Novelty
A downloadable game for Windows
About the game.
A first person adventure\quest game, where you have to look for clues and solve intricate puzzles to unlock the end of the level. Hidden throughout the house, you will find notes & journals, alluding to the dark history of the house and its owners.
Story
You're gonna take the role of a real estate agent, whose task is to investigate the house in order to find out its condition before selling, as its owners have suddenly disappeared a long time ago, preceded by tragic series of events.
System requirements.
- Operating System: Windows 7, 8.1, 10
- Graphics card: Nvidia Geforce GT1030 | AMD Radeon RX 550 or better.
Integrated graphics: RX Vega 8 (Ryzen 3 2200G\Ryzen 5 2500U or better), Intel Xe graphics.
Languages supported: English, Russian
Post scriptum
I would really appreciate if you leave your feedback about the project - which gameplay elements are done good, which are bad or neutral, your overall impression and feelings about the game. Asking for your honest opinion and help :) I'm gonna analyze those and make some decisions about the upcoming improvements and the future of the project. Bug reports and just any comments are also welcome. Thank you and have fun!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Novelty 1.03 Patch NotesOct 29, 2021
- Novelty 1.02 Patch Notes & Future plansOct 19, 2021
Comments
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Ok first, you spent your time clicking and clicking on everything ... (wow it's cool to click everywhere, open all the drawer for find nothing ... some much fun....)
The control are weird (why not click left for use ??) I play alternating mouse/controler but no, it's not practical...
The enigmas aren't really good, I finally manage to finish the game, but at what cost ?
it's a good start but it's too frustrating for the moment. I hope the dev will improve the game, it as a nice atmosphere, good graphics too, and the music is great, all the ingredient are here for made a good game!
Thank you for your feedback!
Yes.
The 1.04 patch is planned to be released next week\end of this week. Gonna contain quite a decent amount of changes including more clues. As well as some graphics improvements, better controls, level design improvements(including the mentioned empty drawers), etc. The next milestone for this version of the game(containing one location, so 1.0X) is to add a better tutorial and difficulty level selection, also rework at least one of the existing puzzles.
The continuation of the story involving new location is being developed meanwhile.
P.S. There is an "Pickups highlight" option available in the settings, making the game less pixel hunt. Probably a bad place for this sort of setting, should become better as I make it toggleable when starting the game.
Thanks for your reply, I spent a lot of time stuck before realize there is a drawer in the desk witch contain a key, it frustrate me a lot.
Good luck with your game, I'll follow the evolution, and as a amateur game developer, I know it's hard to do such thinks :)
Hmm... Good point, you know. I'll see what I can do to improve it.
Thanks again!
The game looks incredible.
The main issue I had was there are so many details and items that finding out what is actually an interactive item was overwhelming. Nothing really stood out in terms of items you could pick up. The only non-paper item I found was the lock pick
It turned into an experience of clicking on everything just in case it was a usable item.
I managed to get a few items but never found the a way to actually interact to solve anything (the lock pick needing something extra, trying to use a sheet of paper or the blueprint under the door didn't work).
I made it as far as looking for the animal companions, so looked at several of the paintings but couldn't interact with them besides noticing the ostrich painting was in a weird location and never figured out what the animal with the crown was supposed to be.
Ways to improve would be having more hints and making interactive items more prominent.
A lot of escape games either have fixed scenes you move between or just less items on the stage to make the purpose clearer. That would impact the visual aspect of Novelty negatively. I would just add a more robust hint system.
It does look great, though!
This is a great and valuable feedback, thank you!
Yes, I agree that the hints need to be improved and some sort of difficulty levels could be added to the game. I'll think about the way they could fit the game nicely. That aspect is gonna be improved with the next patch.
By the way, how do you feel about the User Interface\User Experience overall?
My pleasure! It's obvious a lot of work went into this game.
I had no real issues with the UI/UX. I did have to drop the mouse sensitivity way down but that was an available option so it wasn't a problem.
Knowing when something was interactive was the only real major complaint with the UI/UX. Having a larger cursor to know when you are mousing over sometihing interactive might be a simple fix.
I did encounter some strangeness by starting a new game, going straight for the lock pick then attempting to use it upstairs in the door. After that I couldn't pick up any of the pieces of paper or take the painting off the wall.
You want to add a txt walk through to this page to keep people interested.
Hmm.. That's interesting, I'll check it out. Thank you for playing the game and letting me know about the issues you've had, appreciate it :)
Again, you've obviously put a lot of work into this... it just needs some adjusting to appeal to someone like myself.
Anything I have made comments on, take that as my own perspective. Other players might have an entirely different point of view and my suggestions would not agree with their suggestions.
It's unfortunate that there isn't more feedback/comments to help with the direction you think you should take the experience. There is so much potential.
Any puzzles presented so far have been a little too obtuse and confusing or lacking direction.
I have a lock pick but don't know where to use it. When I have tried it on the cupboard under the stairs it does not work. When I try it on the door upstairs I am going to push the key out or something.
I can turn some heads of some statues but have no idea where the clue is to solve the puzzle.
There is some fake gold. I have no idea what to do with them to solve the puzzle.
I can open a lot of drawers on certain sets of drawers/furniture (I think 2 pieces of furniture, 1 upstairs by the window with broken glass and one downstairs...there is nothing in those drawers), but not all drawers. That might be an asset/model thing....but it makes me go around and try and open all the drawers/cabinets on everything just in case there is something in one of those drawers. Nothing else has opened and I have at that point opened 12 drawers and haven't found anything.
There is a stone on the floor upstairs that has a minor interaction but I have no idea what I am supposed to do with it...or even if I can interact with it more than looking at it and getting the information that it was thrown through the window.
You have some great talent...please keep developing!