Hello people. I've been away for some time, had a lot of work to finish college and so. But now I'm back with my old project, "Aetus:Vita". In the past months I've evolved a bit on using Brice 5 and Anim8or, so I dumped my old work and started from scratch. As for the story just a few changes, but basically the same. In the end of the post some screenshots, still W.I.P, but I'm using them for test.
Game Title:
AETUS : VITA (it means "life age")
Story:
The year is 2212. Life on earth is becoming unbearable. Wars, pollution, pillaging... our dear planet is dying. Somewhere in Asia(Well, Siberia) cientists discovered four stone discs with engravings(in 1943). After careful studying of the hieroglyphs they find them to be portals that lead to wormholes, leading to strange planets and dimensions. Only by going to those places human civilization will find the answers and the cure for earth. You need to start a new Aetus,a new age, the Aetus:Vita.
You play as Jonathan Nex, a scientist who is sent to these new worlds, without knowing what to expect and with little support from earth.
The game will be first person, like the Myst series.
The game will be divided in five worlds:
- Ignis (fire world)
- Terra (earth world)
- Ventus (wind world)
- Aqua (water world)
And finally Crystallus, the light and crystal world.
STATUS REPORT:
IGNIS
- story 100%
- graphics 80%
- puzzles 10 %
- scripting 10%
- music/sound 0%
- videos: 0%
All the rest, except story, 0%.
And the new screenshots (February 2007)
(http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3087/templelowresjx7.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7299/marketlowressr4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
(http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/8344/palacelowresrk4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
An Aquatian EggPlant test
(http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6934/aquatestscreenem9.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Small Teaser in Youtube - don't expect nothing fancy, I was rendering stuff and decided to make it! ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7CQ9lj_weY
well!
Welcome new game in production!
Looking good, looking extra good and the story is really interesting (no comment on the screenies, as I've seen more in the C&C ;))
Awaiting...
Upload them to http://imageshack.us ?
Blogspot doesn't allow hotlinking, as I know. The people you show the images must view the real blog page for seeing the images hosted in Blogspot.
Please find alternate hosting for the images and get them showing soon!
I'll use what you said. Doing that tonight! ;)
Awesome graphics! Goodluck.
Hello all. For those who are looking forward to play my game, have another screenie! ;) It's part of the second world, Terra.
(http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/876/hallofmirrorspromofinaldo5.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
I have already all the Terra background screens ready, now it's time to script and all.
After that, a demo! ;D
By the way, where do you people host your demos and games? The demo will be at least 40 megs without videos and voices.
Another screenie fot those who care :=. It's in Terra.
(http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/3118/scrnshotup4.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
I'm working at a steady pace.Check for more info soon.
They look very nice. The mix of ancient mystery and hi-tech always interests me.
They are in-game screenshots, are they?
Yes, they are :) . It's almost done the demo, I'm just cleaning some sprites and finish scripting and stuff. Thanks for the support.
This is looking very good! I'm really looking forward to playing this. Will you encounter any other characters in the game?
In the demo you will only find two characters, one in Ignis, other in Terra, but besides that a lot are referred... You'll just have to wait and see! Thanks for the support. ;D
BTW, I've asked before, but noone answered. Where can I find a good FREE file hoster? The demo will be a large download (about 30-50 megs) and I need a good hoster. If you can help, please do so! :D
www.rapidshare.de claims to go up until 300mb :) awsome game BTW , lovely graphics! :D
You could use YouSendIt.com and just re-upload every 7 days! :=
You could just upload it the americangirlscouts.org FTP server.
I'm sure someone will tell you how.
EDIT: Actually, that won't work. Sorry :(
Thanks everybody. BTW Limpingfish I want to play Heartland!Finish it soon ;)
Here's another screenie from the game. The demo is almost done! ;D
(http://img341.imageshack.us/img341/1969/perfetctusroom2el1.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
The scrennies look awesmoe!
do you plan on releasing the whole game as screenshots???? It's been a couple of months in this thread and already we've seen the 2 worlds and a lot of screennies. This is a game that I want to play, when it is released :D:D:D:D:D
Just an idea I guess...
And of course looking forward to the demo (plus want to see what you did with the music...)
The demo has 33 different backgrounds! I've just shown 4 or 5, not planning on releasing anymore till I launch the demo. Besides you've seen some screenies, but you don't know the relation between them ;D
I plan lauching the demo in a week, 10 days the most . I'm still working on some of the final scripts(I'm no scripter, but had a lot of help from some guys like Ashen), as the graphic work has been completed like two-three days ago.
About the music, you'll hear. I think it's really great! 8)
Check the first post and enter Aetus Vita! ;D
I'm going to give this demo the same treatment that I gave Prototypical (http://americangirlscouts.org/bbc.com/yabb/index.php?topic=28126.msg362263#msg362263) so I hope you can take the constructive criticism as well as Candall did and use it to make your game even better.
I'm no artist, so I'm not going to touch on the quality of the backgrounds except to say that I like how different each area looks. Each world seems to have it's own atmosphere which is expressed through different color schemes and textures. So, nice job there.
I'm also not going to comment on puzzle design here. What I'd really like to help you with is the playability, because here, the game has a couple of faults. I'd like to address two that were prominent in this demo:
1) This is the most important suggestion and it is one that you need to address, or the frustration of playing your game is going to overshadow the fun of solving the puzzles and uncovering the story. Unclear hotspots and exits. Navigating around the world is difficult because it is not clear where I can and can't click to proceed. If you're not going to use the effective "look four ways from every node" approach that worked well in Myst, the forward and backward with branches works well enough. But only if it's clear where I can and cannot go! Reread the suggestion I made in your Critics Lounge thread (http://americangirlscouts.org/bbc.com/yabb/index.php?topic=28220.msg358762#msg358762). That suggestion is still, in my mind, very important and it went completely unaddressed.
