DEvco Quest

James Kay · Wed 03/12/2003 15:04:18

Ever wondered what it's like to work for a games company?
No? Well, you're going to find out anyway!
And you'll realise that it's no game making games!

It's early days yet, but most of the design is laid out and a large chunk of the very time-intensive graphics have been made.
My only problem: I am about as good a programmer as, well, a one legged dead man. And this will be my first forray into AGS. So you might see me around on these boards asking you for your help. I'll read up on the documentation, of course, but sometimes I'll have to be pointed in the right direction. And if you lot can give me a push in the back occasionally I'll be eternally greatful!

J

Darth Mandarb · Wed 03/12/2003 15:33:32

Isometric B-E-A-utiful!!!

GUI looks great, graphics look great, characters look great!

This looks way cool!

Do you have any animation(s) we can see?

Note: I'm working on a Iso game ... it can be very tricky getting the walkbehinds to work right can't it

])]v[

James Kay · Wed 03/12/2003 15:39:47

Thanks for the kind words, but I still have a long way to go with this game. I'll defenitely premiere it on these boards.

Isometric owns me!
I'll mock up some animated gifs of the character some time soon.

Yeah, the walk-behinds are an absolute nightmare. On the screen above there are two areas that are a major headache. The left and right-most rows of cubicles. Of the right-most one I "cheat" and fiddle with the walkable areas a bit (you can't actually walk too far into that lone cubicle with the beardy-weirdy in, and I'm using 2 walk-behind areas for the partitions to the left of it.
For the left-most wall of cubicles I am now using 3 walk-behinds, but they still need tweaking.

Darth Mandarb · Wed 03/12/2003 17:26:25

A solution I came up with was a mixture of walk-behinds and objects.

You could make (in that scene you shared) the whole bottom left line of cubicals one (animated) object. The walkable area would keep you from going 'into' it and you just set the baseline of the object to the bottom. The reason I suggest this is because you can animate it then (the characters typing, shifting in their chairs, computer screens flashing, etc.) which you couldn't do if it was part of the background and needed walk-behinds assigned to it.

You could probably get away with making most things objects actually ...

Well anyway ... it's your game

I look forward to seeing more!!

])]v[

juncmodule · Thu 04/12/2003 15:46:01

W O W

Between you and Darth I think we will have some excellent Iso games soon. Hopefully it will become a trend.

Good luck on programming.

Can't wait to see those animations.

later,
-junc

PS: Darth where is YOUR iso-game thread?

Ben · Thu 04/12/2003 20:48:02

I love the graphics. I've got a sweet-tooth for iso games

I'd like to see some animations too.

Only one crit: I think you should change the name. Using "quest" in the title just sounds so generic. I think you can come up with something more memorable..

MadReizka · Thu 04/12/2003 21:16:52

Yeah, looks pretty damn fine for me.

Give us some animations and screenshots!!

James Kay · Fri 05/12/2003 01:20:19

Cheers for the positive feedback, guys!

Quote from: Ben on Thu 04/12/2003 20:48:02Only one crit: I think you should change the name. Using "quest" in the title just sounds so generic. I think you can come up with something more memorable..

Yeah, I thought long and hard about that one but I did eventually decide on Devco Quest as a wink to the old adventure games and because I am approaching this as a tongue-in-cheek look at working in game development. Lot's of people think making games is all fun and joy, and I want to give an alternate view of it as a Quest, an adventure, to try and simply make it through one working day.

I thought also of SimThemeDevco Tycoon and even It's No Game, but Devco Quest seems cheesy enough.

Actually, during the game I make a few references to bad gam design. I might have the character complain about how generic the title of the game is (ie. stealing your comment), if that's okay? Self-referential humour, you see.

I've made about 75% of the art an animations already and I'll convert some of them to animated Gifs today or tonight.

I've started cobbling together the first part of the game but, not being a programmer and not having that programmer-mindset, I'm having a very hard time of it. E.g., I just can't get objects to appear, or incidental animations (as objects with views) to play (unless a dialog is taking place) or my own inventory window to be displayed. But these might be questions for the newbie tech forum.

Snake · Fri 05/12/2003 03:25:54

Holy snickelfritz!

I love the graphics

So it's about you (protagonist) being a game programmer?

--Snake

James Kay · Fri 05/12/2003 03:36:38

Quote from: Snake on Fri 05/12/2003 03:25:54
So it's about you (protagonist) being a game programmer?

No, it's about you (protagonist) being a game artist having to survive the Hell that is one whole working day.

James Kay · Fri 05/12/2003 11:24:45

Some of the anims thrown together as an animated gif, using a program not initially intended for making these so they're a little fuzzy and the timing is off.

Protagonist walk cycles.
These are a few of the, in total 8, walk directions. It's all slightly too fast now so it doesn't look like this in the game.

Bug reports are a pain in the neck

NPC having a smoke.

This weekend I'm going to have a real hard go at starting to make this crap work. I've been having no real luck with it so far, but I want to brush up on scripting. I intend to have the first 25% of the game done by Sunday (though I'm making no promises)

evilspacefart · Fri 05/12/2003 11:37:43

Those are some awesome anims! 8)
btw... you're doing great, so don't worry about getting 25% done by Sunday, and take your time to you don't get burned out. I'm looking forward to seeing the completed version.

Igor · Fri 05/12/2003 17:05:50

Oh, i *love* it! Graphics/animations are superb and game idea sounds like mucho fun. Looking forward to this!

jannar85 · Fri 05/12/2003 23:55:52

Looking great!

Looking farward to the game!

Jay V · Sat 06/12/2003 16:59:30

Quote from: James Kay on Wed 03/12/2003 15:04:18I am about as good a programmer as, well, a one legged dead man.

and the irony of his statement? Someday, people will get sick of Bill Gates and chop off one of his legs, and then kill him. And then JK will have to think of a new analogy.

hah i came up with that joke and i completely forgot to agree with everyone. i LOVE the animation!!!

Do0kie · Tue 16/12/2003 23:55:35

Hi
The anims are great!
However, something seems just a bit wrong. The guy in the second anim reads the bug report from right to left, and the smoking guy never exhales.
These are only minor details, but I can't wait for the game!

James Kay · Wed 17/12/2003 01:46:09

Quote from: Do0kie on Tue 16/12/2003 23:55:35
However, something seems just a bit wrong. The guy in the second anim reads the bug report from right to left, and the smoking guy never exhales.

Two very well observed points!! I'll have to check in what order I did the "reading" anim in AGS (might be okay in the actual game - these were quickie GIF anims) and I'll defenitely add an exhaling anim frame or three to the smoking animation. Thanks for pointing that out!