Apprentice!

[Gregjazz]

After too much work...

Apprentice is out! You can download it off the brand, spanking new Herculean Effort Productions website, which can be found at the following url,
http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort
Be sure to check out the screenshots and concept art on the site!

Have fun with the game!

[Scummbuddy]

Wow... that was fast... Since you only had showed us one image up till now on the critics lounge, I figured we were a ways away from seeing this game surface... I'll check this marvelous beauty out soon.

[Nel]

I am enjoying The Apprentice very much, so I wanted to download The Find as well. But the download link at freewebs doesn't work - no such file on the server (says GetRight). And it is a big file to d/l with the browser. Perhaps a broken link? Could you fix it if so?

[evilspacefart]

it worked for me...

[Yvonne]

Beautiful art! I really enjoy this game. Can anybody please help me with moving the sheep away, and with taking the saddle?

[PeaceMan]

These must be some of the best graphics i've seen in an AGS game and are even as good as the graphics you would find in a LucasArts game. The GUI is very origional. Great game!!!  

[Dave Gilbert]

Woah!  Impressive!  Although I'm stuck already.    I'll keep plugging away though, since I refuse to break down and ask for hints merely 2 hours after starting the game.  I'll give myself 4 at the very least!

Nice work here.  Some great dialogs (especially with the highwaywoman) and that intro is fantastic! I'll write more when I play more...

-Dave

[Vel]

Holy maccarel!
This game is awesome! the graphics are very, very reminiscent of S&m and dott.

[Gregjazz]

Glad to hear you all are enjoying it!
You probably want to have the satisfaction of beating the game on your own, but if you're REALLY stuck, I can give you some hints...

Nel: The Find demo download is not a broken link. We took down the old Find website and the download because we plan on redoeing basically everything with the Find. You can read about the Find and see new concept art at:
http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort/thefind.html

[Dorcan]

Wow!  :o :o
Amazing work ! Excellent music, beautiful graphics. I really like the animation, and all those details that make this game a great one.   Really atmospheric. Yep, it was good.

I've finished it yet, and I must say I really enjoyed this game! Mmh I was hoping we could turn back the farmgirl, and that she would give us a reward, but...oh well

Just one thing : You don't have to include .wav sounds in your package, because they are already compiled in the .exe file.

[Cerulean]

This is an excellent game so far, but I must be missing something, because there doesn't seem to be any exit to the outside. I have no place to go but upstairs and downstairs, and I'm reasonably certain I've exhausted my options.

[Dorcan]

There shouldn't have any problems to get out of the tower.. Just walk on the luminous layout, in the middle-bottom side of the screen

[Dave Gilbert]

Wiigii!  Finished it!

In a word - EXCELLENT.  The graphics are gorgeous (You've succeeded in making my game's graphics look like a pile of poo) and the interface is very slick.   If it were a larger game  - with a larger number of inventory items - it might have been annoying, but it works perfectly here.

The characters were very cool, although I was hoping for a little development later on.  Is there a sequel planned?  The intro kind of hinted at more things to come.

There were few fatal bugs, which you mentioned in your readme.  They were a bit annoying but nothing unmanagable.  small spoilies:

Spoiler

The game froze when I was hiding from Master and tried to use an inventory item on him.  Maybe you should mention in the readme that you don't need to do that?  

[close]

Anyrate, I'm looking forward to seeing what else you come up with.  

[Meowster]

Omg, absolutely incredible. Fantastic graphics, fantastic music, gorgeous sprites, great puzzles and great dialogue!!! I love this!!!

[evilspacefart]

i like the amount of anims in this game.

[Gregjazz]

Thanks for the input, guys!

Dave: Yeah, you found another bug. I guess when we can find enough of them, we'll fix them and re-compile. (Also fix some minor typographical errors...)

Dorcan: We tried removing the .wavs from the directory when we compiled it, but it didn't seem to work. We'll look into it, though.
Good story idea about the farmgirl...

It didn't really start out this way, but the plot of Apprentice kind of blossomed into something much bigger. We didn't have time to make everything (with other projects and all), so we just chose an interesting "chapter" from it.

