Hey everyone, and welcome to a shameless self-plugging thread about this game we're making called Gibbous.
(http://i.imgur.com/aBsxwDL.jpg)
Gibbous is a classic 2d point and click adventure, and yes it's a Lucas Arts-like game. It also is, as the subtitle so unsubtle-y gives it away, a loving spoof of everything Lovecraftian, and then some.
The Story
You get to play as two characters (well, technically three):
Don R. Ketype
(http://i.imgur.com/QI69TGE.jpg)
Grizzled, jaded badass private detective Ketype is hired by mysterious patrons to seek out the dreaded Necronomicon, and that's how the game starts out. How bad could things go, really? After all, it aint nothin' but a book of some sorts… Don will cater to your noir needs, including describing how the rain pattered down on the concrete like a neurotic jazz band percussionist, sometimes without anyone around to appreciate his poetic similes.
Buzz Kerwan
(http://i.imgur.com/33Trp9a.jpg)
Buzz is no more than a mild mannered cust... erm, librarian putting in hours at the Miskatonic University Library to pay for his belated tuition (he's in his 30s, but that's cool, man, y'know?). He accidentally stumbles upon the Necronomicon, and also accidentally turns his cat, Kitteh, into a…
Kitteh
(http://i.imgur.com/z9Z6DKj.jpg)
...well, a grouch, really. Kitteh is REALLY pissed off at Buzz inadvertently yanking her from her serene, illuminated state - everyone knows cats are buddhists. She doesn't want to worry about stuff like death cults seeking out the very object that personified her; all she wants is to go back to a worry-free life of sleep and kitty treats. Thus, Buzz and Kitteh set out to find someone, anyone who can help reverse Kitteh's transformation.
(http://i.imgur.com/hjeWoUA.gif)
Ok, ok, what about Cthulhu?
This story doesn't take place, as you'd probably expect, in Lovecraft's 1920s. It's a tale of an alternative present where death cults are popping out everywhere, all in competition to find the Necronomicon and awaken Cthulhu, a lot of them just to prove that THEY're the real cultists, and the rest are just a bunch of posers.
About the game...
As I mentioned before, we're going for that old school point and clicky goodness. All characters are fully animated, mostly frame by frame, but also combined with some cutout animation; all backgrounds are handpainted (which takes up a lot of time, but that's the way to go as far as we're concerned).
The game will feature all known traits of the genre, and one I'm particularly determined to enforce: almost every possible combination of two items, whether in inventory or in the game world, will result in anywhere from one to five unique responses, so no more doing different actions just to have the same grating line thrown back at you. Of course, that takes a hell of a lot of writing, and makes voice acting a harder goal to reach, but, again, it's something we really don't want to compromise on.
We're developing the game in Unity.
The influences!
Gibbous is a love letter to HP Lovecraft, Tim Schafer, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve Purcell,Ron Gilbert, Karl Pilkington and some other folks. Not that we're big on sending love letters to dead people.
The team!
The team consists of three people: myself as a writer, character & background artist, secondary animator, game designer and music composer; a main animator who also does sfx and additional music, and a programmer. We're based in Tirgu Mures, Transylvania, Romania.
Coming soon!
Gibbous is expected to have a fully functional vertical slice demo some time this coming spring, and we definitely want to Kickstart the project, since you can probably tell it will take some finances to get a game like this going smoothly.
So that's that, looking forward to your feedback and I'll be happy to answer any and all of your questions, as long as they're not about programming stuff or winning lottery numbers.
Looks pretty pretty, dare I say. The color palette is so smooth in my eyes. Keep us posted.
Isn't this LucasArts font copyrighted? :) The game looks fantastic, btw!
Hey guys! Thanks for your kind words :)
@Gribbler: the font used is The Secret Font Of Monkey Island (http://ptless.org/sfomi.html), which from what I can tell is fan-made and freely available. I have no idea if Lucas have any issues with it, I hope we won't find out the hard way! :P Worst come to worst, we'll probably go with a similar, uncopyrighted font. If anyone more law-savvy can enlighten us, I'd highly appreciate it.
Y'know, that almost made me collapse in awe :cheesy: A Lovecraftian game with Bill Tiller-ish graphics, just perfect.
This makes me think of Crouch End, a great Lovecraft-inspired story by Stephen King. I really recommend it as a source of inspiration.
