[new game] The Link

[enofr]

Hello everyone,

We are three game-design students who have been working on our finals for the past few months. We chose to work with interactive storytelling and used the adventuregame-genre as a platform for this (since it's a heavily storydriven genre). Our main assignment was to develop a full storyline for our game as well as developing an intro cinematic. As we are now reaching our exams, we thought it would be fun to get some feedback from adventuregamers, that we could use to back up our oral presentation.

We've developed a prototype of our game in AGS, to showcase our idea. There is, however, very far to go, in order for it to be a "real" demo. Think of it as a little teaser of what to expect. In our demo you'll find 2 puzzles and 3 areas (the prototype is over when you succeed at gaining entrance to "empacorp")

About the game:

Set in the near future, 2042, The Link is a story of mystery and betrayal. You play Gabe, a young telepathic twin, who embarks on a journey to find his lost brother. A search that sends you heads on with the government and their sinister plans.

Features:

Highly detailed 32bit 800x600 backdrops.
8 angle 3D rendered avatar with smooth walkcycle.
Simple easy to use verb-coin style GUI.
Opening Cinematic with real-life actors.

Since we've crammed most of the juice out of AGS, the download is a bit hefty - running in at 10 mb. Get it here:

http://www.bunjidesign.dk/thelink/media/the_link.rar

Originally the intro was part of the game, however to make things easier we've split them up. You can find the intro-cinematic here:

http://www.bunjidesign.dk/thelink/media/thelink_4_3_LARGE.avi (10mb divx)
http://www.bunjidesign.dk/thelink/media/thelink_4_3_SMALL.avi (2mb divx)

(We recommend you download it, if you have the time, since it gives you further hints to the story).

Cheers!



*Update: Fixed the hotlinks and the pictures*

[jetxl]

That's impressive! The backgrounds have the quality of games like The Longest Yourney and Still Life. Post screenshots.

You got the wrong link to the video files, though.

[JuuL]

You need to change the link to the two intro videos. Until you do, people will have to find the videos themselves by going to www.bunjidesign.dk and finding them there.
Trying to find the videos made me notice someting that I would probably not have seen if the links had worked: ".dk" Always nice to see some Danes on the AGS forum.

I will have a look at your game - it looks very interesting. Unfortunately I have to prepare for another evil exam so it will be a few hours before I'll have the time.
So there is only one thing left to say: "Held og lykke og god arbejdslyst!"

[Darth Mandarb]

Please review the forum rules and post 2 screenshots (please update the first post with the screenshots).

Since you provided so much other information I'm not going to lock this just yet. 

But please ... Read the rules to make sure you post the right screenies.

Thanks

[JuuL]

I just had a look a the demo. It looks very promising, however there are a few things that I think you should work on.
First the minor details:
- with detailed graphics like this, the main character's mouth should be moving when he talks (maybe you already planned this?)
- the door  to the Empacorp office is't large enough. If the main character is of average size, most people will have to bend down a bit to get in. Evil corporations generally have huge doors that make people feel very small.
- sometimes the main character is walking on top a an object (like the trash can) and sometimes his arm is in front of a chair when it should be behind it. I think you should adjust the walkable areas.
Then the more serious issues:
- is this another of those "oh no, an evil corporation named Empa(thy) Corp(oration) has genetically engineered my brother and I to have special abilities, but my brother was close to discovering it so they kidnapped him and now I have to find it and get revenge over the bastards who destroyed our lives" sort of story?
- I don't really feel like I get to know the main character at all. What is his story? Where does he work? Familiy? Friends? Girlfriend (or whatever kind of friend he wants)? How does he get around in the town, is he walking, driving or using the bus/subway? And why does his apartment only have one room? To be fair I have to say that what little we know is told in a good way that lets us know things without really telling it directly (the V for Vendetta poster, the unread books, the old fast food).
- What has happened the last 36 years? No need for details, but a few hints would be nice.
- Where are we? New York? London? Copenhagen? Or are we not supposed to know?
- I think there is a general lack of puzzles. Discovering what I had to do, preparing to leave the apartment, getting to the docks, finding clues and getting to the office only requiered picking up 3 opjects, looking at a few more, combining two objects and use the new object.

All that being said, I still think this is a promising project - and it is only a demo, so solutions for many of these things are probably already planned. And it's laways nice to see that somebody is working on an ambitious project. So keep up the good work!

[enofr]

Thanks for the thorough respons Juul. I might have not stated clearly enough that this is indeed really only a prototype. We spent about 6 weeks work on the game, starting from scratch in AGS. We'd naturally like to do a lot more, but deadlines are deadlines and they must be kept.

Now, this is not to try to undermine your comments, because they are all fairly good. But i'd like to shed some light on a few of your questions:

Character animation was put low on our prioritylist, due to more urgent matters like GUI and puzzle-scripting, so we could actually show some gameplay mechanics. Our character-artist has however done multiple other animations, they just need to be implemented. Empacorp street was actually just put in as a placeholder in order for the puzzle to work. So yea. The door is too small.

We spent about 3 months learning and studying interactive storytelling and writing our own story. Though the story might seem obvious - it does take quite a turn ... Part of an adventuregame is unravelling a mystery so giving all information to the user in a prototype with 2 backdrops, would be pretty stupid. Needless to say - yes you learn more about the avatar and the whole situation as the game progresses. Infact you'll learn alot about the past - and the missdeeds of the government. Everything from character descriptions to locations and as well as "act treatments" have been written.

I like the fact that you noticed the work we put into making the avatars surroundings give hints to the his character.

For the puzzles. We wanted not to create a steep learning curve in the game. Veterans might find the first few puzzles easy, but novices might not. Think of other games here. Many adventuregames start out a little easy and then "beef up" as time goes by. (e.g. Runaway that gives you 3 rooms to interact with, and no NPCs, before the story really takes off). I find it hard to believe that anyone likes a game, where you are stuck for hours on end at the first puzzle. However, I fully share your views on only having 3 objects at a time. Game's like dreamfall come to mind here. Either one felt super intelligent whilst playing it or generally very dissapointed.

Bottomline. It's a prototype to roughly outline our idea, as I stated in the first post. We would've loved to give you a demo with 3 hours gameplay, if  only we had managed to create it in time.

That's all. Oh yea - "Held og lykke med eksamen til dig også!"

[AlbinoPanther]

It looks interesting + great graphics !

downloading...

See you later with comments

[SupSuper]

Looks pretty cool. Only flaw I noticed is that the walkable area on Empacorp needs to be tweaked a bit since the character can go up the background wall a bit and over any objects near it.

[Bai Karl]

Veri nice backgrounds and animation. Good work. I have only one note. There are some areas problem with Walk-behinds. But it's not a big problem I think. I'm waiting for this game.

[JuuL]

Enofr, after reading your answers I thought about the game again and realised that I had been a bit too sceptical. Of course, knowing that it is only supposed to be a small game makes a difference.
Not using too much time on character animation is actually not a bad thing. And if Empacorp is only a placeholder, then there's no problem at all. And I'm glad to hear that the story will take an  unexpected turn.
You're right about the idea with making puzzles more difficult later in the game and easier in the beginning. I really didn't even consider that possibility when playing. It all makes sense now.
And I still think that giving hints about the main character through the object sin his appartment is a good idea, but maybe adding a few things would make it work better (like a paycheck, a family photo or something like that).

Anyway, I want you to know that I really look forward to playing the finished game. And: At tale dansk hen over hovedet på alle de andre er faktisk ret fedt. Det burde man gøre noget mere.