Originally, Llyod (the shapeshifter) was going to be a running joke in the game, turning up at various parts as different creatures. (There could even be puzzles like you have to free him, in pidgeon form, from a cage, etc.)
Each time you encounter him, he would have the same "What's the issue, darling" line and have some crazy story how he got in his situation. (Kind of like Murray in MI3)

And then there's Navy Joe...

Maybe someday, we will make a commercial-length game out of it.

[Dorcan]

Aha! I understand now why Pib says "Maybe later" when we try to interact with the roots... that's where Navy Joe was supposed to be, right ?

About the .wav files : They must be in the directory when you compile the game, but they don't have to be in the compiled folder. I haven't extracted the wav files from the zipped game, and it works well, sounds are played.

Do you have a colored sprite of the farmgirl ? If it is the case, I would like to see it

[TheHotTrout]

Whoa! Now this is a very nice game. You guys have got that lucasarts style sorted, even down to the logo which is reminiscant of the lucasarts sun holdy thing. I'm very impressed with the artwork in general here, a real pleasure to solve the puzzles aswell. In general this is fantastic. Heres hoping for that commercial length game (or if they're all going to be to this quality any game!) from you guys soon!

[Mark]

You're simply THE BEST!/
Better than all the rest...
Why isn't this game in the competition?
Ah yes, because of the strange "illustriuos AGS something" rule.
Please, go on with The Find.

[Necro]

Yep FANTASTIC GAME!! I just completed it myself and thought it was great the detail that went into the animations stood out loads and they were all very very very nice.

I loved all the backgrounds and especially the first intro one, that looked great!! (did anyone else notice there logo conceled in that background? ) and what can I say but Wow...

Also very nice GUI, I actually designed a similar one recently before playing the game so now I know what to aim for

Cant wait for the next installment if there is going to be one..

[Nelinas]

I am absolutely enchanted by this game. I don't want it to end. Fantastic. And just look at this thread - unanimous applause. Congratulations for the Herculean effort.
As to Q&A - there is a new thread in the Hints&Tips section.

[magintz]

I am loving this game to bits, evrything is incredible, the animations are so brilliant, how did you get them so smooth and perfect? did you model around someone performing the tasks? Got any quick tips for animating?

This is definatly becoming my favourite AGS game of all times (sorry Pleurghburg and Larry Vales) I hope you have plans for an aprentice 2 or another, yet similarly brilliant game.



Thumbs up

[miguel]

Apprentice has all the qualities that adventure gamers want, graphics are superb, the dialogs makes us laugh and so do the animations. The music sets us on the location and when you see the tower screen going downwards to reveal  a cartoonish rural landscape with sheeps!, then you know you're facing a brilliant game. An inspiration.

[Alexis Vale]

I guess I'm the only one with the problem...

I downloaded your game. I unzipped it into it's own little file. I tried to open Apprentice.exe...but then the screen turns all black and then a bit of white lines and the game doesn't open. My computer just runs on like nothing happened...as if it were innoccent...or maybe it's just me. Usually if I get this problem, it gets fixed by unzipping everything into the same directory as ags.exe...but this time it does not work...help?

Just thought I'd let you know of any problems that anyone else might have...

[Gregjazz]

Alexis: I have a few suggestions. You could start by checking to make sure the zip you downloaded is the full size. It could be possible that the download didn't finish, but it said it did. Also, try changing the screen settings from the setup.exe.

Magintz: There was no rotoscoping used in this game, if that's what you mean. We just kind of eyeballed everything....

[Timosity]

Great game so far Geoffkhan, I just started it, very nice graphics and animations.

just a couple of bugs i found straight away:

Spoiler

You can still press F5 and F7 to bring up the default save and restore gui's

The door down the bottom of the stairs with the rope between, I knocked on the door and I thought I might be able to open the other door when the wizard opens his door, but when I moved the mouse down the bottom of the screen to change cursors the game crashed (just paused because the gui comes up while the animation is happening, so it just pauses the game) this just happened to be the first thing I even tried to do in the game, appart from picking up a few items with the wand

I know you can change modes using the keyboard but having right click to change is so much better, just as another option

[close]

Looking forward to playing more of this, where time permits

[Yvonne]

Your so-called "bugs" are nonsense.
My God, be honest to yourself .ro, it is ENVY...

