Fingerbones: a short free psychological horror game inspired by Scratches

[David Szymanski]

http://videogamepotpourri.blogspot.com/2014/03/fingerbones-psychological-horror-game.html

I've created a short little psychological horror game that was heavily influenced by Scratches' approach to horror and narration. Check it out if you're interested!

[LazyFly]

Oh, I'll bite :) Will let you know what I think.

UPDATE: The depth of field kind of made my eyes hurt but I did dig the atmosphere, particularly the audio. Puzzle wise I think more could have been done to indicate what to do or when a goal has been accomplished (the doors unlocking after journals are read is a bit immersion-breaking and the keyboard could have gave better indication (visual or audible) of when the correct input had been entered).

All in all I envy your gumption and you did create a genuinely creepy environment.

Also, for those as paranoid as myself, the files linked in the OP are clean after rigorous scanning

Spybot - Search & Destroy
File Scanner 2.0.12.135
Log created at 3/5/2014 7:09:16 PM
Results Copyright (c) 2009-2014 Safer-Networking Ltd.

..\Fingerbones\Fingerbones.exe
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..\Fingerbones\Readme.txt
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[David Szymanski]

Hmm... interestingly, the game doesn't actually use a DoF filter :P. However, if you were playing at the default (suggested) resolution of 640x480, the AA does give a DoF-esque illusion (as well as add a little grittiness to the visuals, which is why it's the default resolution. I actually wanted the game to run at 320x240, but in Unity that's not possible without the use of render textures. A feature that requires the full $1000 version :P. It is possible to up the resolution, however, if players prefer a sharper look.)

Also, there aren't any doors that are opened by reading notes. All doors are either opened by the keyboard or by pressing a button in the environment

More feedback from the keyboard might have been a good idea :P

Thanks for trying it!

[David Szymanski]

https://twitter.com/AgustinCordes/status/441937458134282240

Agustin Cordes (the developer of Scratches) took a look at it, and thought it was pretty cool :). This makes me happy.

[David Szymanski]

neuroboy の投稿を引用：

I think perhaps Lazyfly might have meant Field Of View rather than Depth Of Field. The FOV is very, very wide in this game and this is really quite nausea inducing to me and I had to stop playing after 30 seconds! Sorry!

I usually find it the other way around - a very narrow FOV makes me feel ill (like a lot of games have these days e.g. Borderlands 2 on PS3 was unplayable!) but this game went to the other extreme. A shame, 'cos I really wanted to give it a go :(

Whaa?

Ok, that's weird. Yeah, I thought most people had the opposite problem, and it actually isn't that wide. Only 90, which some people consider the bare minimum.

I guess an FOV slider might be a good idea in the future. If it's not too difficult to implement. If it is, maybe I can find a happy medium between "too high" and "too low."

[David Szymanski]

Hmm... I see what you mean. I compared it with the game running on my own machine, and at both 1280x1024 and 640x480 I don't seem to get that much distortion (a little distortion around the edges is normal for 90 FOV I believe). But at 1280x720 I certainly do. I have no idea why :P. I tested it in the web player on Gamejolt.com, and and it seems to have similar distortion issues.

Perhaps this is a problem with Unity? Perhaps I did something wrong? I'm not sure. I will have to look into this. Thanks very much for bringing it to my attention.

[David Szymanski]

Aha. A few minutes of research turned up the answer:

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Camera-fieldOfView.html

The Camera FOV variable that I set to 90 is actually the VERTICAL FOV, and the horizontal FOV depends on the aspect ration. I believe 90 is already a little high as a vertical FOV, and when using a widescreen aspect ratio, the distortion would be compounded.

So, how will I solve this in future games? Not sure yet. I'll have to do a little more research. But, that's what's going on there. I thought it was 90, but in reality it probably is around 150 or higher.