Making an adventure game, timeframe?

[bemushroomed]

So i started watching some videos from someone who stopped working and started as a game dev, he's doing a point and click adventure in Unity with some addon. He claims he's doing 1 screen / scene per month.

Is this typically how long it takes for one screen? I think its sounds like a really long time for one scene, 12 scenes in one year?

I guess basically i just want to know what i'm getting myself into (if i start doing an adventure game). What's the typical timeframe for a smaller project in AGS would you say, for a beginner?

Thanks.

[FanOfHumor]

When I started it took me 1/2 months to make 11 rooms and that was just slow because my game required very advanced script from my beginner knowledge.I would say that unless if your doing something  advanced in scripting putting the game together is the easy part that takes a very short time.I think in the first ever AGS game I made I had at least 25 rooms in just 2 weeks.Of course this is assuming that your talking about a 2d adventure game and not 3d.Because AGS isn't so good at 3d and 3d is complicated in AGS.

[Stupot]

Welcome, Bemushroomed (I guess... you posted for the first time today but have been a member for ten years!)

The answer to your question depends on a lot of factors (What size game are you planning to make? How detailed is the artwork? How interactive are the backgrounds? How many hours a day are you going to spend on it? Will you be outsourcing or delegating any of the work?).

Your question is a little flawed, because the number of rooms has very little to do with how long the game will take to make. One dev may take 12 months to make a 12-room game, another may make a 12 room game in 12 days (it's not unheard of). Yet another may make a 6 room game in 24 months, because they also have children/studies/book club/problems with self-discipline, etc.

The prevailing advice is to start small. Make a one or two room game, just to get a feel for things. At the very least, you'll know how long that took you (and you will only get faster the more practiced you become).

Might I recommend you take part in our monthly, themed jam called MAGS (Monthly AGS). You're in luck because the next contest starts TOMORROW. The theme will be announced in the morning and you will have 30 days to make a game based on that theme. The beauty is that there are no restrictions about game size or length. You don't even have to submit a finished product (just hope that it's somewhat playable).

[bemushroomed]

When I started it took me 1/2 months to make 11 rooms and that was just slow because my game required very advanced script from my beginner knowledge.I would say that unless if your doing something  advanced in scripting putting the game together is the easy part that takes a very short time.I think in the first ever AGS game I made I had at least 25 rooms in just 2 weeks.Of course this is assuming that your talking about a 2d adventure game and not 3d.Because AGS isn't so good at 3d and 3d is complicated in AGS.

Ok, that sounds more what i was thinking in terms of time frame.. i didn't even know it was capable of actual 3D, wow.. a lot has happened with AGS (yes i am slightly familiar with it, but it was a really long time since tried it).

Welcome, Bemushroomed (I guess... you posted for the first time today but have been a member for ten years!)

The answer to your question depends on a lot of factors (What size game are you planning to make? How detailed is the artwork? How interactive are the backgrounds? How many hours a day are you going to spend on it? Will you be outsourcing or delegating any of the work?).

Your question is a little flawed, because the number of rooms has very little to do with how long the game will take to make. One dev may take 12 months to make a 12-room game, another may make a 12 room game in 12 days (it's not unheard of). Yet another may make a 6 room game in 24 months, because they also have children/studies/book club/problems with self-discipline, etc.

The prevailing advice is to start small. Make a one or two room game, just to get a feel for things. At the very least, you'll know how long that took you (and you will only get faster the more practiced you become).

Might I recommend you take part in our monthly, themed jam called MAGS (Monthly AGS). You're in luck because the next contest starts TOMORROW. The theme will be announced in the morning and you will have 30 days to make a game based on that theme. The beauty is that there are no restrictions about game size or length. You don't even have to submit a finished product (just hope that it's somewhat playable).

Thanks! Yes i registered a long time ago heh, and i have tried AGS in the past + some games made with it. I only remember that i followed a tutorial and that i thought the interface was pretty good and easy to understand, i was able to put in a background and i think i made door opening and closing, so the very, very basics, and that was probably in an hour or less.. then i started doing mods instead for some games so i didn't go back to AGS..

I've been searching a lot for which engine to use for this, there's also Visionaire Studio and Unity with some type of addon that people seem to think is good for this.
My reasoning for probably going for AGS is that ;

1) the community. This is very important, probably the most important part for me as a newbie. i don't want to be in a situation where i can't get help. i've been watching the Visionaire Studio forum, its dead quiet, i also see unanswered posts, not a good sign imo. That alone makes me not want to go that route..
2) long time in the making, so probably stable, feature rich, i obviously looked at when it was updated and it was recent.
3) Free.

Unity is probably better in the longer run to learn and so forth, but i don't know, it seems a bit too advanced for something like a point and click adventure, it jus seems like something that would take me more time to learn, get familiar with unity, then get familiar with that addon..

And yeah i get that it depends on how long you work daily with it.. i have 100% free time basically so i can work for very long hours, and that's usually what happens if i find something fun to do. 

[Babar]

As a frame of reference, me, a person with a regular life and perhaps average BG (art) skills, any time I entered MAGS, my games didn't usually have more than 5 rooms (not counting menus and outros and such).

Aside from the art that you'd be making, the "room" would also consist of walkable areas, hotspots, objects and all the interactions relating to all of those.

[Cassiebsg]

As said before it depends a lot.

When you say "scene" are you referring to a background, or also interactions, dialogues, objects, etc?

You can take a month making a single BG, it all depends on skill, how often one "draws" and level of detail added to it. Planning should also be taken into consideration, even if you just sitting on the bus, or driving your car, while you think about it. 
If he's doing a single BG a month, then I would expect the level of detail to be great and high resolution.

