Professor Neely And The Death Ray Of Doom

sonicrumpets · Tue 14/12/2010 20:00:42

WOOT! Over 2000 downloads!

Hey Iâ€™d like it announce that Iâ€™ve finished my first game!
Iâ€™m Sonicrumpets AKA Nathan O. and Iâ€™ve been lurking about sense 2004 but have been very quiet and didnâ€™t want to go shooting my mouth off without something to show for it.

So with out further a due I give you,

Professor Neely And The Death Ray Of Doom!

In the game you'll take on the role of Professor Neely a retired college professor and famed inventor who is unwittingly lured to an odd house and held against his will by a mad doctor.
Your goal is to escape and stop the events that are about to take place.

Features Include:
Wide screen aspect ratio
Retro low res 320X200 resolution
Sounds and music for every location.
Play with no fear of dying as you canâ€™t.
alternate solutions to certain puzzles.
Special hidden mini game!
Also GRUNTS !

Download the game

Downloaded file is a 17.86 MB zip

More info at my blog

Screen shots

Please message me if I failed to post this correctly or have goofed up the game in some manner

Thank you and I hope you all enjoy the game!

*edit*
You can now find it on the ags games page!

*Changes*
Added labels to the cursors so the player can easily tell what mode they are using.

david · Tue 14/12/2010 20:57:41

well what can I say...WOW

It really got me...very well done for the first game

Enjoyed it a lot, to be honest I did not want to stop playing this game, but I had to

Very addictive
GRUNTS technology fits very well for me
Congratulations

arj0n · Tue 14/12/2010 21:56:14

Very very nice

Igor Hardy · Wed 15/12/2010 00:32:34

Looks DOTTy! Downloading.

Snake · Wed 15/12/2010 01:44:35

*Snake downloads and plays right away

MiSaNtHrOpE · Wed 15/12/2010 03:53:08

This game is really friggin good, especially for a first game! Besides some spelling errors, the game is pretty much flawless.

poc301 · Wed 15/12/2010 06:05:52

Good lord, it looks amazing. I will be downloading this in the near future and giving it a go.

-Bill

Monsieur OUXX · Wed 15/12/2010 09:07:45

WTF? Out of the blue!

Looks gorgeous.

EDIT: I must say I love the style of the backgrounds :
- perspective-wise they're a strange mix of simplistic perspective (Maniac Mansion) and more realistic perspective (DOTT)
- color-wise you used just enough tones to make it look smooth, but flat surfaces still use only one color, old-school. I like that!

--> A strange style + another strange style = a great style!

Monsieur OUXX · Wed 15/12/2010 09:19:01

Are the spelling errors on purpose (as some sort of joke) or are there one million billion misspellings? If it's not on purpose (hard to tell for a non English speaker) then I'd recommend you have it proof-read by a native English reader (not me, obviously

) for version 1.1.

I like the weird Akatosh-like humor ("Dear professor, you received an award of some sort. Don't be silly you've invented plenty of great things!").

Darius Poyer · Wed 15/12/2010 09:28:32

Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Wed 15/12/2010 09:19:01
I'd recommend you have it proof-read by a native English reader (not me, obviously ) for version 1.1.

That's really funny. I thought the same thing.... turns out he's actually from the states.

http://www.blogger.com/profile/06089628989857559596

still playing the game, ill get back on some critique later-on.

CaptainD · Wed 15/12/2010 11:34:24

Looks great! Love the graphical style, prefer games where you can't die, and am intrigued by "Advanced GRUNTS technology"!

Igor Hardy · Wed 15/12/2010 15:27:53

Could you tell where did you borrow the music from? 2 tracks are familiar to me from somewhere, but I can't exactly place their origin in my memory.

Anyway, really cool game so far.

Monsieur OUXX · Wed 15/12/2010 15:35:14

Quote from: sonicrumpets on Tue 14/12/2010 20:00:42
Also introducing advanced GRUNTS technology!

Did you achieve that effect using a module or a plugin? You might want to release the source to allow others to make Globliins-like talkie games.

Khris · Wed 15/12/2010 15:46:38

All you need to do is assign the sound to one of the talking view frames

Monsieur OUXX · Wed 15/12/2010 16:10:05

Quote from: Khris on Wed 15/12/2010 15:46:38
All you need to do is assign the sound to one of the talking view frames

Well I thought there was somethign more considering the name "GRUNTS technology" lol.

