Here’s The Picton Files: The Peter & Paul Case by @jkj_yuio . Check out Brian’s review here.
Some things I liked
- I really like how the author gave us not only a quick rundown of the game’s concept and history but also a brief summary of useful metadata like features, genre, appx. length, etc. This should be done in general for all games (my own entry is no exception either).
- Despite how busy the interface is I really like how dialogue works with other characters (namely with Kit).
- I like how the characters of Picton and Kit are written so far. Kit especially is fun to talk with.
Some suggestions
Improving the interactive scenes.
For lack of better terms and labels, it’s really annoying to click on an image to have it enlarged on my screen just to end up clicking on an interactive object instead. It seems like this game’s made with a specific platform and I understand tech constraints are a thing, but this usability issue made playing annoying and I have a hunch other players will have similar sentiments.
Differentiate between interactive vs static images.
It’d be nice to know what’s clickable and what’s just something to look at. Giving them different-colored borders might be a quick fix.
Streamlining the UI.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think the interface could be streamlined a bit. It’s cool to see this hybrid setup where you can choose to interact with items through text or via point-and-click. But at least for me it’s overwhelming due to how many things the game makes me see all at once. I think focusing on a specific area of interaction (text vs images) would help but there might be a better solution that offers a compromise.
A question
Maybe it’s because I didn’t play the earlier game yet but why does Picton look straight out of Midsomer Murders and Kit look like she’s a friend of the week in Doctor Who? This isn’t criticism or feedback, I’m just curious because of how different their outfits look lol.
Wrap-up
I appreciate the production value here and the fun characters; looking forward to this one! (And as a detective fiction fan I’ll most definitely need to try out the earlier mini-game.)