Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting is finally here, and it's a JA Shop exclusive!

Prepare...for some scares...

http://www.justadventure.com/shop/38/corrosion-cold-winter-waiting

Hi Karla!

I was waiting for Corrosion since five long years, and I had almost lost hopes when I was told that it was on sale!

I immediately purchased and downloaded it and afterwards I red your intriguing review that I liked an awful lot!

We have the same feelings about horror games, and the last two that I was waiting for eagerly were such a delusion

But Corrosion is really different; I'm loving it! By now I'm quite advanced in the plot, Spoiler AlertI just red Sasha's journal and spreaded the infra red paint on Donald's keyboard..

I have a question, just a curiosity: what is the first puzzle to which you refer as a doozie? Spoiler AlertI went out of my head to follow the steps on the City map... is this the one you mentioned?

Now in my country it's almost bedtime, but I can't stop playing, even if for the moment I'm stuck; but I know it's only a matter of time and a bit of thinking

I hope that my English isn't too bad. Thanks for a great review!

Hey struzzo! I know of at least one other JA member who's been waiting five years for Corrosion. That's dedication!

I'm very happy the game has finally been released and that you're enjoying it.

Concerning the doozie puzzle:

Spoiler AlertIt's the one at the beginning where you have to use two mathematical equations to arrive at a 4-digit override code. I'm not mathematically inclined and this puzzle had me tearing my hair out.

If it's any consolation...

Spoiler AlertI also had some trouble tracing the path on the street map. It doesn't help matters that it comes in two parts.

Thanks a lot for your reply Karla!

For what concerns the Spoiler Alertmap puzzle, I'm that sort of person always confused between right and left, and I get lost even in the neighbouring of my own home, so, to me it was terribly hard

I'm enjoying the game a lot! Too bad I fear I'm very close to the end...

Have a nice time

We are kindred spirits, struzzo.

Spoiler AlertMy sense of direction is dreadful. I've lived in the same place for 26 years and I still get lost here. Even when I stuck the two pieces of street map together and tried to trace the route, I ended up in impossible places where I was unable to move in the next prescribed direction. So I definitely hear you!

Don't tell me!

Spoiler AlertI assembled the map in Photoshop and printed it in 5 copies. Would you believe that in every single copy my way led to different and distant places?! After other 5 prints I arrived twice to Lois lane, so when it didn't work I just tried the other two parallel streets. It was stressing! 

I wonder if there is anyone playing this game... I couldn't find any thread with comments and opinions.

I'm writing a review for an italian forum, do you mind if I quote a little part of your interview with the developer? Obviously providing your signature and the link.

struzzo, feel free to quote my developer interview, and thanks for asking!

Just be sure to post the URL so we can all read your review -- and so I won't get lost trying to find it. 

Edit: Er, will the review be in Italian or English?

Thanks Karla, you are really very nice!

Of course I will post the URL as soon as the review bill be ready, hopefully in a couple of days. I din't mention the name of the forum in my last post, because I didn't want to act any sort of spam and I thought to send you the link to the review by PM.

I'll be eager to post it in the thread if I may.

Er... I'm afraid it is in italian... and I haven't enough free time to make a good translation myself (too bad I'm a working grown-up with little spare time even to play); but I could help with an online translator and some personal fixes to make it more understandable.

The language barrier is terrible, and the case of Corrosion may be, regrettably, a significant example...

I really loved the game, and I'm using all my present time to make a good, ethusiastic rewiev as I'd like so much to promote it in my country and support the developer! The sad thing is that there's an awful lot to read and to hear, not only to enter deeply into the plot, but even to go on in the game itself, and I really fear that it is going to prevent most people from even trying to play it, making useless all my work.

Anyway I'm trying. keeping up the good works is the main purpose for which the little forum I'm cooperating with was born, so...

Have a nice Sunday, hear from me soon!

I'm very happy you enjoyed Corrosion, struzzo!

As you may already know, a walkthrough is also posted on the JA site, at http://www.justadventure.com/article/91/walkthroughs-corrosion-cold-winter-waiting. As far as I know, it's the only one so far.

Arrivederci per ora!

I enjoyed Corrosion a lot. It is comparable in atmosphere to Scratches, although I thought it was better than that game depite the very -grey- locations. The ending was a bit disappointing, and some of the inventory puzzles could be solved without even figuring out that you need to solve them.

Originally Posted By karla (26 FEB 2012 11:54am)

Arrivederci per ora!

That's perfect italian Karla!

Thanks for the link to the walkthrough! I like reading walkthroughs after finishing a game I loved... it's a bit like being able to see it from a different point of wiev.

