A Poison Green – October 2019 update

[FlyingMandarine]

Story

Washington D.C., 2070.

Environmental diseases are now the norm due to an ever-decreasing air quality that forces people to wear gas masks at all times. When all legitimate plans to make a difference failed and with a passive government that dared not listen, eco-terrorism became the only way to make one's voice heard.

Such is the world in which three people's paths cross.








These three characters and their shattered moral compasses are at the center of a story of espionage in a city of perpetual rain, sickness and misunderstanding.

Screenshots (Work-in-Progress):

(Click on each screenshot to see them in higher resolution!)


Any interaction with the outside world is a struggle for Mia.



William visits a long-time friend.



Depends on the kind of stuff, I suppose.



Mia waits on a stranger who would "like a word or two."



Elijah's best friend, Hafiz, shares the same beliefs and ideals as our dear history teacher.



If this looks bad for William, be reassured that it will only get worse.

How about some music?

I'm glad you asked!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/VcY5uoP9vNU?feature=player_detailpage

Featuring:

-Three playable characters,
-Everything you make your characters say or do slightly alters their behavior, allowing them to make choices that wouldn't have been available to them otherwise,
-Over 50 backgrounds in 1024à—768,
-Difficult (a)moral choices,
-Full English voice-acting,

Credits:

Story (90%) by FlyingMandarine
Scripting (50%) by geork and FlyingMandarine with help from Crimson Wizard
Background art (80%) by SookieSock and Nick Canton
Character art (40%) by Ilyich and Honza
Sound/Music (20%) by Johan Tardif

Development progress:

March 2020:

We've finished work on a first version of Chapter 2 a couple months early, and are now about 20% into the last chapter! The aim is to have the game playable from start to finish by the end of August, although that's a tad optimistic. Then it'll be time to get the last art assets in, rewrite/re-code scenes that don't work as well as they should, and more generally having a quality pass on the whole game.

Also, we now have a nice website! Check it out here: http://www.apoisongreen.com

If you use Twitter, please feel free to follow us at https://twitter.com/FarawayInd !

[frenzykitty]

Wow. Looks stunning...

[CaptainD]

Looks really interesting and the graphical style is bleakly beautiful (and beautifully bleak!).  All the best with development.

[cianty]

Wow. Those screenshots look great!

[Mr.Dream]

Spoiler

"Excellent!
Sujet intéressant qui semble bien traité, on discerne une bonne profondeur de l'univers rien que dans le synopsis. De plus le triptyque de héros promet et leur design est réussi; leur palette de couleur s'accordant dans de très agréables décors.
Bref, c'est vraiment très bon à  tous les niveaux et ça promet. Bon courage!
Par ailleurs une question, vous dites "Voice Acting", mais dans quelle langue? x)"

[close]

"
Excellent!
Good theme, deep universe... (compliments)
I'm very impatient! Good luck!

But, for the voice acting, it will be in English?"

[Darth Mandarb]

English only please.

[Gribbler]

Looks like quite a task ahead of you guys. Good luck developing the game. I hope you finish it because it looks stunning and the story sounds intriguing!

[Armageddon]

Amazing art. Good luck with the project.

[Stupot]

Very pretty game.  Keep up the good work

[FlyingMandarine]

Thank you all so much for the feedback! That's very nice of you; this kind of motivation boost is very welcome.

Mr.Dream:
In French (I hope it's OK, Darth, if I write in French as long as I provide an English translation):

Spoiler

Ton message m'a vraiment fait plaisir, merci ! J'espère que l'univers du jeu et l'histoire seront à  la hauteur de tes attentes, mais étant donné le développement encore peu avancé, nos journées sont faites d'incertitude autant que d'espoir, donc difficile à  dire. Quant au doublage, des doublages en d'autres langues que l'anglais me semble improbable ; je ne pense pas qu'on aura de quoi se payer des doublages de bonne qualité pour plusieurs langues. Mais je ne peux pas complètement l'écarter, notamment en ce qui concerne les doublages français. Il est encore trop tôt pour le dire !

[close]

Your message made my day. Thank you! I hope that the game's world and the story won't disappoint, but this early in development, days are filled with as much uncertainty as hope. As for voice acting, anything other than English voice acting seems improbable, because I don't think we'll be able to afford good-quality voice acting for several languages. But I can't completely rule out French voice acting and other languages. In any case, it's still too early to tell!

[Mr.Dream]

Sorry for the French! I fixed it
So Thanks for the details!

Spoiler

Merci beaucoup pour les détails!
Bon courage pour la suite, je suis persuadé que vous trouverez peu à  peu les bons choix de directions qui conviendront pour soudain ne plus avoir à  tâtonner x)/hide]

[close]

[Grim]

Amazing stuff.

Right now, for me, the most anticipated AGS game in production.

[Fred7162]

Looks amazing. Looking forward to it.

[Adder]

This is looking really interesting - good luck with it!

[Calin Leafshade]

Looking good.

Good luck!

[SookieSock]

I'm excited to be working on a game that will actually be finished  McCarthy part 2, Nokk, McDead, Dangerous Minds .....