[Timosity]

Your so-called "bugs" are nonsense.
My God, be honest to yourself .ro, it is ENVY...

what on earth are you talking about??? and I'm not bagging the game at all, quite the opposite, what I mentioned are a couple of little things that can make the game flawless, and what I mentioned I can recreate, it's all in the timing.
and fixing the F5 and F7 thing is rather easy to do, and easy forget to do before releasing a game, as many people do the same thing. I just thought I would try and help Geoffkahn.

Yvonne, just think before posting next time, no hard feelings

[Scummbuddy]

perhaps if he had used emoticons, we could tell if he is joking or not... or is it the fact that there were no smileys on purpose..


<points to reader>
You Decide.

[Alexis Vale]

Sorry, but there's still a problem...I'm almost positive it's something I might be doing. I get this message when I try to open it:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Illegal exception
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An exception 0xC0000005 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP=
0x0044190A ; program pointer is +4300, ACI version 2.56.571, gtags
(297, 100)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the
numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify
CJ on the Tech forum.


Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this
entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.

         [OK]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hmm...I've no idea what that is.

[Gregjazz]

First of all, thanks everybody for the compliments and constructive criticism (bug reports are always welcome).

We plan on fixing those bugs and updating the game.

Sorry if those bugs caused you any inconvenience or detracted from the gameplay. (yes, I know they did both)

[MillsJROSS]

I'd like to say that the animation, backround, character sprites were all very nice. The dialog was decent. I loved how you spent the time to make a reply to every click on an object look/talk/take/use (it's one of my pet peeves when people don't do this).

Most of the puzzles were easy, but I must say that...(and I'll use spoilers DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T Completed the game, and don't care to know a few hints or answers)

Spoiler

The cheese puzzle was a bit far fetched, even for an adventure game. I would have never thought of it, had I not just gone through my inventory one at a time, seeing what I could do.

This is not to say that some of the puzzles weren't good. I liked how you had to clean the grinder, but couldn't take the dishtowel, it kind of closed my mind to the dishtowel until I was desperate. I liked the the stool and the broom combination to get the saddle.

But the cheese puzzle just didn't agree with me.

[close]

I think you did a very nice job with this game, and look forward to future games on your part.

-MillsJROSS

[TheHotTrout]

This is gonna be mainly spoiler so the usual, not finished, don't read

Spoiler

For the towel thing have the little guy say something like "If I want to use it I'll have to use it here" or something, make it so that he sounds like he wants to use it but can't take it, but I do have to agree I never would have got the cheese puzzle if it hadn't been for a bit of luck (i was all set to go search for the three things in another mini-mini quest style) I just suddenly decided i'do do something I never do and thats hand in the objects in the list before I'd collect them if you understand me, i guess looking at the saddle while it's on the horse could give you some clues (ie "Boy in this sunshine the saddle is sure getting hot!") but the mention of rennin threw me, I was looking for some stomach juices or something

[close]

[Gregjazz]

Spoiler

To clean out the coffee bean grinder, you can also use the picnic blanket (provided that it's not already on the horse.) We'll take the mention of rennin out and leave it at "a stomach enzyme".

[close]

Did anyone get the clues about the saddlebag being made from a horse's stomach? (He comments on it twice. Once if you look at it before you put it on the horse and once if you look at it while it's on the horse.)

[TheHotTrout]

I dunno why but that seemed to only really stand out afterwards
maybe "The saddlebag still feels a little icky" or something to hint that some of the stomach juices or enzymes are still there? I had just assumed because it had been made into a saddle that it was dried and that maybe the cow would be the source of the enzymes or something

[Ginny]

OMG this game rocks! I have just started and I adore the animations and I lauged out loud many times already from the dialog. This game is wonderful, the graphics are great, the puzzles are funny and very well done, and Lloyd is sweet! I just love the animation when Pib tries to oepn the closet. Hilarious and beautifully done! All the animations are.

I also really like the world you created, with Pib calling the dolphin an alien creature etc, it cracked me up!

Small bug\thing- in the kitchen of the tower, if you walk into the counter closest to the exit (while walking towards the exit) Pib is behind it and we see his head above it and his legs below. I found when walking outside, it really doesn't matter much lol.

