I originally wanted to give this game a full review but then Vishnu prevented me from taking screenshots and I didn't want to replay it with fraps running.
I'll talk about a lot of negative aspects of this game now so I want you to know that I like the idea and that I think the game has a lot of potential. It suffers however from many designflaws which I will adress now:
The game is supposed to take place in an abandoned asylum. However, none of the rooms remind you of one. The rooms come rather random and there doesn't seem to be any kind of coherent architecture. A reappearing prop in this game is a shopping cart which is okay once to suggest that some homeless people might have lived there but the game has a lot of them and they appear to be just random filler. There are meathooks on chains in the entrance hall and there is even a room with modern computers. (?)
The subtitles are okay but feel a bit forced and awkward. especially in the part where you dream "this isn't real, I am lucid dreaming" just rips the interest and tension out of the scene. Nobody talks that way.
I had a lot of clunky dialogue in euthanasia and I think this can be because you, Kumi, are not english like me. (its also "an old key" not "a old key".
)
The random and unnatural cameramovement in the game has really no purpose. You get the feeling of being drunk while moving around in a painfully slow pace (yet the game sends you in really long airventtubes).
I could see how that first ghost that appeared died.
The scare with the mannequin is really out of place. You might have been inspired to do this by "condemned: criminal origins." However, they used it in an abandoned shopping mall full of mannequins. You however used it in an Asylum where there shouldnt be one.
The randomness of scares and overblown sounddesign (you have sounds all over the place and the player immediately gets that these are just sounds placed willynilly and not sounds from your surroundings: not scary.) You have a few very good sounds too...the one with the distant footsteps would be very good if I wouldn't have been aware that its just a soundzone from all the other random noise.
These medieval'esque wooden barrels are out of place too.
The game prevented me from even having an uneasy feeling due to the overly fake and unbelievable environemnt. I didn't really care about my surroundings nor progress of the game.
Your appartment is another example of mismatching props and the tutorial as generated texts on the wall doesn't really help it much.
Now this might sound harsh, and I am aware that this is your first game. But you have some real talent, Kumi and you should set the bar high for you. At least in my opinion. You could deliver a great game if you would put in some effort.
You are also too talented to hide behind "its so good for an fpsc game" "fpsc is limited" arguments and really deliver on this.
-Wolf