My review has been released, together with a walkthrough written by the admin of the Blog/forum. You can find them here

http://loscrignodiatrus.blogspot.com/2012/02/corrosion-recensione-view-more.html

@ Walsh, I'm glad that you enjoyed the game too! I fully agree with you on those inventory puzzles... I have a simple logical mind, and when lateral thinking is requested I go crazy...

EDIT: Er... if it was what you meant... I red your post a second time and I'm not so sure any more.

Spoiler AlertOn the other hand I liked that harsh ending, so many things left to figure out and to think about... I found it very realistic.

EDIT 2: Attached is a rough translation of the rewiev, with the help of Google with some patches of mine. I hope that it is at least understandable... sorry for not having time to do something better!

Thanks, struzzo!

Unfortunately, your attachment link doesn't work for me. I have a feeling the problem is likely at our end, as I located a different attachment in another thread and it won't work for me, either.

I contacted our tech folks about it yesterday but I've received no reply. I've just opened a Helpdesk Ticket. Hopefully, one of these will prompt some attention.

I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you!

Thanks Karla! It's very nice of you

Well... it didn't work; the spoiler window only retained the first sentence, and the same happened in my attempt of using a smaller font size, so feel free to erase the post after having red.

Spoiler AlertFebruary 9, 2012. Viperante Creative Media, aka Daniel Lee Peach, a young independent developer resident in Yorkshire, UK, announces the release of his second project: Corrosion - Cold Winter Waiting. (Http://www.coldwinterwaiting.com/index.htm) I have a soft spot for the horror genre, and eagerly followed the development of this adventure since the time I red a preview on Punta Clicca.it website in 2007. Upon receiving the news that the game was finally released I bought it immediately and played all in one breath, without pausing. Although I finished it some days ago, I still spend my nights at Cold Winter Farm, longing for one of the most amazing adventures of its kind I've ever played. The background to the game, presented in form of attractive slide-show at the beginning of the adventure, is described in the press release issued by Viperante and the distribution company, Tri Synergy. (follows the translation in Italian of the content of the press release) The sheriff, as character, will soon be forgotten. Entering that lift the player will cross the threshold of hell itself, and from that moment the sense of what he’ll see through the eyes of Alex will be filtered only by his personal skills of deduction, his ideological background and his intuition. Corrosion is very different from the games we are used to, whose tendency is to provide all -or almost- answers that the player expects, or, in alternative, lead to open-ends, diversified depending on the choices made. The fabric of this adventure causes devastating questions but does not give answers, and this is its peculiarity: it leaves the task to the player, providing a patchwork of clues that will allow him to process them. Shocking in its realism, the story will end before all the mysteries are revealed. A logical and plausible choose, since, in the shoes of the only witness to what happened behind the peaceful facade of a country house, the player will see only what is seen by his alter ego: a man accidentally trapped in the basement of a house where inhuman horrors occurred, whose most pressing desire is to find a way out and run away faster than the wind. In this regard I want to quote a significant passage from the interview released by Daniel Lee Peach to Karla Munger of Just Adventure. (it’s the part starting with: ... the main character in Corrosion, the Sheriff, does not speak...) I can personally confirm that the author fully succeeded in reaching his goal! The ten days I spent under Cold Winter Farm were among the most intriguing I've ever experienced during the course of an adventure, exploring every nook and avidly reading every single document several times, hoping to find some clues that allowed to open up access to new locations and discover new developments of the events that had taken place within those walls. Corrosion - Cold Winter Waiting is a great game from all points of view and, in my opinion and in its kind, an outstanding masterpiece. An adventure in which the classical and almost reassuring "fear" is overwhelmed by distress and uneasiness, as deep as to raise the hair on your head and chill your blood. Corrosion is chilling, both for its cold and spartan environment and its implications, in which through a series of journals - real protagonists of the game – written by characters drawn from behind the scenes, are shown in all their crudeness the most disturbing depths of the psyche. You will be witness of the intangible hells that dwells into minds eroded by the worst existential events, in which proliferate drives capable of justifying the most aberrant actions and to build hells far more concrete and without ransom, intended to satisfy cravings for knowledge and power as unconditioned hatred and thirst for revenge. The hallucinating path of the player runs, on parallel roads, through the dark corridors of a maze of walls and through the winding paths of the labyrinth of the mind, being one the projection of the other, whose corrosive processes generate monsters and demons. Only the player will have to decide if these demons are real or imaginary. Unfortunately I have to stop, because the bounds of a review do not allow me to go further. To describe the structure and packaging of the game I can just think of two concepts: balance and measure. Corrosion runs on the tracks of a strict measure, difficult to associate to such a young developer and to his short experience in the world of adventures. The events that occurred in those places are told, only occasionally explicitly, through the writings of the people who have been involved and scant records without images, retrieved from the archive of the security system. We hear the voices of some of the people who lived in that place without ever seeing their faces or having visual hints of the atrocious actions that they committed, even if some unequivocal pieces of furniture speak for themselves… The graphics, mostly in shades of gray with rare, scattered hints of color, and sober even in the most meticulous attention to detail, is a masterpiece of balance: in its minimalism contains everything it should, nothing less, nothing more. The atmosphere of the game is supported by a unique musical dimension consistent of poignant and eventually dissonant sounds and music pieces full of melancholy and an absolute sense of loneliness. The sounds are suffused as if their origin was remote, distant in space and time, never repetitive and never overwhelming. Even in this aspect of the game dominates a perfect balance that blends inextricably with the sobriety of the graphics. The puzzles are of mixed character. There are two puzzles, at the beginning of the game, one of which is rather hard, giving way to more classic inventory-based puzzles, which will request all our imaginative resources, and to clever and meticulous searching for information that will allow, through the use of a computer network, to discover additional details of the story. The interface is easy to use, controlled by mouse in the best tradition of point and click, and savings unlimited. Some passages, particularly the assembling of objects in the inventory and the animations, will need a little patience to await the slow reappearance of the pointer. A couple of harmless bugs do not in any way disturb the fluid flow of the game, but considering the diversity of responses between different computers I suggest you to save often. As you may have guessed, Corrosion is in first person. Made in 3D, with a resolution of 1024 x 768, it works perfectly on XP, Vista and 7. The game is in English only. (Requirements) Ready for the trip? Buckle up! Once started it will be difficult to divert your thoughts from this adventure until you have finished, and beyond ... Rating: 10/10

