The Journey Down - FINALLY RELEASED check last post!

[theo]

About time I do the official "OMG we have left AGS" post, I guess.

Yeah it's true. We've decided to build our own home-grown tech for the HD release of The Journey Down. Why? Because building the engine from scratch turns out to be more fun, put simply. Also, if we build it from scratch we'll be the masters of our limitations, something we much prefer compared to being at the mercy of someone else's. Our current goal is to release chapter one HD in Q1 2012 on Pc, Mac, iOS and android - Something that would have been pretty much impossible if we were to cling to our old AGS ways, for very many different reasons.

For those not familiar with TJD, chapter one was released last year as a free AGS game and can be found here. Since then, me and my buddies at SkyGoblin have decided to re-release chapter one in HD with speech and added story and puzzles, but this time as a commercial project, not built in AGS.

Our hope in releasing a HD version of chapter one is to set the bar at a level awesome enough to ensure the commercial viability of keeping up the work on the coming chapters. If that works or not though, remains to be seen!

The sales pitch:

The Journey Down is a classic point 'n click saga with a black African twist, owing much of its character and pattern design to traditional central African arts such as carvings and masks from the Makonde and Chokwe tribes. Mixed with an all original jazzy reggae soundtrack, feedback-oriented puzzles and tons of hand painted environments, the unique cultural fusion of The Journey Down is bound to draw you in.

In the first part of four, Over the Edge, our hero Bwana and his trusted sidekick Kito struggle to make ends meet at their run-down gas station. One day their lives turn upside down as they're thrown into a twisting plot of corruption, laughs and brainteasing adventure.

Follow the development of The Journey Down on skygoblin.com, and check out more screenshots over at the official webpage.





PS. Do you guys mind if I use this thread to spam updates about the game's progress? I realise the information is not as relevant now that it is no longer an AGS project, but the more channels we can spam, the bigger the odds we'll actually be able to reach out with this huge pile o pixels.

Peace. 

[Armageddon]

Me likes! You have some serious viewport wireframe on the top left of the last picture, it looks like.

[Icey]

Sounds cool. Can't wait to play on it my sidekick.

Also I feel like I asked this before but is there a direct link to the 720p res plug-in for AGS?

[Ghost]

I feel like I should shout "Traitor!".    But after seeing your images, I'll make do with shouting: "Hey, this looks great! Me wants!"

Seriously, that looks quite amazing, and I see how cool it must be to develop your own engine. Best of luck for both that engine and the HD remake!

[Lumpupu]

It looks gorgeous. Like the former version. But nicer on my HD screen.

IM SO FREAKIN JEALOUS. Whats your middle name, guys...? Talent...?  :o

[Stupot]

Looking sleek.  All the best :-)

[Daniel Thomas]

Looking good Theo!
Must be great working on a AG as your job!

[m0ds]

Great stuff! Good luck. Are you going with a particular publisher?

[Darkdan]

Great work. What can you say when a magnificent work becomes even more beautiful?

[arj0n]

OMG, this looks absolutely droolingly awesome Theo & Team!

[Peder 🚀]

Looking awesome!

[Tabata]

                             

[theo]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the kind words and asspats a lot. It pushes me and my fellow SkyGoblins along beautifully. 

armageddon: heh, well spotted. I mocked up the whole bend in 3d to ensure that the train would zoom off in the distance with correct perspective, and some of the wireframe stuck. Me lazy.  : The whole horizon has been repainted too, come to think of it. This is an old screenshot.

m0ds: We are currently hellbent on self publishing it 100%. We've been doing it with our other title "Nord" the past few years so we are getting used to the concept. (That doesn't mean we're any good at it though, but we prefer our own incompetence rather than other people's.)  But who knows what happens in the end...

zyndikate: You have no idea. Ever since me and my fiancée got our daughter (half a year ago) I've had zero free time. But thanks to the fact that we took on TJD as a commercial project, I get to work with it almost eight hours a day. Pretty much as awesome as it gets. Our financial situation is gasoline-ass volatile though, but that's the way its been for well over five years now, we're used to it.  8)

I hope to be able to post a couple new screens this week, so keep your eyes peeled.

Thanks again.

[Dualnames]

Hey, theo. Please still carry on dropping by. I'm kind of glad you've found a way to do this, and well kind of sad at the same time for leaving AGS. Regardless, you still own the record of most awards in one night.

[theo]

heh don't worry duals, you'll see me haunting these forums 'til the end of time.  8)

Some new screenies!











See them in higher-res over at the official webpage!

[Igor Hardy]

Look great, especially the close-up image of the characters.

[Armageddon]

I love it, though the city water reflections don't look as cool as the original, the new boat is amazing though.

[Snarky]

Yes, these look awesome as usual. It doesn't really matter even matter at this point, though; I am going to buy this game regardless.

For the new water reflections, I assume you're modeling them in your 3D modeling environment? But how did you do the ones in the low-res version? That animation was really nice.

[Armageddon]

I'm pretty sure the water waves were just a module in the original.

The reflections were one of the things I remember most from the original, they looked so, amazing I guess. Now they look more realistic, which is good I suppose.

[blueskirt]

The low res nostalgia is absent from this game but I think it's for the better. I love pixel art and the 320x200 resolution, but these backgrounds and characters look infinitely better in high res than they did in their low res, anti-aliased to the bone, counterpart, especially the characters, that character close-up background is stunning.

No biggy about the engine switch. I guess AGS's next goal will be portability over Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. It's an extremely important market for many indie games, adventure or not. Unless this happen, I'm not surprised if some developers going commercial decide to switch engine.