Adventure Game Studio

AGS Games => AGS Games in Production => Topic started by: on Sun 09/12/2007 02:39:58

Title: Once Upon A Crime (BETA reached)
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 02:39:58
Ghost presents:

Once Upon A Crime
A Fairytale Whodunnit

Featuring:
* a colourful cast of charismatic characters, including the Steadfast Tin Soldier,
   Captain Hook, Mr. Geppetto and more
* a whacky world in primary colours, cluttered with candy, forests,
   gingerbread cottages and glum castles
* a plot full of sinister puns and an awful lot of gumshoe clichè


The Story
Delivering baskets to remote forest cottages was no longer enough for Red Riding Hood, so she decided to start a new career. Or any career: She took the courses, she bought the equipment, she became a private investigator.

And Parodise surely needs a cunning junior detective right now. A terrible crime has been committed: Someone killed the Big Bad Wolf, and it's up to Red to solve the case.

And if your methods of detectoring include magical potions, an assortment of tooth-pulling candy and threatening suspects to *pout* at them, what can go wrong?


Development Progress:
Story: 90%
Scripting: 65%
Graphics: 70%
Sound/Music: 70%

Tech Sheet
* 320x240 screen resolution, 16bit colour
* 7 "realm locations" with a total of 12 rooms
* 15 characters (though about 9 of them are "supporting" cast only
* SCUMM-type interface with some added niceties
* made with AGS 2.72 (will possibly released as 3.0 game though)

Expected completion date: January 12th (or shortly before Duke Nukem Forever is released)

Check out the visuals- they are in colour!

Enter a world of fairytale lore!
(http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4809/ouacpromo5zs0.png) (http://imageshack.us)

Discuss important matters with military officials!
(http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/6296/ouacpromo3ig3.png) (http://imageshack.us)

Be adressed by wood!
(http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/2387/ouacpromo4xh0.png) (http://imageshack.us)

Bring your insulin!
(http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5327/ouacpromo1lz7.png) (http://imageshack.us)

Unnerve witches!
(http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5277/ouacpromo2qe0.png) (http://imageshack.us)


Note
Some of you may remember me putting a few characters for this game up a long time ago. I needed a break from DITA; the constant glum inside areas and stuff were getting me down. Consider this as a nice little break: Hopefully one you'll enjoy playing  ;)

- Minor Update: 16.12.2008 -
Development Progress:
Story: 100%
Scripting: 80%
Graphics: 85%
Sound/Music: 100%

- Update: 26.12.2008 -
Development Progress:
Story: 100%
Scripting: 100%
Graphics: 95%
Sound/Music: 100%

- LAST UPDATE 30.12.2007 -
Development Progress:
Story: 100%
Scripting: 100%
Graphics: 100%
Sound/Music: 100%
In-House Testing: 100%

That's it, lads and lasses, the game's done, and the testers have recieved their copies. All that's left is waiting and hoping that there aren't too many bugs!
Happy new year!

Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Dualnames on Sun 09/12/2007 02:58:49
Excepting eagerly.. Looks wonderful...
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: LUniqueDan on Sun 09/12/2007 02:59:10
Great background !
(Everything looks gorgeous.)
12th of January now circled on my calendar.

EDIT : Exception of the stormtrooper's helmet.   
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 03:17:36
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 09/12/2007 02:59:10
EDIT : Exception of the stormtrooper's helmet.   

Is the helmet that obvious? On my screen it is hardly visible... merges almost completely into the black walkbehind...
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 03:45:34
(Big, joyful smile on my face)

Screenshots are catchy and frisky! Geppetto is so fun to look at (what a great sprite!)!

Marvellous Ghost, marvellous!

P.S.: I immediately spotted the helmet, but maybe my screen is too bright.

P.S.S.: I'll gladly test drive it, if you need me of course!

Go, go Red!!!

Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: scalad on Sun 09/12/2007 03:46:15
This looks great! Can't wait for it to be released!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: deadsuperhero on Sun 09/12/2007 04:23:13
Two words: Freakin' Awesome!
That looks really creative, and a lot of fun to play!
Can't wait!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: mouthuvmine on Sun 09/12/2007 06:01:10
Wow. It looks GREAT!

The only bad thing about a release like this, is makes want to get my game done NOW!

Just...thank you...
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Nikolas on Sun 09/12/2007 09:07:26
WOW!

