Alpha build of Bientôt l’été now available

[Michaël Samyn]

We have opened pre-orders for our new game on http://bien.tlo.tl/ete . People who pre-order also get early access to alpha builds of the game.

I would very much like to hear your opinion. You're welcome to pre-order of course, and then you get immediate access to this build and any future ones. But if you'd like a free copy, simply send me a private message and I'll send you a link. 

I want to hear what you think!
Not because I want to make Bientôt l’été a widely accessible game (there's a time and a place for that, and this is not it ). But because I want to make it as good a work of art as it can be.

[ghostwheel]

I need to see some images before I can form an opinion.

[Henrik Flink]

I just bought the 8$ preorder and found myself walking around and experience the great atmosphere for a good 30-40 minutes.

So here's some initial thoughts about the whole experience.

I totally looove the atmosphere of the whole experience, walking along the empty beach to the sound of birds and waves mixed with the atmospheric tune. Definitely makes me immersed in the scene.

I think the french voice over also enhance the atmosphere and the overall "poetic" and melancholy(at least for me) feel.

Regarding the controls I feel like it's 2 different combination that works the best. The most enjoyable one for me was the combination of 3rd person view and mouse control. This took the game-ish feel away from controlling the character with the keyboard and made it feel more integrated in the whole experience. It also allowed me to change the view while still walking and kind of making a beautiful moment out of having control over the camera while the character was just walking by him self. The other setup I found less game-ish was the first person view with the keyboard controls, not as good as the above one but still it felt more immersive then teh 3rd person view with the keyboard which really felt game-ish and you got the feeling that you wanted to be more agile and move around allot as in many 3rd person games.

For the whole thing with the sentences that you'll find on the beach I had a harder time understanding how to interact with that system. I later on read the instructions on how to interact with this system and understood that there was some thing that could be picked up but couldn't figure it out for some reason. I think I would like to see some more streamlined interaction here. So maybe instead of sentences washing ashore it could be some kind of object tied to the sentences, that the character would pick up by him self when walking close enough, and then get the actually sentence displayed for you. Same goes for when you then close your eye, you could get some visuals of the object, the text and the voice over at the same time.

Then for the "cafe" part, I think this could also be more minimalistic when it comes to displaying the sentences. Now it felt a bit like an old point 'n click adventure game where you go through all the different branches you have in a certain dialogue to proceed in the game or find out a clue from the dialogue. And since in Bientôt l’été you don't have that kind of explicit goal of the conversation, i presume, more then enjoying the atmosphere and the now, I think you could make it much more minimalistic to draw less attention from the user and place more of the attention on the being rather then the doing(interacting). So I could imagine something where you display less sentences at the same time but as you interact with them they either disappears totally or exchanged for another sentence.

Another little thought that popped up I had about the beach is that one thing to not break the immersion of reaching the end of the beach and not being able to walk further could be some kind of physical loop/illusion so you will always come back to the house on the beach if you just keep walking. I don't know how difficult this could be on the technical side but I can imagine that that one could do some smooth transition and move the player back to the other side of the beach as soon as he reach the end of one side. Might be a bit trouble if you still can see the house from this point....

So this is what kind of striked me at a first glance and some things suggested might break your vision of it, I don't know, but the overall feeling of the experience is REALLY good and it feels like there's allot of potential here if you just keep putting your heart into it.

[Michaël Samyn]

Thank you, Henrik! These are very useful comments. Some of the solutions you suggest I have already tried before and rejected. But knowing the problems is more important. I feel I will definitely be able to make some improvements based on your thoughts. Thanks!

[Michaël Samyn]

I need to see some images before I can form an opinion.

I will add some screenshots to the web page.

[Michaël Samyn]

I need to see some images before I can form an opinion.

I will add some screenshots to the web page.

There.

[Michaël Samyn]

Then for the "cafe" part, I think this could also be more minimalistic when it comes to displaying the sentences. Now it felt a bit like an old point 'n click adventure game where you go through all the different branches you have in a certain dialogue to proceed in the game or find out a clue from the dialogue. And since in Bientôt l’été you don't have that kind of explicit goal of the conversation, i presume, more then enjoying the atmosphere and the now, I think you could make it much more minimalistic to draw less attention from the user and place more of the attention on the being rather then the doing(interacting). So I could imagine something where you display less sentences at the same time but as you interact with them they either disappears totally or exchanged for another sentence.

You're right: another person who sent comments remarked how they wanted to drive the conversation to a certain outcome (love or break-up e.g.). And this is not the point at all. Maybe it is indeed the point-and-click interface that inspires goal-orientation. But I'm not sure how to make more vague. Any ideas are welcome!

[ghostwheel]

I need to see some images before I can form an opinion.

I will add some screenshots to the web page.

There.

Ooooooooooo! Ahhhhhhhh! Niiiiiiice! Wooooooow, that is gorgeous! 8O

[Michaël Samyn]

I need to see some images before I can form an opinion.

