Awesome game, some constructive comments (SPOILERS)

[Watching Nango]

First off, congratulations on putting together a great story and experience. I loved the game; I’m a Canadian born in the 70s, and the fact that you included 70s Canuck money and speed limits in MPH was awesome, and really set the time period. The snow is all too familiar, and I liked the joke about how it was unnecessary to use the lawnmower at the mechanic’s house :)

I also loved the French Canadian aspect of the game, especially Rosaire’s accent.

A few things I would change (played it on a PS4 PRO, but here on Steam seems to have the best discussion):

1) I played the game the first time without using vehicles to get the achievement, and running was irritating. The “run for a few seconds then walk then have to push run again” drove me a little crazy. The way the stress mechanic affected running was annoying since I was trying to run all the time, and I would have preferred it to affect just aim, or lose heat quicker.

2) There’s a part at the Bedard house where you need to pick up Sylvie’s diary. On my first playthrough, Carl would pick up the diary. On my second playthrough, he inexplicably said "Carl wasn't desperate enough to invade a village woman's privacy" and would not pick it up.

I had no idea what was going on and kept trying, leaving, whatever, and it was only after (I think) I saw some empty beer bottles in the garage that Carl took the diary. Perhaps changing the dialog to something like “Carl thought he should search the area a bit more before invading a village woman’s privacy” would be a lot more helpful.

3) The map became harder to read as you went farther north (ie. past the ice wall). Carl holds the map the same way no matter where you are in the map, and as you move north it is angled away from view; it didn’t make sense why he would deliberately hold the map that way.

4) – at least I needed them. It kind of came out of nowhere, and if I hadn’t stockpiled painkillers I wouldn’t have been able to make the run. For someone who got to near the end and had used them all up, they might not be able to finish the game, especially if their checkpoints were all in the northern forest. Maybe having a small cache of health items before the end would be prevent that.

5) I’m sure you’ve heard this one, but the constant pausing / loading icon in the centre of the screen really breaks immersion. It would be great if you could find a way to pre-load areas as you approach them.

6) Last one is a bug – when I interacted with the 2nd last burning arrow (at the 1st Campfire past the Ice Wall) it prompted to take a picture, but then prompted to “Keep” or “Throw it away”, and it wasn’t added to the journal. I had to take 2 more pictures from different angles before it properly just said “Keep” and appeared in the journal.

It really is a great game, and I say that having paid the full $20 for it. Really looking forward to your next ones, and hope my comments might help in some way.

Merci!

[Jean-Francois Fiset]

Thank you for the detailed feedback! I'm glad you liked the game so much :)

These are very interesting suggestions. At this point, there are a lot of things that we can't change, but I still added everything you said to our list of suggestions, we never know ;)

I will answer a few of your points here:

2) The line can be a little confusing if you visit the house before the garage (where you find the small key to open the journal). We didn't want to hold players hands too much, but I guess this one would have been better with at least one clue. At this point, we don't believe it is worth re-recording though because it is not part of the main story.

4) This is a good point, especially if you are making a run without vehicles. There is a health kit hidden in the burned house, but if you run out of ammo or don't have any melee weapon, it can be tricky and frustrating.

5) This was our way to fix crashes and framerate stutters that would occur between areas. There are requirements for PS4 that require the game to run at least 30 fps all the time. Without the loading screens, the game would crash all the time. We are working on finding ways to get rid of them, but it's hard to say at this point if it will be possible for PS4.

6) I'll try to reproduce the bug on my end. Last time I checked, it worked fine, but it's usually the 5th arrow I find in my playthroughs. The order shouldn't matter though, but we never know.

Thanks again for the feedback! :)

[Jean-Francois Fiset]

I think I was able to reproduce the photo issue. I was standing between the tent and the tree and when I took the picture, I had 2 choices. I'll submit this to the team.

[Watching Nango]

Thanks for replying!

2) This one is funny – I actually didn't even realize that there was a key in the garage. I assumed that Carl changed his mind about reading the diary after seeing the hidden beer bottles and deciding the family wasn't as pious as he'd thought :)

6) Yes this is the arrow I meant by the 2nd last one, it would be the 5th arrow, and it definitely seemed to depend on where I was standing when I took the photo.

One question – is it possibe to escape the Wendigo on the snowmobile? When I was in the northern forest (on my 2nd playthrough) it seemed that there was some water I couldn't cross on the snowmobile.

[Jean-Francois Fiset]

Originally posted by Watching Nango:

One question – is it possibe to escape the Wendigo on the snowmobile? When I was in the northern forest (on my 2nd playthrough) it seemed that there was some water I couldn't cross on the snowmobile.

When you reach the river, there is a place where you can fix a bridge so that you can drive your snowmobile. However, as soon as you reach the Wendigo, you'll have to leave it there and after completing the vision, your snowmobile will be out of reach.

[Maire Alesian]

The title of ths thread sums up my opinion after finishing Kona.
I Bought Kona in late 2016. I was searching for a story driven walking simulator game like the ‘Long Dark’, which I also own. Kona is, however, a very distinct game all its own. It's 20th century Quebec backdrop is intriguing and allows the writers and artists behind the game to slip nuanced political and religious snippets. The starting to the game provides a Mysterious and eerie atmosphere to which is furthered by the remote Canadian Village town in the misted of a storm.