I will get back to painting now 

[san.daniele]

after looking at this thread for the 3rd time and liking it every single time I really owe it a comment.

I love those scenes. I have no drawing skills myself and can't point the finger at what makes it so great, but I'm fairly sure I'm attracted to and drawn into the (warm) colors of the backgrounds. Wonderful atmosphere!

[FlyingMandarine]

I just wanted to thank you all for your comments. Progress on the game is steady and actually quite fast, although, well, it can never be fast enough!

For those who might be interested, Honza, our character artist, has made a thread asking for your comments and advice on the character art:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48347.0

I'm sure he'll appreciate any help he can get!

san.daniele: I do hope that the game itself will draw you in; it'd be a pity if the game was barely more than eye candy. In any case, thank you very much for sharing your enthusiasm. It's truly appreciated.

[Damian]

This looks really great

[Dualnames]

Very distinctive art style, you've got there, keep us posted.

[frenzykitty]

Is this going to be a commercial release?

[FlyingMandarine]

Is this going to be a commercial release?

We'd like for it to be a commercial release, yes. I didn't notice that this bit of information wasn't on the page, so I updated it accordingly; it would feel a bit dishonest not mentioning it anywhere. My apologies!

[rickious]

Looks great. Excellent artist skill and vision.  You say it will be commercial, but I am sure you can make a short playable demo so we can all see that your dialogue and storyline are as good as the visuals.

Any chance of a % on completion for graphics, scripting, dialogue etc?  Keep us excited if you let us know how much closer to completion it is each time you post.

Look forward to playing

[FlyingMandarine]

rickious: Thank you!

When I first made that post, I did think about including the percentage, but it would have been something like 5% everywhere, which might be more demoralizing than anything else really!

We are supposed to reach an important milestone next month, so I'll make an update then. It's also tricky to think of a percentage when we are not sure of the level of polish we want the game to have (will we put in more talking animations? more background animations? more dialog branching? one or two additional cutscenes?).

As for a demo, I don't know yet, but if we ever finish the game, there sure will be trailers... but let's not get ahead of ourselves!

[FlyingMandarine]

Hi everyone!

We are looking for a second character artist to assist Honza; I posted on the Recruitment thread about it; you can read about it here. Don't hesitate to send me a message if you're interested!

In other news, we'll post an update about the game quite soon. Fingers crossed!

[FlyingMandarine]

It was long due: I've just made the first big update to the thread, with new backgrounds, animations and music, along with a few other things.

All five of us often check the thread to see what people have to say, so don't hesitate to share your thoughts with us!

Thanks!

Oh, and help us get rid of that "[Character artist needed]", will ya? It's clogging the title!

[FlyingMandarine]

I edited this post a few times instead of posting new messages because I didn't want to get charged with malicious bumping but as of the first day of the New Year, we finally found our second character artist in the person of Ilyich! I've updated the first post with some more development progress.

[GMD1984]

Look very promising. Is it a sideview adventure like 'The Cat Lady'?

[FlyingMandarine]

Look very promising. Is it a sideview adventure like 'The Cat Lady'?

Thanks! It won't be a sideview adventure. Gameplay-wise, it will be entirely mouse-based: left click to interact/walk, right click to look.

Here is a lovely sunny backyard that the player will have to explore at the start of Chapter 2, which we are still actively working on. Click to see fullsize!

[rickious]

FlyingMandarine whats the progress on the game? any hope of a demo version anytime as Im looking forward to seeing all these lovely graphics and ideas in action!

[Darth Mandarb]

Then you should have read the forum rules and sent him a PM instead of digging up this thread from 6 months ago.

FlyingMandarine - if you're still out there (and working on the game) and want to post an update let me know (PM) and I'll unlock this.

rickious - please don't dig up anymore threads.



UPDATE 3 DECEMBER 2014 - Thread unlocked.

[FlyingMandarine]

rickious: I don't know if we will have a demo! That's still up in the air. But I can say that we will have enough screens and videos to give an idea of the game by the time it's released.

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since our last update -- progress on the game has been steady in some aspects, less in others.

Rather than giving an update as to the state of the game made up of mere words and promises, we'll be at AdventureX this weekend! I will be there as an exhibitor both days this year, with George (the programming expert) accompanying me on Saturday.

Even though we have been quiet these last few months, I hope we'll be able to meet people and interact with them. We purposefully didn't want to say too much about the game, but will be talking about it more, along with showing footage of the game and even an early alpha build. We'll make a proper written update about the game early next year.

See you in a few days, hopefully!

[theo]

I tried this at AdventureX and I definitely think it's promising! Keep up the good work and chances are you can turn this into something really neat.

[shaun9991]

I had the pleasure of playing a bit of this at AdventureX, and I really enjoyed it. The story and setting of the game is brilliant. Looking forward to this one

[m0ds]

Thanks for bringing it to AdventureX. I'm very sorry I didn't get to take a look ;( But people did comment to me that they were really intrigued by it. I'll be eager to try a demo sometime. Good luck!

