Adventure Game Studio

STORY :

After the experience in southern New Jersey, you are moved to another division of the FBI and promoted to special agent status. This new division investigates the stranger cases, and this is one of them. Cattle have been mutilated, taken long distances from their farms and eaten by something. There have been sightings of large creatures in the sky and three unsolved murders within recent months. You are thrust into an investigation ripe with intrigue as you explore Montana while trying to solve the mystery of who or what is killing the cattle, and why three people have turned up dead. Could it be a creature thought extinct millions of years ago? Or do the Sioux Indians have something to do with it?

UPDATE LOG:
v1.1
-----
- Fixed crash problem if gun is drawn in the Sheriff's office.
- Fixed crash problem if gun is drawn with inventory window open.
- Fixed scaling issues with Arsay on some screens on Day 3.


INFO:

Talons of Terror is in 640x480 resolution, running in Hi-Color mode, and is a free download.  This was my second game using the AGS engine, and is much better (in my opinion) overall than the first game.  It is longer, more professional and polished and a much better experience overall.  There was rather extensive beta testing on this (special thanks to all the testers who helped iron this thing out, add a few more puzzles, and make it a much more enjoyable experience overall).

The game focuses on the experience from a story-telling perspective.  I try to be as immersive as possible (with some light hearted quips and such mixed in, along with a bunch of hidden and not so hidden references to Adventure Games of old).

I am really proud of this game, and hope you take the time to download and play it.  The file size is about 25mb.  No voice acting, but maybe in Episode 3.

WEBSITE / DOWNLOAD:  http://www.billandnicole.net/games

SCREENSHOTS:

(http://www.billandnicole.net/games/ep2/ss1.png)  (http://www.billandnicole.net/games/ep2/ss2.png)  (http://www.billandnicole.net/games/ep2/ss3.png)  (http://www.billandnicole.net/games/ep2/ss4.png)

Woot just now? Great, downloading promise to play.. ;)

Congratulations! Finally it's there. Looking forward to part 3 ;-)

Thanks Dualnames.  I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks also Leon.  Couldn't have done it without you :)    Part 3 is underway, and I will definitely message you when Beta opens :)

-Bill

The Murran games got a little promotion:

Escape24Games (http://www.escapegames24.com/) picked up on this.

I enjoyed your game immensly, and I do look forward to part 3. I would gladly help with voice acting, or even better film some characters on green screen to make the sprites more consistent.

Thanks for the kind words!  I am glad you liked the game.

I might (probably will) take you up on the voice acting offer for game 3.  The game is coming along nicely, and I AM planning on adding in voiceovers.  I will post the open call once I finish the dialog scripting with it.

As for the green screen, I have no idea how to go about doing that and make a good sprite set animation from it.  Art is not really my strong point, which is why I try to focus on having as intriguing and (hopefully) well told story as possible.

Thanks!

Bill

Awesome if you need help just PM me :)

Just played and so far I'm still playing (that's good), when and if I finish it, I'll tell you my opinion on it. So far so good.. ;)

Awesome goodness! I haven't played it or even downloaded it yet, but I will Monday - no time right now!

Dualnames : I hope you like it :)  Please do let me know how you like it when finished. 

Snake: I see by your user tag that you are a fan of nostalgia :)  There are quite a few toss-ins saluting older Sierra games: Sheriff's name, the sign above the window in the vet's office, 'using' the fake tree in the police station, etc, etc.  :)

-Bill

I thought the sherrif had a familiar face as well...

Nope Leon, the Sheriff was an actual Sheriff.  Not any throwback to yesteryear :)

In Episode 1, Larry Lowe in the library was Al Lowe's face, but thats about it.  But I consider Episode 1 to be more of a "teach myself AGS" type thing because the character, portrait and animation graphics were very inconsistent. :)

Also, in Episode 1 I screwed up and imported an ENORMOUS version of Al Lowe's face as an inventory item, and couldn't change the image since it was off the screen.  So I left it in there (not gettable, but in the game nonetheless).  hehe.

