Cross Stitch Casper [Released July 1st, 2013]

san.daniele · Sat 04/05/2013 19:50:22

Game was released on Juli 1st, 2013. Announcement thread.

Initial announcement:
Exactly one month ago I imported my first 2 sprites into AGS and made a character walk over the screen. Wow! Having no scripting or programming experience, I'm surprised, amazed, and proud about what I achieved in the last couple of weeks. Dedication helps. What started out as a simple test game, turned into a project I got completely lost in.

Update June 12th, 2013:
look at my post further down this page.

Cross Stitch Casper

Story in one sentence
You're playing little Casper (around 5 years old), who's confronted with a dilemma.

As I'm absolutely incapable to draw a single decent looking line, I tried to cheat using cross stitching as a basis. The story/atmosphere is build around what I consider to be clichÃ© attributes when it comes to cross stitching (if any of you love the fine art of cross stitching, I hope you won't be offended

). So the graphic style actually determined the whole story/setup.

I tried to do something original, not going down the road of the usual topics used in Adventures. Don't expect jokes or any funny turns/twists, it's more of a sad/dismal environment.

Progress

Story/Puzzles: 100%
Graphics: 100%
Sound: 100%
Scripting: 99,9%

Chicky · Sat 04/05/2013 19:55:57

Looks brilliant san.daniele, a very charming style and totally unique! I look forward to seeing how the story elements blend in, glad to see you're nearing completion

selmiak · Sat 04/05/2013 20:56:08

now that is a neat style. Looking forward to the game!

Tabata · Sat 04/05/2013 23:31:40

WOW!
What a brilliant idea for a unique style!
... and it looks very good - bravo!

Will you do "real" animation using this style, too?

Stupot · Sat 04/05/2013 23:58:25

What a great idea. All the best with this

san.daniele · Sun 05/05/2013 00:18:18

Quote from: Tabata on Sat 04/05/2013 23:31:40
Will you do "real" animation using this style, too?

while I'm not sure I get 100% what you mean, you probably address the one big issue I decided to let go.
Object animations stick to the grid of the canvas, but characters walk free. You can see on the screenshots that the characters are standing a few pixel outside of where they should stand in a perfect world. I was planning on making them stick to the grid as well, but that involves more scripting than I am willing (and/or able) to do right now. Especially as the canvas isn't following the same pattern all the time (every few grid units it's off by a pixel).
p.s. you might like to hear that there's a mouse in the game at some point

Thanks for all the compliments, really gives me boost to work hard on finishing the game.

Tabata · Sun 05/05/2013 00:36:32

Quote from: san.daniele on Sun 05/05/2013 00:18:18
p.s. you might like to hear that there's a mouse in the game at some point

YAY - animated AND mouse included!
Now you can be quite sure - it will be a really cool game!

I'll play it definetely!

miguel · Sun 05/05/2013 00:57:18

Unique is the word. Hope you pull it off and complete it!

ThreeOhFour · Sun 05/05/2013 01:35:55

Perfect. Really looking forward to this!

ZapZap · Sun 05/05/2013 10:32:51

Cool idea!

AprilSkies · Mon 06/05/2013 08:11:06

WOW! I have no words ... It's a great idea!!!!!

m0ds · Mon 06/05/2013 11:11:38

Mesmerizing... very interested to see it and the animations

Best of luck

dactylopus · Wed 08/05/2013 02:18:44

This is a clever concept, and it looks great so far!

Looking forward to it!

CaptainD · Wed 08/05/2013 10:42:12

This is one of the most interesting and original looking games I've seen for a very long time - well done! I'll have to see if my wife catches the cross-stitching references, she enjoys doing it but personally I find it hard to understand how anyone can enjoy doing something so amazingly fiddly!!

waheela · Wed 08/05/2013 21:43:43

This looks totally amazing and original! I'm excited!

Can I ask how you did the art? What's your process?

san.daniele · Wed 08/05/2013 22:39:17

Quote from: CaptainD on Wed 08/05/2013 10:42:12
[â€¦] personally I find it hard to understand how anyone can enjoy doing something so amazingly fiddly!!

you mean like â€¦ scripting/programming

Quote from: waheela on Wed 08/05/2013 21:43:43
Can I ask how you did the art? What's your process?

The process isn't actually that big of a deal. I almost don't know what to write about it.
First I draw everything with black pixels onto a 100x50 grid. Then I transfer every pixel onto the canvas using a cross stitch brush. The canvas I did using a simple tutorial I found online.
edit: initially (you know, when the project was supposed to be a tiny and short 2-room game) the plan was to actually cross stitch the whole thing for real and use photographs. well â€¦ that's not going to happen!

waheela · Thu 09/05/2013 04:24:28

Cool! The images look neat. Looking forward to seeing the final project!

Freidenker01 · Thu 16/05/2013 13:01:01

I just can agree with the others. Great artstyle !!!
I'm looking forward to give it a try.

san.daniele · Wed 12/06/2013 13:29:43

New Screenshots available (in original post).

It's been way too long since the announcement.
When I first announced the game, claiming it could be released in a week or two, I couldn't understand why some answered along the lines of "I hope you manage to finish this."

Well, now I know better. Never assume you're almost finished until you are finished.
Over the last weeks I redid all graphics, as the initial canvas had an uneven grid, which resulted in some graphics not looking how I wanted them to (mostly font-related).
Now everything sticks to the grid, thanks to some input from Selmiak all character animations/movements do as well.

At some point during the process I asked myself if this is how Vaporware comes into existence

Now I'm back on track in finalizing the game. There's still tons of small details that need fixing (and tons more will probably come up during beta-testing).
At this point I want to basically finish the game, as this took way too long for what was supposed to be a small first test game. I'm very happy with the overall concept, even though at this point I feel that the puzzles/dialogues lack love/quality. But I guess I have to draw the line somewhere and just ditch all the extra ideas I have for the game (and save the energy/time for the next project).

Problem · Wed 12/06/2013 14:08:11

Wow, I totally missed this one. What an interesting idea, those screenshots look fantastic. I'm curious what your game will look like in motion.

Quote from: san.daniele
As I'm absolutely incapable to draw a single decent looking line, I tried to cheat using cross stitching as a basis.

You aren't cheating. What you are doing is a lot like 2-color pixel art, but even more awesome.

Cross Stitch Casper [Released July 1st, 2013]

m0ds