The Stroke of Midnight - New IHOG on BigFish

You can download The Stroke of Midnight here.



As always, please remember to come back and tell us what you think.

Happy Gaming,
Ana

It's been feast or famine with BFG lately. This looks like another great game.
Forgive me if the question has been answered before, but why would someone purchase a Strategy Guide when a Walkthrough is available?

The pictures are larger, the layout is different and they have unused credits.

Ana

I just played this for a few minutes and I like it. When I saw "Nikitova Games," I already had a good vibe, as that is the same folks who did Deadtime Stories.

Margie B posted on the Big Fish forums an excellent overview of how the hint system works in this game, and I think it would be worthwhile to share this information here.

Thanks Ana, thanks Marian, this is a super game! I didn't even play more than ten minutes before I decided to buy it. Woo Hoo! A little different than the ordinary IHog and I'm really enjoying it. Nice story and creepy music too.

Playing the demo,it sure is a different HOG. Never played a game quite like this one. I like it I guess. The hint system is different,it allways stays active, when you click in a item it shows you where it is,no waiting at all. If you don't like HO than this is the game for you. It's different all right.
Richard

I am enjoying this game. At first I did not think I would like using the items in the same scene, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did have to think where to place most of the items. When the demo ended I had completed about 1/4 of the game (only used the walk through to see how far I had gotten). IMHO it is a great game. It ran beautifully on my computer.

I'm enjoying it also,Hi Sparkle I've been wondering that myself????

Could only play for about 10 minutes, dreadful motion sickness..not one for me then...

Quite a different type of game. I am so thankful that Margie posted the hints. I read those first and it helped me figure out the gameplay. I really like the hints on the hidden object part, cause those always slow me way down. The mirror hints was really a unique way of helping. There is movement to the game, some sorta fast. In fact the first hallway was whhhooooshhhh, like the "El" in Chicago, hang on! It didn't bother me, but it might bother some. This one is on my "to buy" list, probably won't wait long! (is tonight waiting to buy? )

Koalanut

Who writes these things? They're asking an awful lot of 'suspension of disbelief' if they seriously want me to accept that a young woman would travel halfway across the world and head off alone to spend the night in a castle in rural Romania, not even blink when it turns out to be uninhabited, in ruins and covered with cobwebs and instead of leaving as fast as her little legs will carry her, find a way to cross a huge hole to the only navigable stairway, then lie down and peacefully go to sleep after murmuring that her creativity is coming back to her. (How was that for a run-on sentence?)

The game mechanics look interesting but the story? Honestly, they'll have to do better than this if they want me to last more than ten minutes in a game.

Back to wrestling with a game that, so far, has an interesting and credible story line,

Gil.

Lol traveler! I thought exactly the same thing as your spoiler. But like any book, movie or game, I just go with the flow and see what happens

Koalanut

I might have just gone with the flow, too, Koalanut, if it weren't for thinking that these guys believe we'll play anything if they just give us pretty graphics and puzzles with a skip button. I've noticed that they even use the same music in some games and for sure, they use the same story line (such as it is) in game after game. (Didn't we just have one about a woman author laying the spirits of lovers to rest?) Just a sentence or two to let us know that this was an intrepid gal who tames alligators for fun and doesn't mind roughing it in tumbled-down ruins would at least have made her decision to bed down there easier to swallow!

I know, I'm hard to please. Sigh.

Gil.

And, Gil, her HUSBAND sent her there! Now, if my husband made reservations for me to stay in such a run-down place, we'd be "having words" and the storyline would not only be vastly different, but there would be "Murder" in the game's title.

Cappy

thracia

.....and I just cannot wait until someone comes up with the idea of sending a grand-daughter to search for her grandfather who has mysteriously disappeared through a mirror, a time warp or an old beaten-up wardrobe!

Bernie

"And, Gil, her HUSBAND sent her there!"

Rofl! How could I have missed that?! Cappy, you started my day with a big laugh!

Gil.

where is the english?I can't get in the front door or find the menu to exit.

?? What do you mean, where is the English? Is your version in another language? Where did you download from?

Ana

PATSY may be having the experience I had. If the resources don't extract properly when the game is loaded, there are many pieces of the game missing. Like, say, menu buttons. What's left are the file structure tags <ui/front_door/lock/closed_position> or, better yet, a string of copy that includes "reactives".

Sadly, reports from the BFG forums suggest that once the game fails to load properly the first time, it will not load properly -- nor can it be uninstalled and reinstalled to fix the problem -- from that point on.

I downloaded from here when you announced it I think I'm losing it or already lost it. It sounds like everyone is having a good time but me. LOL

Everyone but you and me, PATSY.

You're right, mr;ipid i tried to install again and got the same mish mosh.

I've been playing around with (not playing) The Stroke of Midnight this weekend. Have decided to subject myself to BFG Customer Service and see what they say. I am not expecting much which means if they come up with anything I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Then be prepared for a very pleasant surprise, MrLipid. BFG's customer service is head and shoulders above any others!