Oh and the music is brilliant, it really makes me think fantasy, magic etc. You composed if I'm not mistaken, I think you said so in the thread with the screenie. Anyway, it superb!

This game (though short if you look at the size of the zip) is great and has commercial quality. Brilliant. I also really liked the sound the robot made while speaking.

edit: I forgot to mention, great GUI!

Ok, I finished the game! Hilarious ending, though the game is too short! I want more of this excellence! lol. I adored this game! So wonderful! Everything is great! It crashed a few times but aminly cause I Alt-Tabbed too much. Are you planning a sequel?

edit: Just reading your website (nice lolgo!), I'm looking forward to The Find as well (or anything by lol).
oh and;

"Someday, maybe, If I get enough feedback and support, I might turn Apprentice into a full-blown Lucasarts-eque journey. Financial persuasion is always welcome."

Please do! This game is just screaming for it! I really love this game, there's something in it that makes it special. I believe it's the effort you put in and the fact that you made it for fun. Or it could be the sticky cheese .

edit 2:

Spoiler, don't read if you havent finished the game!

Spoiler

I really liked the cheese puzzle actually, it took me a little while to get the connection between the cheeze recipe and the saddle, but I got it and it seemed oly too logical that there would be enzymes left.
All the puzzles were funny and well hinted of lol at least to me.

At the end, I got a bit dissapointed that it'll be over when he says "hello wizardhood" meaning that the game would end, but when the "spell" was revealed I thought maybe the game will continue, but unfortunately no. It's still brilliant though. Short and sweet.
I would really love to see a sequel/full game made of it.

[close]

[Pet Terry]

Great! If I didn't know I would have thought this is some old LucasArts' game... Haven't finish it yet, but graphics and music makes great atmosphere. Good job!

[Vel]

Just finished it.

Spoiler

The cheese puzzle is too far fetched. The others are good thoughI was disappointed with the ending. The graphics are awesome, as well as the music. Looking forward to seeing a full-length game made by you!

[close]

[renn_inoue]

 :o

Incredible!  How did you get all those backgrounds to look so good in an 8-bit setting?!  

Great work in all aspects.  You've raised the bar to heights that will be tough to reach.

[lspace]

I'm stuck.  How do I get the sheep to move so I can get the oregano?  And how do I get rid of the twine on the closet door?

Great little game.  Having fun playing it.

[Ben]

Hmm. I think I found a bug:

Spoiler

when I move the stool under the saddle and stand on it, I still can't pick the saddle up.

[close]

I love the game though. The graphics and music are some of the best I've seen in a while.

[Gregjazz]

Heheh, Ben. That's not exactly a bug. We sort of programmed it that way.

[jason]

Oh man... that was a damn good game! Great job, you guys are very talented and I can't wait for The Find!

The character art and the background art is utterly beautiful. And, the animations were incredibly smooth and breathtaking. I enjoyed most of the puzzles, but not the cheese one as much.

My only real gripe is that I would've preferred a right-click scheme, but no biggie.

And, when I saw the standing animation :o , I knew that I was in for a treat!

[Gregjazz]

Hey guys,

Just thought I'd let you know that the Herculean Effort Productions forum is now available! You can head over to it from the "forum" link on the website (http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort/)
Enjoy!

[saanb]

how do I get rid of the twine on the closet door?

Great little game.  Having fun playing it.

well the only time you can open the closet door is when the master's door is open. think of how to get that door open without getting into a conversation with the master.

[Barcik]

That's a very fun little game! The graphics were marvelous, the jokes very funny and the atmosphere was lovely!

[Rincewind]

Wow, this is definately one of the best AGS games I've played in a long time - Great humour, lots of animations, and background that make me green of envy... Great job! I'll see if I can manage to finish it without asking for help...

[Andail]

This is a bit like my game, except it got humour and twice as good graphics

very well done

[Pet Terry]

Finished it yesterday... great game, lotsa animations, great music etc. etc. etc....

but... I couldn't finish it without hints :'(

Well... next time I'm not gonna use hints, I have almost finished TUM without hints

[Paranoia]

great game! i had to get hints too, mainly because of bug opening the closet door, there was a few other places the game hung too, but on the whole its most excellent

[Gregjazz]

I am aware of the game freeze bugs, and have fixed them for the soon-to-be-released update, but what is the bug in opening the closet door?