@sonicrumpets : The backgrounds and character design are gorgeous, but the character's animation is a bit below the rest, which is a pity, considering the overall quality and immersion. I'm sure you'd find plenty of artists ready to help you making him look less stiff. Also, it's a pity he has only 4 views, because in the isometric view of the house the "missing" diagonal views would make it look perfect! Post your character in the "Critics Lounge" and see what happens ;-)

sonicrumpets · Wed 15/12/2010 17:43:06

Wow it’s good to see that people seem to like the game!
If you downloaded it and have enjoyed it than thank you! Because letting others play this game and enjoy it is what makes it worth it.

Now it looks like I have some explanations to give,

1. Advanced GRUNTS technology
I may have played this up to much (as a joke). It also looks like I miss judged the grunts as gradualy becoming annoying (that’s why they are off by default). Anyhow I love banjo-kazooie and when I realized that voice acting was a bit out of my means I went for the banjo-kazooie style grunt noises.

As for how they are done well all I do is in repeatedly execute always see if a character is talking and play a random grunt.

Like this :
function repeatedly_execute_always(){

if (Grunts ==0){

// Make egore grunt
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
if (cEgore.Speaking) {

int EGOREGUNTS=Random(5);

if (EGOREGUNTS==0){ if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(19,7);}

else if (EGOREGUNTS==1) {if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(20,7);}

else if (EGOREGUNTS==2) {if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(22,7);}

else if (EGOREGUNTS==3) {if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(23,7);}

else if (EGOREGUNTS==4) {if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(24,7);}

else if(EGOREGUNTS==5){if (IsChannelPlaying(7)==0)PlaySoundEx(21,7);}

}
.
If you assign a sound to the talking view frames it gets to repetitive Because they’ll always play in the same order.

2. Misspelled words
Damn! I thought I nipped this in the bud!
I seriously tried to get this taken care of and I’ll be the first to admit I’m a terrible speller.
Sadly the text was ran though a spell checker and a English major *sigh* I apologize for any offensively bad misspellings (I’m mildly dyslexic so I can’t always tell). In the future I’ll run my scripts though a tougher editing process.

3. The music Is from this site
http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/
I used the following
Arcadia, Dream like, Frost Waltz, Laconic Granny, Machinations, Mysterioso March, Ominous and Scheming Weasel slower.

I think that’s all of them.

4. Animation not up to par.
Again I’ll apologize for this one but it was a case of me growing as a sprite animator and not wanting to go back and redo all my animation as It wasn’t to my current standard of work. ( I did all the animation In MS Paint)

This Is what I was going to do, I ‘m not sure it meshed well with the existing art.

In the end I decided that I just needed to release the darn thing as I sat on the project for a year or so and the animation never got a full second pass.

5. I’m glad everyone likes the backgrounds and art
I did the first pass in MS paint and then did all the shading and shadows / highlights in Jasc paint shop 8.

It’s good to get feedback and I can’t wait to see what others have to say!
Thank you for playing my game!

MiSaNtHrOpE · Thu 16/12/2010 05:00:32

Sonicrumpets, there is one thing I should point out.

After having finished the game, I should tell you that for your next game, please use different cursors entirely, rather than one cursor with different colors, as it is much easier on the player.

sonicrumpets · Thu 16/12/2010 05:51:56

Ah the cursors , well your right.
I have a much better system planed for my next game, simple left click interact and Right click to examine/deselect inv. It’s working out better that the pared down Lucas arts thing I tried for this game.

sonicrumpets · Thu 16/12/2010 06:38:17

OK, Because I truly care about what you folks have to say I've Added labels to the cursors so the player can easily tell what mode they are using.
Also They now Go from Grey(inactive) To Color(Active).

Hopefully this helps.

Monsieur OUXX · Thu 16/12/2010 11:01:25

Quote from: MiSaNtHrOpE on Thu 16/12/2010 05:00:32
please use different cursors entirely, rather than one cursor with different colors, as it is much easier on the player.

It's not an issue in itself, but there should be an indicator somewhere on screen to remind you what cursor you're using in case you forget, or when you're still getting used to it. Or at least write it on screen briefly when the player changes function with the right click. Apart from that I like how minimalist and elegant it looks.