MAGS 2009-03: Re-envisioned AGS classics

[SpacePirateCaine]

Okey-dokey, just to let anyone who cares know, I am officially in, and expect to finish on time. I've been working 'round the clock. I just hope there's some competition!

[Klaus]

No entries..? So let's see what's up in 24 hours from now (see timestamp of this message)... Then the voting will begin ... or never for this month.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Almost done with mine, Klaus.

I just need another few hours. 24 should be far more than enough.

Edit: Done!

Man, I was telling myself I was just a hair away from done all of 12 hours ago, but it's finally finished. Apologies for the late entry, and even though it looks like the contest is going to default to me, I really hope people enjoy the game.



Download Red Flagg: Don't Call me Blue (Redux) Here!

How to play:
The game uses a relatively Standard Sierra-esque interface.
- Walk
- Look
- Talk
- Interact
- Wait

To start fishing, just have a seat on your cushion, grab some bait from the bait bucket and click 'interact' on the water! To check what you have in your inventory, click on your cooler while sitting down.

What still needs to be done:

• Music/Sound (Right now, it's 100% silent)
  
• Custom Font (Because basically everything else is going to be customized
  
• Customized/largely gutted GUI (There're a lot of things left over from the default GUI that need to be taken out or replaced)
  
• More things to fish from the lake! (Currently, there are only 3 objects you can fish out, but I am planning on expanding in a big way)
  
• Other fun secrets! (The world is pretty quiet at the moment. I intend to bring the old lake back to life)
  
• The house (Maybe? If it seems necessary)
  
• More minigame-esque interaction (Interaction is currently prety bare-bones. I'd like to expand)
  

Edit 2: Changed download link, previously had Debug enabled.

[lord_hellfire]

And here is my game.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?wgnnrqjggnm

House Quest II

Featuring:
Brand new Silence Surround Technology (TM)
2 minutes of FMV sequences (One of them is missable)
640x480 EGA HD Graphics
New and undiscovered yet bugs (I haven't got time to test it all)
Everything created on a single Pentium II Laptop!

Screenshot coming soon!

Game requires XviD codec to run.

Edit:
And here is the promised screenshot.

[Leon]

@SpacePirateCaine:

Fantastic!!!! The animations are really brilliant! There could have been a bit more hilarious unexpected events but well done for the animation alone!

@Lord_Hellfire:

the intro looked very promising. The main character didn't fit completely into the game and the size of the house/objects/character didn't quite match. I liked the animation of the 'old' version in yours.

In general with both games I'm missing the intention that was meant with the 'original' versions. I missed the absurdistic humoristic nonsensical remarks and everything was taken too seriously. Both games were a good effort but (I think) did not match the intention as set by bspeers

[bspeers]

A post with much content:

Yayyy!

[rbaleksandar]

SpacePirateCaine, do you catch anything else except hats in the game? Animation's great though. Still no fishes for me.
Haven't looked at lord_hellfire's game yet.

[SpacePirateCaine]

Hi, rbaleksandar, and thanks for playing.

For some reason, the random number generator likes to focus on one thing in sequence. I'm not really sure how the algorithm works, but I assure you, you can catch hats, boots and fish. While testing, I once had boots come up six times in a row (That's what inspired me to put in the 'Isn't it annoying when you keep getting the same item over and over' quote in the game). At an early point in the game, you had twice as much chance to catch a boot than anything else, so I'm glad I decided to even the odds.

What you catch is entirely randomized, so that can happen. And with only 3 items available to catch at the moment, it tends to get a bit monotonous. I'm already working on a deluxe version of the game which will have a much more varied list of things that you can haul up out of the water there.

I'm really glad you like the animation. Since the game's a little light on content right now, I wanted to go all-out in the graphical department, in true modern remake fashion (Pretty, but doesn't do much to improve on the original concept) - I put in a good number of hours getting those drawn up.

And Leon - also, thanks a whole lot for playing, and rest assured, the 'random events' will happen. I just didn't have enough time to get anything implemented for the MAGS build. I'm surprised you say you 'missed the remarks', since all of the original content was basically left intact, with one or two small tweaks here and there. I do admit my own sense of humor tends to lean more to the 'dry wit' end of the scale than just nonsense. I probably didn't catch Scid's characterization 100%.

[rbaleksandar]

Me pleasure Ah, ok. Hope too see some interesting catch in your Deluxe version.
Monologue's cool though.

PS: Who are the guys on the other side of the lake?

[SpacePirateCaine]

Why, it's the Hodzinsky family, of course! Just one of numerous references to the original. Not that they were really explained in the original either.

[rbaleksandar]

I'm *ashamed* of myself I've never played this game...  :

[rbaleksandar]

lord_hellfire, nice one. Especially the animation is very very good. The style of the character's sprite doesn't fit very good in the whole 3D thing omho (which looks splendid; love the outside of the house).

