Sort of a Dev-Log of my Game "Enchanted Lands"

[Uhfgood]

On my way to creating my big game, I decided to do a smaller "prologue" style game in AGS.  Since I don't have any in-game screenshots or real progress reports, I'm going to update this thread once a week.  Maybe once it gets going enough I can put it in the AGS Games In Production forum.  I just wanted a place to promote my game and hopefully get people to get on me to finish it.  Of course the stuff I do have already isn't great, but I will make it great.  I also didn't want to post some of this "artwork" in the critics lounge because it's garbage and I know it's garbage, no point in trying to make garbage not stink ;-)  Of course this is all concept stuff and mockups and stuff so it wouldn't really be relevant for the CL anyhow.

Enchanted Lands is a magic kingdom turned vacation resort.  During the soft-opening of the resort, the Bank is broken into, and tourists end up missing.  The Grand Wizard and most trusted adviser to the King is sent to investigate (primarily because it involves Magic, but he also is overseeing the resort).

Here's a few images -


This first one is a vague concept of my main character.  Yes I know it sucks, but I will get better as time goes on.


This next one is a test for two possible menu sizes.  I was opting for the larger before
but I might change to the smaller once I decide on the layout of the sub menus.




These are mocks of the various "modes" of the menuing system.  Essentially you click and release over the "activation ring" and then that first ring with the buttons comes up, that is your main menu.  Then if you click on any of the buttons with a submenu it will just pop up and you can click them to activate.  But there's sort of a quick-mode where you click drag over the ring and over the submenus to release on the option you want, which makes it quicker once you get a handle on where everything is situated.

These mockups aren't final.  In fact the sub menus will probably have buttons spread out even further and readable... but they will still react to mouse angle.

So that's about it, I may opt to shorten the explanations and point you to relevant blog posts and just include images, but i'll do it about once a week in this thread.

[Eric]

This looks neat. I wanted to drop a few words of encouragement. I have a similar thread in the Critic's Corner where I'm hoping that regularly checking in will keep me working on my project (not much there lately, though, as I'm working on the design doc before I commit to any more art).

I might offer a brief critique / bit of advice -- to be taken with a grain or two of salt, of course -- in regard to your menu/verbcoin system. I think it looks nice, but might suggest three things:

1. I know you're in the mock-up stage, so you might be planning this already, but I'd try to match the verbcoin to the aesthetic of the game, and it's probably not to early to start thinking about how to do this.

2. The vertical text under the "Look" menu will be hard to pull off effectively, even in a more polished version with tighter leading. Westerners accustomed to reading left-to-right have difficulty parsing vertical text. You might consider 'spinning' the menu upon selection so that the selected sub-menu is always on the right, where the 'Use' option is now.

(2b. Of course, I have no idea how to program that.)

3. You're providing a number of verb options for players, and as a player, I might expect there to be responses to most of these things. Am I going to try to taste the sidewalk? Hell yes I am. Will you be creating responses for each combination?

This is a good start. I'll be checking in!

[Uhfgood]

You don't really have to say it looks nice.  It doesn't, but it's functional in showing me the layout and helping me figure out trouble spots (see below)

1. It will definitely match the game, however I don't have any stylistic content, or concept art yet, which will come forthwith -- It's just going to take a while.

2. Yeah that's one of the problem spots.  I might have to arrange them in a certain pattern or some such.  Or simply stack the Look menu's items one on top of another.

3. I will be creating responses for each combination (within reason).  I haven't really figured out yet how I'm going to handle highlighting interactive parts.  I might have some sort of "magic" which shows what things you can click on when you hover over them, or I might gray out the menu options, or I might just leave them alone.  If you've ever played any text adventures or the old sierra text-parser based adventures, you know they don't have descriptions for everything.  So if one tries to do "look" on the sidewalk it might print out the generic description of the scene, however within the scene will probably be some points of interest in which case if it's displayed there then it can be interacted with.  "Here you see a sidewalk running in front of both sides of the street."  Then later since sidewalk was stated you could try "tasting" it.  "The sidewalk tastes like dirt and old chewing gum and feels a bit like rough sandpaper on your tongue."  Part of the joy of some of those old games is you could type off the wall stuff and it might have a response (or it might not).

[Stupot]

I like the general thinking behind your menu rings, but in practice you have far too many verbs.  Unless you really plan on having puzzles that invlove smelling and tasting things, you're only making life harder for yourself.  And for the player.  I don't really want to have to click through the menus and submenus 12 times for every object.

I don't mind things like 'Push/Pull' so much.  Usually if something is push/pullable then it's obvious by looking at it, so I don't have to try this verb on absolutely everything, just on things that look like I could push them.  Same goes for Open/Close.   But when it comes to 'Look', do you really need 4 sub-verbs?  In a game, when I tell my character to 'look' at something, I expect him to look at, on, under and behind it.  Either that or I'll click on the gap underneath the dresser and look underneath it that way, using my one 'look' button.

[Technocrat]

I like the idea of it, it's the kind of thing that'd go well on a console with analogue sticks as well. However, I'm going to have to agree with Stupot that it's going to make far too many verbs. I'm a bit of a reductionist, I'm just using look/interact with left and right mouse buttons, and it's been quite a slog making "look" and "interact" messages for everything. Perhaps consolidate things like "Look/Smell/Touch" into a sense category, rather than having a whole different look category?

