Adventure Game Studio

Storyline:

You are Elijah Baley, an Earth detective who is sent to Aurora to solve Dr. Han Fastolfe's murder.

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4 July, 22.75                                       OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER

To: Elijah Baley, C-7
From: Commissioner Wilson Roth

URGENT

News has just come over the hyperwave relay that Dr. Han Fastolfe has been
murdered on the planet Aurora. Although the Department prefers otherwise, you
are being assigned to the case - it seems the Aurorans have requested the
services of "Earth's most famous detective".

Yes, it will be very difficult for you to live up to that oversized
reputation of yours, Baley, now that your deeds have been glorified in a
hyperwave drama. Your life story is known throughout the planets ... everyone
has heard of the great "Lije" Baley. But perhaps the outcome of this case will
change their minds. Perhaps you and your reputation will finally be cut down
to size.

You see, the Aurorans think Dr. Fastolfe's murder is unsolvable. That is why
they have sent for you. Now the facts. Fastolfe, as you know, was the inventor
of the positronic humaniform robot, the most revolutionary design ever to
emerge in the field of robotics. The doctor was also an outspoken politician
who advocated "open door" space exploration, an unpopular philosophy on Aurora.
He earned other enemies with his sympathy for Earth, because anti-Earth
sentiment is very strong in the Auroran population.

Fastolfe was a controversial man - a Humanist in the midst of a robot-
dominated society. Those who were his friends will staunchly defend him; but
be forewarned, many of his colleagues long to get their hands on his formula...
with his secret humaniform equation unveiled, Globalists could send thousands
of robots into space to conquer new lands in the name of Aurora.

This assignment is fraught with difficulties, and the fact that you are an
alien, an Earther, will make your task all but impossible. You must ask many
questions, but there are those who would prefer not to answer. You are
instructed to exercise diplomacy at all times. If you do not tread carefully,
you will jeopardize, the future relationship between our planet and all Spacer
worlds.

Finally, your assignment to this case is unofficial. Should you fail, it
will be Elijah Baley's failure, not a failure of the Earth... and I anticipate
that you will fail. You are expected at the spaceport within the hour. I hope
you will not disappoint me, Baley.


                                             Signed

                                           Wilson Roth


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Development Progress:

Story: 50%
Scripting: 30%
Sprites: 5%
Backgrounds: 15%
Sound/Music: 0%

Expected completion date: Sometime in the future.

Development Diary:

March 15, 2007
I'm putting together the first few rooms and working on the scripting - this game is coming along slowly but surely. I'm currently working on the characters and walking animations. Keep checking, there will be more updates soon!

September 25, 2007
Wow, it's been a while! I apologize about the lack of progress these past few months, I've given birth to my second daughter in June and now I'm just beginning getting the hang of things around the house. I've resumed working on this game and am currently coloring the 3rd main background the 'Spare Room.' There are a lot of rooms where I will reuse the same background, mainly for the hallways - a lot like Sierra did in some of their games. I will update with more screenshots soon!

November 23, 2007
I'm not giving up on this project!! I've spent my whole day pixelizing Elijah Baley into a low-res game character, my third background is in the works (I'm almost done coloring it but there's some proportion problems I've got to fix). Someone offered their help for the music, I'm really excited about that! I'm figuring out the puzzle/object aspect of the game as well and it will need some careful planning in order to make this a success.

Whoever can help me out with game scripting would be absolutely fantastic!

February 14, 2008
Let's welcome LUniqueDan our main programmer, Pixelblink our musician and Ben304 our animator! Things are advancing smoothly and I'm having a blast making the portraits and backgrounds. I will update the screenshots soon.

This looks interesting.  Since its a remake, I've never heard of this game before. Then again, I'm still new to click & point Adventure games. Wish you the best with this game. :)

You already know this is on my list of highly anticipated games.  ;D Gladia looks really sweet and pretty in the closeup!

It's actually a remake of the Commodore 64 text-base game, I chose to remake this game because in all honesty it's a lot less work on my shoulders AND I absolutely adore Isaac Asimov's robot novels. The game will have over 80 rooms and there will be quite a bit happening, so you can say that I'm shooting for the stars here.  ;)

Anyone interested in helping me out with the sound/music part?