[Gonchi]

Holy Jalapeno! This game looks great!

[Paranoia]

sorry i generalized it abit, the freezing already mentioned

[Erwin_Br]

Amazing work!

Oh and do I hear somebody shout voice pack?  

--Erwin

[Gregjazz]

Voice pack? Did you see the credits at the end?

You should be able to download the voice pack from the site.

[Barcik]

WHAT?!

Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.

[Gonchi]

Really? Where in the site exacly?

[TheHotTrout]

Ya, Where abouts? It's not under the apprentice section...
(btb I've been quoted! don't I feel all happy! )

[Gregjazz]

Well, it's a pending voice pack. (we have yet to hear back from Elijah Wood, Sean Connery, etc.)

[Trapezoid]

Excellent game, Geoffkhan. I really loved it. Hope it gets expanded some day.

[danny*]

one of the best i've played... :o :o
THANKS!!

[Nostradamus]

Any chance for a walkthrough?

[Igor]

I'll just join the praise here- fantastic! Love the main character and the whole "magic" feel. Really great!

[Gregjazz]

If you're stuck, you can post questions at our forum at: http://herculeaneffort.myikonboard.com

We're almost done with the update, which will fix a bunch of bugs (including all the freezes), and add a huge secret bonus puzzle!

We encourage you to post any ideas you might have for future games or puzzles. We'll definitely consider your suggestions.

[Czar]

well when i try to download it, it just overwrites the current( i mean i change the name but i think the windows recognize it as the older version?)...

[Gregjazz]

If you are referring to the update, it's not out yet.

[Czar]

oh, sorry  
Anyway nice casting, i like especially the Sean Connerie one  

[Erwin_Br]

Seriously though, this game shouts for voice acting (if done properly, that is).

One of the things I like most is it's amazing atmosphere. I think the music adds a lot to that as well as the clean graphics.

Once again, amazing work!

--Erwin

[Gregjazz]

THE APPRENTICE UPDATE IS NOW AVAILABLE!
hooray!

You can download it from the medium-length games page on AGS or from our website: http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort.
The update features many bug fixes and a secret bonus puzzle!

Also, there's a contest regarding this new puzzle! Check the news page on our webpage for the details.

[Necro]

Are you sure that secret puzzle works? I have half done it i think but a bit stuck.

[Gregjazz]

Yeah, it works all right. As I said, it's a hard puzzle.

[Czar]

Let me guess, do you have to?

Spoiler

pull 20 times the roots

[close]

[Ginny]

Hmm, I'm desperately looking for it but no luck yet hehe.
I have an odd feeling it has something to do with the stool, but maybe not, like putting it down somewhere else, but I have tried everywhere logical (I think)!
Hmm, I'll try some more tommorow .

[Necro]

well if this is truley not broken and there is no hotspot missing or interaction that unfortuantly will never be triggered, then this puzzle is WAY TOO DAMN HARD! I have tried everything, and I'm pretty sure I am on the right track- I emailed you with as far as I got, if the part after this should be simple then maybe you should check, otherwise O_O man is that secret a toughie.

[Snake]

I love this game so far!! The animations are amazing and the story/atmosphere pull you right in.

It rocks,

Two thumbs up!


--Snake

[auhsor]

This is such a cool game. I love the animations and the humour. I've only just started playing it but i'm stuck... i'll work it out tho...

[Nelinas]

Congratulations for the update - great job!
I am still searching for the secret puzzle, though, but that's part of all the enjoyment.
Geoffkhan, are you serious that we have to wait for The Find one (or, God forbid - two) years? Please, think it over! Keep the pace!

[Ginny]

Well one or two years is a lot, but then again rushing it isn't a good idea either, so just take as much time as is required to make it good.

[Gregjazz]

Well, the Find might take a year, but it will be commercial length and all. It will pretty much be professional quality.
(It's going to be hard to finish it sooner, since our artist is at college most of the year)

We're using 3d studio Max 5.1 to do the backgrounds and characters (don't worry, the characters will be cell-shaded, so they will look cartoon, but still have very smooth animation). Everything will be high res, maybe not quite as high as Runaway, but still very detailed. (640x480)
We're not too sure about voice yet, but for music we're getting (possibly 2) bands to play in a lot of it.

