All the best.

I played the first Alone in the Dark but never reached the end. It’s too bad the later games have lost much of what made the original unique.

I got excited when I saw the old New England cemetery with tentacular statue… then dawn came and I was mercifully delivered from my hell.

The ending screen and birdsong reminded me of the end of another Lovecraftian classic – The original Alone In The Dark.

@Lim-Dul
Thanks for the insightful comments! Also great to hear that you played through
several times, I have some plans for the larger version of the game that will encourage and reward playing that way to a larger extent.

You’re correct about the narration I had at most two versions for any given action. I was working under a deadline and was only able to schedule a single day with my voice actor. I chose to get as wide a range of actions and situations covered as I could, unfortunately that meant I only had time for a fairly shallow amount of alternate dialogue. I’ll be fixing that in the larger version of the game.

NotC wasn’t really intended as an advertisement though I’m happy if it makes you check out the other things I’m working on. Really was a chance to learn some programming and hone my skills, with something small while testing out my interactive narration idea. I’m definitely planning more freeware games in the future, I loved making this and it a good way to experiment. Also the response I’ve had over the last few days has been really encouraging. I do hope people will dig Guerrilla Gardening, it’s a much more ambitious game with a dedicated programmer so it won’t suffer from my fumbling artist code ;)

@eyemessiah
Yep you caught my Infocom reference. I grew up playing text adventures.

@Alex/Daffs
The range of dialogue you hear in a single play through is mainly the result of how you play + a certain amount of luck. It sounds like you spent most of your time badly wounded which resulted in you hearing the wounded sample a lot (hint find a safe spot and wait a few seconds). You may want to try the game and experimenting with playing in different ways. The game also takes into account whether enemies are in the ‘room’, try firing wildly at nothing in both situations. If you enjoyed the writing and art I definitely recommend playing it twice so you can see the winning and loosing endings.

@Morberis
As mentioned I have a larger version of the game planned (join the mailing list on spooky squid if you want news on updates). I’d love to make a DS version someday, and no worries the 2D is here to stay

The system reminds me a bit of the random dialog generator that Valve boasts about in games like TF2 or L4D – apparently other talented people have no problem with replicating that. ^^

Subscribed to your mailing list to see how you’ll be faring in future. Indeed you need some additional dialog because from what I see you have two voice-over variations at most and many actions, e.g. entering a new area, are repeated more often than others and that could become annoying with time.

I guess this freeware title is something of an advertisement and a test of how your other promising project, Guerilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution, would be received? If it is so then I congratulate you on the marketing campaign since I will closely follow what you’re up to from now on. ^^