(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)
haha, "Dastardly Disappearer" -> doubled initial Stan Lee-wise? ;)
Controls are layout-independent, great! :) (I have an AZERTY keyboard). AND arrow keys are enabled.
got stuck in the cases to the left right from the start, when pressing E! X)
Second try: pressing E makes the character moves towards the cases, opening animation for him, but then he gets back to his walking animation infinitely without moving! :o
Oh, no sound? Too bad!
Love the grey filter.
The polygonal character, his animation, and the static camera angles have me thinking of Edward Carnby from the very first "Alone in the Dark"! By the way, he is also a detective. :)
Goon-avoiding phase: it’s "Ocarina of Time"’s garden all over again! ;) By the way, lucky those guards are near-sighted!
Smoke appears when you are near the object, apparently; not obvious how to anticipate…
I think a key for running would have helped! (distances can be a bit long) Ah, here is an excellent example: lucky I had found the wrench before finding the grate, because otherwise, I would have had to double back and then come back!
Not always obvious whether you can go some direction or not (ie whether the camera will switch angles); maybe add a visual indication? Like the optional ones from "Final Fantasy VII".
Not entirely sure what the link between the smoke and disappearence is! The form says that objects disappear, but I have yet to see it. (Spoiler: A bit later: oh, seeing a ship vanish, I had not understood correctly: there is no link with the smoke! X) My bad. Smoke must have made me think of conjuror, and so I expected some connection!!)
Reaching a top-view phase, nice! :) I really like the effort in the variety of camera angles and the general scenery.
Spoiler: oh, a body! What happened? Does it trigger the ship’s disappearance?
Ah, found the baddy-in-chief! (And there IS another kind of smoke there, too, so I was not completely wrong! X))
"FIN." -> I am French, by the way. ;) I feel like this makes you think of silent films, which would be a good explanation as to why there is no sound.
I may have missed something, but I think I only saw one object disappearing in the entire game! :o Am I wrong? Spoiler: the ship. And the villain, but this is more of the final twist.
Playing once more to see what happens when you get caught! Aaaah, this allows me (right before getting seen, luckily!) to see the earliest sailing boat disappear! So, there ARE several things that do; maybe it is random? BUT do only "decorative" objects disappear, or also some that can be helpful to hide? Apart from the big ship that blocks the way, I am under the impression that no gameplay-related element can disappear, but I may be wrong.
Takeaway: artistically, I really liked the whole "Alone in the Dark" feel of the game! The hiding mechanic was nice; apparently, you nerfed the enemies enough so that the game be rather easy. (By the way, are there checkpoints if you get caught later on? Did not try so!) I also like the context with this conjuror, and the idea of having various things vanish is great, BUT it seems that the mechanic is (for the moment!) not much applied to the objects linked to the gameplay (I am thinking of hiding); which would have been great, I think! Definitely a good idea that needs to be given more way. There are also some ways to improve playability, but they are rather straightforward, I think (see above).
Lovely game, I wished for more! :)