The Bricklayer

[horrortante]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the forum and would like to announce my first game.
It's a scary room escape game for Windows and you can download it here (for free):

Download (49.20MB)

the background story: Someone locked you into a mysterious and creepy room, that has no door. In fact you are 'walled up alive' and if you're not able to escape you're going to starve (well, you can't actually die in my game, it's only for the storyline). You must follow the clues scattered throughout the room to make your way out. The game is not brutal, by which I mean that noone gets slaughtered brutally and there are no guts lying around or something like that disgusting stuff (in my opinion). But it's quite morbid, there's cartoon blood in it and some bones.
The game also has some references to 'The Black Cat' by Edgar Allan Poe.

It's featuring a cartoon/comic type of style - mostly done in MS Paint, for some parts I used Artweaver.

I'd be very grateful for receiving feedback. If there should be a problem with downloading the game, please let me know.

I'd also like to say that I never wrote anything in this forum, but I've read alot to get some things to work in my game and I think you can find a great support here and the atmosphere is fantastic. So kudos to the people here .

Greetings,
Steffi

[Harvester]

Welcome to the forums!

I started playing your game and I'm still trying to figure out the solution, I won't give up This is the most awesome room escape game with Paint graphics I have so far seen! The atmosphere is excellent: I was surprised with the overall quality of sounds, even the graphics, since I did not expect this fine presentation from the screenshots. The gameplay is also interesting and satisfying. I found only a few strange things yet..



***MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILER!***

I don't know how I acquired the hammer I was thoughtlessly clicking on the box and somehow I got it. I don't think it's supposed to work like that.
When opening the book, the arrow showing where to click disappears; would be nice to have a great large hotspot (or a permanent sign as a worse solution).
And I'm fustrated that I can't cut open the inside of the book wherever I want, it seemed so logical But that's not your problem but mine

***NO MORE SPOILER***

Congratulations for your game, it's a pleasure to play!

Harvester

[horrortante]

Hi Harvester,

thank you very much for your feedback, I really appreciate that - and thanks for the nice compliment - and for welcoming me .

Did you solve the game in the meantime?

Yes, that you were able to open the box by accident is indeed a bug . I already fixed that (had to resize a few hotspots) and I improved/added some other things, too. The arrow on the book only pops up to show that you can open the book by clicking anywhere on the right side of it. Though the hotspot needed to be bigger, anyway. I will upload the improved version within the next hour or so.

***SPOILER_ALERT***

you need to cut the book in order to get the hammer. So since you picked up the hammer - due to the bug - without 'solving' the book riddle, the book itself is not important for you to solve the game anymore.
The hint for the book is one tiny word you should look for - in the table&chair - area. I bet you will find it very obvious in the end .

***END_OF_SPOILER***

I too think the screenshots hardly suggest the true character of the game, that's some kind of a pity. It's difficult to pick the right images, and still they won't convey the atmosphere.

About the sound: in my opinion a (good) game needs a fitting atmosphere of sound to give you the feeling of 'being there' or something like that. On the other hand it makes the game much bigger, in my game the sound files add up to about 30MB.

Greetings,
horrortante

[Harvester]

I haven't had the time to finish it by now, but I will asap
If I find any other bugs I'll definitely report them, but hopefully that'll be all.
And thanks for the hint

As a musician I perfectly understand the need of proper audiovisual presentation: and in this aspect, size shouldn't be a matter as fast internet gets common nowadays. Choosing the right screenshots is a hard decision indeed, particularly in the case of games like this, where no singe image stands above the others but they together build up the atmosphere of the game world.

Harvester

[juhuwoorps]

Nice game so far.
It was fun to play (just needed some small hints from escapegames24.com )

The game also runs on WIN7 but with no sound.
Perhaps you should make a notice in your first post.

Waiting for more games from you
really good work