PS: Didn't know I have to switch from DirectDraw to Direct3D in the setup.

[Klaus]

Here we go... For the first time in this life year we actually have a competition...
Two entries - now it's up to you: Voting time!

For voting please visit the MAGS site or make your choice right here:

Red Flagg Dont Call me Blue - Redux by SpacePirateCaine
House Quest II by lord_hellfire

Please vote only once and be sure to have played all games before sending your voice! Good luck to all participants.

[bspeers]

In general with both games I'm missing the intention that was meant with the 'original' versions. I missed the absurdistic humoristic nonsensical remarks and everything was taken too seriously. Both games were a good effort but (I think) did not match the intention as set by bspeers

I don't know.  I always thought both games were bizarre, but looking back, my memory was a little off.  In my view as long as the the remakes show how AGS has changed over the years, they fit with the spirit of this month's rules.  The mood of each project isn't all that important to me.

I'll try these out and vote as soon as I can.

Hooray for MAGS!

[lord_hellfire]

First I would like to thank everyone who played my game. it is my first AGS game ever published, so I was really looking forward to hear opinions of players.

I also decided to write how I created HQ2. If you don’t like behind the scenes stories, than just ignore my post.

When I was designing the game I wanted to show the difference between old and modern game. My idea was to include screens from old game into the new one. At first I was thinking about old poster, or photo. Later I thought about the TV, and cutscene. It caused me a lot of problems. First of all, my computer refused to record a movie from first House Quest. When I finally managed to record part of the game, there was a lot of noise and the edges were badly cut. That was when I thought of home theater. I used partially hidden screen and chair in the field of view to make it look more interesting. I also planned to make it loose focus once or twice, but it would need more time.

Every single frame of the graphics used in House Quest II was created on a single Pentium II 400 MHz computer. At first game was supposed to be made in 800x600, but after rendering first few frames it appeared that it takes 8 to 12 minutes to render a single frame. First calculations were that I would need 1000-1500 frames of cutscenes. It meant 130 to 300 hours of rendering alone. When I finished it appeared that I used in total 2380 unique frames in all cutscenes (not counting EGA HD logo and warning screen) Reducing resolution to 640x480 cut rendering time by 36%. After rendering introduction I realized that there was no way I could finish in time, even after reducing resolution. So I resigned from high-res textures. The ones from the outside of the house were made from 10 MPixel photos. The ones inside are not even real textures, just procedures to imitate them. That is the reason why the house looks better on the outside than on the inside. But it allowed me to reduce rendering time below 3 minutes per frame. (It means 1 hour 15 minutes of rendering for one second of cutscene movie - after all these reductions in quality)

The other problem was character. It was created in different program, and It would be really time consuming to fit character into the FMV. I also had to turn off the antianalising while rendering character, or it would be impossible to fit him into the game without glowing outline. There is a way to get rid of this effect, but again - it's time consuming. The character was created before I decided to change resolution. And I haven't got enought time to rescale character. I will fix this in version 1.1.

It took me total about 8-10 hours to create all 3D models used in the game. Another 15 hours to create textures (including the ones which I had to remove) And finally over 200 hours of rendering.

I also found two bugs. They will be fixed in version 1.1 too. It will be released shortly after the end of the voting.

[Galen]

Probably would have been best not to use a computationally expensive raytracer. While the renderers for programs like Anim8or arn't as realistic as raytracing can be they are also tons faster.

[nihilyst]

SpacePirateCaine: Wow, those animations are great. Cool stuff!

[Layabout]

SpaceePirateCaine... you are truly a god of men. Scid would be proud of you... wherever he may be...

[Klaus]

It is March 31st... Time for voting is over and we have a winner!
A real winner after a real competition after a long time now

Congratulations go to ...

SpacePirateCaine and his entry
Red Flagg: Don't Call me Blue (Redux)



Also many thanks to lord_hellfire for joining the contest and for the interesting "behind the scenes" story!

[SpacePirateCaine]

Thank you very much everyone for your support and interest in my remake of Red Flagg. It was a lot of work in a very short period of time, but it was all worth the effort. I've already given the next month's theme to Klaus, and hopefully everyone enjoys my upcoming MAGS theme. I really hope we get a few entries for the upcoming month, though I know a lot of you are really busy with your lives.

And to Nihilyst and Layabout for their kind comments - thank you very much. I'm really proud of the work I did on this game, and I certainly hope that Scid enjoys it as well, should he ever find and play it. Also, to Lord Hellfire: Great entry! You obviously put a lot of work into the 3D animation that went into the game, and it's certainly applaudable. I hope you'll participate in the next MAGS competition as well.

I intend to improve upon Red Flagg Redux as well, so keep an eye out for a deluxe version soon!