Adventure Game Studio

The Face of Corruption
Chapter One: A Sleepless Night


Story:

Guy Marlowe; a homicide detective for the Melbourne police force has watched his life decay to nothing.  His wife left him due to his long hours and his obsession with work which has left him guilt-ridden.  One late evening he is assaulted by a mysterious assailant and barely survives the attack.  Who would have done this and why?  Was it random? Is it linked to one of the many homicides he's recently worked on?  Or is it something more shocking?  Find out in the first chapter.


Screenshots:
(http://xenogiagames.com/images/scn1-05-10-10.jpg)

(http://xenogiagames.com/images/scn2-05-10-10.jpg)

(http://xenogiagames.com/images/scn3-05-10-10.jpg)


Team:

On a side note the reason why I never finished my previous projects was because it was purely a solo job.  Now I have a small ensemble.

Dean Thomson - Scripting, Video Production, Story
Tom Lake - Dialog, Story
Megan Dale - Vocal Direction


Features:

• 640x400 32-bit photorealistic graphics
• Real actors filmed on my home-made green screen
• An original jazz soundtrack
• Multiple paths and solutions which can affect the story
• Full Voice Acting
• Episodic Content

Inspiration

I wanted to develop a game that was inspired two classic to me.  Both being Martian Memorandum and Amazon: Guardians of Eden.  So I have taken aspects of the serial formula with a noir setting and this is what I have come up with.  Let's hope I don't lose sight of making this game.


Progress

Graphics: 40%
Puzzles: 40%
Scripting: 30%
Music/Sound: 100%

[video link]

Here is the new video with speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zKKJtlpzU4

* The old video *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk)

Looks cool so far! Best of luck with it amigo.

best of luck  ;D

Seems like Devin's a big Ikea lover ;D

Good luck with this!

Looks good, and the photorealistic effect sounds quite something to look forward to.
Just trying to picture how the main character looks like moving about. (Then we'll really see how photorealistic it is, huh  :P)

I'm afraid that this title will get confused with the upcoming game from Frictional Games. It's also called Amnesia. (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=88)

Ahh thanks for that Ascovel, I didn't realise.. So you want to know how well he animates do you? :)

For most part all character animations are 20 fps.. some fullscreen stuff that is in-game engine is 15fps.  The game is going to be fairly large (megabytes wise).

Here is the speed of the character, though the gif is making him walk slower than normal.  For the gif I haven't bothered making it a seemless loop, I am just showing the idea of it.

(http://pic.leech.it/i/e5c2e/b606a5a5deanwalkin.gif)

The animation is splendid. The MB count will be high indeed.

I've got a question, why dont you make amnesia like phantasmagoria, where you walk from place to place and pick up things, not that many ganes do that... what do you think?

I was contemplating that, I might look into it actually and see how it goes.  Size wise it might be very difficult.

Quote from: Xenogia on Tue 09/02/2010 00:08:13
I was contemplating that, I might look into it actually and see how it goes.  Size wise it might be very difficult.

yeah, but that might be a good thing, I got an Idea that just popped into my head, what if you made the game with video files (for movement, talking scenes, logo, ect.) and made the installer and put it on a cd so that it installs the game but keeps video files on a disc then it would load the files from the disc and not fill a hard drive up...

Also, why don't you make chapter one have  7 chapters like phantasmagoria or Tex Murphy and rename it Episode 1: No way out instead of: Chapter one: No way out, also i recommend one more thing: Having all the controls on the front to make the game more immersive, look at phantasmagoria gui, that means that you wont have to pause the game to use things...

does that help you in your game?
thanks for your time,
Techodog

That animation has so many frames that my eye is tricking me into seeing the background colour by his feet slide along towards me. As if he were on a treadmill ;D

Good luck with this!

That is because he is on a treadmill markbilly.. lol

@techdog

The game will not be available on dvd or cd as it is a purely downloadable game.  The problem with your idea is that it really makes the game not very interactive at all and it becomes more like a movie.  The game itself is staying to a similar adventure style of your classics but using digitized characters.  A good example of this is Noctropolis, Amazon: Guardians of Eden and Sherlock Holmes The Rose Tattoo.  But thanks for the input anyway.

Update:

Here are some more screenshots, sorry for the 1280x720 display.

(http://pic.leech.it/i/cf43e/7ff2df94scrn1.jpg)

(http://pic.leech.it/i/d8753/f9cd744scrn2.jpg)

Very phantasmagoria like..will there be sex?  :D

Looking better and better!!

Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 12/02/2010 23:42:21
Very phantasmagoria like..will there be sex?  :D

Looking better and better!!

Haha, it would require my girlfriends drama friends simulating sex.. that would be pretty hilarious.  As the game goes its pretty dark all round and disturbing theme wise.