Amazing mate! Amazing!

and SO close! Such an ellegant thread of GIP! Excellent! Darth will be pleased! ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Buckethead on Sun 09/12/2007 09:25:44
wow that's nice!  :D good luck!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Indie Boy on Sun 09/12/2007 12:42:47
Oh I can't wait. Looks and sounds great. A late Christmas present for sure  ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: stevetheblack on Sun 09/12/2007 12:51:17
This does look pretty awesome.  Looking forward to this :)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Akatosh on Sun 09/12/2007 12:51:50
Cool... looks really nice, maybe a little too bright for my taste, but still - sounds promising!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 14:08:02
Thank you for the kind words, everyone. That's the stuff that keeps a man going.

@Nik: To be honest, I just used the Pirates of Pestulon example thread as a template  ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: deadsuperhero on Sun 09/12/2007 16:50:49
Also, is that "military official" the Steadfast Tin Soldier? If it is, then more power to you! That was one of my favorite fairy tales that my dad told me as a kid.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Jon on Sun 09/12/2007 17:57:56
Looks great, i'll be willing to play test for you, if you want.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 18:00:45
P^3.S.: it is probably the first time I see a WiP with an actual release date in it. If on the 12th I don't see the final work I'll travel all the German-French border to find you and... bring you candy.  ::)  ;)

Seriously, take all the time you need and best of luck!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: HellBeast on Sun 09/12/2007 18:05:09
Ghost great detail the stormtrooper helment was funny i cant wait to play it i would play test if you'd like i mean the backgrounds are Awsome
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 09/12/2007 22:12:59
Quote from: Alliance on Sun 09/12/2007 16:50:49
Also, is that "military official" the Steadfast Tin Soldier? If it is, then more power to you! That was one of my favorite fairy tales that my dad told me as a kid.

Yup, that's him.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: tube on Sun 09/12/2007 23:08:01
Great idea and looks like the implementation won't be any worse. Good luck with the project.

Quote from: Ghost on Sun 09/12/2007 03:17:36
Quote from: LUniqueDan on Sun 09/12/2007 02:59:10
EDIT : Exception of the stormtrooper's helmet.   

Is the helmet that obvious? On my screen it is hardly visible... merges almost completely into the black walkbehind...

The walkbehind isn't even close to black. You should either try to get your monitor calibrated (this image (http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php) might help you, search google for more) or start looking for a new screen if that doesn't work.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Mon 10/12/2007 03:36:13
Thanks, tube, that was very helpful. I knew that I have a rather dark monitor by "default"; the calibration pic became clear after turning the gamma correction up to 2.1!!!

So this means that the game looks much brighter than I intended... Well, the location with the witches cottage is the brightest background- is the yellow/orange sand actually hurting your eyes, or is it just very bright? I might need to tone down the images a bit then...
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: tube on Mon 10/12/2007 09:42:32
Quote from: Ghost on Mon 10/12/2007 03:36:13
So this means that the game looks much brighter than I intended... Well, the location with the witches cottage is the brightest background- is the yellow/orange sand actually hurting your eyes, or is it just very bright? I might need to tone down the images a bit then...

The yellow sand is admittedly a bit hard on the eyes, so go ahead and tone it down a notch if you feel like it. It doesn't actually hurt the eyes, but it definitely stands out. Everything else is fine as is.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens on Mon 10/12/2007 09:44:45
As tube mentioned, the foreground color is a mid-range gray.  I've done an edit so you can load them both on your pc and see the difference.  I also removed the aliasing and reduced the color count on the storm trooper helmet.  I look forward to the finished product.

Edit:  For the yellows (like the shelf in gepetto's and the sand) you could try adding more red to it to make the color a little more orange just to experiment.  Also, I see you've corrected your color issue so you can probably ignore my edit!

(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/ouaced.png)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Tue 11/12/2007 19:48:45
The edit, together with tube's link, enabled me to tweak all the locations so that they should now look as intented. Fortunately there aren't too many locations, so it didn't take too long. I did, however, remove the helmet- it somehow wasn't as much fun anymore  ;)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: The Ivy on Wed 12/12/2007 04:02:52
This looks fabulous. The sprites are unique and well-designed, and I love your take on Red Riding Hood. Also, the Tin Soldier is a wonderful but often-overlooked fairy tale, and I'm glad to see you included it. Really looking forward to this!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 12/12/2007 09:21:20
Tiny Update
As mentioned above, I tweaked the colours a bit. Here's the toned-down version of the Gingerbread Cottage and the Three Little Pigs; I think it should look better now.

(http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/9118/ouaccorrected1qi5.png) (http://imageshack.us)

(http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/9163/ouaccorrected2xi2.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Nikolas on Wed 12/12/2007 09:27:58
This just looks BETTER AND BETTER!

