Reviews for Martin: Samantha's Blood

[kcho99]

I am completely conflicted about this game.

To start with the good, this game looks *great*. It's stylish, starts with a set of real video clips to set the mood, and it has an opening title sequence that is reminiscent of a minimalistic TV show title sequence. The house is detailed, and the way you can sort of lean side to side to look around gives it a very real feel to it. Clearly, someone took a great deal of time to make this game.

On the more grey side, the gameplay isn't very intuitive, deep or particularly interesting. You don't really interact with any of the lovely rooms you are presented with. Certainly, you aren't meant to look around for objects. If there is anything to do, you'll get a prompt in the form of a gear icon. The 'skill' parts are buggy and not especially fun, working against a timer. And the layout of the house, while well detailed, is difficult to navigate because the icons that allow you to navigate are very arbitrary. Sometimes, the icon you'd think would take you back actually takes you to a new room entirely. One icon seems to point up a set of stairs, but actually takes you DOWN a different set of stairs, which is especially confusing because you are then expected to click down to continue along them.

But the thing that really gets me is how fucking ugly the story is. I get that serial killers have some kind of cool mystique in modern culture, from Hannibal Lecter to Dexter, but this guy isn't some complex antihero with dark psychosis, this is a plain old murderer. He hates a woman a woman, thinks she's an ugly bitch and doesn't like how she dances, so he murders her and makes it look like an accident. An assassin wouldn't be so emotionally involved with his target, and a maniac wouldn't just kill someone and make it look like an accident. This is a guy who has emotional problems and no concept of when he's going too far. I didn't like playing as him, and I didn't like playing the game.

I wish you'd make something slightly more sympathetic, or at the very least, interesting. But whatever you do, it would be good if you put a little bit more effort into the gameplay elements. The visuals deserve it.

Ganderoleg responds:

Thank you for playing and thank you for the objective review.

You've hit the nail on the head, this is actually the first right-down-to-the-middle, 50/50 review.
The thing that is at the core of your disliking the game is actually the core of the game itself. You are right, protagonist of this game is not Hannibal Lecter, Dexter, Joker, Patrick Bateman or any other fantasy 'antihero' character. What I was going for is a more realistic type of killer, similar to Norman from Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) or Henry from Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). I didn't create him as a highly intelligent, weirdly funny, deadly but successful, trying-to-fit-in-with-the-moral-code guy :)

There are lots of different tastes, Taylor Swift, Slayer, Elvis Presley, Cher, Fantomas, Buddy Holly, Laibach... but your review was excellent. You didn't like playing as a main character and you were still objective in your reviewing.

There is a billion games where you can play a villain, or soldier, or assassin, and they all have some sort of moral/psychological/fantasy/historic justification. Here there is none. Protagonist is just a psychopath and that's all. It's not everyone's cup of tea but neither is Varg Vikernes Burzum :)

It's really important when people can set a side their own tastes and have an objective viewpoint and, in my opinion, this is such a review.

[KamenRiderStick]

Okay, so I've played the game, beaten it (with some help from a youtube video), and now I'm giving out the review.

I feel that this game is rather clunky, as in having to move around was difficult. Sometimes the direction keys are hard to see and sometimes you miss them altogether. It also doesn't help me that the camera moves when you position your mouse from one end of the screen to another.

The timer was difficult to deal with. Sometimes you have seconds to forcibly do something, and sometimes you have to know what to do in a split second.

You have some stuff in the inventory that's completely useless. Most flash games make it so that every item you use has a purpose, that they are used at least once somewhere.

Finally, I understand that this Martin guy is a serial killer, but I want to know why did he go after this girl. Was he supposed to be like a hitman and bump her off? Does he has some sort of sick fetish? I don't get this guy at all.

Your story is original like others have said, I don't recall a story like this for a point and click anywhere else, but I feel that the other factors have taken away some major points. Not trying to be a jerk here, I just feel that it could have been better.

Last thing I wish to point out: none of the medals are working. You and one other person have unlocked them, but no one (not even me) has them unlocked as well.

Still I give you an A for effort, and wish you luck in your future works.

Ganderoleg responds:

Thank you for playing and for the review.

I'm sorry you didn't like the game, it is a bit unrefined in a technical aspects. I am glad, however, that you didn't get the protagonist of the game, that would be a small sign of mental deviation :)

Protagonist is meant to be a classic psychopath, I wanted to portray a person with no other motive to victimize then his own deviant drives. He's not a hitman or killing to save someone else, he kills Samantha because he 'fixated' a random girl and attributed his own delusive obsessions on her. Without any cause.

