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decourcy2
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  • 3 weeks later...
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I just finished my first game of Scheherazerade. I really enjoyed it! The storyline was really interesting, and I am looking forward to playing through some other endings. Compared to Academagica, it is much more user friendly and less complicated, but there's still a learning curve involved.

 

A few suggestions for improvement:

 

1) At least on easy mode, it would be nice if a challenge in a caper had some kind of way of telling you that it was a make-or-break one which would end the caper. I see this when hovering over the caper itself (showing the make-or-break ones in red), but there's nothing during the caper itself.

 

2) The game does a good job of telling you when each journey is scheduled to begin and end by using the journal and through clever events. However, it would still be nice to have some kind of note at the top of the screen saying something like '3 days left in India'.

 

3) While in India, I somehow managed to mention that Ahmose could turn to dust BEFORE I had gone through the other India adventure which revealed that Ahmose could turn to dust in the first place. This probably shouldn't be there, as it's a pretty major reveal for that storyline.

 

4) The game shows you which location has a rest (-15/-20 stress) effect, but it doesn't mark down the locations that have a -5 stress effect. Once I found one, I started hunting for them as they were more useful than the rest ones. However, it was hard to remember where each was. Having a similar symbol for them would be nice!

 

5) It would also be more user-friendly if the symbols of each caper/rest were found next to their symbol on the map, rather than mousing over them. That way, you could follow a caper more easily. It's a minor complaint, but making the game more user friendly can't be bad.

 

6) My biggest complaint: sometimes I left a caper - occasionally because I was journeying to another country - and then came back to it later. When looking at the list of challenges for it, there was no indication of which ones had already been completed. It would be nice if completed challenges were shown in some way (faded out, perhaps?) or simply removed from the list, so I could see that one caper might be only one challenge away from being completed, while another might be five or six away.

 

7) A minor complaint: sometimes I found myself clicking through the text a little too quickly. There doesn't seem to be any way to go back and see the last thing said, which is a shame. I see it in visual novels; not sure how hard it would be to have in the game.

 

Things I really liked:

 

1) The storyline was fascinating! I loved the feel of it, and the many tips of the hat to history.

 

2) I liked having more than one option when dealing with challenges. It made me feel like I could use my strengths.

 

3) The characters were fascinating. I was not aiming for Ahmose, but ended up with him. I'm very interested to see both Felix and Nigel - and Anna and Aunt Evelyn besides.

 

4) The way the map is used for locations is much nicer than the menus of Academagia. I'd love it if even more of the icons were similar to the buildings in New York, though, rather than being stamps (?).

 

5) The ability to click on a skill and then have it take me to the activities that increase or inspire it is a huge time saver. Thank you! (I would like to see the base abilities highlit more, though)

 

Overall, I really enjoyed the game, which makes 2 out of 2 Black Chicken Games for me. Looking forward to the next one!

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That's great! I'd be very much interested in a sequel.

 

I did think of one more improvement: when dealing with challenges, I always look for the cards that have a specific bonus first (e.g. when dealing with a Strength challenge, a card with +1 General, +4 Strength would be my first choice over a card that was +5 General). Would it be possible to mark those cards with a symbol or colour, at least on Easy mode?

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  • 1 year later...

So I just bought the game on steam. I can't put into words how much I love it! There are a few things that bothered me - none were game-breaking, most of them are nitpicky, but I figured hey, there's a thread for it, I'll add to it. I did post this on Steam, but this seems to be more active than the steam forums. Forgive me if some (or all) of these have been mentioned already; if they have, ignore and just consider them +1 on other suggestions of the same sort. I probably only noticed these issues because I'm a little too fond of this game and think about it probably more than I should.

 

1) Stories occasionally integrate weirdly

(such as Roland telling you at Easter that he'll have information for you later that you already got from him if you did his "check in with Roland" quests immediately after returning from New Orleans. Because of this it went back and forth so many times as to whether he was going to be with you in Turkey that I got confused.)

It wasn't game-breaking, but in a game that puts emphesis on observing clues and solving mysteries, it's frustrating to have clues that aren't arranged well.

3) Some endings seemed to go a little too quickly (for example, for all of the drawn-out quests in Ahmose's story, the climax-resolution is suprisingly quick and glossed-over, and it felt like too many "reveals" were crammed into his post-climax/pre-end scene without being explained. Otherwise known as:

why can he suddenly change into a hot guy with no bandages whereas I just spent nearly a year trying to keep his bandaged butt concealed? I feel like there was a lot of lost potential with Sadie having to make a choice concerning the Ruby Eye and perhaps human!Ahmose could be the reward for refusing it.)



4) Character interactions were involved so well, such as an additional comment to one character based off a caper you might have just done with them

(like asking Roland how his hand is when you see him on his birthday in India)

that it's kind of glaring when they don't integrate, like

when you see Sterling immediately after Peru & Roland's questline and he has no comments about how he was "treated" but then when you see him again in Roland's quest he's still quite irate).



5) Soundtrack availability. I say this because I would love to be able to play the music while I write or study or work. The main theme especially is very catchy, and I really love it.

6) Diary (bugs?) - I really enjoyed going back to read the diary entries - they really were written in a slightly-naive-18-year-old's voice, which made them very interesting - but they didn't always update? I have more than a few empty days that I know weren't entirely "plot days", and even then, it seems sporadic which plot days are written out and which ones aren't. Why, for example, do I get an entry for

"I found out today that Roland likes hot dogs"

but there's no entry at all for Christmas? I get that there are quite a few choices you can make for each Christmas plot, but I still would have liked to see it mentioned in the diary.

7) CLIFFHANGERS. This is a 50/50 thing for me. I've seen on the forums that there's discussion about a 1932 follow-up game, and if this happens, I will be very happy. If it doesn't, though, it's going to take a lot of the enjoyment out of several endings

(Sterling mainly, follow-up with Roland and Nigel.)

I prefer the style of cliffhanger like is in Felix's and Ahmose's endings, where you can still assume everyone is happy even if it's not followed-up upon.

Tl;dr - This game is probably one of the best games I've played in a long, long time, and is already at the top of my list of all my favourite games. It's so endearing and pulls you in so well that I would be more than happy to read a set of novels based off each different route. These little things are so small, but I think that if there is a 1932 game, could make the game just that much better. Some could even be addressed now (gimmmmeeeeee the music!)

All-in-all, thank you, BCS. I bought this game on a whim and came away with one of my top 5 games of all time.

 

 

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Gwynhwyfara;

 

Thank you for the feedback- these kinds of issues are what we like to solve, but as you see we've missed some of them. The specific ones you mention though may be closed in a future patch, as we do like to keep as much immersion as possible.

 

The cliffhangers, though...sadly, they set up for some of the mysteries that take place in 1932, so you'll have to delay happy endings until that time, when you see how things spin out...

 

For the music, I don't think there is a soundtrack that we can do, as most of the music was licensed. However, the main theme was commissioned by us especially for the game, and I believe it is available on Youtube:

 

 

...welcome to the forums!

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Thanks for the response! Honestly, even if you didn't change any of these issues, I'd still be head-over-heels in love with the game. And it's good to know that 1932 is still in the works; I hate waiting, but am glad to. The only reason I would be frustrated with the cliffhangers would be if, for some unforeseen reason, 1932 ended up not coming to fruition. Anyhow, thanks, and thanks for the link to the youtube theme; I really do love the music.

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