Demo: Meadow, Perch, and Search Tips for Developers and Struggling Players

[AlyKat]

I hope this will help spare others who would like to enjoy the demo, or the eventual game, some frustration. This will be most relevant for keyboard use but includes generally applicable tips for the demo and future game tutorial.

A quick fix for helping players locate the meadow would be to have Aunt Jane's dialogue to the player read: "One of them headed to the meadow 'where Bessie the sheep is grazing.' Can you see if you can spot it?" instead of 'near our camp' which is unhelpful. This will ensure players who skipped or missed the cut-scene know where to look. The Search for the Burglar quest should read "in the sheep's meadow" instead of the nonspecific 'in the meadow' for the players who miss it in the dialogue. I recommend taking the opportunity of the player getting near the meadow *with sound effects of the creature* to teach players how to use Focus Mode to search for hidden creatures. The player will approach, hear the creature noise, the pop up "I hear it! You must be close, press Shift to Focus and search for it.” should appear, which implies that future searches for hidden creatures may be from audio clues. After a walk-through of the searching/finding progression circle, then do the grass-eating bit. Having the detailed instructions on Focus Mode as an extra dialogue choice when talking to Kristin makes it easy to overlook, Especially since you must exit the first dialogue and talk to her again to see Ask for Advice at all. It will also make a good tutorial for the true game.

For the Uncle Reg perching dialogue, the icon should either show Both the arrow and Shift or simply use the word Shift since the icon isn't clearly the shift arrow icon and pressing the up arrow zooms in but Doesn't perform the action he is looking for and will confuse players by making the game appear to be stuck. The dialogue should also include something like "When you're rested up press Spacebar to get back to it." or include it at the end of the 'Go take a look' line with "press Spacebar to leave the perch." “Press Spacebar to leave perch” should be a tooltip popup in the top left corner whenever perched but not holding Shift so players remember.

Having a menu option that says Save and Exit when the game Will Not Save is misleading and disrespectful of your players’ time. Either be upfront that saving is not an option and make a warning to that effect or make your demo Actually save the game.

I enjoyed the demo, after getting over the hurdles mentioned above. I look forward to the game's release and hope the developers listen to the feedback on their demo. There are multiple discussion posts filled with frustrated and confused players of the demo. Please, take my advice. Your current demo is costing you players.