Unfortunately the medals stopped working after my second update :( If I don't manage to solve the issue I will have to delete them and then re-create them later when I make additional tests.

I know that the inventory was a bit off but he actually didn't need anything else except the signal blocker, Tetrahedrane and a knife :) I could have made a four-item inventory but I thought that it would be more interesting to place few everyday things in his pockets, smokes, money, lighter, that seemed cool :)

[InfernalSovereign]

Interesting concept. I like the way the graphics are done and I like the tooltips that pop up to give players hints to the next stage. The addition of timed sequences is pretty nice, it adds an element of urgency. My only criticism on that is every time one of those sequences failed, it automatically reset. However, the timer began while the screen was loading and non interactive, shaving off a couple seconds from the overall time we had. For people who had trouble navigating, this might have made the difference in between trying a 4th time or hitting it the second go.

Now for the premise and story. I agree with one of the previous reviewers about this not quite hitting the mark for a serial killer but for different reasons. I find that the drugging of her drink was a very impersonal way to kill her. For how outraged he was when he found her dancing, I would have expected a method of killing that would allow him to exercise some kind of control or power fantasy. The killer seemed more interested in putting Samantha in her place than anything else, which would have lent itself better to a direct confrontation in which he overpowered her.

As far as making the killing look like an accident, not a bad call. A lot of serial killers are brilliant and cover their tracks very well. That's what allows them to become serial killers. I think that taking a keepsake of her hair was strong move. Many killers take keepsakes so they can vicariously relive the murder and the sensations they had while doing so.

That all being said, good work and I look forward to your future installments!

Ganderoleg responds:

Thank you for a great score and for in-depth review.

Excellent catch, the Tetrahedrane method was impersonal but it was not a killing method. Drugging her was just a way to demobilize her since there were bodyguards in the house. But you are right, in the original game-concept he was suppose to drug her and then carry her away to another location. Unfortunately I had to cut the game and come up with a different killing solution :( I planned for protagonist to display hate for Samantha in much more personal way that would be evident through the killing act. But since, in this shortened version, she remains in the house with the bodyguards, it had to be a silent and none-violent act (screaming, fighting etc. would attract guards attention).

But I believe that the 'clean' approach has it's values in pathological concepts, it's very common among psychopaths and can be attributed both to behavioral and sexual deviations.

I also thought that timed sequences will add to the game, they give a more real-time feel to the gameplay :)

[yound]

Original story for a point and click, The music and images are well made eg: the boat ride! (btw, hope you had a nice ride! ;)) The ambiance and story was creepy that I kind of expected a more... gore trophy.

First time it loaded, I had some black rooms - problem got fixed reloading, but I think the arrows weren't as visible as intended.
The arrow directions, I found them to be confusing. eg: the diagonal arrow to go to the basement should point down - because it pointed up, I first tried to click 'UP' on the stairs.
In the end, I got fed up going around and around that I used the walkthrough and then noticed I had totally missed some arrows&signs. Petty, because I think without this arrow problem, I might have managed alone.

Anyway, overall GJ & Keep it up!

btw, seems medals don't work

Ganderoleg responds:

Thank you for reviewing the game and for high score.

Yes, I will have to add textual-tips when mouse is over the arrows as suggested by players. It seems I didn't get the navigation right, it is a bit confusing :(

Thanks for using the walkthrough, the pdf file I uploaded is not really in a good quality, sorry for that. I actually have a nice html file but was unable to embed it in a post because none of the hosting places were in Newgrounds whitelist.

I just checked first medal-place (Samantha is Located) and game displayed a notification in the upper-left corner :/ I did noticed that all medals were locked during my initial gameplay and then, when i played for a second time, they were all displayed as unlocked.

[TearinShitUp]

It's pretty good. I enjoyed most of the game. With the exception the screen freezes sometimes or it doesn't move you to a room you clicked to go to. It just needs some minor tweaks and it'd be solid.

Ganderoleg responds:

Thank you for playing and for very high score.

Unfortunately when I started developing this game I was not so familiar with Construct 2 engine, so the game is a bit memory-heavy and has a number of small bugs.

The textual-tips when mouse is over the exit arrows was suggested by NG user Exedor, that could at least make things a bit more functional. I will try to find time to implement it in a next update.