[FlyingMandarine]

Thanks to everyone who dropped by my small table at AdventureX last week! I'm glad I got to meet so many of you along with George, our programmer, who wrote down notes as people would play to see what to change. There's a whole lot of things left to design, alter, and fix, so... back to work!

For those interested in keeping in touch:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FarawayInd
And my personal Facebook (while waiting for the game's page to be ready): https://www.facebook.com/patrice.hermenault


theo: Thank you! If I'm not mistaken, you're the only one who completed the demo. I appreciated talking to both of you, especially hearing about your difference of opinions on self-publishing VS seeking other publishers. But much too early for that anyway!

shaun9991: Likewise regarding The Legend of Hand! You can count on me to spread the love to my uh 33 Twitter followers.

Mods: Thanks to you for allowing us a spot! You seemed very busy, so it's totally understandable that you wouldn't have time to try most games. Since I've just moved to London, there is no reason why I wouldn't be coming back next year... so if you'll have me, I'll be there!

[CrashPL]

Great choice for the art style, I also like the smooth character animation. Looks truly promising!

[FatLarry]

Now this is a post to keep up to, looks really promising!

[FlyingMandarine]

/use shovel on 'X' spot to dig up old thread
/use resurrect potion on thread

Bonjour everyone!

Thought I'd update the original post even though I'd rather wait for a bit more polishing before posting some new in-game screens.

Consolation prize: a background Hayley painted a while ago for the bedroom of one of the secondary characters, Ella:



Thanks to everyone I got to talk to at AdventureX, where I was just lurking as a visitor; hopefully we'll be presenting something next year! In the meantime, you can follow the game's development on Twitter if you like mildly interesting bite-sized messages: https://twitter.com/FarawayInd

[cat]

Wow, this looks great

Too bad you didn't showcase it this year, but I hope I will be able to play a demo on next year's AdventureX.

[Fitz]

Hey, I was actually thinking about the game the other day, wondering how it's coming along Glad to hear -- and see -- that it's progressing.

[FlyingMandarine]

Well, better late than never, as they say, right? Time for an update! New screenshots are up along with more info on development - last update on here was four years ago!
I'm sorry this has taken so long, and I'm sorry to say this will still take a while, but at least a fair deal of progress has been made.

I'll be at AdventureX on Saturday with my long hair and my mismatched shoes (as a visitor, not an exhibitor), so feel free to say hi!

[shaun9991]

Excellent, good to see progress being made

Will be at Adventure X - see you there

[Dave Gilbert]

Slightly biased because it co-stars a blond guy in a coat named Eli.

[FlyingMandarine]

shaun9991: Hey Shaun! I just played through Sumatra a couple days ago; really cool, as usual! I'll talk your ear off about it next Saturday. Kampret!

Dave: Can someone make a game with an Eli as the main character before the other Elis in the point'n'click world start gathering and protesting about their mere co-star status?

[FlyingMandarine]

Chapter 2 is finished! Still lots of placeholder art and stuff that needs to be changed, but we can now play through two thirds of the game, which isn't bad! I'm hoping to get the last chapter of the game done by the end of August, maybe a tad later, but definitely before the end of the year. And then it's polishing time!

Also, we've got a website! Check it out here: http://www.apoisongreen.com

I actually haven't had much feedback on it, so don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts about it!

[Crimson Wizard]

Hello, FlyingMandarine, AGS 3.5.0 released couple of months ago, supports some basic camera effects, such as room zooming and screen splitting, iirc you wanted these for some cutscenes in game, so I thought I'd mention this.

[FlyingMandarine]

Hey Crimson!

I saw about the basic camera effects! I had no idea there was also screen splitting; that will be practical! I'm still on 3.4.3 but will download 3.5.0! Thanks for letting me know.

[Crimson Wizard]

I had no idea there was also screen splitting; that will be practical! I'm still on 3.4.3 but will download 3.5.0! Thanks for letting me know.

It allows to create any number of cameras and viewports, so you may have several "views" into the room, which may point to same place, or different ones.

Spoiler

Some examples:
https://i.imgur.com/1bMv6sI.gifv
https://i.imgur.com/w8ShCLx.gifv

[close]

AGS still cannot load more than one room at a time, but I believe you can simulate multiple rooms shown at once, using 2 cameras pointing into 2 different places in a room.

[FlyingMandarine]

Okay, I think I get it. The two gifs you listed are quite clear. It will most definitely be used; right now I'm still just coding the "easy" stuff, and then I'll have another pass at the game to implement more difficult systems (more flexible computer searches, better phone behavior...), and the camera/zoom-in system will most definitely make things more manageable.

Thank you for taking the time to tell me about it Crimson!

[Honza]

For some reason I've been thinking of this game a lot lately.

[sawyer]

Looks good. Hope it will be out soon

[Darth Mandarb]

sawyer - Are you doing this on purpose now? This is probably the 5th or 6th time I've had to lock a thread you've dug up and each time I've asked you not to do this. Yet here we are again.