jefequeso: Steam has Greenlit The Moon Sliver!!!!!

liquidsnakehpks: 2) Since your game is on steam you will want to try and implement as many steamworks feature as possible for your game . Many customers will look at what steamworks features your game has and will purely buy at sales etc based on it.
For a single player game these all are looked at
- achievements
- steam cloud for saves
- steam trading cards

if you are able to support the other os like mac or linux that's a bonus as well

Fenixp: My biggest gripe was how notes were handled at the time I played the game. I would like a small overlay GUI where I can freely scroll trough a note and close it at my leisure, as well as a notebook where all of the notes would get stored. Other than that, I still remember the game - I remember it more than Dear Esther and I have played the latter more recently. Soo I say it's a success!

catpower1980: ...

catpower1980: About steam integration, it will maybe make you cringe but from a business point of view it's more in the interest of the developer to patch the game and add steam cards (the achievments and saves are unuseful for this game) later, a month or so after the initial release and the launch peak sales because with the patch the game can get a second-time exposure on the front page in the "recently patched" section.

There is already a mac version on IGS and the linux is easily doable because Unity Free exports to this OS, it just needs some playtesting some under linux-powered pc (I only have a netbook under linux so that's not enough to test the game)

NoNewTaleToTell: I just finished The Moon Sliver (I for some reason thought it was named The Moon Silver, D'oh!) and I'm quite impressed by it, honestly. I'm not just saying that because you're a GOGer or anything. I'm not sure that it took me a full hour but I didn't time myself.

The positives:
The Atmosphere. The late afternoon/night atmosphere (and of course the atmosphere below) was really well done. I admit to having goosebumps at a few places haha. The lighting combined and the music worked really well together. The writing that served exclusively to set the mood/atmosphere was quite effective.

Graphically it looks good and the direction is consistent. I played it on max settings at max resolution and had zero lag.

The Writing. Everything was well written and grammatically correct for the most part. The foreshadowing was well done as was the use of certain characters that have...name value. More importantly I enjoyed the story and was interested in learning more. Not only were the story parts well done but as mentioned above you managed to set a great mood and really elevated the atmosphere as well.

The music served it's purpose and there were a few tracks that I'd like to hear the full version(s) of.

The negatives:
The length is the biggest negative. I appreciate that you at least made the world believable (it being an island) and I admittedly don't know how you could've padded the length without it being obvious padding, but I managed to find at least (as far as I can tell) 95% of everything possible and took the time to read everything but I feel like I spent a lot less than an hour in-game, granted I'm a quick reader.

The puzzle(s) being tied to the story. I correctly guessed the answer to a lock and wasn't able to open it. However after finding the one story bit (seriously one bit haha) I had missed I was able to go back and unlock the lock. It's not a huge deal though, just something that personally annoys me in games (although I understand why they're like that).

All in all I would recommend this to anybody that enjoys "artsy walking simulators" (the genre really needs a name) or even atmospheric horror games. However if I'm being honest, and I really don't mean to hurt your feelings nor devalue the amount of effort you put into the game and understanding that I really did enjoy it, I would have trouble justifying spending more than $5 on it unless it came with the OST. It's not really replayable and it's quite short. Sure it IS a great experience but it's also quite short and it doesn't seem to have any replay value. However you've created some interesting lore, perhaps this could be the first episode of a series?

Once again, congrats on getting Greenlit and here's hoping this is the start of something big!

catpower1980: OK, game just finished (what a way to start a sunday morning ^o^)

So far, I liked the game. Unlike Neverending Nightmares wihch I felt was too long and had some draggy moments (and it only lasts only 2-3 hours), the length of Moon Sliver is just fine as it plays like a short novel. I really enjoyed the falling night and the changes of weather, that was some good design idea to increase the atmosphere. The art in general is coder's art obviously (but hey, I can even recognize the Unity type of terrain in Wasteland 2 ^o^) but as the player is more focused on the story and the atmosphere that's fine, that's not the main point and at least, the minimalistic aspect serves the story good.

Now, some suggestions for a patch:

- the hatch code : I missed the hidden paper note and lost a lot of time searching it :) But that's not bothersome, the trouble is that the code is maybe too easy to crack before the player gets the note (like the poster above), so maybe you could change or add some type of device trick which will make the hatch unlockable only after getting the clue. Also, when the code is correctly put, a sound effect (like a creaking metal door) would be good to tell the player it's unlocked.

- the maze ^o^ : as all the walls share the same texture, it can be difficult to navigate, obviously that's the intent but it could irritate some impatient player who aren't good at orientation :) So for example, at some intersections you could put some signs on the wall like "control room"/"stock of wood" with an arrow. Technically, make a small vertical transparent plane, place it just against the wall (the wall coordinate being x=0.0 and the plane being x=0.001 for example so it doesn't obstruct player's movement) and put the texture of the sign on it. That would make this part of the game a little bit smoother.

- The very end : when "the end" text screen is reached, I tought I would be brought to the menu but that didn't happen. I like the saying "people are not dumb but do as they would be". So after 2-3 seconds, maybe you could trigger a pop-up on the screen "Thank you for playing this game. Hit [esc] to get back to the menu" so they don't quit doing alt-f4 or enrage because they long forgot there was ever a menu :)

**** SPOILERS *****
I'm not sure but are we supposed to see something/someone when we turnback after reaching the book at the end? I blinked at this moment and poof, it was already the credits ^o^
**** END OF SPOILERS ****

liquidsnakehpks: congrats jefequeso , as a long time steam user these are the following advise i can give you on making your game sit well with steam customers.

1) Do not bother about reviews and stuff just complete your game good with no game killing bugs make sure that the game runs fine with what requirement you specified , people on steam are more happy to buy a game that works and is complete. But do listen to what people say on your steam game forum rather than outside and see if its possible to apply them.

2) Since your game is on steam you will want to try and implement as many steamworks feature as possible for your game . Many customers will look at what steamworks features your game has and will purely buy at sales etc based on it.
For a single player game these all are looked at
- achievements
- steam cloud for saves
- steam trading cards

if you are able to support the other os like mac or linux that's a bonus as well

3) Do not fire back at hard remarks and any provocations over the game . This is the first game the peace and harmony you establish will determine the fate of the game in the future or the series.

4) Do not ever engage in drm battles or show preference openly to other platforms right for the first game. Your game is on steam, work with it there now.

I personally look forward to purchasing a game made by a fellow gog when possible

All the best mate.

catpower1980: I guess the way the note are currently coded won't allow to do that until he revamps the whole code. Currently, apart from the lying books/notes which you must click on, the texts are triggered by the player's current position (that's how the final dialogue works). Also for a proper notebook, the notes should be sortable to improve the browsability otherwise it would lead to a mess by the end of the game if all the texts are stored in no specific order. Honestly, the current system is maybe better because it lets your imagination connecting the dots. I don't think the game was intended to be purely logical so getting scattered texts is more the way to go IMHO.

And coding a notebook system to revamp the whole game would give jefequeso some headaches I think, he's already much stressed now ;)