Some beginning background sketches

[Uhfgood]

Thanks Oddysseus,

assuming no one else replies, i'll probably do a clean up sketch and and ink, and then do the base coloring.  After that i'm deciding whether or not I should continue to finish the background, or wait until i've started the animation of the character working within the room...  As I'm the only person working on this, I needed a working but still not finished background (final yes, but you get to play with the drawers and books in the book case, and putting clothes in the closet etc)... So i'll build the animation without any real details about the character... more than a stickman though, probably a humanoid form with no features, when i can get him to walk, i'll start finishing up the background by adding lighting and so forth... then i'll start detailing the character, doing a back and forth between the character and the background.

It all depends, and anyone that has suggestions on what you think it's more important (finish the background, do the animation, or do both back and forth till each is ready).

Thanks to everyone
Keith

[Oddysseus]

I'd say you should finish coloring the room, then draw one frame of the character completely, so that you can make sure it fits in the background with regards to scale and style.  If you have a generic humanoid, you won't be able to tell if the colors and style of the character are right.

Also, I find animation very difficult, and more importantly, unneccessary at this stage.  I would recommend you plan all the "rooms" and characters in your game, and then work on them.  You can worry about animation, dialogue, and cutscenes once you've gotten to the actual coding part of the game.  For now, you should just build up all the resources you'll need.  It should make it much easier to assemble the game in the end, if you already have all the pieces.

I should mention that I haven't completed a finished game yet, but I'm using this method to work on my own game right now (in production for two months) and it's worked for me so far.

[Uhfgood]

okay so work on the room until it's finished.  Draw a frame of the character, i am planning on using scaling to make them fit into the room.  I'm probably going to use the full size of the paper (8-1/2 inches) for the character, to make sure everything fits together, will probably scale up part of the background that he works in, do my animation over that, and then scale the final image down in the program.

So you basically think all the backgrounds should be done first really?

By the way i've finished several games but never an adventure game, so we're sort of on the same footing, except you've got 2 months on me ;-)

[Oddysseus]

Finishing all the backgrounds is more a necessity for my current project, as it is nonlinear, and the player can basically go anywhere at any time.  If you have a story that takes your character to a variety of different locations, you may only find it necessary to finish all the backgrounds of the first area, code them, and then move on to the next.

However, I find it useful to work on all the backgrounds at once so I can be sure they match each other in terms of style, color, amount of detail, etc.  Also, it gives me concrete evidence of progress, and when the time comes to code the game, I can worry about changing little things in the backgrounds without completely redrawing them because I've planned ahead and know where all the objects and interactions are going to be.

That, or maybe I'm just stalling because I've never coded a game before 

[Uhfgood]

Well part of this for me is the fact that I don't have most of the puzzles done... I need to complete some puzzles before I can judge how long it will take to play.  Obviously it will take longer for someone who doesn't know the solution, but I feel I can give a decent guestimate about how long it will take the average player once I know how long it takes me to do stuff.  But I will keep your suggestions in mind.