HAH! Keep at it! And honour your date of release (please?)! :D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: ManicMatt on Wed 12/12/2007 09:50:40
One word: Fantastic!  :D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: JimmyShelter on Wed 12/12/2007 15:29:21
The pigs look really cool.

Looking forward to thios one!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Buckethead on Wed 12/12/2007 16:46:55
I really dig the simple, yet effective style  :)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Akatosh on Wed 12/12/2007 16:59:57
Ahhh. Much, much, MUCH better. Thank you.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 12/12/2007 17:45:56
Quote from: Akatosh on Wed 12/12/2007 16:59:57
Ahhh. Much, much, MUCH better. Thank you.

My pleasure. And now I can play Thief without wondering why I need to tweak it in-game, too  ;D

Quote from: Nikolas on Wed 12/12/2007 09:27:58
HAH! Keep at it! And honour your date of release (please?)! :D

I will. This I promise.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Rui 'Trovatore' Pires on Wed 12/12/2007 23:12:06
I'm so sad I missed the brightness discussion...

Ghost, my monitor is also a bit on the dark side. And you know what could solve the problem very very easily? You could have just included a "gamma" slider, which would also have made sure no one else would have had any trouble...

I think every game should have a gamma setting. Have I said this enough? Methinks not.

Oh, and by the way, I have to say your game looks and feels AWESOMENESZZ!!1! IT RLUEZ!!!11
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 12/12/2007 23:25:38
The funny thing is, I made a gamma slider for DITA just because of that thread of yours... though I wouldn't need one for this little side project, and *bam*... I think I'll just write a slider now. Yes, I really think I will. Sliders are friends. Yesly.  ;D

I'm glad that after the 3.0 revolution gamma will no longer be an issue...
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Frodo on Thu 13/12/2007 03:09:45
This looks great.  The pigs look hilarious, especiasly the one with big eyes, near the door.   :)

I love the cartoony style you used.    :D

Looking forward to playing this one.   ;D

Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Ali on Sat 15/12/2007 10:52:11
This looks great. I particularly like the character sprites which are a good mix of naively charming and amusingly grotesque. I'm looking forward to the finished game!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 16/12/2007 03:21:19
I'm making good progress and updated the first post. Plus, three testers have agreed to do their best once I'm at 100%. Those fearless fighters for daring debugging are: bicilloti, Bohnito and Jon.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Buckethead on Sun 16/12/2007 09:44:48
Cool that you are making such great process.  :D usually cute little games like this float around for a while before they get cancelled. Glad thats not the case here.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime [Questions]
Post by: on Thu 20/12/2007 11:39:56
Since OUAC will be my first game release, I've stumbled upon two things that are a bit unclear; both are to do with the game release...

Game Length
OUAC is either a short or a medium length game, but how exactly do I draw the line between "within 30 minutes" and "more than 30 minutes"? Do I take the time a player who doesn't know how to solve the puzzles needs, or do I, with all knowledge of the game flow, check *my* time?

Host
I do own a freewebs account, and I know it is limited to a bandwidth of about 50 MB per month. Is is safe to use such a limited account, or would I be better of asking for (additional) hosting? The zipped game file is, right now, about 2MB.

Sorry, these are surely typical newbie questions, but it *is* my first release, and I want to get it done right and proper...

On a lighter note, I've just started implementing the last puzzle sequence. Shouldn't be too long now before we can strap on the testing wheels. In the meantime, a small shot of the title screen...

(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/3372/ouacoriginaltitledr5.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Buckethead on Thu 20/12/2007 11:46:42
I think I would call it medium length but that might just be because I'm not that good a sloving adventure game puzzles. Anyway. 50mb a month is way too little for hosting something. If your game is 5 mb only 10 people a month can download it. And looking at the amount of positive feedback you got here I think that would be fighting for the game every month.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: SSH on Thu 20/12/2007 11:49:28
I'll host it for you if you can't find anywhere else
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Thu 20/12/2007 12:55:39
I got some unused bandwidth (2 Gb / month). If you need it it's all yours.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Thu 20/12/2007 21:48:29
SSH, bicilotti, great offers, thank you! And in addition to that I've also found mediafire. I think that's all settled then; back to work  ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime [Questions]
Post by: Nikolas on Fri 21/12/2007 07:37:00
Quote from: Ghost on Thu 20/12/2007 11:39:56
Host
I do own a freewebs account, and I know it is limited to a bandwidth of about 50 MB per month. Is is safe to use such a limited account, or would I be better of asking for (additional) hosting? The zipped game file is, right now, about 2MB.
I have plenty of webspace and plenty of traffic available. PM me and it's yours, "forever" (as long as I have my website, so no worries! :D) (hmm...other offers as well, but I have around 150 GB per month actually! ;D buahaaha!)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: CosmoQueen on Sat 22/12/2007 02:55:19
Lovely graphics!!! The main character is so cute! I'm really looking forward to this :)
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 26/12/2007 20:24:56
Quite possibly the last update (see also first post):

Started work on the walkcycle(s)/added animations this evening; the rest of the game's complete- and that means that in two, give it three days OUAC will go to the beta testers. I've found very little "true bugs" myself, so I think I can def'nitely stay true to my release date.