You're too kind, mr Wolf :) And yes, Bill Tiller is a huge inspiration on the game, his work makes up for the majority of my inspiration wall (http://i.imgur.com/dfe7Bk8.jpg) :-D.
I have a lot of catching up on the King's stuff to do, so I'm including Crouch End there, yup. At the moment I'm re-reading HP's stuff, I don't know how many people are aware that the game's working title is a play on The Whisperer... Well, folks for some reason seem to think it's a reference to The Last Of Us, so wish me luck as I embark on the search for a better, final title.
Also, here's a gif of random Buzz animations:
(http://i.imgur.com/ObOGlna.gif)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 17/12/2014 10:39:56
It's a tale of an alternative present where death cults are popping out everywhere, all in competition to find the Necronomicon and awaken Cthulhu, a lot of them just to prove that THEY're the real cultists, and the rest are just a bunch of posers.
By the way, if you're planning to include secret societies and stuff, I can also recommend A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is set in an alternative pseudo-Gothic present where almost every person is involved in one or another secret organization, with lots of unsolved mysteries, disguises, codes, Macguffins, etc.
It's nice that you have a cat as your character. I'm sure Howie would be happy about that.
Although, if you want to please him more (I know he has long time abandoned us, but maybe to please his ghost :-D ), you would have to change the name of the cat from Kitteh to something like...
(
WARNING: Word bellow is considered offensive today, not so much back then though*)
Spoiler
Nigger man
Seriously, that's how he called his own cat, and that was the name of the cat in
The Rats in the Walls.
*although it is a known that he is racist, not because of that, but because of some of his private letters, and certain characters from certain stories...
Anyways, the game looks and sounds cool! :=
Good luck with your Kickstarter! :)
Haha, I was aware of the cat and its name:) Our cat's a girl though - however, I'll definitely have to think of a clever way to have some kind of nod at HP's feline. Thanks for the reminder! Merry Xmas everyone.
That looks r'lyeh excellent! A cthulhu-themed game made in Dracula county = mind blown! I love the the super smooth animations, too. Is it hand-drawn or is it vector graphics? If so, what software are you using?
Also, five unique responses per every single action insane -- but in a good way :) I did one per every action for my first game, and it was a hellish amount of work but also lots and lots of fun. So goog luck!
:D Thanks Fitz. Yup, that's what we're shooting for with the replies - they will probably be like the character's thoughts, because that would be an insane amount of voicework - we definitely want to voice all the dialogue though.
As for the software, we're using Toon Boom Harmony, and it's really a mix of vector (for frame by frame stuff like mouth, eyes, hands, and the whole character during "special animation" and some bitmaps (Buzz's torso, etc). I cannot recommend Harmony enough, and I promise Toon Boom isn't paying me to advertise :P We've toyed around with lots of animation software, but Toon Boom is THE one. Anyone doing frame by frame animation should give it a whirl (oh, don't worry, it's great for cutout/deform, too). It really helps give your stuff that professional look that is so hard to pull off with flash.
I'm glad people are interested in our gibbous little project, and can't wait for the holidays to be over to start to work on it again! Woo! :-D
Oh, will have to look into Harmony, then. I did use vector graphics in a game once, but I did that in Inkscape -- which, while great in its own way, is not animation software and lacks certain useful functionalities, such as remembering user-defined pivot points (always restores it to the center point of the polygon), etc. I want to do some more complex stuff with one of my future projects. Anything else you could recommend for a semi-noob? Does Harmony have a time-limited trial version I could take for a test-drive?
Oh, and also, I love the name Don R. Ketype :)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Thu 18/12/2014 21:17:01
I don't know how many people are aware that the game's working title is a play on The Whisperer... Well, folks for some reason seem to think it's a reference to The Last Of Us, so wish me luck as I embark on the search for a better, final title.
Pacman's Model?
@Fitz: Harmony is the professional stuff, it includes network features, but alas it has no demo. However, you can check out the TB Animate (https://www.toonboom.com/products/animate) and TB Studio (https://www.toonboom.com/products/toon-boom-studio) trials. If I remember correctly, the first one is closest to Harmony, while the second is a bit more basic and beginner friendly. Anyway, just try out the pencil and brush and you'll see what I'm talking about :) Also, there's the peg-system, which is the equivalent of flash's movie clips - but way more kickass, but I don't remeber which of the two has it. Again, we've moved on from flash to toon boom 2 years ago and, animation-wise, it's like going from prehistoric times into the space age.