-Bill

He reminded me of Jim Walls....  :)

Quote from: Leon on Sun 12/04/2009 20:41:28
He reminded me of Jim Walls....  :)

Ah!  Nope, no Police Quest stuff in there.  There are a few things in the police station's pamphlets, but not the sheriff himself :)

-Bill

So Bill, how did you go about collecting images for the game?

Quote from: Xenogia on Sun 12/04/2009 23:45:46
So Bill, how did you go about collecting images for the game?

Some a take myself (I live in a small town, so a bunch of the small towney photos were really easy for me to get).  The rest of the photos are public domain images I find on the internet.  I never use anything which is copyrighted or has any kind of licensing issues about them.  I am cheap and don't want to pay for images, and prefer to avoid lawsuits for copyright infringement (see cheapness clause above)  :)  Hahaha

-Bill

Just finished episode 2, graphixwise much more uniform than the first one, much better characteranimations as the first one.. great story background.. and this one was also just like the first one a lot of fun to play.. only problem I had was with the jellybeans (like others also missed some of the dialog).. next time I hope there will be less dialog clicking 'puzzles' and more itempuzzles, also the walking speed near the motel to the mainstreet was annoyingly slow, so maybe add something like 'the vacuum' did, pressing space to bypass the complete animation walkcycle..

But I'm certainly looking forward to playing the next game, and hopefully after that one even more episodes.. I certainly like the 'x-files' approuch..
So good luck with your next episode and thanx for creating these fun games..

Glad you liked it!

Thanks for the feedback too.  I am definitely putting in something to skip the animations in game 3.  I got several suggestions to do that, and I didn't realize how much people hate it :)  Or I could just disable the speed scaling from distances.. Either way..

I like the dialog driven puzzles because my fear is in putting in object oriented puzzles which don't "fit" the feel of the game.  I hate games that put in inventory puzzles just for the sake of putting them in.  Game 3 thus far has more inventory or 'quest' type puzzles than ep1 or ep2.

Thanks again!

Bill

Great to hear about more inventory puzzles.. But I can imagine it's difficult to find the right balance (and preference of people) and I agree completely about not putting a puzzle in just because of needing an extra puzzle instead of actually adding to the story..
And I'm really looking forward to ep3 as I already felt a big progress between ep1 and ep2, so I gather ep3 will be even much better as ep1 and ep2 which already where some great games..
Thanx..

Just wanted to say that I finished your game yesterday and really enjoyed it! Is a big improvement over the first game (which was good anyway) and I look forward to playing the next one.

Also is great to see how you really seem determined to do things the right way - it gives me confidence that all your games are going to be well worth playing!

And if you're interested, Talons of Terror is the first game I've reviewed on my Adventure Games Review blog at http://jd-adventuregamereviews.blogspot.com/

So yeah, check it out it you have time.

And many congrats on the game!  :)

Very nice review, thanks :)

I will take your comments to heart on the 3rd game, which is underway now.  All of the critiques make sense and I think you're on to something.

One quick note about your review..  The 1st game takes place in New Jersey.  Episode 2 takes place in Montana.  Tyaskin, Montana to be exact :)  (Its a fictional place.  I live in a town called Tyaskin, so I threw it in there)

Thanks!

Bill

Oops, sorry about giving the wrong location  ::) - have corrected it now though.  :)

Good luck with the third game!

If it wasn't for possible infringement you should say it's like a Ben Jordan game in the forum title. But anyways I found some bugs.

Spoiler

Namely with the gun.

[close]

Spoiler

- The game seems to crash if you pull out the gun on the cop when he's in his office.
- If you pull out the gun while in inventory mode the game crashes.
- I found numerous Oscar bugs where he's huge and seems to be stuck in one place on Day 3. (The Farm lake and the initial screen of the Sioux location.)

[close]

I also created a saved game file that has the blue cup and Al Lowe inventory items unlocked at the beginning of Murran Chronicles 1. There was also a second blue cup but I didn't include it due to redundancy. But be warned clicking on these inventory items with the pointer will cause your game to crash because you didn't actually pick them up in the game.

Download it here:

http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/98104/agssave-006.html

Quote from: Bjyman on Sun 19/04/2009 12:14:35
If it wasn't for possible infringement you should say it's like a Ben Jordan game in the forum title.

