Kate and Shelly Stick Together

Started by Gurok, Tue 15/04/2014 11:55:54

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Stranga

This looks amazing! I love your artwork! Wish I could be this artistic! Keep up the great work! :)

DBoyWheeler

Man, I like the progress your making.

The characters are looking good too--the art style, in a weird way, reminds me of the Laura Bow mysteries.

Keep up the great work!

Mandle

The AGS community will always "stick together" with you and if you need anything from me personally, even if you just PM me and say "Hey Mandle, could you find me 3 different sounds of breaking glass.." then I will get on it so fast you won't even have the time to say "Gee, you are okay!"

selmiak

Pretty awesome cast of different character you have there!!! The darkblue lines on the face of that grumpy old lady look too harsh imho but besides this it's perfect! So looking forward to this game! ;-D

Cassiebsg

They all turned out pretty awesome! Good job! (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

SilverSpook

That's some k-rad pics there.  I like how several of the male characters could be substitute lead vocalists for Depeche Mode or The Cure. :)

ThreeOhFour

These are so great! Looking forward to this even more now! :D

Gurok

Goodness, has it been that long already?

Thank you, Anas, CaptainD, Stupot+, Stranga, DBoy, selmiak, Cassie, SilverSpook and ThreeOhFour.

Yes, SilverSpook, there are some rather pretty gentlemen at this university. Coincidence, I assure you.

Mandle, special thanks for the offer. I will reach out to you if I need anything.

I've finally managed to get some time off work. I'm going to try to post every couple of days for the next three weeks. We'll see how it goes. Throughout the early part of this year, I spent weekends knocking off things on my to do list. I'm really happy to report that all of the systems work is pretty much done and I'm ready to do some work on the more creative aspects of the game like writing, putting together scenes and interactions, that kind of thing.

After I got those portraits, I got Catpuncher to make up some variations so that Kate and Shelly can emote in the game. Here's a sample:

Kate happy:
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/oj6r0uA.png[/imgzoom]

Shelly freaking out:
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/2WmtB2v.png[/imgzoom]

That brings me to... The Great Sprite Import

I commissioned a whole heap of work on sprites this past year and it's only just recently that I've got usable final ones. I've spent most of the weekend importing new sprites, including walk and run animations for each of the girls. Here's what they look like in the game at the moment:

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/b076u6g.png[/imgzoom]

And here's almost the entire cast:



Kate and Shelly are both completely imported. Fernando (bottom-right) is also imported, but I'm noticing old sprites I never got around to replacing and well, keeping track of everything I've got is a task in itself. I've decided the import might have to be an on-going process.

It's hard picking up a project I've been basically treading water on for the past few months. To get myself back into the swing of things, I did a "warmup", which basically consisted of putting in descriptions and interactions for the room you see above. It wasn't particularly complicated. There's a cool sequence with the entrance where you'll get told off by the other girl if you try to exit. Kate telling off Shelly is particularly funny because Shelly's silent through the whole thing, just skipping towards the gate in an apparent daydream.

Anyway, that's it for today.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

AnasAbdin

You. Made. My. Day. Week. Year. Life.

eri0o

;-D

Awesome Gurok! I love the portraits, they look great! Having different emotions is awesome and a lot of work.

This game looks so colorful and happy, can't wait to play this. :-D

selmiak

sweeeet stuff you got there. happy importing!

CaptainD

Really glad to see this one making progress ;-D
 

Cassiebsg

Awesome news and great work. (nod)
Hope you can get this puppy running soon. :-D
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Stupot

Great to see things moving on this. :-)

Mandle

I need Kate and Shelly sticking together around about as much as I need my waffles sticking together, because that's what waffles (and Kate and Shelly) do...

And... enough of my ripping off The Simpsons... But, yeah, I really want to play this game!!!


Gurok

#75
Quote from: AnasAbdin on Mon 25/09/2017 19:59:54
You. Made. My. Day. Week. Year. Life.

