En Passant - (maybe not) in need of some help (anymore)

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Greetings and shenanigans.

Sorry, I had to say that. Now let's get down to business.

This past ATC competition, many AGSers worked on many projects. Many of them, for various reasons, didn't submit their entry. But many of them kept on working on them.

Such is the fate of En Passant, which I now present to you, ladies and germs. As far as the story is concerned, the blurb we handed in while in the ATC comp puts it pretty well, I should say:

Name: Victor Chesbro
Age: *UNKNOWN*
Occupation: *UNKNOWN*
Location: *UNKNOWN*
Place of birth: *UNKNOWN*
Aliases: *UNKNOWN*

No one really knows anything about Victor Chesbro. That's fine for him - it makes his job all the easier. And if people do find the occasional cirscumnstancial evidence, they never have enough hard facts to convict him. The result? Some people suspect, but no one can prove.

Riches appeal to him; wealth is interesting enough. But it's the danger and the law-breaking that he finds extremely compleiing. So when a sudden phone call disturbs his needed rest in a luxury hotel in the Caribbean, setting up a meeting during which he learns he's to "obtain" a certain item from certain people, he takes it in his stride.

It'll be up to him to realize who is the King... and who is the Pawn. And who will make the move.

EN PASSANT

The team consists of custard (aka Privateer Puddin) coloring the backgrounds, SpacePirateCaine doing the sprites and the backgrounds, Geoffkhan doing the music, [Cameron] doing the story and lil' ol' me programming and doing the text for dialogs and cutscenes.

Here's a coupla screenies:




And a tech demo:

http://www.lumpcity.co.uk/~skimbleshanks/rummy/Compiled.rar

ANd there's a cutscene and a dialog in txt file, apart from that.

Now here's the rub.

I am posting this because the game is in production, and we do have two screenshots, even though the second is not a finished, polished version. What I did not tell you yet is that the game has been in this stage for the last few months. We all want to keep on working, but for some reason nothing actually happens.

It is my believe that this happens because we don't have a story properly defined. I mean, we do have a story, and we know how it goes, but not well enough to, say, start adding puzzles. [Cameron] had writer's block, thus leaving Geoff, who had turned to the puzzles a bit and helping the story, suddenly alone - a condition he could not maintain. So the project dwindled. I had nothing to program, and the artists had nothing to draw, and no scenes for Geof to "musicate".

I don't want to give the impression that it was a project started in enthusiasm without an actually story. We have one - which I think it's rather solid and workable, too. But somewhere along the line, something happened.

The game IS in production, so this is the right board. But it will be eternally in production (ask any of us and I don't think any of us will admit to the project being dead, so that counts as it being alive, right?) unless we get some help. Someone to help Cameron along, that's what we need. Someone to keep his creative juices flowing. Not like THAT, you filthy mind! Behave!

That's about it. Now I'll put in the best approximation to doe-eyed-look/large-puppy-eyes that this forum can manage, in order to get some sympathy:

:

EDIT TO TEAMMEMBERS - Yes, my decision to start this thread was mostly unillateral. It is in hopes of actually getting the game done, ya see.

EDIT - Vince Twelve has kindly offered to help! My deepest thanks to him. He's contacted me, and AFAIK is on the process of contacting Cameron and Geoff - the two people who have, so far, been on story and puzzles. I'll leave the "help request" up, just in case something happens and he decides it's not something he can do after all (which would be a pity, but life happens), in which case I'd have to retype it all again. And I'm far too lazy for that.

[ildu]

Wow, looks great. Nice style.

I tried the build, and it was ok. I can see a lot of Larry 7 influences. The GUI was very similar, for example. Good stuff, though.

[Vel]

This game looks very classy and larry7-ish(a good thing of course).  I wish you luck to finish it as soon as possible.

[jason]

Loved the style and the dialogue was exceptionally good. I hope that you guys can finish this.