I think by reading the description of the game, you get an idea as to the kind of game it is.  If, after reading the description, someone goes in thinking its like King's Quest or something, there is something wrong with them :)  In fact, on my website, I mention the BJ series and Grundislav Games even with a link to their site.

Quote from: Bjyman on Sun 19/04/2009 12:14:35

Spoiler

- The game seems to crash if you pull out the gun on the cop when he's in his office.
- If you pull out the gun while in inventory mode the game crashes.
- I found numerous Oscar bugs where he's huge and seems to be stuck in one place on Day 3. (The Farm lake and the initial screen of the Sioux location.)

[close]

I will resolve those bugs, thanks for the heads up.  It must've slipped by the beta testers as well as myself.

Quote from: Bjyman on Sun 19/04/2009 12:14:35
I also created a saved game file that has the blue cup and Al Lowe inventory items unlocked at the beginning of Murran Chronicles 1. There was also a second blue cup but I didn't include it due to redundancy. But be warned clicking on these inventory items with the pointer will cause your game to crash because you didn't actually pick them up in the game.

Download it here:

http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/98104/agssave-006.html

Episode 1 was much more of a learning experience for myself using AGS.  I am not surprised there are more bugs in it, but I will fix those if I can find them.

Thanks,

Bill

Thanks much for those tips, I have updated the game and just finished uploading v1.1 to my server right now.  It fixes all those bugs mentioned.  I have had a problem with the Arsay scaling thing since day 1 (not in-game day 1, but literally the first day I began writing the game lol).  For some reason, the game's pathing wants to move him to odd zones which pop his scale out of whack (even though there is no scale size of that type on the room.  It is odd.)  My beta testers found a bunch of instances of it over the month or so it was in testing, and I thought I'd caught it all. 

Again, thanks much for the heads up.  I will work on the Ep1 bugs now, but thats tough since the inventory items you have aren't even made available in the game..  I dunno what the heck I did.  As I said, I was still learning AGS when I made that game :)

Thanks!

Bill

In Episode 1. Aside from leaving the stuff as inventory options in the game you did nothing wrong. I used a program called Art Money to change the values in the games memory adresses while running and then saved the game with the changed values after doing so. Art Money is very compatible with AGS so long as you don't change the wrong memory adresses.

Haha, so it isn't a bug then :)  Memory hackers don't count.

I don't think its possible to remove inventory items from the game, and I had nothing else to do with them, so for one I put Al Lowe's head as the image, and the other I left as a blue cup.

Once in the AGS software, I couldn't find an option to delete an inventory item.  So in it stays :)

-Bill

It's strikes as being odd that AGS wouldn't let you do that. But I know you can replace the inventory sprites. So if you run across that again you could cover it up with red herrings.

Or just overwrite them with inventory items you want to use maybe.

Quote from: Bjyman on Sun 19/04/2009 23:34:41
In Episode 1. Aside from leaving the stuff as inventory options in the game you did nothing wrong. I used a program called Art Money to change the values in the games memory adresses while running and then saved the game with the changed values after doing so.

What's the use of that? Hacking binaries to win a game? Just for fun? It has at least nothing to do with the game. And then telling the author that the game crashes because you tampered with it? Strange behaviour....

It's the same as saying to the soda-producer: Your fizzy drink has a strange taste..... I see you put water in it  and now I've boiled it.

You can get the same results with your operating system you know.... open your kernel.exe, find a nice value and change it..... I can predict the outcome, if your machine is still running. And please.... tell the author! They'd be thrilled to know... really!

Quote from: Leon on Thu 23/04/2009 09:00:12

Quote from: Bjyman on Sun 19/04/2009 23:34:41
In Episode 1. Aside from leaving the stuff as inventory options in the game you did nothing wrong. I used a program called Art Money to change the values in the games memory adresses while running and then saved the game with the changed values after doing so.

What's the use of that? Hacking binaries to win a game? Just for fun? It has at least nothing to do with the game. And then telling the author that the game crashes because you tampered with it? Strange behaviour....

I agree completely, he shouldn't even have brought it up..