Topics

1

Critics' Lounge / My backgrounds: effective or ugly? :D

« on: 28 Nov 2011, 20:12 »

...or maybe both of these things?



Something you could call a graphical (test-)"re-interpretation" of my first game on AGS in 2005 that was never finished. Back then I tried to make a game with cutting edge animations and sierra-esque graphics and was way too ambitious about everything. I didn`t like it because it never came close to what I imagined. (I also was 11 at the time)

Nowadays, as my drawing skills have greatly improved, I just try to make everything seem like it was designed by a kid with little skills who just wanted to make a nice game and had fun doing it.  
I like this idea, because I now can make backgrounds and animations in a extremely short time and even get away with that. I myself like this style, it has such a childish and cheerful charme, which ironically I tried to avoid when I was 11.

2

Advanced Technical Forum / Hit Key - Run Script

« on: 03 Apr 2011, 17:31 »

This question may be very easy to answer for some here, but I never bothered with scripts like these until now. 
Basically, I only want to achieve that a script gets triggered as soon as the player hits a certain key on his keyboard. The script should also stop if the same key is being hit again. Would be very awesome if someone here could show what the script should look like to work.

3

Critics' Lounge / Does using photos as backgrounds appear cheap?

« on: 28 Mar 2011, 20:51 »

I have been planning an adventure game for so long now, yet I can`t really make proper decisions. My earlier projects teached me to set myself relatively little goals and better not think too big or too long about my projects.
However, right now I thought about using photos as backgrounds for my game. They are fast to make, but I wonder if they wouldn`t appear a little cheap - especially since I am going for a more cartoony style for the characters. Setting-wise, my games go in a very similiar direction as Kings Quest, with many fairytalish forests and fantasy landscapes to explore.

My earlier projects (around 2008) looked like this and had a huge amount of cartoon-styled animations:


My main character is a cat with a hat (the one Graham from KQ wears) and still looks like this:

(The furry thing at the bottom is a reference to that horrible horrible internet fandom that likes erotic pictures of animal cartoon characters. My character here pretty much carries two chainguns on his arms, ready to blast the one who calls him a furry - in case you don`t get it )

But, even if those backgrounds look simple, together with the animations they took by far the longest time at this ambitious project. With photos, this process would be unnecessary and the whole game making process would speed up. And as I already said, the problem with the clashing styles will appear.

So, just for trying it out, I made this little experiment using that (actually not very pretty ) sketch from the page above:
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/3271/pic2jb.png

And I don`t really know what to think of that (aside from noticing that the character needs some shadow at his feet). I actually kinda like how the character in all its black and white glory contrasts with the surrounding. I think it almost has some kind of charme to it. If I animate him nicely and let the scenery cast shadows on him at the right places, it would look kinda nice.

It would be very awesome if you guys here could give me some advice on this.  
Or, do you know any other games where something similiar was pulled off right?

4

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Looking for a VERY strange adventure game

« on: 17 Oct 2010, 09:18 »

Quite some years ago, when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old, I was in a hospital and there was some videogame freak with me in one room. We often talked about videogames in general and by accident I remembered yesterday that he told me about a weird videogame that he loved and I never heard of. As far as I remember, the way he described the gameplay reminded me of adventure games.

It was a series of games, named after the main character, whose name I have forgotten.

The first game was about an island you had to travel to, but I forgot why. He told me that these games had a lot of freedom, and you could interact with almost everyone and everything and you also had to catch your train at the right time or else the game would take a different direction. Sadly, I can`t remember more oft this.

Another other game of the series was called "[insert name of main character here] and the chocolate bar". This time you were trapped in some kind of weird parallel dimension that you have to escape. You were walking around in a strange, warped version of the main characters home town. People were flying across the sky, children were eating raw potatoes on a stick instead of ice cream, animals in restaurants were eaten alive and so on. There also was a barber, and if you looked trough the window, you could see that when the people combed their hair, it turned in the opposed direction than it should be (I hope you know what I mean, basically you move your comb the the left, but the hair moves to the right). That videogame freak also told me that the chocolate bar in the title would play an important role at the end of the game.

And the last thing I remember was that in another game of the series, the main character walked around almost naked all the time.  

Have you guys ever heard or seen such a game series or did that guy just a prank on me?  

