The Journey Down: Over the Edge

theo · Wed 18/08/2010 23:08:00

That's right! Chapter 1 is finished! I have been working on and off on this game (and its following chapters) for over 5 years. Man does it feel strange to post this or what?!.... I didn't realize I'd one day actually have to release this and stop picking at it. Wow. What an odd feeling. My brain is tingling. I was hoping to feel a great calm and sort of bathe in an all round sense of closure upon release... instead I get this foreboding feeling that this project has barely started. What a wonderful thought!

A big thanks goes out to all you testers out there. You have done an amazing job hunting down issues!

Here are some screens for those of you who missed the production thread:

The Journey Down is a classical point and click adventure game, full to the brim with puzzles, conspiracies, mystery and adventure!

In chapter 1 "Over the Edge" we follow Bwana and his trusted sidekick Kito, as they struggle to make ends meet at their waterfront gas station in an off-beat place called Kingsport bay. When all hope seems lost and the power company is on their case with a mean threat, something promising appears. A woman. A woman with cash. What strings does she come attached with? What secrets are hiding underneath her fair surface? Find out, in chapter one of The Journey Down!

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Please drop me a line if you do play through the game and tell me what you liked and what you didn't like. Honesty sucks, but I need it. I'm about to get my hands dirty with chapter two and the more feedback I get this time around, the better chapter two will be.

Also obviously if you find any bugs or odd flaws in chapter 1, please don't hesitate to send 'em my way. I will most likely be updating the exe some time soon with fixes to the issues that arise now that more people start playing the game.

Thanks for playing! I've had a great time making it, I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Here follows a collection of links related to the game:
Jayisgames feature.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun feature.
Game, set watch feature.
Interview on Zombie Apocalypse
INDIE GAMES Freeware Game Pick
PC GAMER Feature
IGC Feature
GAMASUTRA Best of indie games
Review on HardyDev
Review on the Slow down
Interview on the Slow down
Review on CaptainD's PC Gaming Blog
Official GAME JOLT profile

My own article on HardyDev
Sketches and Deleted scenes

ThreeOhFour · Wed 18/08/2010 23:14:15

Congrats on release man! Easily one of my favourite AGS games, awesome work.

Can't wait to see what you do for the next chapter!

Ryan Timothy B · Wed 18/08/2010 23:16:37

I also can't wait. I can only imagine what chapter 2 holds for us.

Great work and congrats. The hard work will pay off.

Igor Hardy · Thu 19/08/2010 01:02:04

Easily the best freeware AGS game released this year so far. And one of the best looking ever.

I'm only a bit sad you didn't pull it off in higher resolution. The quality of the art really deserves it.

More feedback later.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Thu 19/08/2010 01:42:18

Very nicely done, all around. It has a sense of nostalgia with it that makes the game feel like a lost early 90's gem rather than something recent, and that's a compliment!

Sughly · Thu 19/08/2010 05:42:30

I didn't get far into it (yet!) but it's very impressive indeed (though we all saw that in the screens a long time ago

). Can't wait to get back into it tonight... and congrats on the release after such a long period in development! I can only imagine the feeling.

GarageGothic · Thu 19/08/2010 06:58:01

Beautiful work. I haven't played much, but even going in with high expectations from those gorgeous and super stylish screenshots, seeing the game in motion absolutely blows my mind. The animated light changes are among the most gorgeous effects I've ever seen in a 2D game. Also, I love your use of close-ups, both for cutscenes and puzzle solving - the hands-on approach to the first puzzle is right up my alley (one of my own key design principles in fact), so hoping to see more of that further into the game.

I'd actually disagree with ProgZ about the nostalgia factor - not that it's absent or anything (I did get a strong MI2 vibe from the interior of the house at the docks), but the reason I find the game so appealing is precisely because it's not trying to emulate the "classics". Feels very refreshing, also in terms of music and style of humor, a not particularly retro despite the lo-res. Really looking forward to playing some more. Nice touch with the PDF manual, btw.

arj0n · Thu 19/08/2010 08:01:50

Congratz on releasing this

Anian · Thu 19/08/2010 10:12:46

Really nice and beautiful game. The walking animation is a bit strange, but small, or should I say tiny, things like that can be seen, still it looks very profesional. Like a cross betwenn Grim fandango and Full throttle. If it had voice acting, it would be pro stuff.
Oh, and the music, while in some places might be a bit too exagerated for me (that's because I try to image people saying the lines), still is very awesome mix of styles.

markbilly · Thu 19/08/2010 16:35:57

Played a bit of this and the production values are excellent. Lots of animation, and good at that!

Looks like this is the game to beat this year! *gulp*

Khris · Thu 19/08/2010 16:50:30

This is so far one of the best AGS games I have ever played. It genuinely feels like made by LucasArts around the time they published The Dig or Full Throttle, immediately before the switch to highres.

My only two, very minor!, quirks are the font and the down-scaling of the characters. I think the optics would definitely have benefited from a font at least slightly different from the default one.
The nearest neighbor scaling of the characters is much harder (impossible?) to avoid; it's quite noticeable because the sprites are pretty big though.

I didn't get that far yet but only stopped because I had to go to bed. I'll continue playing later today.

