DagstadtYou play as Bailey, a naive but capable engineer. Following a narrowly averted disaster, you are suspended from your job at the Isomex energy facility. Starting you on a path to what feels like an unending wave of misfortune, it becomes clear that there are larger forces at work and someone wants you dead. You are thrown into a world of murder, secrecy, and absurdity as you uncover the history and future of the city you thought you knew.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagWhatever.png)
‘Dagstadt' is inspired by the games I played as a kid; particularly Zak McKracken, Beneath a Steel Sky, and Dreamweb. The story is from a game I wrote but never got around to creating in 2005 that I have spent this summer revising and developing.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagBurrito.png)
Planned features:
- 50+ unique backgrounds!
- 30+ minutes of original music!
- Voice acting!
- Morality system that effects how NPC's treat the player!
Canned features:
- Day/Night cycle - had no real effect on the story and would have doubled the work load
- Dynamic soundtrack - realized no one would notice :~(
Story - 100%
Scripting - 15%
Graphics - 25%
Music - 5%
Sound - 10%
I don't have a planned completion date but I'd like to have the entire game world navigable with day and night cycles, and the entire first act to be playable by Christmas.
Sept 14th 2015 - After my first week using AGS I've gotten a basic grasp on the scripting system, basic walking animations, finished 8 background sketches, and the first two puzzles are working! :-D
Oct 10th 2015 - New player model, large chunk of scripting, and finished 1/3rd of background wireframes.
Nov 15th 2015 - Started over from scratch to avoid needing to clean up my bad scripting!
Dec 5th 2015 - New GUI, speech + item fonts, and a ton of artwork and sound.
Jan 26th 2015 - Taking a hiatus from the project to redevelop the entire game to better suit it's story and game world.
Looks and sounds very interesting, FunkPanzer.
Best if luck and I look forward to more progress reports :-)
Cool, I'll keep an eye out on Dagstadt. Please keep us updated!
Looks and sounds intruiging, will deffo be keeping an eye on this one!
Technically you're not following the forum rules, so hurry up finishing these backgrounds because the game looks very interesting! :)
You probably should have waited a bit longer to make this post.
At least until the backgrounds were in a more "finished" state.
I'm not going to lock it (since the rules don't specify "finished" backgrounds) but please update the graphics as soon as possible.
Oh crap, I really didn't plan on getting to painting until all the puzzles and wireframes were done and working in game. I'll get something together asap.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Ha... I actually thought that was the "style" you were going for, didn't realise the backgrounds were actually incomplete.
Quote from: vertigoaddict on Wed 16/09/2015 06:29:38
Ha... I actually thought that was the "style" you were going for, didn't realise the backgrounds were actually incomplete.
Same! Haha. I think it looks pretty stylish as it is :-D
Little update, the metro system used to travel between locations now has a functional map. I've also nearly finished the GUI.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/dagstadtscreen3.png)
Regarding the art style, I am still trying out different concepts but am aiming for things to be a bit more stylized like so:
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/dagstadtscreen1.png)
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/dagscreen05.png)
Real update! Our hero has a new player model that I'm much happier with.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/playermodel2.png)
This is the player's act 1 outfit that you don once you leave work. I've also begun committing to a palette now that nearly half of the background sketches are completed.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/walkanim.gif)
I'm two thirds done the wireframes and main scripting for the first act and have done quick backgrounds for a few of the rooms that players will be spending more time in.
Here's a glimpse at Breck Street station and some of the surrounding area:
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/bgPREVIEW.png)
Breck street will be one of the first areas you can explore and where you will meet some of your allies, your first stealth puzzle, and potentially your untimely death! I'm still aiming to have the entire first act as playable by the end of December which will include the energy plant you start at, Breck Street station, and Midtown. If things go well I should be able to put a video walkthrough of the first few areas together for my next update!
Cool. Thanks for the update. Looking good.
Nice work. The main character sprite is quite original with its androgynous look (and kind of cute).
Also, do you use something like Google SketchUp to set up your backgrounds? I'm curious about your work process, looks pretty interesting.
Thanks Calypso. I very deliberately want the lead to be androgynous and have made a point to avoid any kind of gendered dialogue so whoever is playing can make up their own mind!
For backgrounds I am working in Photoshop and mostly using 1-point perspective unless a room requires a wider angle (like the bathroom in an earlier post). Once the outline is done, if I feel up to it, I go back over and add rough details. I will be doing a final pass once the brunt of scripting is done and adding colour, debris, and skies. For reference I've been using photos I've taken of Montreal, where I live, or interesting images I find on Tumblr but have mostly used those for texture ideas or details.
(http://charlietwitch.com/ags/greencometwip.gif)
Ahh :) Thank you very much for the explanation. I enjoy looking at these WIP types of GIFs, I feel like I learn a lot just by observing them. Good luck with your project - it caught my interest not only because of its character and visual style, but also because of the intriguing premise.
I've had a really good past month working on the game after completely starting over all the scripting in mid-November. On top of that I finally have a GUI that I'm happy with, made new fonts for dialogue and the action bar, and started incorporating sound! Progress on backgrounds is still all over the place as I keep making tiny changes to the story that feel less silly.
For example, there was going to be chain of video stores that kept replacing storefronts but are always closed. You would need to break into several of them to uncover some important plot points. The more I worked on it the more I realized this plotline was way too ridiculous, despite how absurd a lot of the story already is.
As is, the beginning of the first act takes about eight minutes to get through, and that's without choosing any non-essential dialogue options. If I keep up with the current storyline the finished game will take roughly an hour to an hour and a half to complete if you don't get stuck on any of the puzzles.
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagWhatever.png)
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagBurrito.png)
And finally, updated artwork for Dagstadt's metro map:
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagMetroMap.png)
I'm still working on things being polished enough to make a tiny tour video of Breck Street station and the surrounding area, I imagine with the extra free time I'll have in the coming weeks it shouldn't be long. :-D
Very nice look to the game, and I'm glad to hear that there's some absurdity to the story too.
Those screenshoots are looking great(nod) ... and absurdity is adventure games middle name.. (laugh)
Looks like an amazing project! Best of luck with the first release: I'll be checking it out for sure!
Looks incredible - best of luck with it, looking forward to playing!
Thanks for all the kind words. Unfortunately I need to rethink a lot of the game's mechanics as the way I was treating the main quest lines was very predictable, and I hadn't fully grasped my options with AGS. This game is really dear to me and isn't something I want to rush. In the meantime, here are some of the things I was working on:
Here is an early version of the music that plays after the game's intro cutscene: https://soundcloud.com/charlietwitch/breck-street-v1/s-Kv8LF
... a teaser of two really annoying and/or charming characters you will be potentially dealing with:
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/DagCops.png)
... and a more detailed, but likely to be replaced, starting room:
(http://www.charlietwitch.com/ags/Dagstart.png)
The story is staying pretty much exactly the same but I imagine it's going to be quite some time before I post another update for this project. :-[
No need to rush :) The time you're spending on the game is very appreciated. I like the starting room and wish to see it when it's done (nod)
Man take your time. This is one of my top favourite game, so it will be a shame to rush it and then regret it. Best of the luck. Really nice screenshot btw.