A Boney Night - Freeware Adventure

Bernie · Wed 13/11/2013 16:12:15

Hello again AGS Forums! I'm not much on here these days, but since I've made a new adventure game I thought I'd share it. Suppose you could consider it a slightly late halloween title since it has zombies and stuff. It's freeware, no ads or anything. The android version is free of ads, too.

I still love making adventure games, but I'm using all sorts of tools now. I haven't finished an adventure game for ages and I was thinking about making this in AGS (I even did so partially), but I also wanted to create my own adventure framework. And this is the result:

Downloads
http://www.origamihero.com/boneywin.zip (Windows)
http://www.origamihero.com/boneyandro.zip (Android)
http://www.origamihero.com/boney/ (HTML5, should play in many Browsers)

Story Summary
There are times when a short, middle-aged lady has to do what she has to do. For example when a zombie apocalypse is happening. Undra the witch and Kijo the orc set out to stop evil and teach a kid a few lessons about stuff along the way - or not. Because kids these days. Really. Those jerks!

Other Stuff
This is actually a Gamemaker:Studio game. I made kind of a base for future adventure games. You could consider this sort of a test game. It's got a few minor cosmetic issues I may have to sort out but seems quite stable so far. It has a relatively simple interface with 3 icons. I made it extra-big so it can be played on phones. It's a medium-length game.

Let me know what you think, please!

Daniel Eakins · Wed 13/11/2013 16:29:07

Man Cedric and the Revolution and Reactor 9 are my favorite AGS games ever (along with Nelly Cootalot). Downloading this right NOW!

Andail · Wed 13/11/2013 17:36:32

Looking awesome! Downloading.

Chicky · Wed 13/11/2013 21:29:15

What an awesome surprise! Super excited to play another adventure from you Bernie, this one looks tip top as always. Love your style, great colours

Ghost · Wed 13/11/2013 22:10:03

Looks yummy, downloading! And to think you made this in GameMaker! That's quite an achievement!

Bernie · Thu 14/11/2013 06:24:26

Thanks for giving it a go, y'all!

Quote from: Daniel Eakins on Wed 13/11/2013 16:29:07
Man Cedric and the Revolution and Reactor 9 are my favorite AGS games ever (along with Nelly Cootalot). Downloading this right NOW!

Thanks! Those games were fun to make. Yeah, Nelly is really awesome! I'm still impressed by the visual style.

Quote from: Chicky on Wed 13/11/2013 21:29:15
What an awesome surprise! Super excited to play another adventure from you Bernie, this one looks tip top as always. Love your style, great colours

Thanks! Drawing these backgrounds is pretty fun.

It's kind of relaxing and therapeutic, actually.

Quote from: Ghost on Wed 13/11/2013 22:10:03
Looks yummy, downloading! And to think you made this in GameMaker! That's quite an achievement!

GameMaker has come a long way and it's gotten pretty decent for making all sorts of games.

It's possible to make adventure games in pretty much any dev environment - the main obstacle will probably be the pathfinding. You'll notice that still is slightly unclean, but at least reliable.

Quote from: Andail on Wed 13/11/2013 17:36:32
Looking awesome! Downloading.

If you haven't played it yet, you may want to download it again if you don't mind. This is why:

Game Updates!
I updated the game a little. It's just some minor stuff. The size is down by 3 MB, the background speech doesn't remain on-screen when changing rooms and I fixed a few typos. Your save games will still work. Nothing game-breaking came up so far.

Frodo · Thu 14/11/2013 10:21:15

The game looks fantastic.

But when I start to play, it's just a tiny wee screen. And there's no setup file to change that.

So how do I get it full screen?

Bernie · Thu 14/11/2013 11:15:10

Hi! Hit Alt+Enter for fullscreen. You can also resize the window to your liking. Suppose I could make it an option on the main screen.

Frodo · Thu 14/11/2013 11:35:36

Thanks Bernie

Fitz · Fri 15/11/2013 19:35:50

Played it just now -- and really enjoyed it. Short, but SO cute -- reminiscent of some of Ben's games: funny and sweet, with a hint of melancholy. Love the humor (the brain connoisseurs are my favorite) and the graphics (Gobliiiins come to mind!). I also found it quite ingenious to use mushrooms as an information network (toying with similar twisted ideas for a story I'm planning to write) and green tea as the beverage of choice for orcs

.

One minute technical crit: you could make text skippable (with left-click, preferably, since that the default dialogue skip in AGS).

We definitely need more games from you, sir!

Bernie · Fri 15/11/2013 21:48:12

Happy to hear you liked it!

Keeping it short makes it easier to finish stuff. The dialogue that blocks input should already be skippable with left-clicks (like during the intro). The background speech can't be easily skipped, but doesn't block your input.

