Adventure Game Studio

While making sync::routine (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=41571.0), I wanted to make something a bit light hearted as I realised I was lot more comfortable writing in that sort of environment. A Hard Day's Knight follows a young knight as he attempts to join the battlefield, deal with the horrors of war, and try and end the conflict for good (trust me, it's still light-hearted).

Expect lots of entertaining characters, chess puzzles (!), love and peace and war and several costume changes...

Progress - Last updated 27-05-13
Design: 95%
Coding: 85%
Backgrounds: 95%
Sprites: 85%
Sound: 5%
Music: 50%

Release 2013?...


Alpha build right here (http://www.jrnetwork.co.uk/downloads/AHDKnight_alpha.zip) (see latest post for details)

  This looks like fun, the graphics remind me of the old Bruce Lee game.  Congrats on releasing sync::routine (I'll check it out soon), and good luck on making this one.

(http://images.jrnetwork.co.uk/projects/kcheck_03.png)

Bit of an update. Got the first few rooms working in succession with just animations really to spice it up.
Thing is, I also want to spice up the chess puzzle a little bit so if anyone thinks they'd be a dab hand at designing a few chess layouts (I know what the puzzle needs to entail, but I want it to be a little bit more interesting than the one I've put in as a temp thing).

Also, if any musician is interested, PM me and I can talk about a few of the key tracks I'm looking for.

Also, c'mon! I need a better name! :)

This looks like it's gonna be fun!

As for title suggestion, how about "Good knight"?

Great theme for an adventure game.  The obvious choices are 'Black Knight' and 'White Knight', but you probably already thought of those, and they're very generic.  I'm guessing that the two sides of the conflict are black and white, and since it sounds like the main character might end up somewhere in the middle at some point in the game you could call it:  'Black Knight:White Knight', or 'The Middle Knight' ( :-\ these are lame, I know, but you get the general idea.  Something about middle or balance.)  Anyway, great looking game so far.

Quote from: tzachs on Sat 28/08/2010 11:02:18
"Good knight"

Sweet Prince.

Also the game looks very interesting, a bit different to the typical adventure game.

May be interested in the chess puzzling part. See you on #IRC to talk about that.

Very promising production.

(http://images.jrnetwork.co.uk/projects/kc/kcheck_04.png)

Just a quick update. On its way still. Maybe not end 2010 and more start 2011 but carrying on regardless.
Room 4 out of 6 is operational, with about half the puzzles coded in so far. Then a slap of polish and it should be presentable :).
May be looking for a musician soon, looking for a midi soundtrack most likely, depends what I can conjure up myself.

A Hardy Dev's Knight!?

Be prepared for a letter from my lawyers!

But seriously, I love the visual style - especially the character design.

Merry X-mas to you too Jimbob! This is looking wonderfully cute, a very interesting concept.

Very cute indeed. Good luck with it!

Started work on this again... all of the main characters have been designed and sprited (apart from the queens - tricky minxes they are). Also started adding more detail to the rooms to make it look a bit more interesting (compare to original screen in OP):

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19011149/Screens/kcheck_05.png)

I feel like I could get a barebones game done in a couple of weeks after this spurt, but an actual release? Who knows...

If your still looking for a name how about

The brave knight or the little brave knight.

I personally love "A Hard Day's Knight".

Now I can't get the Beatles song out of my head.  :=

The game now has an intro of some description!

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19011149/Screens/kcheck_title.png)

I'm not a chess player, well, to be sincere, I don't like it very much :P
But I'll definitely look at this when it's done :)
Keep up the good work.

Wasn't "A Hard Day's Knight" the subtitle of the Amiga game: Moonstone?
I don't want to criticize, since I love this name :D
If it refers to that game, well, bonus! :D

I may have subliminally grabbed that from my sub-conscious, but not intentionally.

In new news, I'm aiming to have a decent build ready for AdventureX (which I'm going to try and wander along to), which means I'm back to working on it. Woo!

I've got a few chess puzzles designed, but coding them is probably going to take a backseat to getting the structure of the rest of the game sorted. At the moment, I have just one final room to draw! I've also taken the executive decision to put carefully selected Beatles midis as my background music for the public build; at the moment it works quite well, but some modifications to the arrangements probably need to be made if I were to stick with it.

Have to finish with a screenie of something, otherwise Darth will probably lock the thread. I'm working on it! Right now! I assure you!


UPDATE 08/10/12:
Massive amounts of progress!

A lot of it is dialogue and coding wise, so no extra shots (I have finished the background for the final area, but I'll leave that to be discovered).
I also think I've figured out how I'm going to do the chess puzzles, although they will not be the focus, and there will be a way around for those not that way inclined. That's the only major barrier to completion, and I think the end is in sight!

