Forge: Chapter One - Bug-reports, Requests, Suggestions

[abisso]

Please use this topic to report bugs related to Forge: Chapter One.

Try to be as clear and thorough as possible when reporting: where were you? What were you doing? Have you been able to replicate the bug or did it just happen once?

Feel free to attach screenshots, possibly using an external service like tinypic, postimage or imageshack to spare our websites' bandwidth.


We'd also like to know less evident flaws in terms of storytelling, atmosphere or usability. Also, suggestions and requests of features, characters, and situations to be included in the full game are always welcome!  

[tommyfuny]

Hihoooo i am a big fan of the old Loom game, and i wait Years for this Sequel from you. Every week i look for Updates, AND NOW YOU DID IT. CHAPTER 1 FOR DOWNLOAD oh my GOD!
I AM SOOOOO HAPPY!
But im from germany and my English is not so good.
Comes soon an Subtitle in German?
It would beeee soooooo fine

greetz
Tommy

[abisso]

Heya!

Well... the original plan was to skip translations for the Tech Demo, but have them for both Chapter One and, of course, the full game. In the meantime, though, lack of time and delays have convinced me to release the game without translations.

But nothing prevents me to add translations in the next months, which is something I'll certainly consider doing, also based on the requests received.

I'm glad you're happy, and I apologize for not making this happiness complete... but I already have a very good German translator: Mr. Selmiak, our webmaster! And he was very eager to translate the game, so there's a good chance this will become reality.

Stay tuned!

[Darkhar]

Well, just finished the entire game again. Must say I'm pleased with the new graphics for the characters, I think they're a big improvemment. Also nice to hear all the voices!About lacks, it may be because I've played it for much, but Im also starting to think the start gets a bit too story-telling. I'd take the the Yellow District expand. I'm concerned there is difficult to develop that kind of things, since the game is still missing artist, but if it's for concept... Yellow district could have the Aviary we hear from the queen, and maybe some interaction qith the poor prisoner.
Anyhow, hopefully the game will recieve more people now there is a big part to play for all. I'm talking about it to all the people I know interesed in videogames =D.

[GovernorEMarley]

Having a blonde moment. Where would the reward folder be hiding?

[selmiak]

Inside your Forge Chapter One Folder where you installed the game.
Make sure you have write access to that folder and it is no system folder.

[Zerointerno]

Hi!
Finally managed to beat Ch.1 Demo.

First of all I'd like to say the overall design and gameflow both feel much more coherent than I witnessed when I participated in the testng (the 2nd stage it was) happened. Pretty much liked the new portraits (especially the Mole) and the most of speech-acting. The new background along the tram ways rocks as well. Good work indeed!

However, I can't resist to give you a brief tester's respose concerning bugs, overlooks and suggestions. Not much of them, but nevertheless:

1. Deleting savegames function is still a bit clumsy. First of all, I think it is more logically to move this function into "save" submenu, rather than keep it in the "load" one. The second, although it asks for the confirmation, it is not very intuitive to use keyboard keys for I am supposed to run through the game with mouse only. I mean most of the players would prefer not to involve the keyboard and click the according letters with a mouse. It would not be a big deal, but if I try to click еру |N| symbol on a hunch - it punishes me via deleting the savegame anyway.

2. The game window is still headlined with "The Forge - Chapter one beta v. 2.0". The most major bug ever =)

3. When the last speech with the Magnates occurs Rusty ignores the player's commands to leave the location if he just spoke with the queen. You have to force him to step away from her at first to send him off. Come on, she isn't as attractive to keed him mesmerized by her proximity =)

------

Some notes concerning the voice acting:

- The lady who gave her voice to Sterling and Old Lady pretty much succeeded upon voicing Sterling, but lacked a persuasiveness at impersonating Old Lady. Yes, she is able to mimic the granny-style voice, but she loses the grip at the end of most sentences. She starts the sentence creaking as an old lady and finishes it with a clean voice, revealing she is as a rather young woman. It is notable. Speaking a little slower sometimes would help her as well.
- Some sentences by Rusty (can't remember the exact ones, but they are close to the end of the demo) notable differ in the recording volume. You need to do some normalization I think. Have to replay the demo again to say which ones I think.
- You have too much characters (most of male characters) voiced by the same person. Although he did a good job impersonating different voices, still they lack variativeness somehow and the similiarity is yet unclear but still felt. It would be good to give a part of those characters to some other actor (if you manage to find another one of course) I think.
_____

And yes, never mind the tone of the post. I am more pleased with the game than you may think, reading my endless complaints. But I never was good at praising, even though I feel it should be done.

