Lost In The Nightmare 2 -- 9 June 2006, At a point of decision

Gord10 · Mon 08/05/2006 23:37:43

Hello all

Well, I have started on the production of the sequel of Lost In The Nightmare 1 a few months ago.
It contains a revisioned gameplay, a more emotional/psychological story and photomanipulated backgrounds/characters instead of pre-rendered 3D graphics this time. Yes, real people are acting the characters.
Actually I am not so sure if people would like the photomanipulation technique in such an adventure game (though it looks like the people in Reloaded.org forums liked it, http://www.reloaded.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=916&st=90 ), so I'm releasing this tech demo before giving serious decisions about the game's production.

SCREENSHOTS:

(the last one is not in demo)
To see more; http://geocities.com/akk13us/litn2eng.htm

STORY
"Existence...
I did hate the existences. If I could; I would want to destroy everything, all the universe. It would be the best for all of us. But I knew it was impossible.

So, the thing I was trying to do (and probably the best thing to do) was creating something new instead of destruction. Building a new world...
Just for me...
And her...
She made me happy and be with me; in one of the worst terms of my short life. And when I find her, I would build a new world for us...

All your moral rules were nothing for me... And I would never mind any danger that could happen to me. But its real reason was neither my over-courage or stupidness, nor the fact I had got nothing to lose. Only reason was the narrowness of my imagination. An imagination far away from the worst nightmares. It was absent in my mind. The thing I didn't know was that; the truth is much wider and painful than our imaginary."

Now we are going to the Karabalta as Berkay Efekan, a teenager boy who had got almost nothing to lose in his life. His father had gone bankrupt and committed suicide a long time ago, and his all the communication between his mother and friends are cut. In this worse term of life, Berkay gets friend with Kardelen, his pretty classmate. They get very close friends together; but someday Kardelen disappears without any clue. Nobody knows where she and her grandmother, who looks after Kardelen since her childhood.
One night, Berkay has a serious argument with his mother, and leaves his home shutting the door. Now he has got only purpose that avoids him to end his own life.
Building a new world...

Production: To be honest, I don't really know when this game will be finished, maybe in 2007 (or 2008's beginnings at worst).

Actings in the demo by me (as Berkay Efekan and more characters), 'Miss Fee' (as Kardelen) and FlÃ¡via Biazi Cabral (as Deniz Efekan, Berkay's mother).

To download the demo: http://adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=719

Thanks for your comments!

Candle · Mon 08/05/2006 23:50:55

Looks interesting so will download it now and play it , will get back later with my thoughts.

R4L · Tue 09/05/2006 00:23:16

YES! I loved the first one! Downloading...

Candle · Tue 09/05/2006 00:31:54

Well after downloading Igot a bad zip and at the size of it I don't want to do it again.

Sorry.

R4L · Tue 09/05/2006 00:51:56

Ok, I just played the demo...

This game rules!!!!!!!!

Your photos are excellent! I like how you distorted them too, it reminds me of the noir scenes in Max Payne 2, the graphic novel parts. There are a few typos in game but still great demo!

Can't wait for the final version!

Gord10 · Tue 09/05/2006 12:20:47

@Candle: Sorry to hear this

You use the last version of WinZip (or another zip tool), yeah?
@Rap4Life42o: Thanks for your comments!

Candle · Tue 09/05/2006 12:24:33

I had to use IE to download for some reason and now it works. just started playing the game but kind of confused but thats nothing knew with me. heh heh

Exorph · Fri 19/05/2006 13:46:52

I downloaded it and really liked how much better it seems like this game could be than the first game.

However, I have some citicism if you're interested.
First of all, you should really get someone who knows english proofread the game for you. Normally I wouldn't care, but both this game and LitN1 relied a lot on the written word. Making sure everything is grammatically correct would greatly help with the immersion and atmosphere of the game as having to figure out what you actually mean really takes you out of the game.
I mean I have the feeling that if I knew Turkish (that is the original language, no?), I'd be absolutely blown away by your games.

Then the demo seemed a lot slower than LitN1. If this is what you intended, then it's cool, but I found the long pauses in between each line and action to be rather annoying.

Oh, and a minor thing, I really feel the intro would have benefitted from using one song only as the change between the Silent Hill song and that cool guitar song completely changed the mood of it.

