Conscript: The Apollyon Incident

[SierraFreak]

Introducing my latest (and longest) project, Conscript: The Apollyon Incident.

About the game:
I've been working on this game off and on for the last four years or so. That's not to say that it's been steady, actual work. A lot of it was just thinking about plot, fooling around with AGS, etc. Last year I spent some time putting together some of the scenes and doing some graphic work, and I decided that I might as well tell everybody about it. Especially since community interest might actually get my butt in gear and finish it!

Introduction to Conscript:
You play the role of a space freighter captain, Jack Ferrell. He and his crew of nine stumble upon a derelict spacecraft from the distant past. Hoping to claim the salvage rights, they enter the ship, only to discover that they are not alone on the ship.

Game features:
Morale system: The game will have different endings and character interaction depending on crew morale.
Logical puzzles: Puzzles are tailored to the setting, so they flow with the story.
Act based game play, where the situation and environment will change depending on the story.
Your crew will join you through parts of the game.
Graphics inspired by 80's Sierra games (16 color "look", but with a full pallet)

Screens:


Intro screen


Something went wrong…


On the way to the ship


One of the many puzzles



Progress:
Story: 100%
Graphics: 55%
Music and sound: 50%
Scripting: 20%

Expected completion:
Hopefully Summer 2008!

Developer's diary:
2/10/2008: The fun and excitement of announcing the game today came with a shock for me. I discovered that I seem to have lost ALL of my graphics files that I made up until now. All I have is rough draft stuff. Fortunately, the work I've done has been imported into AGS, so to get my backgrounds and sprites, I could always export them out if I need them. It's still really, REALLY annoying that I can't find the originals. Most of them had multiple layers and other graphics in them. BAH.

3/18/2008: Got some more graphics done, including some side walkcycles. Got some more of the backgrounds out of the game and back into files so I can work with them. Still haven't found the originals.

[Frodo]

Hey, this looks really interesting.  Kinda like Alien meets 7DAS.   
I like the idea of different ending depending on crew morale.  And the graphics are really good. 

Hope you find your originals.  I'm looking forward to this one.   

[CosmoQueen]

Yeah I was just thinking that it reminds me of "7 Day a Stranger". This outta be very interesting

[Emerald]

Looks cool. A little cliche, but I love the idea of a 'morale' system.

It gives real incentive to solve puzzles, other than just "reaching the end".

"If I don't solve this puzzle, my guys will get depressed and commit suicide..."

Instant classic

[SierraFreak]

My original inspiration for this game was years ago, and probably more related to Privateer and Aliens. Of course, it's changed design too many times to count. (Originally, I started it as an AGI game... eek) But I have to admit that the crew interaction of 7DAS did make me decide that my story could benefit from a crew, and then it took the story in a whole new direction. The first draft had the main character being alone. I liked the sort of lone "space big rig" driver idea. It's almost totally different now.

I will be the first to admit that the base plot couldn't be more cliche.  But I promise to make the game interesting. I've actually taken it to a Tolkienesk level of back-story over the last few years. So I have this grand idea of what happened before, and I'm sprinkling in the history in the form of logs, notes, books, etc. I love games like Ultima and Morrowind that have books with content that isn't necessary to complete the game, but makes it a more fun experience.

I  haven't decided 100% how the morale will affect the gameplay, beyond the ending, and conversations. I would like to code some different situations for playing one way or the other through the game, but with branching storylines, the coding becomes so much more complicated.

Oh, before anyone notices another parallel, I swear I thought up the "good/bad" answers for conversation trees before Mass Effect came out! I swear! (Although, I might have drawn a little on the dark/light path from Knights of the Old Republic. Darn you Bioware! Why did you have to think of the good stuff first?)

[robotsquid]

looks great!  the graphics are simple but effective.  i look forward to playing this when its done.

[miguel]

Looks promissing and I too believe on telling the story through books and paintings or artifacts that have cultural and social  aspects we (the developers) want to show to the players.
It's like when you do a "Talk to Ashtray", you know ashtrays don't talk but the answer may set the player in the mood you want them to feel.
Good luck

[SSH]

Looks good, although the starfields seem a little busy... one usually sees them less dense

[SierraFreak]

You know, you could be right about the starfields. I think I will lighten them up a bit.

Of course, I'm missing the blasted original files. Ack!

By the way, what do people think about colored stars? I'm leaning toward adding a little eye candy, but very little.

[robotsquid]

i think coloured stars would distract the eye too much from what's going on in the foreground.

[Rd27]

This one looks very interesting.
I really like the morale idea!

Good luck with this!

[SierraFreak]

I finally forced myself to do the side walkcycles for both male and female characters. I HATE HATE HATE doing walkcycles. But I'm reasonable happy with the way these turned out.

 

I also have a hard time drawing women. There's a fine line between making them look feminine and making them look like blow-up dolls.

I'm also working on plopping different heads on them for the various characters. I decided that all the crew will wear the same uniform, since it's easier, and makes sense in the context of the story. There are two characters with different body types, so they'll need modified walkcycles, but that's not as bad as doing it from scratch.

I still need to do the front and back cycles, which I hate even more. Ugh.

[Decoy]

I love a good space adventure - I'm a long time Space Quest fan... this sort of reminds me of that movie Event Horizon.

[Fee]

Looks very Space Quest, i like it.

[m0ds]

It looks like it will be good fun, very nice style!