STATIC: Investigator Training - A paranormal investigation adventure Demo released

Ethereal Darkness Interactive - The developers of Morning's Wrath, and The Lost City of Malathedra proudly announce their new game "STATIC: Investigator Training" - A paranormal investigation adventure.

For a just released Demo click here.





The tentative release date is Halloween 2009.




Please see www.staticgame.com for a game demo and screenshots, and be sure to view the developer Vlogs on www.edigames.com

Ana

Thanks Ana!

Looks interesting,

Thanks Ana~

BrownEyedTigre

I can't get demo to work. It seems to install okay but then it says it cant create cryptographic service provider, what ever that means.

What version of windows?

I know whats causing it, though I don't know why, guessing you don't have a certain DLL on your machine; however, it's not necessary so I'm removing it and rebuilding the demo, I'll let you know when it's up again.

EDIT:

just changed out the demo, if you'd like please re-download it from www.staticgame.com; if you have any further issues we'd love to hear from you at Raymond@edigames.com so we can resolve all issues.

Just had a quick go of the demo and noticed there seems to be an enormous difference between the volume of the dialog and the other audio. The former is a *lot* quiter than the latter.

Works now.

Tried the demo, just don't know quite what to make of this one - - - continued thinking~

It is an interesting concept and the opening screen is lovely. For me the dark rooms were strange and seemed much too empty after that lush opening.

I'll give it another try one of these days.

Just made some changes to the demo to address some feedback.

- photos, etc. show up centered now
- room-to-room movement should be easier

Is nobody else having problems with the sound? It`s difficult to make out the dialog for me playing on my lappy.

The music is a bit loud; but it could be the range of your laptop speakers; I'd recommend trying a good quality pair of headphones.

Yes, sometimes I did have a problem with the music being louder than the voices, it is strange because with the same set of headphones when I restarted the game again,without adjusting anything the speech could easily be heard. So words of comfort it is not your headphones nor computer. I have Vista Mj2c with sigmatel audio card. My suggestion is restart and try the game again.

Ta I will give this a try

I downloaded the Demo and played a little bit but then I couldn't get out of the game. I couldn't find an exit or anything. I had to shut my computer down to close the game. Can anyone tell me what to do?

Thanks,
carlahelp

The save game function generates a bunch of error messages.

Thanks but I didn't want to save. I just wanted to get out of the game.
I tried the escape key, enter key and space bar. Nothing worked. It is probably a good game but this stopped me so I uninstalled it.

carlahelp

the menu is at the top of the screen, move your mouse to the top and you'll see it.

Also, a windows tip, any application should always be able to close with Alt+F4


Guybrush, I assume those are technically warnings? We fixed that in the latest demo (yesterday)

But if not, what errors are you getting?


We just linked up the ESC key to moving the cursor to the menu to show it; it should be available in one of our future updates.

I appreciate the answer and so quick. I will download the demo and try again.

We're trying our best to squash issues fast; the ESC feature isn't in the current download, but we'll let the forum know when we post a new update.

carlahelp,
Don't forget things can be moved aside also and examined.

This is the game I hope to be playing on Oct.31 the full version.

I loved the demo. I too will be playing this game on Oct 31st!!!

Lenore did you finish the demo? I finally did and WOW this demo shows it will be a great game. I like that the game designer Edi takes the time to help answer questions for people over at his forum also. Believe me I may need it. LOL Thanks Edi, for your help at your forum . I finally saw the ending of the demo and it was worth the frustration of figuring out that last puzzle.

Sherryah I did finish it. I love the music, and I think the tools are pretty cool too. Can't wait to play the full version.

to GameBoomers Lenore1890

Ana

Thanks Ana. I'm not much of a gamer, but I'm def hooked on paranormal games like the Lost Crown, and I'm excited about Static.

I got stuck. After I got several photos nothing seemed to be happening.

Hi Guybrush -- maybe start a thread in Hints about the demo? It seems as though lots of people are playing it, and maybe one of them could help you ther!

I finished it.

I will give this a try

this game is awesome, can't wait for the finished project

Guybrush, Congrats!
aussie30:
Great to hear, we're working night and day on it!

Posted a new update to the demo on www.staticgame.com

Notable Fixes:

- video playing issues
- black or white screen after video with no gameplay

Just to let you know Edi, I have Vista 32 and didn't have any of those problems. I usually don't like halloween but looking forward to it counting down the days until your game is released.