Just so you know here are some updated screenshots of the game.

(http://pic.leech.it/i/360c0/0d125ee9shot1.png)

(http://pic.leech.it/i/7757b/055745a3shot2.png)

(http://pic.leech.it/i/68203/beb99b3shot3.png)

*Very* impressive looking. Glad to see you are making good progress.

Looking pretty darn sweet.
Can't wait to see some in-game footage ;)

Those new screenshots look very promising! They really benefit from the wider aspect ratio. The only thing missing is a nice anti-aliased speech font like American Typewriter.

Good luck!

Wow! When did you get a decent camera? The new screenshots look fab, good job on nailing that art style.

Cool Man!!! :o
I can´t wait to play it!

This looks promising indeed!... I will definetely give it a try  ;D

Thanks Chicky, its a slow but wonderful process to get everything exactly how I want it.  Haha, and yes new camera :)

Re-shooting the original bg's, right? I really think it would be worth it.

Yeah and making sure all the lighting is all correct, hopefully this game will bring a new visual style to AGS games.  Even though the FMV characters have been done before in an AGS game.

Stupid question here, this is going to be a commercial game then?

Sskaxx: Nope this isn't going to be a commercial game, its just for fun.. Even though I have spent a bit of money on it, over $2000 now.  But its a hobby.. lol

Quote from: Xenogia on Sun 28/03/2010 20:23:03
Sskaxx: Nope this isn't going to be a commercial game, its just for fun.. Even though I have spent a bit of money on it, over $2000 now.  But its a hobby.. lol

Really? Rather you than me then... seriously, I'd attempt to recoup that money.

I would consider it, if I felt the need to..  Well the most likely thing I would do is see how the first one does as freeware and then maybe consider future installments as paid releases.

God ! I hope this is going to be freeware !

As stated before Makinva, it is going to be freeware :)

This looks very professional keep up the good work.
I can't believe this is going to be Free :D

Just thought I would add another screenshot for people :)
If your wondering why this screen is in black and white, it's because it's a flashback sequence.

(http://pic.leech.it/i/bcfcd/578b1980flashback2.png)

Just letting everyone know that I've updated the first post to represent the game correctly.

From that last screenshot, I'd recommend you ask someone to look over your writing and punctuation to get them up to professional quality.

-"God" should be uppercase.
-You need some kind of punctuation to break up the two parts of that statement. I'd go with "For God's sake, Guy! There are others..." A semicolon would be another alternative.
-"working in the police" sounds odd; the phrasing is slightly unidiomatic in English. Probably "in the police department", or just "there are other police working..."
-"as well as you" sounds a little clumsy to me, but I'm not sure how I'd rephrase it.

The errors aren't egregious (the punctuation problem is the most serious), but when you're putting so much work into the production values it's a shame to have the effect ruined by something that's so easy to fix.

Perhaps something along the lines of "You're not the only one in the police force!" or "There are other police involved besides you!"

To me those sound a bit more idiomatic as Snarky says.

This is looking hella good. Can't wait to see it in motion.

Thanks Snarky, just to let you know the text is actually first draft text from the writer so it will improve.  But I will take it into consideration thats for sure and get it sounding better.

EDIT: I'm also lucky that the lip synching doesn't follow the text (speech).  Though none of the voice acting will be done until the end of the development cycle.  On a good note, I've given the script to my girlfriend who is a english major.   Yay :)

Looks terribly good! Stop updating this so often! I can't hide my enthusiasm. To note it, I hate FMV graphic-style games or whatever you call them. This one however itches me to play!!

Quote from: Dualnames on Mon 05/04/2010 13:26:57
Looks terribly good! Stop updating this so often! I can't hide my enthusiasm. To note it, I hate FMV graphic-style games or whatever you call them. This one however itches me to play!!

I feel honored that you are looking forward to this game.

For anyone that was requesting to see in-game footage, here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk)

His walking in the video is a little slower than the actually gameplay.  I should have recorded it a 60fps in Fraps. Oh well ;)

Quote from: Xenogia on Fri 09/04/2010 14:40:26
For anyone that was requesting to see in-game footage, here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP81GsciESk)

His walking in the video is a little slower than the actually gameplay.  I should have recorded it a 60fps in Fraps. Oh well ;)

Could we have a clip with voice acting, please?

If the voice acting was done which it isn't, and won't be until near the end of the production.

In some wonderful good news, I now have one of the freelance writers for Retro Gamer Magazine helping me with the editing of the story of the game.  

Quote from: Xenogia on Wed 14/04/2010 02:46:03
In some wonderful good news, I now have one of the freelance writers for Retro Gamer Magazine helping me with the editing of the story of the game.  