Anyway, I think Harmony is a lot more expensive and it's mainly aimed at bigger sized teams (we bought it when there were 14 of us in the team), I hear the other versions are p good too.
@Mandle As for the game, I'm crunching hard on finding a name (why'd Pacman have to be copyrighted? Pun lover myself, too, we gotta stick together 'cause the world hates us!), so keep your fingers crossed for me plz. So far the one I'm leaning towards is "Gibbous", since it's short and not in too much use, I presume, what do you guys think?
Hey everyone! Happy 2015 and all that good stuff!
Thought I'd drop by and share another gif with you - this one's one of the unique animations that'll play when some puzzles are solved. Here's Kitteh fetching something for you:
(http://i.imgur.com/8zSfgyk.gif)
(Actual object fetched not pictured for reasons of non-spoilerationing).
Well, back to animating! Cheers
very nice animation Mr. U.
Lovely animations Mr Baggins... erm I mean Mr Underhill! :P
So nice, in fact, that I've posted them (http://www.indiegamenews.com/2015/01/gibbous-cthulhu-adventure.html). Looking good!
Thanks,Arj0n!
Captain D, we are so grateful for the exposure! I feel kind of stupid for not having a site or a fb page up yet, but it's all on not having had a final game yet. I'll post the relevant urls here as soon as they're up so you can update that post. Many thanks, again! We're thrilled to be featured, and I think it's our first, so there ya go, excluuusiiive! 8-):)
No worries - feel free to PM me anything interesting too! :-D
I really like the look of your game. I actually had managed not to see this thread before!
You know what the peons in Warcraft 2 say, work work work! Here's a rough animation gif of a character you'll be meeting in the demo.
(http://i.imgur.com/GUmlhtN.gif)
Clever! You've halved the amount of eye / eyebrow animations you need for this character!
Even thus rough sketch looks beautifully animated.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Thu 18/12/2014 09:25:53
@Gribbler: the font used is The Secret Font Of Monkey Island (http://ptless.org/sfomi.html), which from what I can tell is fan-made and freely available. I have no idea if Lucas have any issues with it, I hope we won't find out the hard way! :P Worst come to worst, we'll probably go with a similar, uncopyrighted font. If anyone more law-savvy can enlighten us, I'd highly appreciate it.
Given that the bottom of the page says:
QuoteThe Secret of Monkey Island font © 1990 Lucasfilm Games
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge font © 1991 LucasArts
I would have to imagine it is a direct pixel-for-pixel recreation and thus no fair use. Heck, even if it wasn't it still doesn't give explicit commerical usage rights (or any usage rights beyond the implicit ones that come from them offering the download) which you really should be checking for. Beyond that... it looks like the game is in significantly higher resolution than that font. I'm really not a fan of super low res fonts designed for 320x200 in games in higher resolutions. Admittedly though, that's entirely my preference. I just like nice smooth fonts to go with nice smooth graphics.
Still, the game is looking pretty swell. I'm liking the play on Innsmouth on the sign.
Quote from: Galen on Wed 14/01/2015 22:07:44
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Thu 18/12/2014 09:25:53
@Gribbler: the font used is The Secret Font Of Monkey Island (http://ptless.org/sfomi.html), which from what I can tell is fan-made and freely available. I have no idea if Lucas have any issues with it, I hope we won't find out the hard way! :P Worst come to worst, we'll probably go with a similar, uncopyrighted font. If anyone more law-savvy can enlighten us, I'd highly appreciate it.
Given that the bottom of the page says:
QuoteThe Secret of Monkey Island font © 1990 Lucasfilm Games
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge font © 1991 LucasArts
I would have to imagine it is a direct pixel-for-pixel recreation and thus no fair use. Heck, even if it wasn't it still doesn't give explicit commerical usage rights (or any usage rights beyond the implicit ones that come from them offering the download) which you really should be checking for. Beyond that... it looks like the game is in significantly higher resolution than that font. I'm really not a fan of super low res fonts designed for 320x200 in games in higher resolutions. Admittedly though, that's entirely my preference. I just like nice smooth fonts to go with nice smooth graphics.
Still, the game is looking pretty swell. I'm liking the play on Innsmouth on the sign.
Wow, alright, definitely going to have to look deeper into this, thanks for the headsup! Thankfully, the font switching itself is really a couple of clicks. Gonna be browsing through a loooot of fonts these next days...
