Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth : Shades of Mystery

Jan-26-2008 16:43
(sticky post)

We've officially lifted the non-disclosure agreement for testers who have been taking part in the closed Sleuth : Shades of Mystery beta tests. I'm hoping a few of them will post here with some of the impressions so you can all get a picture of where the game is and where it is headed.

I'm sorry it was necessary to ask them to keep their mouths zipped up until now, but I didn't want anybody to get wrong impressions about what the finished game will be like by basing their opinions on an early version.

Also, we will be switching to an open beta test very soon, so everyone who is interested won't have to wait much longer before trying things out.

Feb-12-2008 12:17

Let's give Ben a break!

Yes he's working on a new game that you may not like (who knows as it's not fully developed?), but that doesn't mean that Noir will be left sad and neglected. It's just that creating a game like SOM takes time and he's but one man (who has a family and works a whole other job besides developing Sleuth). We have never given any indication that we will discontinue updates to Noir.

I venture to say that Ben is one of the most, if not the most, responsive game admins around. Since Noir came into being, there has been a constant stream of improvement suggestions and ideas thrown out on the boards on a daily basis. There is hardly enough time in the day to acknowledge all of them, but they are all appreciated. When changes and updates are made to the game they are done so with thought and purpose. Ben puts a lot of intent in updates to make the game more challenging and fun, these changes are often influenced by player ideas, but please don't assume that they can be dictated by players.

This is a critical time for Ben as SOM is very close (a matter of a couple weeks) to being rolled out shiny and new. Please try to sit tight until then.

Feb-12-2008 22:06

Thanks for that message, Sunny. You are so right! In my experience, Ben has always been incredibly responsive and helpful. I don't see that in admins of other games like I do here in Sleuth.

This is an incredible game at a ridiculously low price that has given me and others many hours of entertainment and more often than not a fun and positive community. I hope Ben & Sunny know that for all the unhappy posts on the boards lately there are so many other players that do understand and are waiting patiently for SoM and whatever new things that are in the works for Noir. :)

Feb-12-2008 23:36

I don't think anyone was criticising Sunny, Ben has had plenty of messages from me letting him know exactly what I think of him as Admin and of Sleuth as a whole and lets just say it's been positive.

I think it's more a case for those who want SoM out wanting it out quick to play it and those few of us who don't want to play it wanting it out quick so good thing happen again to Noir.

And don't talk to us Sleuth's about patience, 6 hours in a cold doorway yesterday on a stakeout doing a favour for the Fishmonger and all I got was a pearl handled dirk grrr.... (Stooby wanders off grumbling under his breath, words like "vegetarian anyway... stink of haddock... hate Shanghai" can be caught as he vanishes into the fog).

Feb-13-2008 02:19

Well said, Sunny :)

Feb-13-2008 20:05

Let's all throw rocks at Ben.

Feb-13-2008 20:18

lol ooh please!

As much as I like like to gather my nuts unto myself, I'd be willing to toss 'em about a bit for such a worthy cause:

10 pts if you knock his fez off
20 pts if you're accurate enough to break his glasses
50 pts if you can bank shot and hit Sunny :)

Feb-13-2008 22:30

hey, only 50 points?

Feb-14-2008 01:32

Oh yeah sorry that was a pre-baby points scoring system. Now you're less of a target that's of course 100 pts :)

Feb-14-2008 16:08

lol, those glasses are hard to break. maybe we should up it to 25 points

Feb-16-2008 18:56

I've been looking at SOM for a couple of days now, and I've got mixed impressions about it. I will be the first one to admit, I make a lousy computer guinea-pig, which is why I didn't bother signing up for the previous rounds of testing. Admin should be ecstatic I haven't blown anything up at SOM yet....;-)

First off, I have to say I'm incredibly impressed with the sheer amount of effort and work they've put into the project. Overall, they've done a great job, and the people at Hypoware should be congratulated for their accomplishments. I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to even begin trying to do some of the stuff they've done, so they deserve to be proud.

There are a few things I'd like to see improved on SOM. One of the biggest is the character generation at the start of the program. While there are around 30 choices to choose from for each facial feature (facial type, eyes, nose, mouth, hair, etc.) when you create your detective at initial login, most of the actual choices are very similar. Most of the eye choices are either squinting or angry (and I'm not particularly fond of creating a myopic or menacing detective); the nose choices are mostly overly large, crooked, or just plain ugly; and the hair choices are mostly dark and short for men and dark and long for women (there's one blond, one gray, one bald/hairless in mens, and no redheads anywhere). By the end of it all, the character's more likely to look like a cartoon or caricature than anything resembling a lifelike face. I have no idea if previous phases of testing had different options to work with, or if the final SOM will be different, but I was very disappointed with this aspect.

A second thing I'd like to see improved was in the crime scene area. I can see why some people may have a problem with vertigo and the camera angles here, but my problem deals with the colors. I had serious trouble distinguishing some hair clumps and fabric swatches when they were shown against a similarly dar