Let's give an example. On the first screen, I am looking at a field of ruined stone structures. It's not clear, just by looking at it where I can go. The only way I can figure out where I can go is by slowly dragging my cursor over the screen and noting the places where it starts blinking. The player should not have to do this. If the player can't look at a background and instantly tell where each exit is, then that is not a successful background.
Another example: After you walk down the right-most branch on Ignis, you come to a beach. I saw that there was something in the water, figured that I'd have to return later with some item to fish it out and proceeded to back up back to the start. After looking through all the other branches I was confused, because I had been everywhere and hadn't found anything to do except pick up two pieces of paper and talk to the girl. What's going on? So I went back through every screen (and there are a lot, because you made a lot of in-between screens that have nothing to do except continue forward, or back up) and slowly scanned around with my mouse to look for a path that I missed. I eventually found the path that I missed. I can turn right from a point on the beach. But there is no indication on the screen that I can turn there. No path to signify that I can turn there. The only way to figure it out is by getting lucky and putting my mouse over that side of the screen. This is called pixel-hunting and it's not fun. It's frustrating.
Remember, as the developer, you know exactly where you can and can't go in the game, so it may feel natural to you. But the player hasn't had the luxury of seeing the source code. They are your target audience, so if they find the game unplayable because they can't find an exit that's supposed to be clear to them, it's not their fault, it's the designer's.
2) Inconsistent cursor use. You rarely make use of the eye cursor, which is a shame because there's plenty of eye-candy around. It would be nice if I could click on items and get a description of them. These descriptions help flesh out the charactor, because right now, your character has nothing. I don't even know who I am, why I'm there or how I got there. (of course there might be an intro explaining that in the final version).
Right now, the eye cursor blinks when it passes over an exit in the same places that the finger cursor blinks, but I can't use it in these spots. If the eye cursor is blinking, I should be able to click on whatever I'm pointing at. But I want to click on more than just the room exits. You can, using scripting, make the hand cursor blink only on exits or interactable items, and the eye cursor blink only on items that you can look at. Then, let me look at lots of stuff on every screen. Otherwise, just take out the eye cursor all together, it's not serving any purpose right now except for looking at inventory items.
Moreover, sometimes, for example the statues in the maze, clicking the hand icon on an item gives a description, but the eye icon does nothing! This doesn't make much sense.
And finally, there's no reason to use the eye cursor on the Main Menu, much less default to it. Use the scripting to disable the eye cursor while the menu is up.
I hope this criticism didn't sound too harsh. I only want to help you make a better game. I know that addressing these points may make you have to redo a lot of graphics or scripting, but trust me, it'll be worth it in the end and your end-product will be all the better for it. And I'll bet a lot of the people who play your demo will agree with me.
It's not too harsh, believe me. About the look/interact hotspots, I said a lot has not been implemented. As for the get out/get in the screen I'm thinking on making an animated cursor that will animate a hand to left, right, back, and so on, to make it more easy to navigate. That or making a kind of mini-map on the lower right part of every screen so that players would know where they could go(with arrows and so)This has given me an idea, really :). As for the player story, with no intro video you only know you are a scientist that uses ancient discs to travel to other dimensions and worlds, I've written it before.About the beach, where you tried to fish something, I cannot tell you what it is, since it would be a spoiler. In the demo, you can't pick anything up yet.And I think the in-between screens add a little depth, since it's more fun to traverse through 4 or 5 screens to get someplace that to traverse only one, directly,abruptly. And about the menu, don't mind that, since it's not final and I forgot to disable the eye cursor. Finally, many thanks, since it's a constructive crit. :D
By the way, here's some help for those who play the demo:
- Every room can be exited placing your hand cursor on the left, right, front, back of the screen(in the far right, left...)
- When over a hotspot, the cursor blinks.
Update
I managed a simple solution for the "don't know where can I go" problem:
-Used different cursors that appear when over the change room hotspot. Used arrows that point left, right, back or up in order for the player to know where to go. And there's no pixel hunt, just common sense: see a door, enter; see a sky, lookÃ, ;D Believe me it works like a charm now and was simple to implement.
For the look problem:
- I'm thinking of taking out the eye cursor from in-game, as suggested, but letting it on inventory so that one can look at the objects, obtaining descriptions. The hand cursor will work as in Myst(for everything in game), making it easier to deal with the setting.
As for the hotspots, the hand cursor will work as It does until now. When over something you can pick, operate,..., it blinks.
When all is done i'll upload a new demo. Till then you can still download the one available(check first post).
HI Alimpo83 It's great GAme but witch tools you used?
I mean for exemple Tools GRafic ecc..
Thanx
Used Bryce 5, Daz Studio, Poser 5(free downloads for some time in www.daz3d.com the first two, Poser in www.contentparadise for like 10 days) and anim8or(always a free download, for me one of the best 3D modelers - freeware - out there, for it's simplicity: www.anim8or.com) for the 3D graphics and renders, and of course AGS for the game engine. Glad you like the demo.
Heh, I saw the Bryceness of your backgrounds. But I really admire the composition and colour scheme. All my bryce stuff looks wierd :P.
Please check the first post. Thanks.Feel free to give feedback concerning the pics.
Looking good so far. Keep it up!
Check a small promo video I did while I was rendering stuff. Check first post! ;D
Hmm... video is OK, though it doesn't really show any gameplay. Looks a lot like... myst.