Actually, I have found the answer this morning on the BFG boards. And here it is.

"I had the same issue, because I accidentally pressed a key on first start,
when there was an "unpacking resources" window popping up.
Any uninstall/re-install didnt help.
I found that half-unpacked data in
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Namco\Stroke Of Midnight
After removing that directory and reinstalling the game it worked.
Hope this helps"

And it did indeed. The game actually runs now. Had to download resource.pak from an alternative site, but all's well that ends well, right?

Thanks for posting that solution, MrLipid. Good to get to the bottom of this conundrum.

What is it with this "unpacking" system with this game? I have never seen this before, or maybe just never noticed it before.

This is a layman's explanation --but basically it means that when you download the game, some of the files have been compressed, and then the game "unpacks" them after you have downloaded and returns the files to their original (uncompressed) state. This makes the download size of the game smaller than it would have been if the files had not been compressed beforehand.

I have had files unpack on a couple of BF games before; I believe one of them was Buried in Time--by the same developers as Stroke of Midnight.

One more thing. The resource.pak file when unpacked to the resource.dat file takes up the better part of a gig: 933MB. That, coupled with the other game files, brings the total to 950MB.

BFG claims the whole game takes up 374MB.

Wow - no wonder they packed it - This must be the largest casual game download ever??

Or the most surprising. You download 169MB and it turns into 950MB. Sort of like a clown car for files.

I've got 2 minutes of demo time left myself.

Have you been playing or troubleshooting?

Playing. It unpacked just fine.

That's good news. Enjoying it?

mrlipid, I couldn't find it on mine

Couldn't find what, PATSY? resources.dat? resource.pak? Are you running XP or Vista?

Yeah, have to buy it.

I finally had a chance to play it and, since I had a credit handy, bought it.

I'm actually more interested in it for the step it represents away from rooms full of junk and complicated locks. Hidden object games haven't exactly been filled with visceral thrills. Will this be a first step or a dead end? For now, it's a hoot!

Hope you like it and find it fun, MrLipid.
I played the demo and thought it was great. I consider it a great introduction into point and click "old-style" or "pure" adventure games. Loved the graphics and the game play. The only thing I didn't like was the way it went to the title screen for transitions -- thought it could have been done better.

Running xp. couldn't find data pak or resources

Look in the directory where you keep your Big Fish games. It's listed in the Game Manager under the Options tab on the bottom.

Once you find the directory, go to The Stroke of Midnight folder and look inside. If you've reinstalled The Stroke of Midnight, you've probably got a resources.pak in your Stroke of Midnight directory.

Here's where to find resources.dat.

It can be found in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Namco\The Stroke of Midnight in XP.

If resources.dat is still on your system when you try to reinstall, the resources.pak file will not extract anything and nothing will happen. I know. Did it myself many times.

So here is what you need to do to get rid of the old resources.dat.

Uninstall your current copy of The Stroke of Midnight.

In XP, go to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Namco\The Stroke of Midnight.

There is only one file in The Stroke of Midnight folder: resources.dat.

DELETE resources.dat. (If this seems too extreme, rename it something like resources.org or resources.old.)

Download and reinstall The Stroke of Midnight. Once it has installed, click Play Now. You should see the green "extracting resources" bar.

If there are no errors while extracting, you should be good to go.

This is not a guarantee that the game will work properly. However, if you have had a failed install, you MUST DELETE resources.dat to have any hope of a successful reinstall.

Just for the heck of it (my 2 cents). I bought this game, after looking at the blog walkthrough. It appeared to be a very long game; however, I found it to be very short. Enjoyable, but way too short.

I have gathered peppermint, camomile & rosehips in Chapter 10 and nothing is happening..
Help
Peeked at the walkthrough and apparently a ghost is supposed to appear & lead me off to the right. Nothing is happening.
Helpity help

JennyP, I haven't played the game, but until someone else comes along who can provide better help, maybe the following is worth a try.

A quick look at the Big Fish forums reveals some other folks having had the same problem. Apparently if you don't collect the ingredients in the right order, the game may not cooperate.

One person said the following:



Let us know how you get on. I'm hoping there's a better solution than this.

Oh dear - I collected the ingredients in that order & nothing happened - does this mean I have to start the game anew ???

I have no idea, unfortunately. Let's wait and see if someone who has actually played the game can offer some insight. If you did everything in that order, then I don't have a clue as to why you are having this problem. Maybe it's something simple?

Has anyone figured out how to make the ghost appear after you've gathered the herbs near the end of the game? I've asked on the GBs
forums, but nobody has an answer.

fil, see the posts above yours. Apparently it;s an issue in the game.

Ana

I just came across this game.....better late than never. It's beautiful and very deferent from any other IHOG I've played. I'm in the middle and had it freeze on me a number of times but I'm still determined to enjoy and finish. I found that if I clicked too fast (not referring to HO scenes) that it would freeze. So I'm taking my time, moving forward and thoroughly enjoying it.