[Uhfgood]

I'm going back to the idea of text parser games.  I mean sometimes you did try every single combination, but then again sometimes you didn't.  Sometimes the description will list points of interest so you can click on them.  The feeling I wanted to convey was a greater choice in what they were to do.  I obviously won't be using all 12 verbs on each and every interactive item.  Sometimes it will just repeat the general description if there's really nothing underneath or behind or whatever.  You will use each verb at least once throughout the game.  I can also make sure that the items that need to be investigated will mostly have a description for everything.  "The desk is made of solid cherry wood and the desktop appears to be a bit cluttered." <Look on top desk> "There is a notepad here on the desktop, an inkwell obviously antique, and a stick of wax."

I haven't worked out all the kinks.  I'm trying to figure out how to make it all workable.  You know on the whole I could do my game like The Dig where one cursor does everything but I think that's a bit "low brow" as-it-were.  Meaning we started by typing in commands, and then when computers were getting good enough, we simplified it into icons, and then later into less and less, until then all you were doing was essentially clicking on stuff like some computer children's books.  I figure most people that play these kinds of games (and you guys that make them) are fairly smart.  They won't resort to clicking every option until they have to (at which point I have failed as a game designer)

I want to get the thrill of clicking something completely random and getting a surprise message that's either helpful or just plain humorous.  You know maybe I've been playing all day, and I'm totally and completely stuck, and then I just decide to try something wacky <smell sewer pipe> "Prior experience has taught me that the sewer probably doesn't smell all that great, however because you hold my life in your hands, I will do this thing that you ask." <pc smells the pipe> "Quite fascinating, why in fact this doesn't smell like a sewer at all, but more like...hmm, cloves!"  And so maybe this is the wacky thing you needed to do in order to progress.

The possibilities are endless.

If I am carefully designing this I can design what needs a response and what doesn't, and what that response will be.  The player will never be penalized for being able to make an extra or odd choice.

[LTGiants2000]

I REALLY like the ambition of the ring menu and the open-endedness you are encouraging for the player. In my opinion I say GO FOR IT and give the player as many options an possible, but somehow don't REQUIRE it to be thank specific (make it optional?). Just know that you are making a ton more work for yourself as the creator, think of all the different responses and combinations!

Personally I loved receiving a funny response for odd combinations in games, it's almost like an Easter egg in every item!

[Uhfgood]

I am considering simplifying it a bit, it has to do with the screen space and what not, plus, I don't have a talk option.

Then again I could shove in an extra button for talk so there are 6 main buttons.

I don't really like using 6 items or 8 items though.  I prefer 3, 5, or 7  (not really mattering on the submenus as i prefer them to have the same amount of options)  Just a weird eccentricity of my character.  Related to that is the fact that I think look at and on top of should probably be condensed into one action, but then there are only 3 actions for look.  It sort of needs to have the same amount of each in order to work properly.  The position of the "buttons" rely on an angle range, and although I could only use 3 options in look it is less consistent and the idea of using the radial menu is so you don't have to look at the menu and just select based on direction.  Also someone mentioned that the use button that contains things like open/close, push/pull, on/off are essentially the same option with just two options.  So if I based on context I would have to reduce that to two buttons, so now we have 3 look buttons and 2 use buttons, and still 4 sense buttons.  Well I suppose I could always put talk in the use sub-menu, but then I still have 4 sense buttons.

It's a challenge for sure.

[Uhfgood]

Here's some old designs.  I was considering a stationary menu with 4 pieces in each corner, since I'm now thinking ahead to touch pad devices (A company I work for does dev for Ipad and so forth, so I could have my game ported).  But I came across an older picture of old pie menu designs, thinking of doing something along these lines.



Note how the text is a bit different than the actual actions in the "action" menu.

[Uhfgood]

[Chicky]

The colours remind me of Google Chrome.

[Uhfgood]

That and Simon -- The colors are temporary, I just needed something to make each look different.  This is how the menus are laid out though.  I haven't decided whether I will have lines from the words to the "buttons" or not.

[Uhfgood]

On July 2nd, I did some story / puzzle work, which I have yet to revise.  Basically the main character is a Wizard (who's name is Harold -- and yes I know).  You have to solve 3 problems to get out of the room.  One is you need the spellbook before you can do anything (for instance saving games, or having inventory ;-) ), second is you need to enact the only spell you have left (a mysterious 'wind' blew all the magic hats out the window but luckily you still have one spell), the third is you need to find a way to get out as Harold has magically sealed himself but doesn't remember how he did it.  That's all I will say at this point.  This "game" is more or less a one room demo to see if I can hack it.

On July 3rd, 4th and 5th, I had a basic version of the UI up which didn't have much.  I had a problem drawing a line past a certain point, but managed to solve it with the wonderful help of some guys on the AGS forums.






Note the last one I fixed :-)

Finally added the extra buttons and now it knows which option you're choosing

Click Image for a video of it in action.  It still needs to account for the dead zone, and I still need to implement click-drag-release.

[Uhfgood]

Last Monday I managed to upload a video of the UI handling edges.



Next up were some layout drawings of the first room.  Or rather the only room in this one-room demo, which will show you how to use the interface:






On Tuesday I redid my first and second puzzles and then did a sketch for the background that's a temp background.

Click here for the "full effect"

Wednesday I implemented the background in AGS and added labels to the gui buttons.

For some reason Youtube decided to start cropping my videos to conform with their wide resolutions more.

Thursday and Friday I was trying to implement a few things but got stuck.  I'm now unstuck but you won't really see it until next week, unless you happen to go to my blog.