Furthermore, in a strange bout of insanity, instead of a walkthrough, there will be a short story attachment with the game that works in the same way.
While I hadn't touched the AGS files in about ten months, I had started writing the story separately straight into a Word document. It has helped me shape the game and puzzles quite a bit, and there will be plenty of additional bits not in the 'walkthrough' that you'll have to play with to find out.

I don't know why this 'short' game as taken me as long as it has, but it will definitely be finished!
When?

I haven't a donkey's...

The next one will be a one room, two (maybe three-ish) character affair... because after finding that coding six rooms and twenty characters takes this long, I need to try something different...

Happy new year people!

I have updated/tidied up the original post and am working really hard to get this in a releasable format, I can't let it get to three years!
Also, some information is in the previous post, but I didn't bump it at the time...

Quote from: Jimbob on Tue 01/01/2013 17:31:52
Happy new year people!

I have updated/tidied up the original post and am working really hard to get this in a releasable format, I can't let it get to three years!
Also, some information is in the previous post, but I didn't bump it at the time...

Ãœber happy to see this update! Go go go Jimmy!

How have I missed this title?  I'm really excited to see how the story emerges on this one.  Adding it to the growing list of most-awaited titles.

So, five months on from the last post, and two months shy of this being a three-year project... it really shouldn't be, the game takes about 15 minutes if you know exactly what to do, but I prefer to just laugh at my own jokes and take my time... and it still doesn't feel *that* close to completion.

You can however almost play through from beginning to end without any bugs that throw you out, and there's only really one awkward coding thing left to do.  The rest is just spit and polish, dribble and time-wasting.  So, as some sort of inevitable deadline-failing gesture, I'm going to ask whether people want to endure listening to what is effectively myself taking the piss out of myself in the form of a point-and-click adventure that is about chess people, but rarely about chess.

Tomorrow, at noon (BST) because I have the day off, I will unleash it on here, an effective alpha test of the game that will take you from the beginning to the very last scene... which I will shroud in secrecy and not let you complete (not just because it isn't finished/designed/coded/panicpanicpanic)... it involves winning the game, and we all know how that works in chess... well, at least in principle.

I may also forget to turn debug off. But hopefully I will remember...

EDIT:
Alpha build here (http://www.jrnetwork.co.uk/downloads/AHDKnight_alpha.zip)(~1Mb)

Half an hour early, and I've managed to beat a deadline!
Okay, really, why I've posted this, is because I've not let anybody play it really for a long time, and I feel I should.
I've left a few of the key bits out (the chess challenge, and the ending) as they are quite self-contained and (not coded yet).
Post here, or PM or e-mail, and you can get your name in the extended close credits sequence...

Hey Jimbob, just played your game and thought it was really cute! I loved the art style and concept!

I think I found one bug while playing:

• I got the love letter and went back to the other side. After watching the bishop go by on the stretcher, I went back to the chessboard and found I couldn't go back to the Westside no matter how much I clicked on it.

A couple thoughts/questions/issues that came up while playing. Disregard if you don't think they're relevant...

• It took me a very long time to figure out that I wasn't supposed to actually land on any squares of the chessboard as a knight/bishop/rook. I kept on thinking I actually had to play the game to get across the board instead of moving completely across. Kinda wish I could've played some chess and used some strategy. :(


• The bishop's hat blended in so much with the background that it was very hard to find. Had me stuck for a long time and kind of frustrated me when I found it. (Could've just been me being stupid though.)


• Are you planning on adding more frames to the walk cycle of the knight? I think it would look even more awesome with two more frames spliced in.

Overall, really enjoyed the game! Really looking forward to playing the ending! (laugh)

love it! was great fun to play.

I got stuck as well, I assume it's the same bug waheela mentioned. Standing next to the battlefield, I have Knight and Rook dresses but no valid moves for either of them … and not able to go back to the tent.

Up till now I think it was very well balanced. had no problems with the puzzles (and I usually do). enjoyed all dialouges and the artstyle is great. I have to disagree with waheela about the walking animation as I think the somewhat 'choppy' movement really fits the military parody style.

Looking forward to play the rest of it!

Thanks!

The lack of actual chess puzzles is a bit of a cop out on my part, for lack of a reasonable programming solution (that and the desire to simplify parts in order to get the game finished) to implement a working chess system. I hope to have something interesting for the challenge but it may also not be a conventional chess puzzle... :-)

I'm still tweaking the graphics here and there so I'll try and sort out the hat issue.  The walk cycle has bugged me a little, sometimes I feel like waheela, sometimes like san.daniele.  I may try an extra frame and see how it looks.

Thanks for playing.  I'll try to make the wait for the full thing not too long!

Haha so fine! Looks cool. I like the look of the characters very much.