I didn’t play without “annoying” on-jokes yet. I still need to replay to see the one with added dialogues and hint-system. And the easy mode. Combine all these options, and that’s a whole beep-load of replays to do …
True, I know exactly what you mean. For that to be applied to an adventure game it would have to be very linear and probably boring. A big part of the fun is spending time messing around in each new screen, drinking from the water fountains or looking for random gags which is why I’m not a fan of bragging about your play time. It’s not a racing game.
Unfortunately not. But I assume that it has to do with the haptic and the habits. For example you can’t turn pages over and most e-ink devices are made of plastic.
Playing in “Casual” mode goes a lot faster. I personally prefer “Hard” mode, but everyone should give the former a chance. It can be finished in just a couple of days, and you get the exact same story and atmosphere – it just flies through faster due to the limited number of puzzles. 
dZ.
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I am still not convinced about “e-ink,” to me it looks much too dark and low-contrast, compared to what I expect in a book with white pages.
However, having an iPad with its “Retina Display” has spoiled me somewhat. Sometimes, when reading a graphic novel or a magazine with glossy pages, i find myself absent-mindedly attempting to “scroll” the page with my finger. It takes a fraction of a second shock for me to realize that I must flip the pages by hand. LOL!
dZ.
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I am playing Kathy Rain, and liking it a lot. However there are these monologues where characters tell long backstories:
So you look at this still picture, and in the meantime you listen to the woman who is telling you a story about several people, dead people, that you don’t see, and have never seen. And you can’t totally focus on this backstory, because you have in front of you a picture that has nothing to do with the story.
And, being this an investigation about dead people, there are a lot of cases where this text narrations happen. The result is that the story of Kathy Rain might have been easier to follow if it were a completely textual game. (Because in that case you would not have had these unrelated pictures distracting you from the events narrated.)
Clearly this aspect of the game does not work. But the question is how it could be fixed relatively cheaply. At first I thought it would be enough to show illustrations of the backstories (like a comic). But then again, it is not cheap to draw them in this same style… it is too polished. It would take 300$ per illustration, drawn like that. (And then the question becomes: instead of spending so much on these beautiful colored background locations, wouldn’t it have been better to spend money to show the faces of all the characters, and to draw the key scenes involving these characters, and cut back on backgrounds and animations? Even if it means that the game becomes a black and white still comic? )
The problem is the (long) monologue. You can solve this by converting the monologue into a conversation where the player can chose the questions (via multiple choice). So the informations won’t “hit” the player at once. And there is some interaction: The player explores the story step by step in his own speed. So the player focuses on the discussion between the two characters in the room - no flashback with new graphics needed.
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Right, this would be an improvement. Not sure if it would be enough, though. Difficult to imagine.
Depends on how long the flashback actually is. If he is not too long the multiple choice variant should be enough. Otherwise it could get boring too…
For reference, I have now started doubting even this (apparently obvious) thing
I’ve noticed that there are interactive sections that might have been better if they had been cutscenes… I’m thinking of a case where you don’t have a clear objective, and you need to talk to everyone about everything, until you talk to the right person about the right topic and the story advances. (you see this again and again in Blackwell series or some Wadjeteye games, for example. Or in Broken Sword.). This tends to be so boring that might be better if the character did this automatically. I think for interaction to work well, you need to have a clear objective, and the objective can’t just be “see if someone knows something about X”. This tends to be very boring, at least for me. I can’t put my finger on it, but for some reason the objective “find a way to get in the governor’s mansion” is ok, but the objective “see if someone knows something about this” is not ok.