene videos you have included

then again you would have probably needed to get permission from people & so on to be allowed to include actual footage/photos into the game.

You chose an unconventional way by wrapping your narration into an adventure game.

I have never been a proponent for a mixture in styles, but in this particular case, it works surprisingly well. No game with reallife videoscenes has ever become popular and the cheesiness of outdated interactive fiction of the nineties still sticks to them, but as I mentioned before, your inconvenient and in large parts provoking narrative suits you well, as you report about a prevailing political plot in disturbing pictures.

Why not consequently stick to video animation or enhance your game with 3d graphics? For me the answer plainly reads: I wouldn't have played that game. Your mixture (or to be more specifically: clash!) of these two styles, the innocent drawings and the out of place video scenes caught my attention. I remarked, how well you redraw the characters from your video scenes and wanted to step deeper into the plot.

Unfortunately, this is where the biggest lack in your game occurs. I was very pleased with the beginning, where the protagonist is located at a junction and (don't know if you did this by chance or on purpose) one exit leads to the Arab quarter and the opposite exit to the wailing wall to encounter various Jewish residents. I expected to get drawn into a complicated conflict, where you are always confronted with two opposing views on the same matter an finally have to recognize, that there is no such like the absolute truth. That would be my understanding of a weary witness. Your protagonist could have collected sufficient background information, so the player might receive an unprejudiced view and develop his own morale sense on this difficult topic. Currently the player moves mainly through the Palestinian dominated circles while the interaction is increasingly reduced to respond what the Arabs want to hear, otherwise you are stuck.

You seem like a strong advocate of the Palestinian cause and want to spread their good intentions with an interactive description. However, the confirmed adventure player will feel harassed by the lack of options, especially in the end (without too much spoilering) where any unpleasant answer unexceptionally results into a game over.

Nevertheless, I find your project promising and you definitely put a lot of effort into the creation of your game.

Regards Florian