The Wanderer

[Wayne Adams]

UPDATED! 28 feb 2009
Greets AGS folks, I've been a lurker here for a while, and done a few simple AGS projects in the past.. I think now's about the time to jump on the boards, for support in the beginner threads and of course to showcase what I'm doing..

Story / Gameplay information:The game revolves around the journey undertaken by the character "The Wanderer" As of late, this recluse has been hearing a voice inside his mind beckoning him north. The gameplay works a little differently then a standard point n click as the player will be able to move freely left and right in his environment, moving to adjacent screens will be done through the "Ring Menu" which i blatantly ripped of of Secret of Mana..


Archived Screenshots: http://www.wayneadams.net/stuffola/AGS_Stuff/wanderer/

Overlaying the scanlines ATM interferes with clicking on objects and such.. so for now.. I have them removed.. for those who weren't so hot on the scanlines, this is what it looks like without them..




Everytime the player talks to someone, activates something, picks up an item, I'm going to do a cut away to a still.. I'm testing this to see if the format brings the player closer to the characters.. The wanderer's face will NEVER be shown however, thus maintaining his aura of mystery:







As of now this is a rough of the game map. Red X's are finished rooms, circled rooms are exploratory only.. The rooms with yellow lines are critical path gameplay.. meaning the player could travel only those areas and complete the game (With a good ending) the extra rooms are only for those who like to look for extra stuff.. which will yield a reward of its own:



So.. a small update.. theres plenty more done.. everything in those screenshots is in game and working.. Thought I'd drop an update, as it may be a while til the next good update.. still lots of bugs creeping up here and there, but you guys have been great with trouble shooting and answering questions.. til next time.. The voice is calling, I must answer..

Wayne

[Darth Mandarb]

Art direction looks interesting ...

However, please review the forum rules and update your post!  Tell a little about the game, details, story, etc.

Also ... if these are not the final "in game" screenshots perhaps you should have waited a bit before posting?  Anyway ... please update your first post!

[Jakerpot]

Art`s good, but this black lines confuse me a bit... 

[SpacePirateCaine]

Personally, I really dig what you're doing with these scanlines, but I'm wondering how you achieve the effect? I may want to implement something not entirely different in a computer screen interface at some point in an upcoming work that I'm doing. I know how to accomplish it easily enough in an art program, but are you using some sort of full-screen overlay with an alpha channel? It's a smart effect that I'd never really thought of.

Aside from it looking mucho-cool, any specific reason for using it?

[TheJBurger]

This looks very interesting. I love the art direction as well. Good luck finishing!

[Wayne Adams]

The scanlines give it a retro effect.

Currently, until i figure out a better optimization, the scanline is an object that covers the play field (Everything inside the letterbox) It's a 32 bit targa that uses the alpha channel to eat out the blank spaces, and the lines themselves are currently about 50 percent alpha'd out so it isn't overly done.

After the project has more meat, I'll post scanline versus non scanline.. or heck, even make it an option to turn it off in game..

In it's current state it doesn't appear to have much affect on performance, but since it's very bare bones right now it's hard to say if it stays that way.. if anyone has a trick for optimizing this effect, I'm all ears..

Glad you guys like the direction..

[Layabout]

I think the graphics style is neat. It's also interesting that you used an overlay instead of just having it on the background. It will make for a much better effect when fully animated.

Any ideas on how you will pursue the animation side of things? All I can see right now is an unchanging static silhouette. Keeping it like this or are you going to detail the character. I personally like the silhouette effect. Very mysterious.

[Matti]

I really like the backgrounds as well as these black silhouettes, it gives the game a great atmosphere.

As for the scanlines: The possiblity to turn them on/off would be great cause though I don't really dislike them I guess when used on a continuing basis they would start to annoy me since they're not easy on the eye.

Good luck with further progress, I'm curious how this will turn out.

[Wayne Adams]

Thanks, the character currently has walk left walk right animation and an idle animation where his loose clothy bits billow in the wind.. after some more polish i may post the animations in ani. gif format if you guys like.. currently his idle animation is about ten frames, that double back on themselves (10 drawings, roughly 18 19 frames of animation).. also he and most foreground elements will be silouetted out, for style purposes, and to make him mysterious..

As an happy update, i got most of his HUDS working, a right click brings up the main menu which links to system options (save load quit..) travel options (going to adjacent screens) and possessions which is inventory, all the menus have 4 to 5 options except inventory which has 8 slots and a back button.. there will probably more items than eight in the game, but i plan on laying out so you never have more than eight at a time, thus making some of the puzzle solving less of a pain by trying item X on puzzle Y..

Thanks again for the comments guys, if you have suggestions or critiques I'm all ears.. I have pretty tough art skin

[ThreeOhFour]

Really appealing graphics here. The scanlines add a nice touch as well

Keep at it !

[Ubel]

Looks great! It has that amazing adventurous feel to it that I like.

[Andorxor]

Will the grass and the skulls hanging from the sign move in the wind too?

[GarageGothic]

Looks awesome, the style reminds me of the old Amiga game Blade Warrior. Good luck with the project!

Edit: I like the scanlines, but they may end up looking like crap when stretched to the native resolution of a TFT screen - so yes, definitely an option to turn them off. Also, instead of a full-screen alpha channel sprite, which may slow things down, how about just using a non-alpha sprite and - assuming it's displayed on a GUI - set the GUI transparency to 50%?

[Wayne Adams]

@ Andorxor: Yeah, little stuff like that will billow..
@ Garage: I've never seen that game, but i desperately want to play it now.. thank you for the link.

[Ultra Magnus]

This does look awesome.
Really nice style.

I'm a fan of the scan lines.
I was also planning on putting them in my game at one point (if you've ever seen the anime series Tokyo Underground you'd know precisely the effect that I was going to steal thinking of), but I ultimately decided against it.

Good luck with the game, and I anticipate its release.

[Dervish]

I love the look of the game makes me want to go on some epic adventure.  So from what I han tell this will be more of a 2-D adventure game similar to flashback or oohhh what was that game where the guy gets sucked into the computer and it has kinda similar blocky style ding ding Out of this World.  Anyway, really digging it so far keep up the good work.

[Cirius]

The Wanderer: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Forgive me, but I can't help but subtitle this game. That poor traveller looks like he's walked for miles, and keeps stopping in random places, looking around, and sighing miserably.

"Ooooh, is this it?!! Oh...no...that's not it..."

Who is this man?
Where is he going?
How does he get his scarf to billow like that constantly?

Find out in the next exciting adventure of The Wanderer!

I should write these things for a living...

As for the banding effect? My old tv did that once. You can fix it by smacking the top right hand side of your monitor. Don't thank me, I'm just glad to be of assistance.

Looks extremely interesting though, it's always nice to see projects that deviate from the tried and tested premise of ambling from A to B with a rope, a yellow key and a crowbar. I wish you the best of luck for completion.

[Wayne Adams]

New update 28 Feb 2009

[kaputtnik]

I like that style very much, it reminds me heavily of those Delphine action adventures like Another World or Flashback. Will your gameplay feature action sequences, or is it purely wandering and adventuring in a non-time critical manner?

[david]

really looooooookin forward to seeeeeeeeeing and playying this one

incredible atmosphere