I will add some screenshots to the web page.

There.

Ooooooooooo! Ahhhhhhhh! Niiiiiiice! Wooooooow, that is gorgeous! 8O

:-)  Thank you.

[Bruno de Figueiredo]

To this day I haven't found anyone online with whom I could play.

[Henrik Flink]

To this day I haven't found anyone online with whom I could play.

Maybe we can have a date some day 

[Bruno de Figueiredo]

Let's do it next week, shall we? You bring the wine, I'll take the cigarettes.

[Marco Turetta]

I went through the alpha few times and it started as a disappointing experience.
After a couple of epiphanies I now think this work will become something important for several people (me included).   

First impression:
I started playing without reading the instructions, this way I didn't have a clue about of how to proceed or what could I do. That broke the immersion quickly.
On the other side reading the istructions had the side effect of presenting the future experience as a bit trivial, in fact I thought of the "collect" mechanism as game-ish and much out of tone with the evocative feeling provided by the visuals/audio.

The first cafe experience was a bit confusing (like a board game I hadn't grasped the rules yet) and not very meaningful, also because of the presence of an AI instead of another person.

Epiphanies:
During the second play I started searching for phrases which could be useful to establish some interaction: some with a positive meaning, some with a negative etc...
Doing that I found some sentencies so meaningful to me that I stopped caring for the "dating sim" aspect of the game (which is clearly stripped away by you) and I concentrated on finding something important to say.

At this point I started enjoying beeing there and felt Bentot L'Ete more as a whole. Also the mechanics felt more natural.
At the cafe the of course AI couldn't be the listener I wanted to have, but the cafe experience felt more organic and I was anticipating having a human playing the other side

Next time I was just walking in peace, checking phrases out of curiosity.
Suddenly I stumbled upon a phrase I wanted to say to someone important many years ago, but I didn't do it because I was afraid to hurt her.
It came almost as a shock, I spent an obsessed half an hour wandering about the sea, thinking of the possibilities of Bientot l'Ete.
I think it could provide a safe environment to expose some parts of myself for which i didn't even had the words, to other people I might trust since did my same path of searching for objects and sentences.
The absence of a chat or any direct contact (not even an eye contact with the other avatar) should prevent from the fragile things I might expose to be trivialized.
And possibly I won't be too afraid of hurting or getting hurt.

[Michaël Samyn]

Thank you for testing the game and posting your comments, Marco.

I went through the alpha few times and it started as a disappointing experience.
After a couple of epiphanies I now think this work will become something important for several people (me included).

This is both nice to hear and very problematic. Not everyone will be as generous as you and give the game a second chance. Can you think of any ways to prevent this initial disappointment?

Because you do seem to interpret the game the way I see it. Not as a dating sim, indeed, but more as a personal contemplation of love. It's not a love story, it's a story about love stories.

[Marco Turetta]

Thank you Michaël.
I wrote down some thoughts about tutorials and about suggestions which I probably wouldn't find disturbing in Bientot l'ete.

Personally I'm embarassed by the approaches a-la-gamification to tutorials: "Congratulations! You memorized your first phrase!". On the other hand I like it when the author takes the disturb of guiding me through the uncertain first steps, if he/she does it both respecting the player's intelligence and the his/her own work.

I particularly enjoy a tutorial when it integrates seamlessly in the gameplay, like the first minutes of Bioshock, or when there is a separate introductory part both creative and in tone with the game, like in Dinner Date's training intro.

Given the minimalistic nature of Bientot l'ete I feel that adding an intro or some new gameplay elements to guide the player might be out of place and artificial.

Personally I wouldn't mind to find writings in overlay which suggests the main mechanics, provided the style (also v) fits.
In The Path for example I liked the style of the mother's recommendations and also that of the Girl's thoughts: I perceived the as an integral part of the world, so I never felt like "Ok now I stop playing and start reading".
Maybe because of the literary DNA of Bientot l'ete something like this might resonate with the world.

I wouldn't see the need to explain the quantitative details (like the number of store phrases is 16).
I prefer when the suggestions feel indirect, better beeing intrigued to reach the shoreline instead of beeing told to go there. That also would reinforce the feeling that I'm free to wander and play my way, even if the collection mechanic is quite precise an so it needs to be learnt.

Generally I feel a bit anxious when a tutorial presents me several goals to be achieved, as a list. Maybe it's just a problem with my short time memory, or the fact that it starts to sound like duty
Continuing the overlay writings example I'd prefer to see a sentence gently inviting me to the shoreline, then another about "stopping to remember" appearing as I stumble on the first phrase, then beeing reminded of the cafe only after few sentences are collected etc...

One coincidence: the night before playing the alpha I dreamed about a strange afternoon, during which the sky became suddenly dark.
Another recurrent dream of mine is that I look at the stars at night and they slowly start moving... so I can't but love and feel so immersed in your "space" twilight