Apprentice II: The Knight's Move

[Czar]

Yeah, it's all great. But i have one complaint. It is that st00pid annoying music. Who made that anyways?
I thinkÃ,  I shouled ouse the old STFU n00b!!








for real! ;P

[Erwin_Br]

First of all: Fantastic job! I'm enjoying this game very, very much

I don't know if someone already found this bug, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating it: Navy Joe's puzzle (with the numbered pockets) crashed when I clicked one of the pockets. Some message appeared saying illegal object or illegal action (I accidentally clicked away the error msg). You might want to check it out.

One point of critique though: That music is waaay too cathcy, man! I find myself whistling Pib's theme and the harbour theme all the friggin' time! It's driving me nuts and I like it at the same time! 



Can't wait for Part 3 and the Find, of course 

--Erwin

[Gregjazz]

Yeah, we've been alerted to the presence of that crashing bug. I'll see what I can do. So the crash only happens with one certain pocket?

Also, is that the only place that it crashes? Or does it crash in other parts also?

[mirokyu_81]

Yeah, we've been alerted to the presence of that crashing bug. I'll see what I can do. So the crash only happens with one certain pocket?

Also, is that the only place that it crashes? Or does it crash in other parts also?

I noticed that the pocket game crashed when I received the same combination two times in a row.  For example if he indicates that the first pocket is five and I find the teddy bear, and then the very next round, he indicates the first pocket as being five once again, and so I had to select the same pocket two times in a row.

[Gregjazz]

I'll keep that in mind, but I'm not exactly sure why that would cause the crash.

At present, I believe it is one of these reasons:

- Clicking on a pocket and swiftly moving the cursor off. (this is probably not it, though, because I tested this method for a long time)

- Clicking very rapidly

- Only one of the pockets is acting up. (maybe I scripted one pocket wrong)

[Redwall]

What happened for me is the game seemed to hang after clicking on a pocket, leaving a few seconds between the click and the appearance of whatever was in the pocket, and giving you time to move the cursor off and cause the InvalidObject error. This only happened every once in a while, though.

[Mats Berglinn]

Strange... am I the only one who haven't got the game crashed during the Pocket game? It never happened to me ever. Maybe it's kind of a random error/bug?

I have by the way finished the game it was fantastic. I can't wait for part three and for the moment when Pib is going to kick Ironcrow's metallic butt (not litarely, because that would be too humorous if you see what I mean).

But there was something I noticed that nobody else said about.

Don't read if you haven't finished the game:

Spoiler

Although you see the screenshot of Ironcrow's wigroom it doesn't appear anywhere in the game, plus you only see Ironcrow twice with different wig. Why's that, Geoffkhan and Big Brother?

[close]

[Mephistophilis]

It does appear if you dress as a Soldier and keep talking to the lieutenant guy, eventually he will say:
"I wonder what devilry Lord Ironcrow is up to?"
and then it will show a scene of Ironcrow trying on different Wigs, including, I believe,  Bumpus' (from Sam and Max) wig on a hat stand to the left.

[foz]

There are some other references as well ....in the shipwreck near the potion is a model of a purple tentacle....

Great little touches like these add to the whole enjoyment.....

"off the subject .....greg i am still working on the MIA project when i can , sorry i have not been in contact much...i`ll have the game finished before the end of the year if its the last thing i do....."

Back to the subject...

HURRY UP AND MAKE THE LAST INSTALLMENT......This game leaves the first game behind by miles.......what will we get in the last game......3d cutscenes...

I thought Action Jackson was gonna win all the awards this year .......maybe not....

Theres a bit of competition...

Foz

[Mats Berglinn]

There are some other references as well ....in the shipwreck near the potion is a model of a purple tentacle....

And also Green Tentacle model on the shelf in the stable. I don't actually want to be picky but the correct term for funny references in Adventure Games are "in-jokes".

[Gregjazz]

Oh, there's a lot more "in-jokes" than just that. But I'll leave you guys to discover them.

Thank you so much, Redwall. You have given me a good idea how the crash occurs. So it is a matter of computer speed, which is why I couldn't get it to crash. But I'm going to put some code in to prevent that anyways.

Not sure 3D cutscenes is quite what we're going for in Apprentice. That might not fit the style. Right now we're beginning work on The Find -- we're all sick of working on Apprentice. We'll make the last installment of Apprentice after The Find, then.

EDIT: The updated version is now available. It has replaced the old download link. Don't worry if you're in the middle of a download of the old version, because I didn't overwrite it.

[GarageGothic]

Another great game - and a lot longer than the original! The graphics and sounds are fabulous. I still suck at these LucasArts kind of puzzles, and don't really enjoy them - same thing with No Action Jackson - but at least the bonus puzzle was much easier to find this time around.

Two thumbs up. Looking forward to The Find!

Is it just me, or did that sunset at the end look a lot like the ending of Full Throttle?

