Guild of Writers

My fourth Age is just about ready for explorers.
Here's the link (as at 19/5/21)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdvuc4m4xf4uj ... 3.zip?dl=0

Please let me know what you think.
If there are no matters arising I will submit it to Diafero next week.

Skydiving is encouraged.

Thank you Semjay! Of course I could not resist . I have not solved it all but I did the first 'task' and then ran around, jumping and running into walls and puddles etc. No bugs found so far . It is a real alien place an a bit scary . I will not spoiler anyone here, can just say try it out folks!

Semjay, I have no idea how you're maintaining such an impressive output so rapidly, but thanks and congratulations. I enjoyed this one; quite a lot to see and inspect.

Since we're betatesting, here are a few notes:

Show Spoiler

- First thing I did was to run around the entire perimeter. Climbing both the ladders on the back side of the compound ended with the avatar more than knee-deep in the upper surface. At ground level, I was able to do a couple jumps to get my feet back on soil, but on the scaffold I couldn't move onward and had to drop back down again. Second time I came back to this area, neither ladder showed the same symptoms.
- Your graphics are wonderful, as always. And congratulations on the excellent particle work!
- No collider on interior red-line or purple-line signposts, didn't check the ones outside
- After powering up and using the basement compensator units for green and purple, went to the meeting room and clicked on Sam's book, then of course taken to Relto. On return, the Age was in its initial powered-down state again, power off. BUT after setting power on again and returning to the Instability Compensator Room, those two machines *were* indeed regarded as 'solved' and showed no clickables. Maybe your SDL is tracking the five machines properly, but not the power state? Confirmed that your SDL file is installed in its proper folder.

Hi Semjay,

I responded to your PM. It is funny because now that I read the description left by Emor D'ni Lap, I'm wondering: "Did I really explored everything?" I guess that is why you need a lot of beta-testers because each will find nuggets that other won't find.

Here's the part of that said PM I deem shareable, I kept only my overall impression of the age:

Show Spoiler

I went yesterday and it was a great fun ride and a great joy to return to your lore. The age is really well-made. I love the whole experience from the climbing on the different ice/glass structures to the 'Er'cana'-like passageways in the underground. Everything is really well-secured, I haven't found any hole in the design so far. I visited every corners (apart from the few mistakes found by Emor D'ni Lap ;) )

It is tougher to walk/run outside the fenced wall than within the enclosure for the obvious reason that a misstep and you are on your way to your relto.

Every texture is really well designed, I liked the underground part a lot. The storyline is simple and straight-forward, we know in a few sentences of storyline what we must do. The puzzle is really intuitive. It can be solved by any seasoned explorer without them having to scratch their heads for hours! The sound effects seem right in all instances. There is one steep slide in the outer region that if by happenstance you find yourself there you cannot climb back to security and the only way out is your relto or hit /a to respawn to the start, I would say between the red flow and the purple flow.

And the age is well inserted inside your lore with nice touches like the job opening in the store in Tovaht Bay and the same characters Sam and Pip still leaving one another post-it notes :lol: . I found the latest shirt for Ahreesen Melin as well somewhere in the underground.

Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to test drive for me.

I have made quite a few changes, both visible and "under the hood."

I have had real trouble with the footsteps sfx on that ladder (you know, the one with the water splash fx halfway up) and have been unable to fix that. The other thing is the sky rotation is not a constant speed and I have been unable to fix that either.

But I've done pretty much everything else.



I have amended the link in the first post (above) to the latest version. Do take another look,

Many thanks everyone!

I visited it the other day, it's very well done ! Nice ambiance, and solving puzzles with the notes scattered everywhere is fun. I managed to complete it without any bug, so that's cool. Well, just the sky animation which is a bit strange, but well.

Hello again Semjay, nice work on your new age, a bit different to your previous work but fun to play all the same. I was wondering if this age is an expanded test age, all builders have one, they get so full of objects & experiments that they turn into a full playable age. Well done, all the best.

Clever usage of the ball pushing animation

Congrats Semjay

your new age is wonderful. I have had a lot of fun to solve this awesome puzzle.
I like the animation at the beginning. I realized that it was the same animation as with the stone in the watcherspup.
That is incridible cool. I think that can we only do with 3DsMax. That is a a little bit sad. I would realy like such animation in Blender.
I like also that we have to get power first befor we can do anything.
All in all you give us another great age.
As Sirius said, the horizon and the water is a bit fast. But hey, i love this age.
The machinery, the pipelines feel a little bit like steampunk and that is what, i realy like.

Greetings
Dulcamara

This is hopefully the last update!

A few more minor bugs have been fixed and I added more sign posts for those who got lost.

I have updated the link in the first post above.

Thank you everyone for your kind comments and enthusiasm.