Loricum - A Video Game by a group of 13-18 year olds

[cubehouse]

Hi all,

Thought I should post this on here as we're just finishing up a really cool project with a youth group in the English countryside. This group of 19 13-18 year olds have been taught programming for the first time, drawn all their own graphics and wrote all the code inside AGS to make this game.

The game is based on a play that was written by some of the young people a number of years ago - about the building of a reservoir near a local community. The construction caused a massive differ in opinions between the villages and broke many friendships. You play a journalist visiting the village many years later, discovering the impact of the construction. But, you find some secrets about the villagers past that could lead to an unpleasant discovery for the villagers.

The game features 3 different endings depending on how you interact with the villagers. In the end, you must try and persuade somebody to not end their life, hopefully you can choose the right things to say and save them (yep, the kids wrote all of this too).



YouTube trailer (draft): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB30aFEiDho

We've had a local launch event with some local press (although they didn't really know it's not quite done yet... and thankfully nobody at the event found the bugs).

Hope you would enjoy seeing AGS used for such a great cause

I wrote a full blog/article about it here, with a video trailer
http://www.cubehouse.org/blog/2010/07/11/loricum-the-video-game/

[CaptainD]

Looks interesting, I'll definitely check it out when I get some time.

(I have to admit that when I saw the title of your post, my first reaction was "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" - but after reading about what you've done, I changed my mind and decided that it was probably a good thing!  )

[Wonkyth]

This looks great!
Can't wait to see how this turns out. 

* wonkyth gives his support.

[straydogstrut]

Wow! Looks great=)

I absolutely love the hand-drawn graphics and the stopmotion elements. It's always exciting to see a mishmash of different media like this and just proves you don't need high-res digital artwork to make a game.

Your students should be very proud of themselves. I'm sure they've learned a great deal from the process, not least how to finish a game! How long did it take them to make?

Very nice write up on your blog (nice design btw). I look forward to the playable version.

[Matt Frith]

This is a really nice idea, I hope it all works out well for you and your team of budding game creators.

Good luck!

[cubehouse]

Wow, thanks guys for the replies

Insanely proud of my little group of game developers. Had an absolute blast making it.

Quick history of the project, had a theatre company email me about a year and a half ago asking about creating video games (I had a history with the company), we (eventually) got some youth funding for the project.

Over the easter holidays this year, they had 2-3 full days of learning how to draw the backgrounds, people and objects etc. Then a 2-day programming session and a good day of game design to write the script etc.

Then, it was on and off for a number of months (they all have exams etc). Basically finishing the game this week. It's their first ever attempt at anything like this, but it has turned out really well so far

If they've learnt nothing else, they have witnessed a computer scientist getting very angry and very stressed at software not working 1 hour before a big launch event and how important it is to keep regular backups [blame Dropbox - Dropbox is an evil game-killer]

[straydogstrut]

That's amazing, really. I've just completed a degree where we - a class of a similar number of students - got so bogged down in the planning and asset creation for months, that we didn't even finish the game. The end result was a lovely environment with a wolf running around, but not much else!

That your students have managed to keep up their enthusiasm throughout is a good sign. Now they've been bitten by the AGS bug, I hope we'll see some of them on here in the near future=)

[m0ds]

Nice way to involve a youth group, good on you!

..persuade somebody to not end their life

... with a suitable GCSE drama theme to boot  :

[kconan]

  An AGS game like this is an awesome project idea for kids.  It requires creative, technical, and social skills while being fun.  Good job  8)

[theo]

This is plain awesome. I wish some adult had me doing these kind of projects when I was a kid. I would have loved it. 

[NsMn]

Man, I wish I lived in the English countryside! 

[arj0n]

Man, I wish I was 13 again! 

[CosmoQueen]

Wow the storyline is very unique. And to be done by a group of kids too? I can't wait to see the finished product!

[cubehouse]

Thanks everyone for the interest and comments

I really enjoyed this project, but it was very hard! I challenge people to try and explain global-scope to 15 year old non-programmers!

Anyway, was originally meant to have a demo and a purchasable version, but have now been told the full version is available for free online.

http://www.medtheatre.co.uk/download/

[Peder 🚀]

Downloading! . Looks very interesting and look forward to playing it!
[edit]
Arf my internet is playing with me, only lets me download between 50-60% of the file .

[cubehouse]

Downloading! . Looks very interesting and look forward to playing it!
[edit]
Arf my internet is playing with me, only lets me download between 50-60% of the file .

Are you sure it's your internet? - Gonna make sure the file is ok

[JD]

Downloading here went fine, but when I try to run the installer it gives me:

---------------------------
NSIS Error
---------------------------
Installer integrity check has failed. Common causes include
incomplete download and damaged media. Contact the
installer's author to obtain a new copy.

More information at:
http://nsis.sf.net/NSIS_Error
---------------------------
OK  
---------------------------

edit: I was going to try and download it again just to be sure but now it times out when I click on 'Download'.

[Peder 🚀]

Downloading! . Looks very interesting and look forward to playing it!
[edit]
Arf my internet is playing with me, only lets me download between 50-60% of the file .

Are you sure it's your internet? - Gonna make sure the file is ok

I've had alot of problems downloading larger files lately so I assume it is.
Whenever ive tried to download it keep stopping at different places, sometimes I get 30 mb of the file, other times 50mb etc.

[cubehouse]

Sorry about that, apparently the web-host being used by the theatre group isn't all that hot.

Got a backup on my own speedy server:
http://playstationhome.co/med/

[Peder 🚀]

It worked from that one so thanks .