Nikolas was kind enough to provide hosting for the file once it's done.

Lads and lasses, I'm highly exited, and once again, thank you all for the encouragement here. OUAC being my first released game, I'm quite nervous, but also rather positive that you'll enjoy the show.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 26/12/2007 20:37:37
Quote from: Ghost on Wed 26/12/2007 20:24:56
Started work on the walkcycle(s)/added animations this evening; the rest of the game's complete- and that means that in two, give it three days OUAC will go to the beta testers.

Can't wait to get my teeth on that  ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Dualnames on Wed 26/12/2007 21:00:43
Ghost... you're something...
Daemons in the Attic is in production for ever
and you release a game which production took you.. less than a month

You started 9/12/2007
And you might release this before the new year comes..
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Wed 26/12/2007 21:16:23
Quote from: Dualnames on Wed 26/12/2007 21:00:43
Daemons in the Attic is in production for ever
and you release a game which production took you.. less than a month

I think the main reasons for this are focus and experience.

Work on DITA started when I knew very little about AGS, pixel graphics and adventure design. It has become my holy grail, and I tend to take it far too serious...

OUAC, on the other hand, has had a much shorter design phase because I could recycle my old GUI code (so no need to script it all again and reinvent the wheel an umteenth time), I knew my way around the engine, *and* because it is a much smaller game. To be honest, I worked much more constantly on OUAC because it was easier to achieve noticeable progress.

OUAC has about 12 locations, a fistful of puzzles that tend to be variations of adventure game "basics" and a story that relies on players recognising something they (hopefully) already know. It's a game that one person could, without too much trouble, create in a given time.

Also, it *did* take more than a month; I had quite a lot of framework finished before I put up the GiP thread.

When all's said and done, I'm happy with the outcome. It feels like a nice starter game, and it will be my "proving grounds", too... It also taught me an important lesson- "smaller" is nice because it is pretty easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel  :=

Also, let's not forget that the beta testers will definitely find some stuff... so I'd rather say that "this year" would be nice, but not certain... better to spent that extra time and release something (as) bug-free (as possible).
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: glaurung on Thu 27/12/2007 00:07:51
Whether this year or the next, the bottom line is: When this is released I will play it..!!!
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 30/12/2007 03:26:54
GiP is officially closed- See first post.
The game's done and send to the testers. Wish you all a happy new year- don't drink anything I wouldn't drink, don't eat any yellow dip, and the first to sing Candle In The Wind is cannon fodder!

Ghost out!

;D  ;D  ;D
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Ibrahim9 on Sun 30/12/2007 18:31:07
Nice game, it's beautiful, charcaters look funny, nice colours and may look like a lot of fun!

P.S. What's with the Star Wars thingey in the background?
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Galen on Sun 30/12/2007 18:38:10
Quote from: Ibrahim9 on Sun 30/12/2007 18:31:07
Nice game, it's beautiful, charcaters look funny, nice colours and may look like a lot of fun!

P.S. What's with the Star Wars thingey in the background?
Ha. I never noticed the storm trooper helmet, and wouldn't it be in the foreground?
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: on Sun 30/12/2007 19:18:20
There was indeed a storm trooper's helmet in the foreground of the toy shop as a small joke, in very much the same way LucasArts had Max hidden in all their games.

Posting the picture showing the helmet helped me a lot because it revealed that my screen adjustment was terribly dark, and after all that fiddling around, I removed the helmet. It just wasn't as funny ever after  ;D Call that bug-fixing, the meta way.
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: Dualnames on Sun 30/12/2007 23:28:05
A  shame.. anyway if you need the best beta tester i'll be around..
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime
Post by: SuperDre on Mon 31/12/2007 14:01:38
It looks absolutely amazing.. can't wait for the public release..
Title: Re: Once Upon A Crime (BETA reached)
Post by: Dualnames on Tue 01/01/2008 21:58:51
Ghost, I 'm not planning to post again here. Please give me the chance to post on the completed games section.... ::)