You might not have Sherryah:

the black/white screen would only have been caused, if you had an older video card without Shader Model 2.0 or greater.

It was always our intention not to require Shader capable hardware for Static: IT, but we forgot to turn on the 'fallbacks' which allow it to run on non shader 2.0+ video cards.

With shader model 2.0 or greater you get better effects, however.

- better 'per-pixel' lighting
- better 'ghostly' effects on apparitions

the video issue seemed rather sporadic, I was able to reproduce it on my development machine fairly well; and a few others confirmed it; but now it's fixed

Coffee... anyone? I could use some coffee

Game is going good, nearing the final stretch!

This is great news Edi, do you know what time you will be posting it at your site? Since I live in Europe, maybe I can download it before you get the heavy traffic on your site that would slow down the digital download.

Nope, sorry Sherrya, we don't know what time it's going up.

However if history has taught me anything it will take longer than I expect; so I would assume a lateish-Saturday (5pm to 11pm), Eastern Time, USA


P.S.
I'm going to need a week of sleep after this

Are the system requirements posted anywhere?

Hiya Becky,

They will be for release; generally speaking any current gaming setup will be sufficient;

but here are some hard and fast specs:

Windows XP or Greater (tested under Vista and Windows 7)

Just about any modern 1GHZ-2GHZ processor, but the game isn't very cpu intensive; Static does most of it's work with the video card and system ram, since it contains a lot of high definition video data.
DirectX9 compatible video card (or an older card which is DX9 capable from newer drivers) with a minimum of 128 MB of Video memory (256 or 512 is recommended, the more vram you have the better the game will perform)
1GB minimum system RAM (will run on lower, but windows XP itself doesn't really like to run on anything lower than 1GB technically)
naturally the more ram, the better.
DirectSound capable Sound hardware.


Static: IT runs natively in 1280x720 HD so a desktop resolution of at least this much will allow you to experience it at full definition; but isn't required.

Generally speaking, Static IT does a good job of running on even a toaster oven but the better your system specs the better your performance.

Thanks for the info.

I am so stalking the Edi page all day... Very exciting!

Edi, I am patiently checking out the site and hoping to be one of the first to download the purchased version.

We appreciate your patients

We're looking at a late release (big surprise) so around night; eastern time USA.

Edi, please will you post here when we can buy the game? Thanks in advance!

Of course

Looks too scary for my liking.

Boo!

Ana

We're running behind unfortunately; we'll keep you all updated on progress, but some things have cropped up which means we won't be able to release for Halloween.

Thanks for the info. Let us know how it goes!

I am looking forward to trying it out, whenever it comes out. Take your time! Don't rush!

Hehe, thanks DaveHT; yeah, it's unfortunet we were unable to hit our halloween deadline, but when push comes to shove thats how it goes.

We will never ship a knowingly 'broken' game for obvious reasons.

Static: IT just needs some more TLC before we ship it.

Sunday saw some good progress; Jacki (my wife) has been doing lots of testing and taking notes on issues/improvements; and I've been working down the lists as fast as I can

Like most things, really getting something 'finished' is always way more work than anticipated; but I have a lot of experience in this area with Morning's Wrath, and The Lost City of Malathedra

We have Morning's Wrath 2, to finish for this year, so you can be sure we're gonna finish Static as soon as possible.

-Raymond

We expect a much sooner release than this; but just to keep people updated our new release date for STATIC: IT has been moved to Dec 1

We're currently in the process of 'polishing up' STATIC, and want to give it time so that we can get in some nice details.

In addition, we're working on a technology that would allow folks to play the STATIC: IT demo directly on our website; we're not sure if this will be a simultaneous feature release, it depends on how our development goes. This is also a hopeful precursor to allowing folks to play full versions of our games online, should they not want to download and install them locally.

These online versions are being designed to require less computer power compared to the download versions; and will work both PC and Mac; but will offer the same gameplay as an installed version without Shader capable graphics hardware.

I'm interested in hearing what folks think about this idea, and any concerns/features that spring to mind so we can consider them as we work on it.

-Raymond

Just checked the game website for Static...it says the game is coming out tonight...can it be true?! What time is the anticipated release?

Wait no longer! We are happy to say that STATIC: Investigator Training is now finished!

We hope you all enjoy playing STATIC as much as we enjoyed making it!

You can find the full game available for $9.95 on www.staticgame.com

P.S.

And now it's time to go enjoy the release party

Thanks for the info!