[abisso]

Hello Zero!

As always, you're a huge source of useful feedback and a great beta-tester. You know, it's pointless to tell me:

And yes, never mind the tone of the post. I am more pleased with the game than you may think, reading my endless complaints. But I never was good at praising, even though I feel it should be done.

You should know by now that I'm exactly like you when it comes to criticism and compliments. And you know that I appreciate honesty and useful reviews. Also, no need to point out your appreciation of the game: what you did to help improving it is proof enough for me. 

Now, to answers some of your points:

1. Actually you can use the scroll-wheel to select the option (Y or N) and left-click to activate the currently highlighted one. It's a last minute feature, that didn't get documented in the game's manual. So you can use the mouse to do everything. Is this a good alternative to what you asked?
After all, the cursor is not even visible when the confirmation interface is on, and so I don't think is very intuitive to try to move it to select those options.

As per the Delete function in the Load GUI: did you ever mention this before? Cause actually it's exactly where the Delete function was supposed to be. I mean, this is definitely a bug which somehow survived all the Beta Stages. It's probably due to the fact with 50 Savegames available it's difficult to find the need to delete some.

2. *Facepalm*. It's one of those things that got overlooked, no matter how careful you are. Nicely spotted, anyway.

3. Queen Silica is very attractive indeed! There's even a Reward concerning this aspect, which no one seems to have found yet.
But I'll look into what you pointed out, as it looks quite surprising.

Sterling's actress: I basically agree to what you said. Anyway, finding a good and available female voice-actress with a decent recording equipment and the ability to do an old woman's voice is not an easy task. She did a better job with Sterling, but I think the Old Lady is quite ok as well. In case I find someone older though, I'll be sure to ask for a redo.

Rusty's volumes: as I might have told you, Rusty's speech lines have been the very last thing added, due to an issue with the recordings. I completed the audio-editing an hour before the game was available, and I probably did some mistakes. I'll be sure to fix those in the next release.

Too much characters, too few actors: I kinda agree. But recruiting, managing and editing voice-actors / voice-acting is one of the most time-consuming things ever. It's a bit easier to find suitable male actors than female ones, but still a combination of good acting skills, appropriate timbre, good recording equipment and availability to work for free are extremely rare. Edwyn "Omahdon" Tiong has my utmost gratitude for his amazing job in interpreting all those characters. He also did some editing and cutting and provided tracks of excellent quality. I'm talking just about him because he's the only one that interpreted so many different characters.

Not many people seem to appreciate the audio-quality in Forge, anyway. This is somewhat disappointing to me, especially because I've heard professional&commercial products with noticeably worse quality and bad audio-editing. I'm not just talking about speech, but surely finding good actors is fairly easy while finding ones that know how to provide clear recordings is not.

The only characters I tried till the end to have redone are the Younger Miner Guard (acting was ok, audio quality not that much) and Tram Miner B (same as above). Time was too short, anyway and I didn't manage to. I'll probably have them redone in the next release.
As per the rest, I doubt that it would be a wise thing to dedicate time and efforts on a redo.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Unai]

Well, hello everyone.

Just finished the Chapter 1, and I must say I'm very impressed. This was a great job!! Congratulations.

As far as comments and suggestions. I too have felt the voice acting is not of a consistent quality, but as you say there are comercial products that perform much worse. I guess you, just like me in Spanish, are used to some terrible dubbing in certain videogames.

One thing I didn't like much was the "humming" part of the old lady. The quality was quite bad and you could feel the audio was saturated. Also, I think you should add text like *humming tune* while she sings, because someone playing without audio (or a deaf person) would probably have no idea of what's going on.

