Emily Enough: Imprisoned--Calling All Beta-testers

[Bagpuss]

Yes.  Any chance of a progress report?  Please?

[Anarcho]

Ok...but for reference, should i put updates in the original post as a modification, or is adding another post like this ok?

Anyway, progress this week has been slow.Ã,  I've rarely been home to work on it, though I have had time to finish up another sprite...that means there's only one and a-half left to do (if I scrap a character).Ã,  The size of the characters makes it a bit challenging and time consuming to complete them.  Plus, the more characters I complete, the better I get at it, and the more I want to go back and revize the old characters (you should see the old background/emily sprite...yikes!).

The biggest problem is animating Emily's walk cycle.Ã,  I'm having more difficultly than I'd anticipated.Ã,  I'm def. going to hit you all up in the critic's lounge for some help now that my desktop is connected to the internet.Ã,  But seriously, you have no idea how much i wish i had drawn it all in 320x200 (or maybe you folks know exactly what I mean).  I think the graphics will be pleasing to the eye, but as a solo developer, I'm just not sure that it's worth doing it in this resolution...it's one of those newbie mistakes I made last october that I'm just going to have to live with for the time being.

As for the story, it's a bit on the satirical side...it pokes fun at corporate America and its excesses...you might not get that from the backstory I've provided...but that's the deal. 

I'm tempted to put up more screenshots and story, but I really don't want to give too much away before release...

[DanClarke]

I agree on the resolution idea, i too had considered using 640x480, but i thought the effort that would have to be put into animation etc just wasnt worth it, especially as im also doing all the graphics/animation for my game by myself.

[Anarcho]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to give an update.Ã,  A lot of progress has been made over the past week and a half.Ã,  Two more sprites have been drawn with animations, others have been cleaned up (but there's more clean-up to do).Ã,  I've moved whole-heartedly into the programming phase, and it's going well.Ã,  I've worked out the initial opening cut-scene dialogue after the intro (still haven't done the intro) and i've done two big dialogues with two characters, and i'm in the middle of another one.Ã,  I've also been playing around with a lucas-arts style status bar...and it looks pretty good, though very simple.

I'm still working on Emily's sprite, trying to get it just right...i think i just have to be in the mood to work on it, and I haven't been yet.

Speaking of Emily though...i came across this article about "emily the strange" and i kinda knew about this character...does anyone think that's problematic...that my chacter would share the same name as this other disturbed child?Ã,  I def. didn't do it on purpose...Let me know.

So that's all...I don't know how interesting it is...but the project is coming along very well, and I'm getting excited about how cool it looks...

-Logan

[Mickey Bitsko]

the mood ofyour piece reminds me not a little of edward gorey's drawings.  do you know his work?  he often featured morbid and morose girls leading desperate unhappily fated lives.  and they're all hilarious!  anyway, i'm extrmely jealous of your talent.  can't wait to see the game.

[Anarcho]

Holy crap, has it been 4 months since my last update?  That's sad. 

I really wanted to have this game finished by now, but unfortunately I've been traveling for work off and on for two months, and have been unable to work on this.  I got back a couple weeks ago and got back into the swing of things.

So, I would say that the game is coming ever closer to completion, with most of the dialogues done, most of the animations done (still some kinks with Emily, as some have seen) and nearly all the hotspots covered.  I still have a few sprites to draw, and that whole ending to draw, but for whatever reason, I don't think that will take a long time to do.

I've got a week and a half off for the holidays, and I plan to work full days on this game.  I would love to say that I'll have a beta ready by new years, but that's not really a possiblility.  A demo, maybe.  But I'm not sure that I'll release a demo...I think it would spoil the game.

Anyway, sorry to have said that I would release it soon, but I didn't count on being stuck in Iowa for weeks on end. 

-Logan

[fovmester]

Glad to hear you're back!

My fall's been crazy as well! I've been up to my nose in schoolwork and haven't had any time at all for any fun in two months at least. But like you I'm having some free weeks for christmas! Thank GOD! What would a man do if there was no christmas!?