5

Critics' Lounge / MMMorshews art

« on: 25 Sep 2010, 11:49 »

It would be great if you guys here could give me some opinions about my art. I posted most of it on DeviantArt, but there I get little to none criticism - mainly because I draw my own stuff instead of fan-arts about popular franchises that get a lot of attention.  
I plan to create an adventure game with my art style once I have enough time and ideas for it.

Most of my pictures are created without any big thought process behind them - I just draw what I feel like at the moment. So, describing what could be going on there would be kinda pointless.  


This viking was originally supposed to appear on the picture below, instead of the woman.








As you can see, this could be the bad guy. He fits to every cliche of a villain.  8)


I also tried to draw sprites in my style. I am satisfied with this walking animation, even if the arm looks a bit flat and the hand changes size if you look closely.


However, I also like to draw more cartoony, like in this picture. I cam up with the little shy creature standing in that winter forest there while I was drawing the picture. I also have a new version of that character that I want to have as some kind of main character for a game.
And yes, MSPaintR0cks is my name on DeviantArt.  

6

Advanced Technical Forum / Sound Blaster support for AGS?

« on: 31 Aug 2010, 18:53 »

I am a huge fan of the sound blaster music that was used in videogames in the early nineties (mainly because of nostalgia  ), and because of that I would love to compose the music for my games in exactly that format. But to be honest, I have no idea how something like this could be done.  

The sound blaster I am talking about sounds like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygvltlx4F7A

Would a plugin for AGS be possible that emulates the sound of that old synthesizer instead of Midi instruments, just like the way DOSBox does it? Or are there already similiar plugins to this?
Or do you guys have any other ideas how to get that sound? I already looked for soundfonts, but without success. Also, in case of using soundfonts I would have to create big WAV or MP3 files, which I don`t want.

7

Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Story really important?

« on: 29 Apr 2010, 14:28 »

First, I am german and my english could sound a little sloppy, so let me warn you.  

My dream is to make an adventure game with AGS. I have already made a lot of games with that program in 2004/2005/2006, but none of them ever got finished, mostly because of my unorganised approach. So I am thinking about plans for a new one where I won`t do all my old mistakes. But there seems to be a problem I encountered during my thoughts about the story line...

I seem to DISLIKE adventure games with complex stories.
The King`s Quest and Quest for Glory series were the games I enjoyed the most, but I could never really become interested in games like Gabriel Knight or other ones that got praised for their complex storylines.
I actually never needed a complex story while playing. The things that most appealed to me in my favorite games were actually the simple stories (explore the lands, solve the three tasks blablabla...) and the interesting and mystic places you could explore everywhere and that offered you lots of interaction. Even the deaths were something I loved, it made the games more unpredictable and interesting. I guess it was also the overal athmosphere that those games could create that kept me playing. The graphics didn`t even need to look good, even Kings Quest 3 and 4 could create that athmosphere.

But I heard countless times that the Sierra adventures are very disliked among many adventure fans.
Which is a problem for me, because those games were always my main inspiration for my own games and of course I want to make a game that people like to play.
Am I just strange or are there other people who think the same?
What would you expect from a game that uses the same ingridients as the early Sierra adventures?

8

Critics' Lounge / Some of my videogame moooosic

« on: 28 Apr 2010, 17:46 »

I have been writing videogame music since quite a while that I would love to put into a game I will maybe make with AGS.
Of course I also write traditional music, but I think music for videogames would fit better into an adventure game forum.
I also want to say that none of those songs are finished.

Feel free to listen to some of them and please tell me your opinion. (=

Those 3 midis were originally intended for a Doom-like shooter. That`s why they are very fast and straight-forward.
Action 1
Action 2
Action 3

This one was inspired by Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I tried to make it sound very dark and athmospherical. Just imagine you are Indy and discover an ancient grave.
Indy

This one could be heard during some kind of creepy voodoo ritual or something.
Ritual

I composed this one after playing some King`s Quest. Just imagine a huge giant stomping towards you.
Giant

Those would fit right into some kind of cozy little pub like in Quest for Glory.
Pub 1
Pub 2

This was supossed to be a theme song for a game. The melody could still be improved, it sounds too unstructured in my opinion.
Theme Song

I would like to use this as a theme song for an old, senile and quirky wizard.
Wizard