Donna: Avenger of Blood

[eMTe]

Being developed for 10 years and already dubbed as one of the longest AGS games ever made, Donna: Avenger of Blood is out. Traditional in gameplay it was described by the author as "interactive metaphysical thriller" when it comes to plot and atmosphere.

Plot summary:

"A nameless country, somewhere in Eastern Europe, is deep in financial depression. The sentiments arousing among people allow nationalist and extreme-right-wing politicians to come into power.

To the metropolis capital of the country come two foreigners: Christian and Donna.

They both keep to themselves and are seen only at night.

Their stay at the Eldorado Hotel is interrupted one night by mysterious visitors who break into their room and shoot Christian. Some bullets hit Donna, who falls to the street below and finds herself naked in the middle of the hostile, unkown city; what’s more, the dawn is coming and let’s say that her skin isn’t prepared for meeting the sunrays.

The player controls Donna, who, after securing her life, goes on a quest of vengeance to find killers of Christian, meets mad inhabitants of the city, gets into a love affair, and discovers the true reason behind Christian coming to this country."

Donna was picked as game of the February by AGS.

http://donnathegame.wordpress.com/downloads/

Developer: Błażej Dzikowski

Year: 2012

[eMTe]

Well, Ive been playing this game til "the middle of the night" and I like it so far. As for atmosphere it's a mixture of Bloodnet, Dreamweb and Eye of Geltz. As for puzzles there are no revelations, but it is obvious that a lot of effort was put into adding at least a bit of innovation. As for visuals you can clearly judge from the screenshots that there's clearly no revelation - still photos and digitized characters. The strongest sides are music - which could be easily used in a commercial title - and plot, but the latter is obvious considering the fact that guy is a writer (Google is your friend) and already published several books (I am almost sure we had at least one). Overall, game is strongly plot- and atmosphere-driven, but as I said - a lot of effort was put into incorporating puzzles into it.

[Scythe]

Maybe I've just gotten spoiled over time, but I find it very hard to use these old school controls. There's also a lack of feedback when you use "wrong" actions, which annoys me, since I can't always tell whether I misclicked or nothing was supposed to happen. The graphics really don't do anything for me - at all. And the English is kind of dubious at times, not enough to make you misunderstand, just enough to take you out of any immersion you were starting to feel. Overall, it just feels really clunky, making me focus on its shortcomings rather than getting any enjoyment out of it. Which is a shame, cos there probably is something interesting to find here.

[eMTe]

Maybe you should focus on positive aspects.

[Scythe]

I want to, but after 5 minutes of playing, I start getting upset with the way the game was designed.

[eMTe]

That reminds me about one of the dialogue lines from cult comedy "Teddy Bear":

"-You're going to the capital of a capitalist country. This country maybe even has some advantages of its kind. But the thing is that these advantages shouldn't outshine the disadvantages."

[Pater Alf]

Maybe I've just gotten spoiled over time, but I find it very hard to use these old school controls. There's also a lack of feedback when you use "wrong" actions, which annoys me, since I can't always tell whether I misclicked or nothing was supposed to happen.

I don't have any problems with the old school controls. It's a good thing that you can use the right mouse button to switch between the commands. But the lack of feedback for "wrong" actions is definitely there. I don't feel that's completely frustrating, but it could've done better.

But all in all I like the game so far. It has a pretty good atmosphere and the story is interesting enough to keep you playing.

[eMTe]

There's new version, according to official AGS thread. What has changed/been improved I don't know. I have little time for gaming and reading about games recently.

[Pater Alf]

According to the homepage, they just did some bugfixes. Should be the final version now.