[JBiker51]

I had a whole lot of fun playing this game and can't wait for Apprentice 3: Checkmate! Though maybe you should change the name to something else besides Apprentice 3, because he's now a fully fledged wizard. Oh, and I loved the mice that jump up and say Bom inside the book. PLEASE start working on Apprentice 3, I really want to see what happens and I want more adventure out of the story.

[Ginny]

I can't wait for The Find aswell, I'm sure it'll be of the same quality. I think there's a certain feel to the name Apprentice that suits this, so I prefer the name you have already .

And btw, I love the irnoy of the game.

[big brother]

Glad to hear people are enjoying it!

GarageGothic: Yes, indeed, that sunset is similar. I used the exact colors FT used because I wanted to evoke the same feel. You've got some good eyes there! You might want to take out an insurance policy on them or at least lock them in a safe when you go to bed at night.

JBiker51: I wish our cloning project didn't fall through, otherwise we could make a whole army of myselves and Gregors to work on multiple projects (maybe take over the world while we're at it). But right now, we both need to take a break from Apprentice and work on an entirely different (better?) project. I know that if I had to redraw one more frame of Pib, I would probably drop kick the monitor out the front window.

However, I have started the design document for Checkmate and come up with some (hopefully) pretty good stuff so far. It looks like the third installment will be longer than the second and have a bit of a darker tone.

As far as the name goes, we also realized the Apprentice misnomer, too. But between Master and Pib, Pib will always be Master's apprentice. I know this sounds like a cop-out, but it's also important for people to recognize that Checkmate belongs in the Apprentice trilogy.

[mätzyboy]

After spending a few days trying to

Spoiler

find a book to lure the dragon with

[close]

, I finally read a hint. That puzzle sure was tricky, I don't understand how one should figure it out. I thought

Spoiler

the potion was to be used for giving Seacookie a head start in the race or something

[close]

Still have a bit to go, will come back with my full opinion after finishing...

EDIT:
Right! I've dunnit now...

Lovely game! Great graphics and atmosphere in the game. The only downs of the game is the problem described above, and the pixelpushing needed to find some stuff. Otherwise - a masterpiece! Will definately play the last part aswell!

[rharpe]

Wow! The animations, backgrounds and music are superb!!! Character development is very well done too. Story is a bit different, but enjoyable. After seeing the pirate girl animate, I'd have to say someone knows there anatomy pretty well to animate it like that! 

Splendid job to all that created this wonderful game.

[Nostradamus]

I just finished the game. Like the first one it is very well done in any category. Nice twist in the end.. really makes you anticipate part III

Big thumbs up!

[auhsor]

Now I wish I had time to play this. I'm in the middle of backing up all my data and doing a complete windows reinstall, so unfortunately I can't play it at the moment. I did have a look at it and it is awesome looking, and the dialogue is cool.

[Ginny]

One more question to the designers before this thread nears the second page. This is more of a general question, and I considered asking it in PM, but thought I'd share it with the rest . I also considered making into a whole new topic at the Adventure Talk forum, but I'll do that once I have more ideas gathered. This is partially due to the article Ian wrote about conversationg, but I've been pondering this long ago too, so here goes:

I noticed in some places in both Apprentice I and II, that there were references to characters, events, places, etc, that we have never seen and may never see in the game. I can't point out a good example at this time of night, but I noticed comments like "That sign looks just like a hat my great-uncle Jerald used to wear for parties." (hypothetic naturally ).
When these things end up in a game (such as Apprentice) I always wonder how you add that in.

One theory I have is that you add it on the fly, making a note of the idea possibly, for future use, but in truth you just invented that great-uncle Jerald while writing the conversation. This can be tricky cause it's a bit random, and you may not get the idea of adding that in. This is a quick way to give characters lots of depth though, in my opinion. For example, that off-the-top-of-my-head comment (a response to looking at a sign prolly) could be very good at convincing the player that the main character has always had that great-uncle, and makes it seem like the character has a history.

The other theory I had for doing this was actually writing out a (relatively) complete history for (almost) every character, in this case with a family tree full of all sorts of quirky characters, and try to reference them in the game. Of course, I doubt you would think of a great-uncle who wears hats the shape of french fries or something absurd like that, so fitting it to your needs can be done. In more serious games however, having a solid history to shape personality and comments etc might be a good idea. Plus it must be fun, and probably encouraging, to have a document/biography of a character to read, or even to add with the game as an extra (only if there won't be sequels though, cause that could slightly ruin some of the tension or surprise. possibly not such a good idea to release it actually). Some people didn't like reading lots of documents and books and the diary in TLJ, but I found it highly enjoyable, and would love to have the option to read a long imaginary history book about an adventure game world. It can be so much better than real history

On second thought, maybe I should post this in Adventurea Talk . I guess I just had to let that out, but my real question is, what did you do when writing the conversations? Make it up or pre-write it, or perhaps something completely different?