Doctor Who: Episode One - Peace And Goodwill (DEMO NOW AVAILABLE)

Started by Cirius, Sat 21/02/2009 12:19:33

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Cirius

Salutations fellow adventurers!

Since the collapse of my hard drive, and the irrevocable loss of the work I did on Dawn of the Daleks, I was reluctant to ever return to AGS. However, the itch soon returned, and I dumped the original storyline, returned to the drawing board, and after a seemingly infinite number of post-it notes splashed across my desk, I chose to finally unveil:

Doctor Who: Episode One-Peace and Goodwill

After Martha Jones elected to conclude her adventures with the Doctor, and the briefly wed Donna Noble dropped off at home following a christmas misadventure, the Doctor once again finds himself without a companion.

However, our story does not start with the Doctor, but with a student, looking for identity on a quiet, somewhat Earth-like planet in a distant galaxy. He finds himself rudely dragged from sleep with the news that aliens have pitched up their saucer in the local park. Excited by the news, he drags himself from his bed, and sets off to the landing site.

Can the Doctor and his newest companion discover the secret of the alien visitors? You'd better hope so, otherwise episode two will be somewhat brief.


Boggle at the intellectual capacity of guards!


Experience the horrors of public transport!

As promised, here is the first demo release of Peace And Goodwill. I remind you, this is my first AGS game, so don't expect anything too fancy. However, I hope you enjoy what I have to offer. Feel free to provide constructive criticism and advice where you feel it necessary. I am always open to new ideas.

Doctor Who - Peace And Goodwill (DEMO)

EPISODE 1: Peace and Goodwill
Graphics:95%
Scripting:100%
Dialogue:80%

EPISODE 2: (Name withheld for Spoiler Reasons)
Graphics:50%
Scripting:50%
Dialogue:50%


poc301

Love the Dr. Who.  I am definitely going to download this one when done.  Looks like Sonny Bonds: Alien Adventurer :)

BTW I like the timeframe of the game..  Loved Martha, didn't like Donna..  But thats just me. 

-Bill

cosmicr

the graphics are... strange. at first glance they look like sierra AGI style, but then when you look closer they actually use more colours and a somewhat higher resolution in parts.

looks interesting.  what made you decide to use this style?

I too am a bigger fan of martha btw!

Cirius

The graphical answer is fairly simple. My artistic skills are extremely limited. When I started work on Dawn of the Daleks in 2007, I was looking for more of a lucasarts indy/monkey island fidelity. The result of this pursuit was that it was taking me approximately a week to produce each background to even a basic level of sophistication. Given the large number of backgrounds I desired, it would have taken me years to finish the first episode.

Whilst a year on an AGS project isn't unheard of, and the FOY team might scoff at me for thinking it could take anything less to produce any work of quality, I came to realise that for my first AGS game (a game of basic interactions given my current scripting level, a game that few people may even play)  that such complexity was acting against me.

When Dawn of the Daleks was unfairly exterminated, excuse the pun, there was absolutely no way I could be bothered to attempt to reproduce the graphics to that level again. The answer? Sierra!

Both my brother and I were massive fans of police quest, but a little too young to cope with the text interface. However, from what I recall, it was the story, and not the graphics that affected us. Well if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

I hold up my hands, here and now, and admit that many of the backgrounds you will encounter at this stage are modified sierra backgrounds. Forgive me Chris Jones, for I have sinned. However, as I am slowly improving my skills, I have become less reliant on the borrowed sprites, and am rapidly churning out my own content. I sincerely hope the two graphical styles don't jar with each other too much. The episodic nature of Doctor Who means that I can hopefully churn out each episode in a couple of months, all the while improving my skills at both scripting and graphics.

I admit, I've strolled almost casually outside of the 16 colour limitations of AGI, but to be honest, I have a quad core monster building this thing, and it's been almost 20 years since police quest, so I'll be damned if I won't take some liberties here and there.

As for the time frame?

I started to sketch out the plot during the Martha Jones series. Whilst by the time I had concluded the basic framework, certain plot elements in the Donna Noble series had, whilst not directly contradicting what I had produced, certainly overlapped. So I simply dropped my own self contained series between the two, and everyone's a winner. It's nothing personal, to be honest, I thought Catherine Tate was surprisingly good in the role, but that's a debate for another thread.

So there you go. I've rambled somewhat more than I had expected to, but this is my thread, and I'll ramble if I want to!
Thank you for all the offers of support so far, and the words of encouragement on this forum.



Jared

As a Doctor Who fan whose first-ever full adventure game was Space Quest III this appeals to me. A LOT.

Funny thing is I'm always looking for graphical shortcuts - the game I'm working on at the moment uses South Park characters for no reason other than they're easy. AGI graphics? Why the hell DIDN'T I think of that???

bicilotti

Quote from: Cirius on Mon 23/02/2009 09:26:12
I admit, I've strolled almost casually outside of the 16 colour limitations of AGI, but to be honest, I have a quad core monster building this thing, and it's been almost 20 years since police quest, so I'll be damned if I won't take some liberties here and there.