     Congratulations on such an ambitious undertaking. It looks really cool so far. I like the graphic style. I hope you are able to endure this process; as it seems it is going to be quite a large game. BTW, do you know of a link to the actual text-based game? I'd like to try it...... Thanks!  ;)

Quote from: thewalrus on Fri 16/03/2007 02:38:25
     Congratulations on such an ambitious undertaking. It looks really cool so far. I like the graphic style. I hope you are able to endure this process; as it seems it is going to be quite a large game. BTW, do you know of a link to the actual text-based game? I'd like to try it...... Thanks!  ;)

Thank you, I will do the best I can.  ;)

Here's a link to the game...

http://www.c64.com/games/no-frame.php?showid=1593&searchfor=2007-01-27&searchfor_special=7&from=0&range=10

Ah, so this is that BASS-style game. Looking forward to playing!

My fair lady,

Good luck with this project. Screennies and characters look awesmoe ;)

I will PM you for further information. :)

I salute thee,

Nikolas

I could help you with music, but let me know if you want midis or not.

What kind of music are you looking for?
Also was there any music on the original at all?

Peder.

This looks really awesome. Good luck!

How long will the game be?

nice graphic style!

BASS style indeed, however this looks far more promising than anything Revolution have farted out of their arses in the past five years!

Right indeed. Looks just as good, if not better than BASS.

Looks great! So are the two main characters you have down there (R. Daneel & Gladia) both playable?

Cool.  I remember you working on this back in 2004, I believe.  Glad to see it's back in the works, again!

Awesome!! Love the BASS look to it, I'm sure it'll be an excellent game. Good luck!

This looks terrific!
Will this share an interface similar to BASS?

Nice graphics and the characters looks great..

Looking forward to playing this game.. Good luck to you.. :)

Wow.

I havent exactly been waiting for an Isaac Asimov game but im sure glad its in the pipeline.   ;D

God I love SciFi.

Look great incedently.

incredible! I love asimov too, and I'm not going to miss this game when it will be finished! :o
Just a thing: Shouldn't R.Danell have a bit darker skin?

You all know this story under the name "I, Robot" - a not-so-good Hollywoodian adaptation of Asimov's novel.

Say what now???

After 8 months of inactivity, you decide to bump it and with such a comment? Rather weird I'd say.

Plus I believe that nightfable is not working anymore on this project (althouh I'd love to see it complete and nightfable picking it up again :))

Good point Nikolas..I just got excited that this bump was more news... Doh

It was a pointless bump I suppose ... but the first post was updated in September so I suppose it's not really breaking the rules!

Nightfable ... if you're not working on this anymore let me know and I'll lock it!  But I hope you are still working on it!

Besides, the I, Robot movie is not based on Robots of Dawn (or, really, any other Asimov story) at all, but on an unrelated screenplay by Jeff Vintar. It borrows some superficial elements from Asimov's stories, but those are Susan Calvin ones, which take place thousands of years before Robots of Dawn.

Nightfable : Please... pleaaase... pretty please with positronic particules on top. I believe you have the perfect artstyle to match with an Azimovian game. And this one is a good one. I read your posts on the C Lounge. I'm sure their's plenty of ppl on this forum who's going to be happy to lend you a hand on that. 

I'd really love to keep working on this project... Asimov's been a big part of my life and I would love to see this game come to life. I'm really really busy at the moment with my two girls but I try to cram in some drawing time whenever I can. If anyone wants to help with this game, you are most welcome to do so. (Pretty please with sugar on top!!)

I've read and own the books but I haven't had the time to play through the C64 game and I'm not sure how I would go about to adapting it for an adventure game. I'm in the middle of doing the dialog part and that's what discouraged me in the first place.

If you are good with anything (scripting, animating, dialogs, puzzles, etc...) just give me a pm and I'll give RoD another try.

Thanks for your encouraging comments, it gives a glitter of hope in an otherwise endlessly dark tunnel.

Sad to see that it looks like this is struggling. I was just coming to post about how great it looks.

I just love the screenies, now I'll be humming the Beneath a Steel Sky/ theme for hours... ah, the memories...

Anyway, do work on this very promising project, Nightfable.

I hope you'll finish this game. It looks great!
I didn't read Robots of Dawn, but I read other robots stories by Asimov
and I see the potential of such game.
Well, I wish you good luck with the project and we all wait for it.

Looks great.. and like a lot of other people, looking forward to playing it..

I'm glad to hear, that you didn't give up this project. I should like to play this game.