Downloaded the demo installed and i get a popup saying evaluation expired? Im on win7 if thats any help.

SkeeterUK; thanks for the info! It had slipped my mind that the demo was built to Beta specification and we've not promoted it to retail yet. Out alpha/beta builds all have a time limitation from their build date.

I'll produce a final build and get that up lickedy split.

In the mean time, if you just can't wait, rolling back your system clock a month or two should do it.

I'll post here when the new demo is up.

Thanks

Alrighty, the new demo is up and there shouldn't be any more evaluation expiration nonsense:D

A nice result of this is I took some time to bring some nice features we developed in the full game, into the demo.

- better portrait frames
- integrated instructions (yay!)
- floor arrows to denote where you can move from room to room
- most recent engine build; which has a lot of subtle improvements.

Nice.

I did the date rollback trick which worked but i found the font hard to read. Also im stuck in the demo i got 3 pictures and duno what to do, any advice welcome.

Please refer to this thread on our website; it gives some hints on how to complete the demo; http://staticgame.com/?p=13#comments

Skeeter, also, if you need hints please post in Hints forum here. This is discussions only. THanks!

Ana

Completed the demo, very nice, i like the fmv in a game once more, i so miss that. Btw if i get the full game, how many hours of gameplay is there and how many locations?

SkeeterUK glad you enjoyed it!

The demo has two locations you can explore; the full game features seven.

Hours of gameplay can vary greatly between people, especially in adventure games where solving puzzles can be a factor; so we really don't like to use it as a measure. The full game is also structured so that not all things are required to finish the game; so going the extra mile to explore things can reveal things you missed.

I can say that the full game allows you to choose 3 pieces of paranormal investigation equipment out of a possible 6; so you need to play at least twice to experience all equipment types.

Digital Camera
Infrared Thermometer
Voice Recorder
Pendulum
EMF Detector
Camcorder with Infrared Illumination

EDIT:
Ana; I agree if there was a hints thread started for this I'd be more than happy to fill folks in; I just want to be careful not to spoil it for others

Hmm so just 7 places, not much imo which is a shame i would have liked 30+ hehe but no bother mate, maybe in the sequel.

For 6.95 or whatever it was i saw it for seems reasonable, but since its xmas i wont have any spare cash to get the game for awhile.

Will you be making more fmv games, i hope so i do miss these types of games. Would love a tex murphy type game from you guys i think you would do a great P.I game which isn't dissimilar from the current game you made imo.

The full game is 9.95; and yeah we felt that is a very fair price for the modest amount of content that went into STATIC.

Yes, we already have plans for STATIC 2 (not its real name, hehe) my wife, who designed STATIC IT, is taking some time off until after new years; then we'll both be back at the grind working on STATIC 2; which will be a 2010 title; probably around the same time-frame

In addition we have tentative plans to introduce another new IP in a FMV-type game for our 2010 lineup.

Hi everyone I just purchased the game and now I am downloading the full version. Since I won the demo and had fun I have been anxiously awaiting the full version. I didn't know it was released last Sunday. Thanks for the email to remind me Edi.

Anything for our most excited fan 'Sherryah' is practically a household name at the Jacobs residence these days

I am so shocked, what did I do to receive this honor also for my name to be in the end credits? The main thing I did was get stuck in the demo and you took the time to help me where I was stuck. I am playing the paid version now and enjoying it. However I am stuck and asked my question at the hint forum and no one has helped me yet. Please Edi Will you check out my question and answer it? I am really stuck again trying to gather enough evidence for Julie to be approved as investigator.

Edit.....................
I just want everyone to know that Raymond (Edi) really wants his customers to enjoy the game, he has been helping me with the puzzles through email. I greatly appreciate when a game developers take the time to help the customers. They don't have to do that extra step after all they already have our money, but it is the kindness the customer does not forget.

So if your debating whether to get this game all I can say it is a fun ghost hunting adventure unlike anything I have played before. It may only be 7 rooms but there is a lot to do in each room. I am still trying to get the evidence for Julie to be hired and it has been 5 hours thus far. I don't think this room counts as a 1st room since it is a test room.

If you get stuck just write Raymond (Edi) has taken the time and started a thread at hints to help. Hope everyone who likes ghostbusting games will give it a try. A small price for a lot of fun in my opinion.

I hope BFG picks this one up also because it is an interesting ghost adventure.

EDIT............
I won the game and guess what special thanks to GameBoomers at the end Credits! LOL I was listed as Sherryah the most excited fan!