House of Whispers: Prologue Now Released

[hieronymous]

Huh. How much money have you spent on the art for this project? How much do you intend to spend? Does that mean it'll be released commercially?

i haven't spent any money specifically for this project

i have spent a SHEDload of money over the years for scenes and props and suchlike, but that's because i do 3d art first and foremost, and as anyone who does that for a hobby will tell you, it's as addictive as any hard drug, and costs as much money too. the games writing is just another creative outlet, and i use the scenes and props that i've already bought

however, the game itself will be released for free. i'm not looking to make any money out of it

...

as to progress, i've now set up the opening prologue: i've created an intro movie (well, i say "movie", but it's a fairly simple 2 second zoom shot establishing location) (it did take 14 hours to render though due to some stoopidly complex lighting and reflections), added a second (non animated at present) female character into the mix, and storyboarded the opening segment. how much of that i'll actually be able to implement, well - we'll see

the overall scenario is slowly starting to form in my head too, although the details are still vague, like a dream (or a nightmare)

i'll post some more screenshots over the next day or two

[hieronymous]

some scenes pretty much light themselves. celeste's diner was NOT one such scene. still, i'll probably only be using the exterior for the establishing shot, and i haven't got the heart for another marathon render to re-do the opening animation, so it will just have to do

top left is the diner exterior. top right is the new female character, and some of the opening scene dialogue. bottom left shows an early version of the inventory screen. and bottom right shows a walkable version of the diner's interior. there will be exits off to the right into the kitchen, and maybe outside again if i decide to open that up for any reason

currently the main characters are:

> jenni l'amour, 28, astrophysicist
> aphrodite (daffy) merryweather, 21, jenni's best friend
> dr ignatius grimes, wrinkly old dude and evil miscreant
> nameless, dr grimes' biologically engineered "assistant"

[Grim]

Another horror game?- very nice! There isn't enough ags horror games and I back your project up a 100%. Good luck!

[hieronymous]

Final set of screenshots before I release the Prologue, in a week or two, maybe earlier depending on how things progress. I've written the theme music, and will probably cannibalise some more music from one of my earlier games too

In this first part there won't be any major brain-taxing puzzles to solve, it will simply be a case of sketching out the scenario and indicating the main gameplay elements. There will be a couple of surprises though...

[Dan]

Looking forward to this. I like the incremental development plan, 'cos it means I get to play the game sooner!

[Emerald]

Wait... the hot, blonde, big-boobed girl in pink is called Aphrodite?
Unless she's some sorta stripper, and that's her stage name, I find that hard to believe

Also, Jenni herself looks kinda awkward. Like she's intentionally running chest-first into these creepy dark rooms... (Y'know, to poke out the eyes of any lurking sex offenders...)


Seriously though, it looks better than any adventure game I've ever seen... (graphically speaking)

[hieronymous]

Wait... the hot, blonde, big-boobed girl in pink is called Aphrodite?
Unless she's some sorta stripper, and that's her stage name, I find that hard to believe

ya never heard of anyone calling their brat "chanel" or "britney" or the like?

Also, Jenni herself looks kinda awkward. Like she's intentionally running chest-first into these creepy dark rooms...

those are her own personal BFGs. they'll almost certainly come in very handy during the "gratuitous lingerie" interlude

[hieronymous]

Looking forward to this. I like the incremental development plan, 'cos it means I get to play the game sooner!

it also has the advantage that i don't get bored writing it - always a problem with a vast monolithic undertaking

after i've released the prologue i'm kinda hoping that future episodes may contain a degree of user-suggested plots and diversions 

[hieronymous]

Progress Report:

The prologue's now pretty much in a releasable state. The main game music is written, and sound effects have been added. The interface is pretty much complete. There are around 10 different locations, a couple of mini-movies, and some dialogue cut-scenes where the overall situation is explained (without going into too much wordy detail)

However, although it all looks good (not perfect, but good), it needs an extra puzzle element in order to at least supply some small amount of challenge. At present this segment would take any competent games player maybe 10 minutes to complete, at most, so I'd like to beef it up a bit before releasing it

Adding puzzles is a fine art in itself, of course. I hate illogical "tacked on" puzzles - they need to flow from the situations, and the solutions should never involve randomly trying out all the items in your inventory until you finally strike lucky. You may eventually resort to doing that, but when you finally get the answer it should provoke a "well, duh, of COURSE that was the solution" response, rather than a "WTF?"