You better all be f*****g PM-ing her, begging to help.
>:(

It does look fantastic.

It's not "him", but "her"! ;D

Quote from: Crazy on Tue 01/01/2008 17:23:36
You better all be f*****g PM-ing her, begging to help.
>:(

It does look fantastic.

I offered my services... she never replied.. :-X

Holy shit!

Hey guys! Everyone had fun holidays?

We're still working on the game, btw. Thanks for all the encouragement!  ;)

Unfinished bg I'm currently working on:

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/room003b.png)

Yay, welcome back, and nice to see you're still working at this one! Fun holidays yourself?

Those backgrounds are so like Bass.

Quote from: Nightfable on Fri 08/02/2008 16:08:08
Hey guys! Everyone had fun holidays?

Glad to hear you're back!

 ;D yes! keep on the good work!

YAY!

Welcome back! hope your girls are a tiny bit older and thus know how valuable AGS is and will leave alone to work. ;)

Keep working, keep working! :)

If you could find the time to do a small tutorial, specifically on the Photoshop techniques you're using, that would be awesome. These work-in-progress screens look so great, I'd love to see exactly how you go about making them.

Thanks, I've had quite busy holidays but it was fun. I received a graphic tablet as a gift from my big brother and I'm slowly getting the hang of it, I have to say that it's so much easier to draw backgrounds now. I'd recommend one to anyone!!

Snarky, I'll attempt making a small tutorial for you - it'll be easy now that I have CamStudio installed.

Well, I'm done for the day. Got to cook supper. More updates soon!

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/room003e.png) (http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/portrait-elijah01c.png)

Please welcome LUniqueDan (http://'http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?action=profile;u=6979'), without him this game would not have a chance! He's the main Jack-of-all-trades programmer and by the way things are going -- there will definitely be something tangible and great for all adventure gamers and Asimov fans out there! I will update the main post with new screenies and information asap.

absolutely beautifull.. keep up the great work, looking forward to playing the game someday...

Looking great!! Does this mean you're getting the development back into swing? Which musician did you contact, it seems all of them asked you, hehehe!

the graphics look great!  at first glance i thought they'd been ripped from BASS, i'm so glad they're not. :)

Also welcome Pixelblink (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?action=profile;u=6286) our musician and Ben304 (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?action=profile;u=4786) our sprite animator!!  8)  Man, this so rocks!!

Cool, the both have worked on excellent games..

Hurra for quality sci-fi games!!!
hurra for Asimov based games-movies!

The characters, in the backgrounds, seems splendid (and the girl is so sexy)
the bg have some later 80' aspect I Love.


The best of lucks!

I am so stoked to see this game come out. The graphics look inspiring so far. Hoping I can make the music suit the game as well. Looking forward to a demo for sure!

Will this game be commercial or freeware? I like the concept but are there any "bed" scenes in the game because that girl should could use one. She is so pretty. Thanks.

Hey Nightfable! :) This looks totally fab! Love the graphic style, the backgrounds are cool, and I especially like the Gladia character's pose!

Will look forward to this a lot! :D Keep up the good work!

lemmy

Not really an update, the first post wasn't showing so I had to stick the screenshots somewhere else.

b]Screenshots[/b]:

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/screenshot01.png)

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/screenshot02.png)

I guess I can show you something new  ;)

(http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a4/Lovely_maiden/portrait-robot01a.png)

Looks very VERY good..  only thing i don't like (but that's just my taste) is the showing of the picture when the character 'talks'. Why show the text the same as Monkey island (or any Lucasarts adventure, and many AGS adventures), in outlined text near the character, and have different colors for different characters or something, IMHO it distract much less as with the image.. but as I said it's just my taste..

Just keep up the great work.. ;)

I don't care how long it takes but Please finish it. The games style is great, it's like a breath of fresh air on the AGS scene. It reminds me of reading SF library books as a child. I can almost smell that wonderful musty aroma.

Hi!

Asimov is my favorite writer!! I really looking forward for a game!
For some reason I can not see the screen shots  :'(.  Maybe you can post them on some public place like flickr or photobucket?

Or maybe you can send me some (I will write you personal message with my mail)
Thanks!!

Hi all,

is there any news?

alf

\\--EDIT--//
GAH! Alf, please read the forum rules. Night Fable, please PM Darth or email me (Snake) when this is ready for an update and we'll unlock.