Picaroon - The Lost Years - Part 1: Mysteries of the deep

[dsg_charly]

Looks great, the inventory bag looks better in 2D cartoon  style than the 3D one.

Seems the graphics will catch the CMI visual essence, to my mind it's the most achieved regarding others Hi-Res adventure game.

Just a suggestion regarding the verb coin, as it is a golden or somethin' shinny coin, the black paintover (dreadlocks and other stuff) makes it a bit crappy to my mind.

Keep up the good work, hope your team won't reduce again.

[MYKAYEL]

Great work! CMI has allways been my favorite of the series.
Now about the music, why dont you download the FAN MUSIC off the SCUMM BAR website. They have some great work done belive me. "MONKEY ISLAND ROCKZ" is a rock version of the MONKEY ISLAND ORIGINAL THEME. They also have remixes of a lot of background music from the games in MP3 format. It's all free and it if Fan Music so there souldnt be any copyright problems. Here is a link to the site :

http://www.scummbar.com/community/fanmusic/

[Mr Flibble]

If you use fan music, ask the creator first.
I'd say they would almost definately let you use it, but asking first avoids possible resentment and feelings of "ZOMG I've been robbed" on their part.

[n3tgraph]

Hey maybe I can help you with some music??

I made a tune so you can hear my style:
Click me

This tune is based on the picture in the first page of this topic where guybrush says: "Murray" on the very small Island!

This is a quick recording, it's quite poor quality, so don't bite me on that fact.


Greetz
n3tÃ, 

Oh btw, if the file won't play, try changing the extension to .mp3
I changed it to mpg, else my file server wouldn't upload... :/

[MYKAYEL]

I JUST CANT WAIT TO PLAY THIS GAME!!! I hope you think of an awsome storyline for it. I can help you there if you want. But I can only give you some ideeas because I want to be surprized by the plot twists.

[Electroshokker]

Hey, guys.

We're still breathing... things have been kinda slow lately. (exams coming up/passing by for a lot of folks, I'm only a month away from graduation myself, so very busy...)

Well, here's an update on the features:

1)- We've got a kick-ass story. (the basics were written quite some time ago, and we've never stopped improving it.)

2)- We've got the best CMI type graphics ever now. (all scenes are being revamped...again. but => WORTH IT!!!) (the inventory bag screenshot hints the style)

3)- We've got puzzles that will make you pull your hair out...

it's the countless possibilities! you'll have tons of inventory items, and not a clue how to use them all (in fact, you can't use them all...)

(In order to make sure the game stays fun, the betatesters will have a say in the puzzles, to prevent them from being too hard/easy)

4)- We're also making that little extra every game needs... movie cutscenes!!! (maybe we'll release a teaser trailer to part 1 in a couple of months)


Status report:

Part 1 of the game has actually reached pre-alpha stage. Ok, what does pre-alpha mean anyways, you might say. Well, it means we're only a few steps away from full alpha, and that the real beta is finally in sight. I won't say when, though. Too much could happen, and I don't want to dissapoint people by setting a deadline.


Oh, before I get back to working on my thesis,

@n3tgraph: that sounds great! I send you a PM.

@MYKAYEL: good games take time to make. It'll be a while before we finish this one, but we'll do our best at creating the best damn all-monkeys-allowed game ever.

@Mr.Fibble: quite right. actually, using the fanmusic has been considered, but we've decided not to go there. (it's more fun when it's newly (re)composed)


EDIT: well, it's time to remove the "musicians wanted" sign for us... 3 able folks have expressed they're interest, and I say they're in. (includes n3tgraph)

Now you can add baddass music to the list of features 

[skullkid22]

hi, this is looking great. If you need a beta tester(when testing begins obviously) please PM me, i'll be glad to help.

[Bai Karl]

When the RMI will be finnished?

[dsg_charly]

...
it's the countless possibilities! you'll have tons of inventory items, and not a clue how to use them all (in fact, you can't use them all...)

(In order to make sure the game stays fun, the betatesters will have a say in the puzzles, to prevent them from being too hard/easy)
...

Just questionning, what the point of tons of inventory items, with some useless, and without clue for some ?

[ildu]

Just questionning, what the point of tons of inventory items, with some useless, and without clue for some ?

Yeah, it's a huge departure from CMI and other traditional and successful adventure games.

[dsg_charly]

Just questionning, what the point of tons of inventory items, with some useless, and without clue for some ?

Yeah, it's a huge departure from CMI and other traditional and successful adventure games.

Then... great.

[Electroshokker]

Time for another update:

Exams are over for most people, so production has sped up again.

We're currently busy with bugfixing, re-writing dialogs, finishing up the music and of course the graphics of part 1.

Oh, and tweaking the GUI for a more complete MI experience.

The way things are going now, I'd say we're only a few short months away from the betatesting of part 1.

We've decided to release Part 1 as a game demo after the betatesting. That way everyone can see what we've been up to without having to wait another year or so before the entire game is finished.

I've updated the screenshots in the first post. Have a look.

[Haddas]

Great work guys. I haven't really been eager to play anags game for a long time now. And this is the game to change it. This and "The Oracle".

I love what you've done with the game sofar. Promise to finish it. Soo many times we've been let down, so many hopes crushed. Don't you dare have a "Harddrive crash".

[Electroshokker]

Great work guys. I haven't really been eager to play anags game for a long time now. And this is the game to change it. This and "The Oracle".

I love what you've done with the game sofar. Promise to finish it. Soo many times we've been let down, so many hopes crushed. Don't you dare have a "Harddrive crash".

Well, if my harddrive + the harddrives of several members + my server crashes, THEN we'd have a problem. Otherwise we're cool. 


Oh, and we still need someone to do animations (the 1 thing we're still lacking)

[Electroshokker]

Ok, time for another update.

We started using Webcollab, so this time, I can give an actual percentage of finished stuff.
Don't let some of these figures fool you, though, read the explanation.

Revival Of MI Part 1:

GUI: 100%
Coding: 80%
Puzzles/Dialogs: 70%
Animations: 0%
Characters: 0%
Backgrounds: 50%
Movies: 10%
Music: 70%

animations and characters: we decided to dump our old crappy stuff and start afresh using sketches and vector graphics. While this is a temporary setback, it will increase the development speed by a lot. There's still an opening or two on our team if you know how to work with vector graphics...

movies: we got the project files for the old ones, but need to be updated with new graphics

As for everything else: going strong.

[sergiocornaga]

Wow, sounds great! Hope to see it completed real soon.

[Electroshokker]

It's gonna take a while longer.

We just had a major overhaul of the entire intro and part 1 script, and turned it into a nice moviescript-like file. (currently we've got 40 pages of moviescript for the intro and part 1, with the major dialogs not yet included)

This ensures the game now has a decent story and puzzle line
(in which you can find your way, rather then going 'Huh? What do I do next?')

So now the game script (hopefully) matches the quality of the art and music. This game is gonna be something...

Too bad we haven't found anyone to do animations or character design in the quality we want it to be yet. But we will, sooner or later.

[Electroshokker]

Bump.

Well, like in most game developments, we're all waiting for the art guys to do their thing. Pretty much everything else is settled.

So the only question remaining is:

How long will it take...

...the lead sketch artist to draw all sketches and animations
...the colorist to color those sketches
...the detail artist to finish up the details

Answer: As long as they need.

[Nikolas]

I hope all the best to your team and say that I'm really looking forward to the game

Also thanks for keeping us updated It means a lot...

[CosmoQueen]

The game looks fantastic! I can't wait to try it!