This is let down however due to imperfect controls in vehicles and weapons which are made worse by how the game feel in fast passed movement; in short, more work needs to be done to fine tune the controls.
Additionally, the solutions to some of the Puzzles are bizarre for example in the mechanic's garage the player is tasked with getting a bucket suspended from the ceiling, instead of getting the ladder under the table in the room or in the main house, the player climbs on the roof. Due to the nature of the Puzzles, there is only one way to solve them. The danger with this is that if the method used is a bit peculiar then it will make player spend time searching online for answers or running around in the game trying everything. In The future, it would be nice for some puzzles to have multiple ways to solve them.

Have I mentioned Vehicle controls? Yes. Well there ok. They are far more geared to crashing into things than getting you where you need to go. I have yet to go more than 2 minutes without crashing and that is in the car, the Snowmobile is even faster and more dangerous. The Designers tried for realism in how the car operates but the speed does not seem to correlate with the amount of acceleration the play inputs. It feels a bit out of control a lot of the time and imprecise.

The Game would have been perfect if
1. The Vehicle controls were precise
2. The Puzzles had more variety and were not as haphazard
3. The control, in general, were more finely tunned
4. The ending had never happened
5. The tone of mystery and investigation had continued
6. More Music in the Car radio, also a heater in the car.
7. Better facial Animation that old guy was creepy. (or you know have no faces)

Now on to the ending. The game went from a 'detective, survival against elements game' to 'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE GIANT BLUE THING game'. Great job on the monster, Cree warrior? I was too busy running to notice. Also, magic Wolves? Never mind keeping running!

In all seriousness, it would have been good in another game but it felt very distant from the Kona I tried in early access. In addition, given the control are imprecise running is made harder (was that the plan, to terrify me because it worked). I would have liked it to have an encounter with the killer that ended at Hamilton’s mansion (which you cannot get to) Overall, the ending is so different from the rest of the game the two do not work together seamlessly as if I would hope they would. In addition, I still do not understand the murder mystery so… I must not have been a good detective.

I love this game, I mean I bought it in early access when the word “Korea” was spelt “Corea” and Carl sounded like Siri. Nevertheless, I wished it could have been better. If this was your first project, and if you learn from it; there's no reason your next game won't be Fantastic

[Jean-Francois Fiset]

Originally posted by Stormstriker021:

The title of ths thread sums up my opinion after finishing Kona.
I Bought Kona in late 2016. I was searching for a story driven walking simulator game like the ‘Long Dark’, which I also own. Kona is, however, a very distinct game all its own. It's 20th century Quebec backdrop is intriguing and allows the writers and artists behind the game to slip nuanced political and religious snippets. The starting to the game provides a Mysterious and eerie atmosphere to which is furthered by the remote Canadian Village town in the misted of a storm.

This is let down however due to imperfect controls in vehicles and weapons which are made worse by how the game feel in fast passed movement; in short, more work needs to be done to fine tune the controls.
Additionally, the solutions to some of the Puzzles are bizarre for example in the mechanic's garage the player is tasked with getting a bucket suspended from the ceiling, instead of getting the ladder under the table in the room or in the main house, the player climbs on the roof. Due to the nature of the Puzzles, there is only one way to solve them. The danger with this is that if the method used is a bit peculiar then it will make player spend time searching online for answers or running around in the game trying everything. In The future, it would be nice for some puzzles to have multiple ways to solve them.

Have I mentioned Vehicle controls? Yes. Well there ok. They are far more geared to crashing into things than getting you where you need to go. I have yet to go more than 2 minutes without crashing and that is in the car, the Snowmobile is even faster and more dangerous. The Designers tried for realism in how the car operates but the speed does not seem to correlate with the amount of acceleration the play inputs. It feels a bit out of control a lot of the time and imprecise.

The Game would have been perfect if
1. The Vehicle controls were precise
2. The Puzzles had more variety and were not as haphazard
3. The control, in general, were more finely tunned
4. The ending had never happened
5. The tone of mystery and investigation had continued
6. More Music in the Car radio, also a heater in the car.
7. Better facial Animation that old guy was creepy. (or you know have no faces)

Now on to the ending. The game went from a 'detective, survival against elements game' to 'RUN FOR YOUR LIFE GIANT BLUE THING game'. Great job on the monster, Cree warrior? I was too busy running to notice. Also, magic Wolves? Never mind keeping running!

In all seriousness, it would have been good in another game but it felt very distant from the Kona I tried in early access. In addition, given the control are imprecise running is made harder (was that the plan, to terrify me because it worked). I would have liked it to have an encounter with the killer that ended at Hamilton’s mansion (which you cannot get to) Overall, the ending is so different from the rest of the game the two do not work together seamlessly as if I would hope they would. In addition, I still do not understand the murder mystery so… I must not have been a good detective.

I love this game, I mean I bought it in early access when the word “Korea” was spelt “Corea” and Carl sounded like Siri. Nevertheless, I wished it could have been better. If this was your first project, and if you learn from it; there's no reason your next game won't be Fantastic

Thank you for the feedback! It is indeed our first game and feedback is really helpful to us, especially when it's as detailed as your post!

There is one of your point that I can answer right now. The heater in the car does work, just not at 100% (because of the car crash). When you get in the car, Carl's body temperature remains steady (when below 25%, it goes up to 25%). Nothing in the game explains this though, so maybe this is why you (and probably other players) feel it does not work.

Anyway, thanks again! :)

[Pho3nix]

Very good points there Stormstriker021, I would have loved to reach a house / manor at the end to complete the game, had no idea it was going to be a wild goose chase with the "end boss".

Looking forward to any sequels / other projects!