Valis Chapter 1: New demo available!

bush_monkey · Mon 30/05/2005 12:42:27

Thank you everyone for the words of encouragement,They really help me motivate myself. I have worked more on the game in the last 2 days than I had done in the last two months :p A demo is also underway. All I need to do is tighten up the battle system and iron out a few bugs. So keep checking in

just finished updating the battle system

New battle system in action

hedgefield · Tue 31/05/2005 20:26:49

This is looking really great, I love the artsy style. Always good to see different genres of games made with AGS, especially if they look so special. Keep up the ace work!

Haddas · Tue 31/05/2005 21:28:35

Marvellous. Just... marvellous. I'll hit you in the face if you don't finish this!

bush_monkey · Tue 31/05/2005 21:43:03

Then I'd better make sure I do finish it

The game is going really well and a demo should be out very soon. All I need now is a reliable host. Any recommendations?

BorisZ · Tue 31/05/2005 21:55:18

Quote from: bush_monkey on Tue 31/05/2005 21:43:03
Then I'd better make sure I do finish itÃ,Â The game is going really well and a demo should be out very soon. All I need now is a reliable host. Any recommendations?

How much?

bush_monkey · Tue 31/05/2005 22:07:08

are any of the cheap ones any good? Or am I gonna have to pay through the nose :p

BorisZ · Tue 31/05/2005 22:10:12

Quote from: bush_monkey on Tue 31/05/2005 22:07:08
are any of the cheap ones any good? Or am I gonna have to pay through the nose :p

What do you need, upload space or URL name or...
I asked how much your game weights (in MB), because I can give you some reasonably fast free upload space if it isn't too heavy.

bush_monkey · Tue 31/05/2005 22:36:02

5.25 mb without music
music.vox is 4.02 mb (very good atmospheric music from my dad actually)

BorisZ · Tue 31/05/2005 22:42:49

I may be able to fit it in. PM me when you're done.

bush_monkey · Sun 05/06/2005 14:01:35

Okay. Quick update:
- The battle system is fully working
- The intro has been finalised
- The first few missions have been implemented.
- The characters are also now able to equip and unequip weapons (which helps

).
I'm working on the shop menu at the moment ( buying/selling GUI is a pain to implement but I'm getting there). Once that's done, the demo should be ready for release (after extensive testing). So in other words, I'm hoping to get the demo ready for next week-end.

...New screenshots

The town menu in all its glory

the pub owner has a job for you

bush_monkey · Sun 19/06/2005 22:28:01

just an update to let everyone know that, yes I am still working on the game and yes, the demo will be out soon.
It is just taking longer than expected to iron out a few things. Mainly, the difficulty level:
It is turning out to be very hard to make the fights balanced: Not too hard, not too easy; the monsters handing out a fair amount of experience points when killed, how many points needed for a level-up AND working out how much your characters stats should increase by with every level-up etc... It's a slow process of testing, testing and more testing :

In the meanwhile, here's a screenshot of one of the new monsters in action.

bush_monkey · Sat 25/06/2005 15:05:43

demo is now ready and available (link on the first post).

Ozzie · Sat 25/06/2005 20:19:40

HM, the demo plays nice.
Actually, I don't know much too say.

I should better start with the contra:
I'm sure that you plan to implement some more animation into the game.
In battles everything was so static, because you didn't see the attack performed. That was irritating. You said that not all options are implemented so far, so I expect that ther will be more possibilities in battles when you get more items, learn more spells and so on. It should be possible to change the weapon in a battle, even when it costs a round.

I personally would add to the battle mode combat points and the possibility to move. So you would need some points to go to the creature and perform the attack in close combat and points for the different attacks.

The game is also in need of some animated close-ups of the character. It feels so static and strange when the whole time nothing seems to happen but in reality you are talking to someone.

What I liked very much that things wer colored of the sketch when they were marked or you went with your mouse over it.

Hm, nice music, too. Fits in the background and doesn't distract, so it does its job.

bush_monkey · Sat 25/06/2005 23:44:16

Thanks for the comments, Ozzie. I know what you mean about the animations, but right that's very low down on my list of priorities. I intend to get the game fully working first and then implement little extras like battle anims and speech anims.
As for the battles, yes you're right, you will have far more options available to you. Most of them are actually in fully working order but due to time constraints, got taken out of the demo to polish the whole thing.
What still requires a lot of work is the balance of the battles. They are far too easy at the moment, and the characters seem to become too strong too fast (which is quite funny because the battles used to be far too hard!) so that's still an area that requires a lot of testing. Plus more monsters of varying strength are on their way.

Pet Terry · Wed 29/06/2005 13:17:36

I just tried out the demo and I must say I'm very excited about this game. The graphical style is excellent, I simply love it. The music is also very good and fitting. Actually, only thing that bugged me was that some of the sentences in game didn't start with capital letter.

Keep up the good work, I'll be eagerly waiting for the full game!

bush_monkey · Wed 29/06/2005 23:11:57

Thanks for the positive comments, Petteri. I'll make amending the text my top priority

Sinitrena · Thu 30/06/2005 18:03:16

I just played the demo and first I want to say that I like it. The battle system reminds me a bit of RPGMaker games and I think a few more animations would improve it greatly.
I like the level up screen.
But there seems to be a bug in the demo:
When Duvall reaches level 3 the game ends (sometimes, I tested it four times and it happend three times)with an error message (unfortunatly I forgot to copy it) I think it said something about line 2 in the room script and a line in the global script (sorry that I can't remember it better)

Something else I noticed: I'm not sure if you haven't scripted that yet, but when I try to use an item during a battle nothing happens. I can only use it when I'm not in a battle

bush_monkey · Thu 30/06/2005 18:14:25

That damn level 3 bug :p There is a couple of bugs I'm working on right now. An updated demo will be released shortly (as in tonight) which also includes more challenging monsters

as for using items in battles, you have to click on the item and then on the character you wish to use it on, it's not made very clear I know, I'll try and improve that. Thanks for the comments though.

monkey0506 · Thu 30/06/2005 20:04:46

It's nice to see a game that is going to make people go, "You made that with WHAT engine? No, no, no...You can't make a game like this with THAT engine...".

AGS - The word is spreading.

bush_monkey · Thu 30/06/2005 20:20:43

eheh. I'm a coding addict I'm afraid, and when I first saw AGS, it sounded interesting enough so I thought I'd look into it. Once I'd had a good read of the manual, my mind was hard at work with the possibilities. It is so easy to put something together in AGS but it also has real power under the bonnet. Probably one of the most versatile 2D engines around. I bow down to CJ