Suggestions... well, the tombstone puzzle made no sense to me, even after I read the solution. Not sure if this is something you want to look into. It might be lost in translation, but I'd say my English is good enough for that, maybe I just didn't get the hints

Second, I was a bit confused with the transitions in the Miner's Guild. Some would lead back to the map, and others would lead to the next district... that was somehow confusing. I'm not sure if there would be a nice way of changing it, or if i was doing something wrong... (E.g. Transition from Red brings you to the garden instead of outside...)

I'm talking by heart now here, but I think the Prof says "there are four districts", then lists "the red one, the grean one, the cobble and gold, and of course the coal district", or something like that. That makes 5, but the coal district is nowhere to be seen... as I said, I wasn't paying much attention, so I might have missunderstood.

Well, I think that's it for now!

Again, thanks for this, it was a great demo

Unai

[Zerointerno]

After all, the cursor is not even visible when the confirmation interface is on, and so I don't think is very intuitive to try to move it to select those options.

This time I played in a window and it makes some difference. I never noticed the pointer is invisible. I just clicked N and my savegame was deleted anyway.

As per the Delete function in the Load GUI: did you ever mention this before? Cause actually it's exactly where the Delete function was supposed to be. I mean, this is definitely a bug which somehow survived all the Beta Stages. It's probably due to the fact with 50 Savegames available it's difficult to find the need to delete some.

My memory tells me that I did reported this bug, but sometimes it plays tricks on me. We can search through report topics to make it clear, but it doesn't worth the effort methinks. Let's consider it reported recently, it is not a big deal.

3. Queen Silica is very attractive indeed! There's even a Reward concerning this aspect, which no one seems to have found yet.
But I'll look into what you pointed out, as it looks quite surprising.

Hells bells! Now I feel like I missed a bunchload of rewads. MOAR REPLAYS!!!

In case I find someone older though, I'll be sure to ask for a redo.

I believe she is still able to do that job. But she needs to work a bit harder on developing the character and has to pay attention on not losing the grip at the end of each sentence. Funny thing, as Rusty casts a rejuvenating  schem upon her - she yields some sentences featuring voice with more successful impersonation of an old lady, although a bit younger voice could be explainable at that moment.

Not many people seem to appreciate the audio-quality in Forge, anyway. This is somewhat disappointing to me, especially because I've heard professional&commercial products with noticeably worse quality and bad audio-editing.

I think the overall audio quality is rather good. But sadly audio quality is the thing no one pays attention unless it is bad.

[Zerointerno]

Hmmm... I never managed to get Queen Silica reward, but I managed to get completely stuck when I roamed around her. Can't post a screenshot but it was an area right at the bottom of a walking zone and a bit to the left of her throne.

Additionaly, there are three selectable pillars in the same room. If I select one, then as I click another one Rusty proceeds to interact with the previously selected. It doesn't matter much if they are only for a decor reason though

[Unai]

I'm not sure about the pilars, but maybe they are like the lamposts where, even if there are 3 they are a single object, so Rusty always walks to the same point when clicking any of them. Right?

[abisso]

I'm not sure about the pilars, but maybe they are like the lamposts where, even if there are 3 they are a single object, so Rusty always walks to the same point when clicking any of them. Right?

100% Right. I understand that, while the lamp-posts are connected with a chain, the pillars are not: but they all count as a whole. And yeah, they're useless, but the room was so hollow that having some extra interactions looked nice. : )


As per Quuen Silica's bug, I'll try to reproduce it.

[Crusherhq]

At the End of Chapter One, there was a Bug, when Rusty was in the tram.
When he wanted to pick up the Flashlight, there was a Rusti in the Tram and one directly standing in Front of the Cart.

[abisso]

At the End of Chapter One, there was a Bug, when Rusty was in the tram.
When he wanted to pick up the Flashlight, there was a Rusti in the Tram and one directly standing in Front of the Cart.

That 2nd Rusty should be technically of the same colour of its background, and thus "invisible"; but on peculiar brightness / contrast settings he can be seen all the same.
So this can be certainly considered a bug.

Thanks for the report!