The Marionette (02 November 2009: Final round of refinement)

Eggie · Sun 19/10/2008 18:19:48

Looks... *what's another word for 'good'*

... rad-tastic!

auriond · Mon 20/10/2008 00:08:34

Thanks guys

Hammerite: let's just say this time I'm definitely well on track.

No promises, but the end is in sight!

vertigoaddict · Mon 20/10/2008 00:26:25

Woo-hoo!

Haven't heard much from this project (heheh look who's talking...) I'm glad that the end is near.

I can't wait for this.

Snake · Mon 20/10/2008 22:29:13

Wow, Auriond, I've been wondering about this game - I thought about it not too long ago.

Nice screenie, too. 2009's looking pretty good! Keep up the good work.

Nikolas · Fri 24/10/2008 16:10:09

There's always December 2009 you all know!

Now, between you and me the game not only looks good but sounds great and plays brilliantly as well (and it reads blossomly nice!)

Singed, a big big fan!

auriond · Thu 20/11/2008 07:52:00

A little update here. Been working like crazy and I'm glad to announce that the actual game itself (minus the cutscenes) is 75% complete. It seems like a good time to be asking for beta testers.

I need 2 testers: at least one of these should preferably be pretty knowledgeable about scripting in AGS, partly so that he/she can help me solve any bugs that pop up and partly so that I can have some help with scripting on the final section of the game. So yeah, this person would be doubling as a scriptor too. Consider me to be begging here.

As I did most of the scripting and all of the sound editing, drawing etc. on my own, I'm expecting all kinds of bugs, so I'm hoping these two people will be willing to go through the game countless times to erase every last bug. If you have the time and inclination to help out, just drop me a PM.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: found one to test story and characters (thanks kaputtnik). Now I need one more tester, who is good at AGS scripting.

Edit2: SSH has kindly volunteered to take the remaining spot, so we're set to go!

MashPotato · Thu 20/11/2008 19:04:24

I'm glad to see this is chugging along

Good luck with that last 25%, Auriond, I'm looking forward to it!

Snake · Thu 20/11/2008 20:22:04

Sweetness. Been looking forward. Good to hear it nearing completion

pslim · Thu 20/11/2008 21:09:14

I've been looking forward to this since the demo, which was just evil in its teasingness. Thrilled to see you're making progress toward putting us all out of the misery of anticipation!

And since you're keeping track, I also am not generally a fan of first person adventure games.

Snake · Fri 21/11/2008 01:59:34

QuoteAnd since you're keeping track, I also am not generally a fan of first person adventure games.

I might as well say that I'm not either. I usually don't bother with them - but there's something here, man.

Stupot · Fri 21/11/2008 07:08:54

I like first persons.
I really enjoyed the Dark Fall games and Barrow Hill... The recent Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches I wouldn't mind playing... although it looks like a bit of a clone of the others.

Dualnames · Fri 21/11/2008 12:20:30

DAMN YOU SSH!!!

I still want to help testing this one, but well you've got SSH.

BLUEKNIGHT38 · Sat 22/11/2008 13:54:30

Great demo. I really enjoyed the demo and cant wait for the full finished product. Keep up the awesome work.

auriond · Tue 23/06/2009 13:32:32

After many missed deadlines, the game is finally pretty much complete. I'm just waiting for some tweaks to the final rooms now. In the meantime I only have the five endings to draw. Then the final testing, and then it'll be released.

Peder 🚀 · Wed 24/06/2009 01:15:06

GREAT News!

.
Been waiting for this game!

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Looking forward to the release, its looking great so far!

.

Dualnames · Wed 24/06/2009 15:44:32

Quote from: auriond on Tue 23/06/2009 13:32:32
After many missed deadlines, the game is finally pretty much complete. I'm just waiting for some tweaks to the final rooms now. In the meantime I only have the five endings to draw. Then the final testing, and then it'll be released.

I'm the one who's stalling this..right?

auriond · Mon 05/10/2009 11:10:43

Looks like more testing was needed than I anticipated. So what else is new?

The first round of testing is complete, my scriptor came back and zapped a whole bunch of bugs (wish I could show you guys the bugtracker so you could see how diligently we've been working!)

So now we're tweaking a few things before sending it out for a second round of testing. Meanwhile I'm racing against time to finish up the cutscenes. If you look at the first post of this thread you'll see that everything else is complete. Actually it's pretty much playable the way it is, except for two cutscenes which are currently just sketched outlines. So I'M the one holding things up.

Why racing against time? Because I'm hoping against hope that we can make November 9 the release date. Yes, I know I've promised many release dates and they've all zoomed past me. But this time so much is complete and we have so many people working on it at the same time and we all are actually working towards this date. I just haven't announced it since I was afraid that it would pass me by like so many other promised releases.

Anyway, what have you got to look forward to? Well, for one, the game as it currently stands is a whopping 174MB big. Not sure if that's something to look forward to, but it does tell you how much we've put into it.

The GUI has been updated, so no more pixelly cursors

The game itself is basically a series of escape-the-rooms, much like the room in the demo. There are 8 main areas. It's very linear, but intentionally so. Still, your actions can influence the ending you get.

How long is it? Well, it can be completed in 5 minutes or 2-3 hours, depending on how you decide to play it. 5 minutes if you skip everything. 2-3 hours if you take the time to explore, and I've tried to make exploring more rewarding in terms of storyline.

So yeah, it's complete but we've already worked on this for 3+ years, we don't want to release it if it's not up to our standards. I'll try to polish it up as much as I can before the Nov 9 deadline, but the deadline is also there for a reason - I've dragged it out for so long partly due to feature creep, and I want to avoid that now. So Nov 9 it is. 10th at the most.

Stupot · Mon 05/10/2009 13:53:39

HOORAY!

Best of luck with the run up to release, Auriond, and Team Effigy.
This has been among my most anticipated AGS games since I've been on these boards.

Crimson Wizard · Mon 05/10/2009 14:34:12

When I run the demo, I get black screen and game seem to freeze. It does not even react on Alt+X combination. Any ideas?

(I am running Win Vista 32 bit)

auriond · Mon 05/10/2009 14:36:03

Thanks Stu. You've always been very encouraging

edit: Crimson Wizard, your ffdshow is probably causing it. You can change the setting to have it not play WMA's (which The Marionette uses). Or if you don't really need ffdshow you can delete it.