Sorry for such an awful English... Have a nice day!

Hey struzzo,

No worries! I was able to edit your post and enclose the entire text in a spoiler tag.

I'll be sending you a PM with a question or two.

Thanks a lot Karla!!! I feel relieved!

My reply to your PM is in your inbox.

This was a fantastic game!

I too had been keeping an eye on it for years and figured the developer had thrown in the towel.

Then in typical sour-grapes fashion I said "meh - it probably wasn't going to be very good anyhow."

It was so very nice to be wrong about that.

Waiting patiently can be very rewarding sometimes!

I'm still wondering who Spoiler Alertwas the man on the road: Michael Sylar, Zack Sheridan or Donald Wolfe (I think that Donald was the lad burnt in the furnace room, because he had the key of his safe box)?

Hmmm... think I'll check it out.

Would you!

I'd love to hear opinions on this matter

Corrosion has been a great game, really.

I have no difficulty acknowledging CCWW is a good game but not in terms of great or fantastic. Like many I disagree with the overall score given by the reviewer on AG but at the same time I cannot readily dismiss the conclusive remarks in his last two paragraphs. I fully realize that often a developer might believe the best climax is to simply leave the ending open for interpretation or speculation but with insufficient information it just doesn't work in this case, at least for me.

Hi CB, thanks for your reply.
Of course I meant that Corrosion was great for me, I never thought that it should be the same for anyone!
I didn't know the review you mentioned, so I looked for it and red it. I may understand the reviewer point of you, but I disagree at all. I enjoyed reading the journals and I found the characters nicely sketched, each with his/her own personality, and -yes- I was eagerly looking forward to finding the next scrap of backstory!
I loved piecing together dates and times to know more while hated the inventory based puzzles too, but I don't think that I could call them "nonsense"...
For what concerns the (very much) open ending, I admit it's absolutely personal but I enjoyed a lot going on thinking about what really happened even after the game was ended! I spent many nights under the CWF after finishing the game to look for any additional clue that could enlighten me.
Spoiler AlertExamining the facts, only 3 people could have survived after Zack's ritual: the same Zack, Donald and eventually Michael Sylar. Then, one of them was burnt by the player in the furnace room, and even if the fact that he was in possess of the key for Donald's safe box doesn't mean necessarily that he was Donald himself, it would be reasonable to think that the stranger hit by Alex's car would be one of the two younger ones... at the beginning of the game we see the shoulder of the stranger in the hospital and he didn't look like an aged man. So... Zack and Michael remain, but which of the two?
I still can't find a reply, but I'm not sure that the author hasn't left a little, hard-to-find clue to this last question...