Indeed the colours (and graphics generally) feels Retro but... with some spice added. I like them very much!

Dualnames

Bleaching retro graphics...Doctor Who!!! Yay..
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

davidnagel

Hey for someone who hasnt visited the board in a long long time I am impressed you've picked up on this again, I quite liked your stuff for Dawn, but it is a shame when the artwork takes forever and there is no actual game development - congrats on the new take on it all and I look forward to playing the full episodes as and when you get to them :)

Cirius

As promised, the first post has been updated with a link to the first playable demo. It acts as an opening couple of scenes to the adventure as a whole, so don't expect too much in the way of puzzlery. You should be able to stroll your way through it in a couple of minutes.

Please PM any bugs to my AGS profile, as I tend to check that more than I do my email.

Cirius.

On a completely unrelated note, I just stumbled across Mods' avatar pic on the back of a matchbox. It took me somewhat by surprise.

Cirius

I can't help but feel that a bump is somewhat necessary, I appear to have been buried under some interesting release information within the space of two days, but I'm curious if anyone has had the opportunity to actually have a look at the demo?

bicilotti

Quote from: Cirius on Tue 03/03/2009 21:59:22
I can't help but feel that a bump is somewhat necessary, I appear to have been buried under some interesting release information within the space of two days, but I'm curious if anyone has had the opportunity to actually have a look at the demo?

wtf, bookmarked this thread and didn't even notice. I must quit cocaine, sniff

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens


Cirius

My god, I warrant a bookmark? Wow. Yes, I kind of figured it was down to cocaine involvement.

Kids, say no to drugs.

Work proceeds at a pace. Within the past few days I've produced the basic framework of three new backgrounds, and started work laying out the designs for episode 3. If it wasn't for my infernal addiction to Dwarf Fortress, and the somewhat unreasonable demands that my office make, insisting I actually show up for work, then I'd have been done months ago.

Sslaxx

Stuart "Sslaxx" Moore.

Iris

I'm a huge Doctor Who fan who has just recently finished season 4 on Netflix (on Monday actually haha). With my Doctor Who thirst not nearly quenched, I have gone into deep depression now that I have to wait so long before new episodes start (everything I've watched so far was on netflix) and the best thing I can do is turn to Torchwood (which is in the mail haha). So, anything Doctor Who right now makes me very happy.

The link to the demo didn't work.

Cirius

How odd, I checked the download links this morning with no problems. I'm assuming it was just a temporary server glitch. Give it another go, and if it's still no good, I'll have a look at finding some alternate hosting.

Jared

Downloaded this a while ago but only got round to playing it this morning - really liked it, especially the way that the whole demo is just the 'teaser' segment of an episode. Also, the way the guard pokes a bit of fun at adventure game convention.

Seeing as it's an alien planet (albeit an extremely Earth-like one) I'd have liked to have seen just a bit of alien technology or divergence in culture evident.

Also, I'm hoping that the simplicity and lack of interaction at the moment is a case of this being the shallow end of the learning curve, rather than the difficulty of the game as a whole.

Cirius

In hindsight, I'd have to agree with the planet being a little too Earth-like. It was meant to be a mirror of Earth, but I seem to have ended up looking a bit like Milton Keynes. I plan on tweaking the backgrounds a little to give it a little more of a twist.

And yes, I do admit, the demo is extremely limited in 'puzzles'. I never really planned on making a demo as such, and the events were supposed to flow quickly into the opening credits, more of an interactive cut-scene than any sort of challenge.

I will admit, I am struggling somewhat to think of puzzles. I think too much of the overarcing plot and storyline, and then realise that the whole game could play out as a cutscene without the player needing to touch a button. I've recently gone back to the old sierra and lucasarts collection to see how the experts did it, but I'm still learning.

Jared

QuoteIn hindsight, I'd have to agree with the planet being a little too Earth-like. It was meant to be a mirror of Earth, but I seem to have ended up looking a bit like Milton Keynes. I plan on tweaking the backgrounds a little to give it a little more of a twist.

What I thought would have been nice was a hologram appearing in the train to read the news, instead of a boring old radio broadcast.

QuoteAnd yes, I do admit, the demo is extremely limited in 'puzzles'. I never really planned on making a demo as such, and the events were supposed to flow quickly into the opening credits, more of an interactive cut-scene than any sort of challenge.

Well, that's good because that's what you've got. An element of puzzle design is working out when the player should be able to progress quickly, after all..

QuoteI will admit, I am struggling somewhat to think of puzzles. I think too much of the overarcing plot and storyline, and then realise that the whole game could play out as a cutscene without the player needing to touch a button. I've recently gone back to the old sierra and lucasarts collection to see how the experts did it, but I'm still learning.

If you want any help with puzzle design I'm happy to give you a hand.

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