Gord10 · Fri 19/05/2006 15:27:19

Thanks for the comments

I really didn't expect some more people to comment about LitN 2 in AGS boards. The new game is 800*600, while LitN 1 was 320*240; I think it is the reason why it is slower now. Guess I will change the res. because of the slowness and the big file size.

Edit: By the way; I was planning to release it here; but didn't want to necropost.

Exorph · Sat 20/05/2006 00:05:12

Well, I'm sorry if this was considered bringing up an old topic, but I just figured ten days wasn't THAT much.

That might be the reason, but on the other hand, the higher resolution makes the game look so damn good.

It seems strange that the higher resolution would cause long pauses in between lines, not just when moving from room to room, though.

But keep up the good work and I'm looking forward to the finished game!

ManicMatt · Sat 20/05/2006 12:15:03

I mostly agree with Exorph on the comments about this demo.

Especially the english, as I was laughing at some of the wordings here, surely not your intention!

The old sick man is obviously you. Maybe if you hid the forehead or put some wrinkles on it?

Last thing on my mind would be the flashing at the end. If there is flashing in your game make sure you put an epilipsey (sp?) warning in the game. Do you agree?

Great atmosphere, like-able EGOÃ,Â

and effective sound effects.

EDIT: Oh and the music kept stuttering everytime the screen changed. Curious, in my own game I was making I had that problem but it was when a conversation started.

Gord10 · Sat 20/05/2006 13:39:17

Thanks for the comments. About the old man... He was acted by me and it was intentional.

Spoiler

The thing surprised me much more seeing a dead human being was discobering (OMG, I can't believe I typed 'discober') the similitude between us. Maybe I had got affected by what he told me and saw him looking like me because of that. But even if not physical, it was sure there are lots of common points between me and him.

[close]

And this has a reason, but I don't want to give more spoilers.
You are right about the other comments. But I still don't have the music stuttering problem.

Gord10 · Fri 09/06/2006 17:00:27

Some update:

And now I want to announce something. I'm not so motivated to keep up this game anymore, and I'm at a point of decision. No, I won't give up the game completely, but will keep the game very short; it will maybe have a maximum gameplay of 30-35 minutes, so it is going to be something like an expansion pack, instead of a sequel game. My first plans were to make a game that takes at least 2-3 hours (and maybe a 5-6 hours of commercial game if people liked it while it is in production). What do you think about this? Should I continue the game as a 2-3 hours of a medium-length game; or an expansion pack thingy for the first game?

And I'm also thinking of changing the game resolution. It was 800*600 before, but it takes too much MB's to download, so I'm thinking of reducing it to 640*480.
Also I feel like "cheating" as I'm using photomanipulation instead of real 2D/3D art; maybe it was another reason why people wasn't so interested in this sequel.

All ideas & comments are welcome.

Nikolas · Sat 10/06/2006 08:21:28

Gord, as mentioned elsewhere, don't drop out.

This is your baby, your game. not ours, in the end.

Just because there were not many replies in this thread, does not mean that the game won't be interesting.

Photo manipulation is not cheating! Not by a million.

Do whatever you feel like in all honesty. Of course if your interest towards the game has droped out, I don't know what to propose, but maybe find a way to keep your interest a little more?

sthomannch · Sat 10/06/2006 10:49:48

Gord, I enjoyed your first game a lot and I was happy when I heard that you were working on a sequel. The demo is really good and promising. Maybe someone can help you and do proof reading (I would be glad to do so but I'm not English). What I found best : the story and the atmosphere. I hope you reconsider...

jasonjkay · Sat 10/06/2006 11:32:57

It looks good and I would use photos as well (If I had a digital camera). It still takes a lot of hard work to integrate the photos into the game which means it's not cheating. Id say change the resolution and keep it at the 2-3 hour length.

Exorph · Sat 10/06/2006 17:06:48

Whoa! Keep the photos. If anything, the sometimes rather flat environments of the first game was one of the few not-so-ggod parts about it. The photographs are a HUGE improvement.
I also think you should keep the resolution.
If you're worried about size, maybe you could simply upload the game on some torrent site for us to download.

Gord10 · Sat 10/06/2006 17:39:27

Thanks everyone

I feel much more motivated now.

TheCheese33 · Sat 17/06/2006 22:10:27

Yeah, Gord, I loved your first game. Please make it full-length, the way you had intended. I want to play it so badly full.

Gord10 · Sat 17/06/2006 22:41:39

Thanks, Cheese