The Find will be divided into 5 chapters, two of which we have completely planned out (exact puzzles, etc.). We will keep you guys updated with our progress (unlike with Apprentice, kind of just sprung that on you) and we'll post screenshots and stuff as we go along.

By the way, we have a winner in the secret bonus puzzle contest! Congrats to Necro! We will post the announcement on the site shortly.

[Ginny]

Congratz Necro!

As I understand The Find is a detective game, right? Unless I'm sonfusing it with something...
Anyway I can't wait for more promotional material, and it sounds like the art and of course everything else will be just awesome!

Oh and springing Apprentice on us was a great and very pleasant surprise, hehe.

[big brother]

Ok, finally I have my own account on these forums. Curse my laziness. (I'm Ian the artist, been using Geoffkhan's account on and off, so half of those posts are mine.)

Anyways, the Find is not really a detective game. It's part futuristic, part modern, and part ancient. We didn't really tie anything down to a time period. I know it will sound like we're trying to combine too much, but everything fits into the story.

The main character delivers packages (with probably illegal contents) from buyer to seller, no questions asked.

Then a simple rendezvous job goes all wrong, and he ends up with two bulletholes in his chest, a tracking chip, and a head full of questions.

The more he finds out, the stranger things become and he realizes that he was a small but pivotal piece in a huge puzzle that involves a government agency and alien-worshiping cultists (to name a few).

Hope this clears up any misconceptions about the Find.

EDIT: Hmmm...we should probably start a new thread instead of talking about the Find in the Apprentice thread.

[Ginny]

Sounds fascinating! Technically I don't like detective games as much as other genres, unless they are original.
In any case, yes, definetly start a thread, and I can't wait for more info! Sounds fantastic!

[mätzyboy]

Apprentice was a splendid game! Terrific graphics and well fitting music! I only wish the story from the intro would have played a greater part inside the very game itself! Thanx guys for a pleasant experience of gameplaying!

[Archangel (aka SoupDragon)]

Great stuff! A really nicely polished game. The interface is awesome (I like the idea of the itembook) and the graphics and music are done superbly. A full length game like this would be a pleasure to play.

[volmel]

I'm embarrassed to ask this question, but:

Spoiler

where is the cliff where the snake is

[close]

Thanks - wonderful game!

[Las Naranjas]

left at the bottom of the exterior room.

[Alexis Vale]

Great game! I finally got it to work. I enjoyed it throughly. Good concept. Good art. Nice and fast. Nice puzzles.

[Squinky]

Yes, Good game.

I, like some others wanted to see more though. Which I guess is a sign of a good game....

[n3tgraph]

I've enjoyed your game.... but it didn't really point out the dream in the end. Which I hoped

there is also a towel bug (if this hasn't been mentioned before), there was one time when I was in posession of the blanket, but afters talking to the snake again and trying to give him some stuff, the blanket re-appeared

might take a look at it

[lspace]

Now that the secret bonus puzzle has been solved, how about a small hint to point the rest of us in the right direction so we too can solve it.

[Gregjazz]

Yeah, there's a thread about it in the Herculean Effort Productions forum. You might want to check it out.

[amaranth]

I loved your game! It was so adorable

[earlwood]

Awesome game, I like the knight at the very beggining, Its very well animated and its very well drawn.

[remixor]

This game was phenominal.  I'm not sure how I missed this thread the first time around, but no matter; I've played it now, and I have nothing but praise (except that a right-click function would be useful).  The graphics were beautiful, the puzzles were great, and the game felt like a professionally-designed adventure.  By the way, I didn't have much problem with the cheese puzzle.  I noticed when Pib said something like "this was made back when saddles were still made from horse stomachs" or something like that, so I kept trying to use the milk with it.  Ironically, when I finally DID get the saddle on the horse, I forgot about that whole thing and got stuck for a while.  That was my fault of course though.  Anyway, wonderful effort.  I'll be very much looking forward to your next game (which seems as different as can be from this one).  Keep up the good work.

[DinghyDog]

I thought it was superb. The cheese puzzle was great! Hard, but not so hard that I couldn't figure it out. It was the whole stomach comment that gave me the connection...as it was SUPPOSED to do. Heh. And the secret puzzle was delightfully secret, so hard that no one would even be able to figure it out, unless their name was necro, or had help. Or were just amazing at clicking everything on everything else.