P.S. It won't be featured in the demo, but you'll definitely be visiting Fishmouth in the game if the stars are right and our Kickstarter campaign gets funded :-D
Hey everyone! Here's a sped up animation process video of an angel that will be making a very short in-game appearance. It was initially 4 hrs long, compressed and edited down to a few minutes. Check it out if you're into/curious about frame by frame animation.
(http://i.imgur.com/GUanuXR.jpg) (http://youtu.be/MtsGaR5NinQ)
Good work Mr Underhill. Shows how hard to animate a few milliseconds. Subscribed, liked and always keeping an eye (laugh)
Awesome work! 8-0
Thanks for sharing! (nod)
Thank you guys! We're now cleaning up and coloring the animation, so I'll be back soon with a process video of that, plus the final gif :)
Hey folks, I'm back with the second and final part of the animation video process. In this one, Cami cleans up and colors the li'l angel. Roughly 2 hours sped up and edited down to less than 3 minutes.
Here's a quick gif of the whole process:
(http://i.imgur.com/7h7gdJq.gif)
...and you can watch the entire video below.
(http://i.imgur.com/zFaZOK8.jpg) (http://youtu.be/39GgDULEvKs)
Demo's coming along fine, we're hoping May's the month we'll be unleashing it unto the world.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 23/01/2015 10:36:06
...and you can watch the entire video below.
(http://i.imgur.com/zFaZOK8.jpg) (http://youtu.be/39GgDULEvKs)
QuoteUnfortunately, this video is not available in your country because it could contain music from UMG
the gif is interesting already! Good luck and keep it up!
Woah, that is so effing weird. It uses Waltz 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich, which is supposed to be in the public domain... Well, that sure is odd.
Wow, this game's going to look awesome. Watching the timelapse was both educational, inspiring AND humbling.
Thanks Fitz, I appreciate it!
Here's another little animation we've cranked out for the game. Kitteh does this when she's been idle for a while:
(http://i.imgur.com/emrGVLx.gif)
Cool! It takes a cat to know what's really important in life. (laugh)
that's a smooth ass animation! I like how the cat even stretches the paw to relax :)
It's not the art style you'd expect from a Cthulhu Adventure but it looks great.
Count me in.
We really don't want to hold back on animation, so we slowly dropped most of the cutout stuff so it looks smoother.
Quote from: Creamy on Tue 03/02/2015 20:28:34
It's not the art style you'd expect from a Cthulhu Adventure but it looks great.
Count me in.
Yeah, it's not a "serious" approach to HP's work, but we want to treat it with the respect it deserves and just have some fun with the Mythos. I just love stuff like Hey There Cthulhu or Shoggoth on the Roof. That's not to say Cthulhu will be anything but the ominous, ubiquitous presence he's supposed to be. Muhahaha *lighting, thunderclap*
Hey everyone!
So, as we press on with development, we're thinking of offering a very limited run of a 3dprinted, hand-painted Kitteh. This is just a prototype and likely doesn't reflect the final product (some yog-sothothery to be added later!). So,
WORK IN PROGRESS:
PRINTED:
(http://i.imgur.com/Swg079Y.jpg)
PAINTING IN PROGRESS!
(http://i.imgur.com/KBbA6do.jpg)
I have mixed feelings about this mix of Lovecraftian horror and cuteness overdose. By essence, Cthulhu is the very opposite of a cartoon.
Yet, it all looks lovely and perfectly crafted, which makes me forget all my criticizing.
Yeah, to be honest, so did we at first! :smiley: Anyways, you'll be able to get a feel of what the game's like pretty soon, when the demo's done.
A cute/devilish mascot -- good idea for a limited edition! I had a similar idea for my first game, but apart from making a prototype (http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5986/figurine1g.jpg) it never went anywhere. Kitteh, though, looks pro.
Looking forward to the demo!
Thanks! Well, to be honest, had I had to make it by hand in clay I wouldn't've even considered the possibility.
Back to making the demo. Have a good one everyone!
So guys, here's a sneak-peek look at our demo. Pre-alpha, everything still being tweaked... What do you think?
(http://i.imgur.com/VL4eDgl.jpg) (https://youtu.be/oMisy-1VxDI?hd=1)
Looks great -- and sound great, too. One thing, though: might just be me, but the walking speed seems a bit too slow compared to how fast the legs move.
