Bik - A retro pixel-art adventure game about a boy lost in space (DEMO)

[trothmaster]

Hi Everyone,
I'd like to show you my game i'm working on.  I originally started this in Adventure Game Studio.  AGS was so easy and great to use I was able to get the first level done in practically no time, however I eventually decided I wanted a more flexible engine to experiment with physics and 3d space scenes, so I moved on over to Unity3d.  Unity was much harder to get into.  In fact I had to build from scratch in C# a dialogue XML system, interaction system, Save System(that was the worst!), Menus, Walking AI(wow that was hard!), Mouse and touchscreen input system, inventory system...basically everything!  I'd love to talk about my experiences if anyone is interested.  Meanwhile here is the game.  Also i'm in the middle of a Kickstarter to try and get funding to pay for the artwork to finish the game.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Thanks so much everyone!

Mike
DEMO: http://bikgame.com/bikdemo
trailer: http://vimeo.com/54158522
website: http://www.bikgame.com
Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mikepinto/bik

[selmiak]

Nice work.
ZORFLIK! That alien looks familiar.
Any chance you will open source your framework for adventure games in unity or make it available somehow else?
Maybe related to how the kickstarter turns out? Good luck with the kickstarter!

[trothmaster]

Thanks so much for checking it out!

I have thought about opening up the framework.  I think after I finish the game I may try and make the code neat enough for others to go through and take out the parts they want!  The biggest issue is for displaying sprites in Unity i'm using another framework (ex2d) that is not open, so i'd have to make a way for people to plug in their own sprite animation and display framework.   Unity is really amazing to work with.  What is cool about Unity is you can write your own editor extensions. So feasibly you could replicate AGS right in Unity!  For example if i want to add a new character to the scene, I made an editor extension that I click on and put the name/sprite/NPC or player character and then my c# script creates automates the entire process of placing the character in the scene. Then I have another editor for Interactions/Events.  The character now shows up in that editor and I can create dialogue and events right in the editor.  If the event is more complicated than some simple actions I can add a special event which will take a C# script that I can do anything I want with.  I can try to put together some screen shots of the editor if anyone wants to see it just let me know!

[dactylopus]

Your game looks really cool!  It's got a lot of character in its style, and the story seems interesting as well.

As for developing in Unity versus AGS, did you find there was a large learning curve?  Also, aside from the benefit of physics and 3D, and the drawbacks of having to code a lot of the framework, what would you say are the pros and cons of each engine?

Good luck with the game and Kickstarter!

[trothmaster]

Hi dactylopus,
Its been about a year since I was using AGS so I don't quite remember everything about its full capabilities.  But I will say that I had a playable demo up within a day or so in AGS.  It was dead simple.  Once I switched to unity it took me about a week to just get a character to walk across the screen properly.  So yea, there was a big learning curve. 
The biggest pro to unity is that you can do anything you want with it.  Need parallax scrolling, its a natural side effect of the 3d engine.  It runs super fast for the types of graphics traditional adventure games use. Want shadows? they are built into unity, but you do need to know something about shaders to make them work right.  It automatically builds to Mac, linux, windows,and mobile platforms(after you program the touch interface).  You can even build to the WiiU, xbox, ps3 etc.  There are a lot of nice built in methods for accessing web content. 
Building the framework was/is the hardest thing about Unity.  Remember there is no Inventory, Dialogue, Mouse actions, menu system, there is nothing in unity. Just a (awesome)framework for displaying and manipulating objects in a 3d (or 2d) environment.

If you want a modern game engine with all its graphical power and you want to publish to every device/computer you can think of, Unity is awesome.   If you only want to do 2d without fancy shaders and shadows and all that, and you don't mind the trouble to publish to different platforms, AGS is amazing!  Building the framework is a CONSTANT tweak that never ends despite me thinking I have it all done.

However you will be a much better programmer(if you even want that) after using Unity. I stuck with Unity and really sharpened my C# and now I feel like I could program anything I can imagine!

Sorry if I ramble.  If you have any specific questions i'd be happy to respond!

[dactylopus]

Thanks for the response!

I would like to use Unity in the future, so it helps to hear about the experiences of others.

I wish you luck with the game, it looks like a lot of fun!

[trothmaster]

Hey everyone, I have my first playable demo ready!  I implemented a zooming in and out feature using your mouse scroll wheel too!
Check it out and please give me any comments you have!

http://www.bikgame.com/bikdemo

[Igor Hardy]

Looks very nice and complex.

Also, made me immediately wonder... First Astro Loco - now this - is Leiji Matsumoto so in vogue right now?

[trothmaster]

was he ever NOT in vogue?!

[dactylopus]

was he ever NOT in vogue?!

Indeed!

The demo was nice.  Its great to see how it all works.  The story seems interesting, the characters are amusing, and I love the music.  Well done, you've got a good looking game!