Woohoo, coolness!!!

Gosh! I've missed the good old games that used real live actors as graphics in 2D adventure games!

If you happen to need any voice actors, throw a PM at me and I will see what I can do, though I think you will probably be using the true voices of the people you have as actors in the game.

Nevertheless: great to see this sort of project is up and running! I'll definitely be playing it when it is released! Keep up the good work!

Quote from: WHAM on Mon 19/04/2010 11:48:58
Gosh! I've missed the good old games that used real live actors as graphics in 2D adventure games!

If you happen to need any voice actors, throw a PM at me and I will see what I can do, though I think you will probably be using the true voices of the people you have as actors in the game.

Nevertheless: great to see this sort of project is up and running! I'll definitely be playing it when it is released! Keep up the good work!

Hi WHAM,

I'll be getting different voice actors than the actual FMV characters due to the fact a lot of them don't have the time to do voice acting.  And I will keep you in mind ;)

Very cool (and impressive) Besides Martian Memorandum it also reminds me a bit of games like Noctropolis, Goldmund's Donna: Avenger of Blood and Gabriel Knight II which is a good thing :D . You definitely got the mood/ atmosphere right, dark and moody + rain = awesome.

ps: Somebody commented on 'smoothing'/cleartyping the font used in the speech boxes but personally, I actually like the 'blocky' font, it gives it a bit of that retro sierra feel, which I think is kind of nice.

Looking forward to seeing this progress!

Quote from: buddha on Wed 21/04/2010 06:02:30
Very cool (and impressive) Besides Martian Memorandum it also reminds me a bit of games like Noctropolis, Goldmund's Donna: Avenger of Blood and Gabriel Knight II which is a good thing :D . You definitely got the mood/ atmosphere right, dark and moody + rain = awesome.

ps: Somebody commented on 'smoothing'/cleartyping the font used in the speech boxes but personally, I actually like the 'blocky' font, it gives it a bit of that retro sierra feel, which I think is kind of nice.

Looking forward to seeing this progress!

Thanks for the kind comments Buddha, since the latest AGS build though the anti-aliasing thing sort of resolved itself and still looks fantastic either way.
It's a shame that Goldmund's game was never finished, it sounded fantastic.

Here is another screenshot for anyone that is interested.

(http://pic.leech.it/i/bc295/ff7c53b7scrn.png)

It's all looking so very awesome Xenogia.

I watched the demo with speech and here is a little nit-picking, hope you don't mind:

Don't know if this was done in post on purpose, but the main character's voice sounds a little 'boxy' to me, having a little too much reverb or something.

e.g. Even though he is standing in a living room it sounds like he is sitting in a small empty meeting-room/toilet with bare walls reflecting the sound.

If this was unintentional, then hanging up a couple of blankets (or something else that dampens the sound reflection) around the voice talent+mic while recording can help cut this down.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

Hey buddha, you did realise this is his head voice.  He is not talking out aloud.  As for the quick second scene, the reverb was removed.  ;)

Quote from: Xenogia on Sun 30/05/2010 00:57:00
Hey buddha, you did realise this is his head voice.  He is not talking out aloud.  As for the quick second scene, the reverb was removed.  ;)

Reading my post back I realize I picked the wrong example. He is indeed in 'head voice-over' mode in the first scene. Probably my own 'head voice' was having a nap at the time of my post. ;D

Hahaha.. all good my friend.

Looking good! Its great to see a game set in my home town, Melbourne! Is the game inspired at all by Underbelly?

Having said that, since I'm local, if you need any help at all let me know!

Quote from: cosmicr on Thu 10/06/2010 03:29:12
Looking good! Its great to see a game set in my home town, Melbourne! Is the game inspired at all by Underbelly?

Having said that, since I'm local, if you need any help at all let me know!

Hi cosmicr.  Yeah it a was little inspired by the show -- mainly the newest season "The Golden Mile".  Good to see another Melbournite in the forums.  I don't see that very often.

Just thought I'd let you know the game is still in development due to some delays from physical injuries and then sickness.

Here is a new screenshot, nothing exciting but you get the idea.

(http://www.xenogiagames.com/images/newscrn.png)

Awesome! The latest screenshots remind me of The X-Files Game. Looking forward to this very much.

Heres another one to show people I'm still working on it.

(http://xenogiagames.com/images/sitscrn.jpg)

you mentioned "Amazon: Guardians of Eden"
one of my favourites.
looking forward for your game :)

Glad that there is someone else who really enjoyed the game :)

With the news of the IDE becoming open source and me using linux for the past 6 months.  I would be willing to pay anyone who could get the IDE to work under linux.  Who would be willing for the task?