Anyway, enough blather. I know the puzzle I want to add, but it involves a large dog and some... well, suffice it to say that it involves adding another location or two, some further objects and... a large dog. A large animated dog. A large vicious drooling barking animated dog. With fangs. And a bad attitude...

So, yeah, a few more days of rendering, animating, coding, and play-testing, and then I'll release it

As to hosting, I'll probably host it myself. Most of the free solutions a) aren't free, b) aren't reliable, c) have sucky pop-ups and other crud, d) don't allow adult content, e) don't allow exes or zips, f) are only available if you live in uzbekistahn or amerika g) all of the above

That may mean that you'll have to register at my site in order to access it. I may however just host it there and post a link here, and then monitor bandwidth usage to check that I'm not taking an unacceptable hit

[Emerald]

Speaking of which, I don't think you ever told us your website...

[Rd27]

This one is Looking absolutely great!

Good luck!

[hieronymous]

Speaking of which, I don't think you ever told us your website...

i've given it to anyone who's pm'd me about it expressing interest in the earlier games, however as it's possible that i'll only be releasing house of whispers there, it's: the Art of Darkness

you have to be 18 or over in order to join up, as it's an adult art site that allows extreme content. the two earlier games are only available to members of the games group. however, house of whispers will be available to all members

in any case i may simply decide to post time-expired links to each of the house of whispers segments here

[tube]

in any case i may simply decide to post time-expired links to each of the house of whispers segments here

Would you allow a member of this forum to provide a mirror, in case someone offers to do so? Just asking, as I'm getting the vibe that you might plan to use the game as an advertisement of your forums. Nothing wrong with that of course, you're free to do as you please.

[Nine Toes]

Awesome, awesome looking screenshots.  I can't wait for this one.

[hieronymous]

Would you allow a member of this forum to provide a mirror, in case someone offers to do so? Just asking, as I'm getting the vibe that you might plan to use the game as an advertisement of your forums. Nothing wrong with that of course, you're free to do as you please.

although it might seem as if i'm touting for business that really isn't the case

AoD is a free forum which i've set up and which i finance. it's specifically targetted at 3d artists, and those who enjoy their work. there are also musicians and writers active there, and although i myself mainly do 3d artwork i've also used it for releasing some of my older games

i'm not trying to boost the membership figures, they're fine as it is. i'm also not using this as some kind of "come-on" to lure people there and then hit them with membership fees or whatever. by "free" i mean "free"

what i am trying to do is find a way of releasing this game in a way that makes it easily and reliably accessible, but without having to take an unacceptable bandwidth hit. well, perhaps only three people will ever download the game. the trouble is, although i've got a good handle on what goes on at my own site, i've no idea of the levels of activity here, so i'm simply a little concerned. perhaps i'm worrying unnecessarily?

anyway... the prologue is now finished. as a final finishing touch i added some secret rooms/cut scenes for the player to find, and i'm planning on releasing it later today. i've playtested it until i'm sick of the sight of the stoopid thing, but i'm sure it's still not perfect. nothing ever is

p.s. i'd be more than happy to take up anyone's offers to provide a mirror from where the game could be downloaded

[hieronymous]

OK, soooooo, deep breath, and...

Version 1.0 of House of Whispers: Prologue can now be downloaded. It's approximately 25MB. As discussed above this may, or may not, be available on a time-expired basis

Right click the above link and SaveTargetAs, then unzip to any suitable location on your hard drive. The files included in the zip are:

> Acsetup.cfg - game configuration file
> Act00.exe - the House of Whispers prologue. This is the file to run
> Act01.exe - this simply loads up a screen saying "Act I - coming soon". It's triggered on reaching the end of the prologue, and will be replaced in the next release of the House of Whispers game
> CutScene01.xxx and CutScene02.xxx - two animation files
> Music.vox
> ReadMe.txt

Genre: Horror
Puzzle difficulty factor: Easy
Play time: Around 20 minutes (but remember, this is just the prologue)