[Danvzare]

So i started watching some videos from someone who stopped working and started as a game dev, he's doing a point and click adventure in Unity with some addon. He claims he's doing 1 screen / scene per month.

Is this typically how long it takes for one screen? I think its sounds like a really long time for one scene, 12 scenes in one year?

It depends really.
I mean, if it truly took a month to make every scene in an adventure game, all of the MAGS entries would be single screen adventure games. 

It all depends on how detailed you make the background, how many intractable objects you code for the screen, and how complex the events are in that screen.
Also, you can't forget that you'll probably be working on multiple screens at once, constantly going back and forth as you update and revise your code and artwork.
I suppose if you were making a truly polished and professional game, all by yourself. It would take you on average of 1 month per screen. Although that month working on that screen, would be spread out across the entire development time of the game, and not done all in one go.
But for a small hobbyist adventure game like the type that I make, I'd say it's closer to 1 to 2 weeks per screen. 

[Stupot]

As promised, Bemushroomed (and anyone else who is interested), the topic for April’s MAGS is up. And it is Globetrotting.

Check the thread for more deets:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59864.0

[bemushroomed]

Thanks all, tried posting some longer posts before but none got through. Very annoying to post on this forum due to the 3 questions + expiration, and tons of trouble overall to even get a post though.. can take me minutes sometimes to post 1 reply.

I do get it that a bot-post can be annoying to perhaps one or two people on here but the recaptcha-thingy is annoying to absolutely everyone + buggy (sometimes getting a "not allowed to post in this section", sometimes having to go back because something expired and it said i already posted etc.. fortunately there seems to be a reddit channel, not sure how active it is (+ i really prefer forums).

[Khris]

If you're writing a longer post, copy it to the clipboard before sending it (or write it in notepad in the first place), that way you don't lose it.

[bemushroomed]

yeah, i always do that, had a BSOD though.

Is animating the backgrounds doable, let's say i want to animate clouds moving by in a realistic / smooth fashion. Is something like this even doable with AGS? I was thinking about the graphics (i already have tons of backgrounds done) and to me it's a rather important aspect, i want the game to be stunning to look at and i don't want he background to be completely static, if this engine is terrible at something like that i will probably look for something else. The backgrounds i want to use are 1920x1080, if this matters.

[Khris]

AGS natively supports 5 frames of background image animation, but you can use objects and GUIs (and manual pixel drawing commands) freely at any point. The only limit is FPS basically.

[heltenjon]

You can choose to stay logged in. Then you won't time out. 

Some youtube examples of splendid animation in AGS games in different styles, just to give you an idea:
If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland
Pedro's Adventures in Spanish
Beyond the Edge of Owlsgard

[cat]

For terrific animations, I would refer to The Journey of Iesir Demo. I assume they didn't make 10 rooms in 2 weeks like Pajama Sam suggested, but it took much more time.

[LimpingFish]

The prevailing advice is to start small. Make a one or two room game, just to get a feel for things. At the very least, you'll know how long that took you (and you will only get faster the more practiced you become).

I miss OROW.

[bemushroomed]

Some nice looking games!
Is there a good tutorial for the various ways of adding background animation / "lighting"?

[cat]

I miss OROW.

The page is not up-to-date, we had two more OROWs. Still, I agree that another OROW would be nice.

[LimpingFish]

The page is not up-to-date, we had two more OROWs. Still, I agree that another OROW would be nice.

That's true, I didn't notice that OROW 8 and 9 were missing from that list. 

That would mean we have now gone almost seven years (?) without an OROW.

[Ali]

Adventure games are, mostly, not made up of structurally discrete rooms. Games like Machinarium might be an exception, where many rooms are standalone puzzles. It doesn't take nearly that long for an experienced artist to draw a 2D background, and setting up a room in AGS or Unity (using Adventure Creator or PowerQuest) is fairly straightforward. I'm assuming you're not creating your own engine from scratch! Along with planning the puzzles and story, this is the relatively fun part.

Actually making the game is the slow bit. It's also much less satisfying because small, incremental improvements that happen later in development seem to require loads more effort than the early stages do. Animation, whether 2D or 3D, is much, much slower than drawing static backgrounds. Writing takes a very long time. Scripting takes a long time, and re-writing and re-scripting based on playtesting takes a long time. Voice acting is expensive, and no matter how good the performances are, editing can be the most tedious part of the whole process.

If you want to get an idea of how long it takes, you could look at the time between a successfully funded Kickstarter and the release of the game. You should also make a judgement about the level of experience of the people involved, and whether the Kickstarter actually raised enough money to pay the team for the time it took them to finish the game, or whether we can infer that they had funding from elsewhere.

[bemushroomed]

Most of what i've seen from this particular dev is in one room and you move on to the next, i know that some (but not all) AGS games plays like that too.
I think i would prefer some scrolling instead myself

Yeah, checking KS is probably good advice. I'm still waiting on some that i backed waaaay back when KS started.

I'm probably gonna do a really tiny, non-commercial game first, but it also has to be something i'm super passionate about otherwise it's hard to find any kind of drive for me, this is why i often find it hard to follow longer tutorials or just make something quick/fun (like the things you do on here, e.g a game in a month with a specific theme).

When i started learning 3D i just couldn't do it because of the long and boring tutorials that served no purpose other than "you must learn this". Then many, many years later i tried again, this time with a super specific purpose and i didn't do any long tutorials or found ones where i still could use the mesh and/or texture, this made things so much easier. I think like the second mesh i did had actual purpose and could be put to use, something that wasn't just for learning. From there it really took off and i was very driven, daily for years to come (tons of stuff i wanted to do and now could do).

edit: ah, the tedious question-stuff is removed from the forum? Awesome.