-DD

[Ciro Durán]

Hey man, quite impressive graphics you have out there , I'm really enjoying the game (twice, because I'm running it in my linux box at work ), just to point you a bug you have in the walk-behinds:



Rest of it is marvelous, keep up the good work!!!

[ratracer]

Well, you know that already, your game was great!

plus points - art and animation
minus points - duration of the game

I can only fault the duration, so I'm hoping that your future projects will be longer...

You have all going for you, since you're talented and you're fast creating games ... so... MAKE MORE (adventure) GAMES (did I mention that Apprentice was too small?)!

Congrats!

[fidodido]

I played Apprentice a bit late, but I've finished it, and I must say: it's superb!

The graphics are amazing and very fun to look at, the animations add a lot to the game's smoothness, the characters are very well done, the dialoges are interesting and funny, and I just LOVE the ending. Great work there, man!

The only problem, apart from the length, is a few bugs that could have been fixed beforehand, if the game was played enough times.

But everything else in this game more than make up for the few flaws.

Again, great GREAT game!

[Sockmonkey]

This game is AMAZING. It could truly have been a LucasArts adventure back in the day.

Great work, guys!

[Nostradamus]

Can someone make a walkthrough for this game?

[Haddas]

There truly IS a holy copy of the walkthrough! Yes, hidden in the moist, dark depths of the homepage of Herculean Effort. Guarded by hideous webmasters and burning fire it lies and awaits finding. BUT... Will YOU make it there on your own? Will you risk your life for a walkthrough? Or will you click this link? http://www.sonic.net/~schlae/herculeaneffort/apprentice%20walkthrough.html ?!!???!?

[big brother]

Oh, come on.
Hidden, maybe. Dark, naturally. But moist???
Our assistant janitor, Geoffkhan ensures the cleanliness of our dungeons, every Saturday need it or not.
Anyways, I wrote the walkthrough/hint sheet, so if you find any mistakes, be sure to let me know.
The only thing the walkthrough does not cover is the *SPECIAL HIDDEN SECRET BONUS PUZZLE,* which you must either solve for yourself (yeah, right) or peruse forums (either these ones or the Herculean Effort ones).
Have fun with it!

[Haddas]

Okay. I overreacted.
Anyway...
I was wondering if the intro actually has anything to do with the game?
Will there be a sequel? Or is the game just another ordinary soup-making game?

[Nostradamus]

Well, hidden in the moist, dark depths of the homepage of Herculean Effort is info about Apprentice 2 which promises appearances of the guy in the intro and continuation of the plot.

Thanks for the link btw

[Gregjazz]

Yuck. And I designed that site, too.

Are you inferring that it's just sitting there rotting away?

Yeah, right. Check the site -- there's a new download on it!

[Haddas]

Yes. So there is...

BTW... I saw som moisture up in a corner... Should really clean it...

[big brother]

Just beta pic from App 2...
This background is part of a 3 screen horizontal.



Enjoy!

P.S. I know the guard's skin is really pink. I did it on purpose for reasons you will find when you play the game.

[Gregjazz]

Tai hao le!

[Haddas]

He looks sunburned

[remixor]

Awesome awesome.  Hurry!

[big brother]

Yeah, good call, Haddas. He is indeed sunburned. You win the day!

[Haddas]

YAY
I knew it!
That's how my mom looks in the summer.
"No, I don't need sunblock!"
"You sure?"
"Yes I'm sure"

[Phemar]

This game makes me pee.

[Gregjazz]

Wow. You must really be serious. After all, you brought up a thread from 2003 just to say that.

Fortunately, if you read the fine print in the license agreement, we are not legally held responsible for the provision of any pairs of pants.

[Anym]

Now that this thread has been brought up again, I might as well ask, where I could get information on that super secret bonus puzzle, as the original thread seems to have disappeared from the HEP Forums...

[Guest]

Now that this thread has been brought up again, I might as well ask, where I could get information on that super secret bonus puzzle, as the original thread seems to have disappeared from the HEP Forums...

Spoiler

Find another use for the Scroll...

[close]