Warnings:
This segment contains adult situations, strong profanity, and some mild violence. No gore or explicit sexual content, however. (Later episodes will almost certainly contain stronger material)

Scenario:
This is the prologue to the main House of Whispers story. It opens in Celeste's diner, where Jenni's friend Aphrodite has asked the two of them to meet up to discuss Aphrodite's concerns over her uncle, the (mad, of course) scientist Dr Ignatius Grimes

Gameplay:
Standard point-and-click adventure, with some minor quirks. Pressing F1 will give a list of control keys that can be used in the game. Note that you can only ever create a single save file, and that the save, load and quit functions all run without prompting

Apart from having to solve a number of puzzles in order to progress to the end of the segment, there are also a number of secrets to discover in the game. These are not necessary for completing the game, but will reward the player with different cut-scenes. The number of secrets to discover is revealed at the end of the segment, together with the number that were actually found during gameplay


===


All comments and critiques would be most welcome. Also, please let me know if you find any bugs or speling mitsakes

Finally, although this segment sketches out a situation, none of what is to follow has yet been fully defined, so if you'd like to make suggestions for storylines etc, then these may get incorporated into future acts

[Frodo]

WOW!!!   
I love this game.  The atmosphere is just brilliant.  The music is so creepy!   
Reflections cast by the bar stools, and flickering lights in the fridge  are really effective.
The 'Find The Secrets' idea was nice - I found most of them, but I am missing one secret still.   


2 things I noticed:
1.  Jenni seems to glide mid-air sometimes - especially when she is near another object.

Spoiler

She can even walk over the poisoned guard dog

[close]

2. 

Spoiler

After you poison the guard dog, you can talk to it again, and it still replies 'Grrr woof woof woof'.

[close]

Suggestion for storyline:
Aphrodite is not so innocent as she appears.  She faked the 'telegram' from her uncle, cos she wants to harm Jenni for some reason.  And she faked her own dissappearence from the Diner.


Look forward to seeing more of your work.   

[nihilyst]

Just started playing, and the graphics, sound and music are awesome and used very effectively.

A few suggestions so far:
- Get rid of the talking portraits, when we the characters are shown full screen.
- Get rid of the "I'm not close enough" comments. It's annoying.
- Pressing ESC quit the game without confirmation, but I only wanted to see a menu or something.

Otherwise: Thumbs up!

[LimpingFish]

Good work, so far.

I realize that it's still early in production, but some possible suggestions:

1. I think the scaling on Jenni detracts from the game. You may want to think about using a separate, higher-res view for when she needs to be closer to the "camera", rather than scaling up a mid size view. Sure, it'll add an extra mb or two, but I think it would be worth it. The static views, when the characters are talking, are crisp and clean, so the switch to a heavily pixelated sprite is a distraction.

2. The walkable areas seem to be very roughly defined at the moment, and could do with tightening. And a little signposting as to where Jenni can enter and exit a screen would be a plus.

3. The dog stands out like a sore thumb. He's too large, and he's too low res. Also, and I usually make it a rule never to give creative advise on characters motivations and such, having Jenni kill the dog in such a casual fashion seems a little extreme. Personally, I'd have her drug the dog. Of course, it isn't my place to suggest you change it.

4. Rather than having the player have to go into the inventory and look at the telegram, maybe just triggering the scene of Jenni reading the telegram directly after she says " I acquired the telegram", would make the scene transition less jarring.

5. And this is important. The scripting, regarding interactions with characters and objects, and the use of the various icons, needs to be tidied up. Right clicking over an object or character automatically gives a "look" response, while also cycling through the various icons, and seems very awkward.

The talking portraits are fine, as far as I can see. The "I'm not close enough" problem, though, isn't. It could be easily avoided by having Jenni move automatically to the coordinates that are required to trigger the interaction.

Overall, though, I can see a lot of potential in this game.

[CaptainBinky]

What Mr. Fish said, except to be honest I didn't have a problem with the scaling sprites. I was actually surprised by how 'okay' they looked when scaled up.

Nice atmosphere, sounds intriguing. Finished it in about 10 minutes although I seemed to have missed one secret somewhere

Speaking of which, that secret idea is cool. Will there be some ultimate advantage to discovering them or is it just a case of getting extra little scenes along the way?