[Anarcho]

Yeah, I wasn't even expecting to have more than a weekend off for Christmas, but my boss was in a generous mood. 

I seriously think if I have 8 days to work on this thing, full days like when I started out on this project, it will be really close to completion.

My happiest day in a long time will come when I can say,

"Beta-testers needed..."

[Totoro]

As I said before, I love the artowrk and I am so happy to hear you are making progress...
May I beta-test it? 

[Anarcho]

Sure thing Totoro. 

[kjetting]

Iwant to beta test as well. I love the mood of the graphics, and I can really see that it's inspired from Berlin.  By the way, I know this isn't the critics lounge, but I think the perspective in the first screenshot looks a little warped... Not a big problem, but not hard to fix either.

[Anarcho]

The tv room screen? The only problem I kinda see is the TV could be farther back...but I'm not gonna change it.  I've got a lot to do to finish the game, and I've spent so much time on the graphics, that if I get any more nit-picky I'll never finish.

That's not to say I'm rushing it out, but it's already been more than a year and I want to work on something else...

[kjetting]

Yes, I'm only nitpicking here. I think it looks great. The perspective isn't that much off. I'm really looking forward to this game, man.

[jason]

Wow, this looks good! I'd much rather play the full game rather than a demo (especially since a demo would = a longer wait).

And, yes, f**k Bush!!!

[Anarcho]

Happy New Years!

Things are progressing very well.  I spent most of my week and a half of vacation working on my game, though I had to change the date on my computer on Christmas in order to actually get AGS started (thanks CJ).

I created a new font that looks good, though does need a bit of tweaking.  I'm also 95% done with the new GUI, which isn't really new at all, just consists of different graphics over the original sierra version. It's funny how much a good font and gui can add to a game though. 

I got sucked into revising perfectly good background graphics again.  It's like some kind of sickness.  But I've moved on…for now. 

Nearly all of the game's dialogues are completed.  There's only a couple main topics to complete.  I was writing them all in the program, but I've found that adding to options becomes confusing so I've taken everything out and put it into that dialogue editor someone created a while back.  Although it's buggy as hell and often doesn't correctly save my documents, it saves a whole lot of time and headaches.  I'm going to try and finish every dialogue and then dump it into the game. 

I've also drawn all the inventory sprites.  I initially wanted to write messages for every interaction between inventory and hotspots, but that would be a bit insane considering the number of hotspots I have per room.  I'll have to find some kind of compromise.

What's left?  Well, I need to finish Emily's walking animations, I need to make some interaction animations, I need to draw maybe three more character sprites, and complete some kind of intro sequence.  I have one room that I definitely need to redraw into the current background style. There are also a lot of random things to finish, as is usually the case. 

I've been working on the game quite a little bit each day so things are coming along nicely.  Plus I've got a bunch of new DVDs to watch while working thanks to Saint Klaus.  I'll plug along and share another update in a couple weeks.

-Logan

[monkey0506]

What's with the grey people. That's freaky. So freaky it makes me want to die.... :o

[Anarcho]

For whatever reason, i adopted a grey-skin tone for most of the game characters.  I'm not sure why.  I'm glad it looks freaky though, that's the idea.

[monkey0506]

The game actually looks/sounds good, but those grey people just scare me. And I do know how to use question marks. I was so tired the other night when I wrote that... I'm amazed it was even comprehensible. But, like I said, this game looks pretty good. Great title as well...

[Anarcho]

Hey everyone,

I haven't died, or given up on the project.  It's just taking longer than expected.  But I've been working like crazy, mostly on the programming.  I'd have to say that the programming---and for that matter the game, is probably about 75% done.  It's pretty exciting because everything is coming together.  I'm getting better at scripting so that's speeding things up quite a bit.  The thing that is actually taking the longest is testing new code that I put it.  I often have to play through most of the game to get to a point where I can test the code.  It's a real pain.

This is going to be a fun game, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, here's a new screenshot.  Check out my font, I think it's pretty cool.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Your font is cool, but a little hard to read in my opinion. I don't know what others say, but I suggest either making it thinner or using automatic outlines maybe?

Game looks good and I like the grey faces idea!