There's also a HTML5 version now. Should be playable on pretty much anything than can run HTML5:
http://www.origamihero.com/boney/

Fitz · Fri 15/11/2013 22:18:32

Does it run on iPad? If so, I'll be sure to pass it on to my buddy, whom I introduced to adventure games with my little creation (see link below) -- and he did ask me about a possible port to iPad. Nifty little devices they are!

dactylopus · Sat 16/11/2013 10:29:25

I'm really enjoying the game so far! For now, I'm outside the heavy gate. The graphics and story are endearing. I'm particularly fond of your music.

Overall, nice job!

festilligambe · Sat 16/11/2013 15:37:34

Will you be willing to share the framework for GMS when you get it running how you like it?

Daniel Eakins · Sat 16/11/2013 16:49:14

Just finished it. It was short but pretty good!

- I was a bit confused that

Spoiler

Kijo wouldn't take his axe to cut the tree's root, but I didn't get stuck for too long.

[close]

- I found it odd how the map wasn't oriented with North on top but that was probably done for originality's sake.
- Graphics were amazing as usual!
- The music was pretty cool too!
- For such a short game, the characters were quite likable and had their personalities, though Kijo felt a bit emotionless.
- I really liked that the full screen mode scales the game's resolution to your desktop resolution, instead of the other way around. This is something AGS has been missing for ages and which should really be universal nowadays.

miguel · Sun 17/11/2013 00:29:17

I've been playing this game on the html5 version and it runs pretty well except for some music stutter. Also I could not run in on Firefox although Chrome runs it well.
I'm enjoying it very much, there's a nice old-school pace to it and the writing is pretty cool. Graphics as well.
Good job!
Does the free game maker version allows you to export to html5?

Bernie · Sun 17/11/2013 03:40:06

Quote from: Fitz on Fri 15/11/2013 22:18:32
Does it run on iPad? If so, I'll be sure to pass it on to my buddy, whom I introduced to adventure games with my little creation (see link below) -- and he did ask me about a possible port to iPad. Nifty little devices they are!

It runs in HTML5, which should in theory work on iStuff.

Quote from: dactylopus on Sat 16/11/2013 10:29:25
I'm really enjoying the game so far! For now, I'm outside the heavy gate. The graphics and story are endearing. I'm particularly fond of your music.

Overall, nice job!

Good to hear you liked it so far!

Quote from: festilligambe on Sat 16/11/2013 15:37:34
Will you be willing to share the framework for GMS when you get it running how you like it?

That's a tough one. Customizing a game requires rewriting the framework code; for example each GUI adjustment or change requires a lot of messing with the code. Even adding more verbs would require some rewriting. I'm not sure if ever get it to a level that could easily be used by others. As it is you'd need decent GML knowledge.

Quote from: Daniel Eakins on Sat 16/11/2013 16:49:14
Just finished it. It was short but pretty good!

- I was a bit confused that
Spoiler
Kijo wouldn't take his axe to cut the tree's root, but I didn't get stuck for too long.
[close]
- I found it odd how the map wasn't oriented with North on top but that was probably done for originality's sake.
- Graphics were amazing as usual!
- The music was pretty cool too!
- For such a short game, the characters were quite likable and had their personalities, though Kijo felt a bit emotionless.
- I really liked that the full screen mode scales the game's resolution to your desktop resolution, instead of the other way around. This is something AGS has been missing for ages and which should really be universal nowadays.

Thanks for the feedback! I think the map thing is just me not paying much attention.

I wonder what it would take to get AGS to resize like this... it would be a nice feature.

Quote from: miguel on Sun 17/11/2013 00:29:17
I've been playing this game on the html5 version and it runs pretty well except for some music stutter. Also I could not run in on Firefox although Chrome runs it well.
I'm enjoying it very much, there's a nice old-school pace to it and the writing is pretty cool. Graphics as well.
Good job!
Does the free game maker version allows you to export to html5?

Here are the prices: http://www.yoyogames.com/studio HTML5 export isn't exactly cheap.

The music stutter is really weird. It's very browser dependant, and my music refuses to loop properly in HTML5. I don't know if it's GameMaker or perhaps something I did wrong.

miguel · Sun 17/11/2013 12:10:41

Well, the music does loop for me but it sometimes stutters a bit.
I'm playing around with Tululoo for html5 games and while it's free it will of course crash on you for weird reasons. I guess that's what you pay for: stability.

kaput · Sun 17/11/2013 13:18:43

Looking pretty darn cool, Bernie. Downloading now.

Stupot · Sun 17/11/2013 13:57:48

I just tried playing it in Chrome and there was some horrible crackling noise making it unplayable. Maybe the bass or something doesn't agree with my laptop's speakers.
It looks great though, so I'll download the windows version and try again. I'll let you know how that is.

Update: Okay, just downloaded and there is no sign of the crackling in the windows version. Must be some audio/browser problem on my end.

I look forward to playing this :-)