Oh dear. I think I'm going to be overwhelming you pretty soon. I'm trying to post updates to the thread semi-regularly, at least for the next couple of weeks.

eri0, it's pretty easy with the system I've set up. I just set the character's mood before and after a speech line. I have the same 6 speech frames for each mood, so it's seamless and works really well.

selmiak, it's laborious, but a labour of love. Almost all of it's done now.

CaptainD, Cassie and Stupot+, thanks for the encouragement. Mandle, it's going to be a fair while longer. I might even need another month after this, and I'm not sure when I'm going to get the time :|

Puzzle Surgery

The last few days have been spent tidying up imports. After my warmup a few days ago, I felt ready to tackle something that had been bothering me for a while. It all centres around the first puzzle in the game.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/Bq7Y0WX.png[/imgzoom]
This is the foyer of the residence hall on campus. When the girls attempt to get the keys to their room, they get asked for some paperwork -- namely, a contract signed by their guarantor.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/MX0EXTU.png[/imgzoom]

Depending on how you navigate the conversation, it can be in either girl's suitcase. The puzzle involves working out that the contract hasn't been signed and forging a signature.

Now here's where the surgery started. Originally, I thought there wasn't enough puzzle going on, so I added another layer of complexity. You needed a pen to forge a signature, that pen was chained to the desk, and when each girl searched her suitcase, a cutting device would fall out. Kate's was a rusty pair of scissors and Shelly's was a manicure set.

At the time, I thought it was rather clever. The item would pop out behind the suitcase, so you wouldn't see the item until you moved. The idea was that you could use this item to cut away a pen that was chained to the desk.

Today's task was to remove that part of the puzzle. There are several reasons why I wanted to remove it:

  • It's supposed to be the first puzzle in the game. I'm very aware of difficulty ramp, and I want to keep it straightforward
  • The manicure set was a bit too one-dimensional for Shelly for my taste
  • Cutting a chain doesn't really WORK anyway. I mean, it's nonsense. A pair of scissors to cut a metal chain?

The solution? I just removed the chain. There's now just a pen sitting on the desk, which you can take. And the whole flow of the puzzle is so much better.

The steps to solve the puzzle are:

  • Talk to the clerk
  • Talk to Shelly or Kate about the contract (and decide whose suitcase it's in)
  • Take the pen
  • Leave the area and get Kate to forge a signature
  • Give the signed contract to the clerk

There are still 5 steps to solving the puzzle, but it doesn't feel awkward now. I really like the idea of stuff falling out of their suitcases and I'm still hoping I find a good place to use it. In the Jimi Hendrix Case, there was something similar when the fish scales were revealed, and I saw that it connected well with players when I watched let's plays.

Bit of a side note: each puzzle (quest) in Kate and Shelly Stick Together has a name. Whenever you get a point, you get a little Law-and-Order ding and an indicator of how far through the quest you are:

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/u2CA37v.png[/imgzoom]

I took inspiration from games like Skyrim. There's also a Progress window that you can bring up from the inventory bar that shows you which quests you've completed, grey silhouettes for stuff you haven't encountered yet and a total score. The total number of available points is just the total point count from all quests.

It's pretty late as I'm writing this, so apologies if anything I've written here is jumbled. The next few days are going to be spent working on what happens to girl B while girl A is out dating. Note: I have to phrase it that way because the game is set up so that either one can go on dates while the other has to stay back and take care of things at the university. It all works out, I promise.
[img]http://7d4iqnx.gif;rWRLUuw.gi

Cassiebsg

Looking awesome! (nod)
The other comment you already have it. ;)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Riaise

The game looks really good! And that was a great explanation of your thought-process while designing the puzzles. ;-D

Hobo

It's good to see this game progressing. All the new art looks very nice and I've always enjoyed reading about the behind the scenes design stuff, keep 'em updates coming :)

Creamy

Interesting update :)

I like the funny perspectives of the last 2 backgrounds.
 

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