And let me say the lighting effects (car headlights on wall at the very beginning) are breathtaking, very nice work!

Anian · Thu 19/08/2010 17:06:15

Quote from: Khris on Thu 19/08/2010 16:50:30
I didn't get that far yet but only stopped because I had to go to bed. I'll continue playing later today.

And let me say the lighting effects (car headlights on wall at the very beginning) are breathtaking, very nice work!

You should see the end. Brilliant production.

Monsieur OUXX · Thu 19/08/2010 17:21:27

Quote from: Khris on Thu 19/08/2010 16:50:30
It genuinely feels like made by LucasArts around the time they published The Dig or Full Throttle, immediately before the switch to highres.

Yep.
- Gorgeous graphics
- Clever "directing" (close-ups, angles, etc.)
- Cool story telling (just enough to hook up the player)

Now I must PLAY the game to see if the puzzles are up to the rest ;-)

Crimson Wizard · Thu 19/08/2010 17:39:12

I totally agree with Khris regarding sprite scaling. At first I wanted to mention this when was beta-testing, but then I thought it's far too late to fix this, taking total production time into account, so I did not.
Well, perhaps you may consider fixing this in some future "deluxe" version.

Also, I really hate to say this, but

Spoiler

I actually liked the older "beta" soundtrack more, especially "Bad Boss" theme and "Makenas dinner" theme.

[close]

ddq · Thu 19/08/2010 19:17:09

So far, very nice, but ran into a bit of a bug!

Spoiler

As soon as I put the steering wheel on the plane, the main character said it was the last part, even though I'd only gotten the propeller and not the engines, therefore, missing a big chunk of the game! Also, I was able to get the fan a second time after I had given it to the mechanic.

[close]

Still very awesome, but might want to fix that!

theo · Thu 19/08/2010 20:09:26

Thank you all for the kind words! It happies (svengelska rocks) me knowing that you guys are having a good time playing it!
Regarding sprite scaling: I agree. Perhaps next chapter goes higher res. We'll see! I am having a hard time making up my mind on that issue actually.. So many pros and cons.

ddq: thanks for the feedback and bug report!

It certainly isn't supposed to end without having fixed all the quests. Must look into this!
What order did you do things in?`roughly? I'd love to be able to reproduce this.
I don't doubt for a second that there are loads of small similar bugs a lurkin'. Please don't hesitate to inform me of them!

I've known all along that I'd have to make an update some time after the release, it is only to expect.

thanks!

ddq · Thu 19/08/2010 20:22:33

Oddly enough, when I reloaded my last save and

Spoiler

got the engine first, the same thing happened before I could attach the wheel. I had already given Kito the propeller, so that might have something to do with it. I'll start again from scratch and see if I can do things in such an order as to not end the game prematurely.

[close]

Overall, the puzzles were great, just as long as I got to do them all!

Crimson Wizard · Thu 19/08/2010 21:39:06

Quote from: theo on Thu 19/08/2010 20:09:26
Regarding sprite scaling: I agree. Perhaps next chapter goes higher res. We'll see! I am having a hard time making up my mind on that issue actually.. So many pros and cons.

I think there's another way, without making hi-res game. You can make extra set of sprite frames for distant views and close ups (one like the insides of plane scene), which would be scaled up/down manually. This will require extra work, ofc, including scripting view changes, but you won't be needing a switch to hires.

GarageGothic · Thu 19/08/2010 21:59:23

I really don't see any problem with the sprite scaling - unless you activate the "smooth scaled characters" option which makes them look horribly blurred to a degree I never noticed in any other AGS title. Perhaps I'm missing the finer points of pixelart, but to me the character scaling is perfectly good as-is and doesn't detract one bit from the overall beauty of the artwork. Then again, I was never an "all the doors have to be the same size to avoid scaling" nazi (nor were the guys at LucasArts back in their day, btw).

Not that I wouldn't love a hi-res version, though

theo · Thu 19/08/2010 23:06:20

Ddq: I have located and stomped out the bug. New zip will be online within a couple of minutes. Big thanks for noticing this!

Wizard: Yes, two spritesets solves the problem when they work separately, but there's no way to fade between them. Simply switching between spritesets between rooms, I do all the time. The plane scene however uses animation that I only had in the low res version though, thus the characters look extra broken in that very scene. A part from that one I have given Bwana unique sprites every time we zoom on him. If I remade the whole game from scratch I would definately have done him more hires from the start. Good lessons for the coming chapter!

GarageGothic: This whole "scaling characters or no scaling characters" really is an interesting discussion and also an interesting choice one does when starting an adventure game project. I could ramble about my personal opinions regarding the pros and cons forever.... I personally have always preferred lucasarts approach, where characters scale like crazy, this makes them pixly but on the other hand it opens up for some amazing room design... definitely worth the penalty of pixly characters. You will notice however that whenever guybrush gets zoomed in in mi1+2 theres always a completely different sprite showing him, and the standard sprite never really gets very big. Guybrush never dares to wander close to the camera. Skillful room design, that's what that is.

Khris: hehe I'm starting to get the feeling this font thing will haunt me. I've had several similar comments so far. I guess this ags crowd is pretty much fed up with that font by now... This too, I will keep in mind for the next chapter.