Looks terrific. Watching your animation process is mesmerizing.
Looking good, would lose most of the just walking around right at the start unless you're going to have logos fade in and out over it. Also cut out a couple of the Look responses when you turn it into a proper demo to make it slightly more zippy. (I know, you've probably already thought of that, but you did utter the fateful words "What do you think?", so it's your own fault. ;)
It might not be intentional, but I LOVED the way the cat pushed the player character by walking into him!!! :grin:
Thanks! Oh, this is just a screen capture I did real quick to get feedback on animation, mostly. I'm very much aware the movement stuff is not up to par, so definitely scratching those and starting over. Thing is, we started out initially with puppet animation in mind, then hybrid, so a lot of stuff got lost in translation and it's really a bad mix of techniques I need to get rid of and do everything frame by frame from the start. It'll slow us down a little, but it really makes no sense having better secondary animations than the ones you see all the time, does it? You can tell we're first time devs, what can I say :-[
Yeah, wasn't expecting the cat to push me, but it is somewhat in character, she's a little bully :-D
It feels good sharing with people who make or play adventures or do both, it really put the whole animation not being good enough into perspective, can't wait to skip domestic chores tomorrow and head straight to the office to start animating :)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 15/05/2015 21:28:07
can't wait to skip domestic chores tomorrow and head straight to the office to start animating :)
I hope your missus doesn't scan your activity on these boards... :X
She's also an animator and music composer on the project, so we're skipping together, yay! :-D
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 15/05/2015 21:49:57
She's also an animator and music composer on the project, so we're skipping together, yay! :-D
Wow you've really struck gold there!
To get back on topic though... this game looks awesome so far.
LOVE the trailer!!!
The cat IS a little pushy (pun intended)...
Just one thing:
YOU HAVE THE FREAKIN' NECRONOMICON IN YOUR INVENTORY!?
I'd imagine this is just for game-testing and that you don't actually start out in possession of the book (or vice versa :P )
That book HAS to be hidden behind several mind-boggling puzzles before you can lay hands on it!
Thanks Mandle! Yep, that is the dreaded Necronomicon, but there's an explanation - the demo isn't actually the beginning of the game, it's a little more into it. And there's nothing to say it won't be disappearing again at some point ;) Also, what could be more fun than having something that can bring the dead back to life in your inventory? Muhahahaa!
In dev news, working on hard on rough animations for Buzz's new walk cycles, I really want to get them right this time, have the proper amount of bounce and get rid of the stiffness. It's a little hard to balance with commercial work, but we gotta pay the bills, and that makes me appreciate working on Gibbous even more.
Wohoah, it's been a while since I posted in here! Well, we've been busy-busy-busy working on the demo, which is done and will be public VERY soon.
In the meantime, we got ourselves a fancy website:
Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure official website (http://www.gibbousgame.com)
...and a Kickstarter teaser:
https://youtu.be/4VBMyzhFeE0
Let me know what y'all think! ;-D
Was starting to think you had left us... 8-0
Trailer looks awesome and funny. (nod)
I've been keeping my eye on this for ages, really looking forward to it! I will be throwing some money at your Kickstarter :)
@Cassie: Nah, just been working really, really hard on the demo, and lately on the Kickstarter shebang :)
@Shaun: Thanks Shaun! We can't really say the date yet since we need our campaign to be approved and some other bureaucratic stuff, but it's drawing REALLY close.
Alrightey, folks, demo will be live INCREDIBLY soon, but until then feel free to check out our draft campaign page, and leave some feedback (either here or there, it's all good):
http://tinyurl.com/gn54xq3
Looking forward to your thoughts and critiques.
Your Kickstarter page looks amazing! I can't wait for the demo!! :)
Dark, yet intensely saturated graphics? Ominous kittens with an attitude? And best of all: puns! Shut up and CLAIM MY SOUL, OH MIGHTY OLD ONES!
The trailer got me from the get-go. Day of the Tentacle is why I make adventure games myself today -- and Monkey Island was in fact the prettiest thing of its time (and still rocks!). What you got there looks really awesome and sounds great, and you folks look like a fun bunch. All in all, a pretty damn solid trailer! I'll be sure to throw some doublons at you when the time comes :)
Thanks guys! Really nervous about this Kickstarter business, and nice words are always welcome :-D
Wow, this looks AMAZING :grin:
So like a classic LucasArts game. And you can NEVER have enough of those. :grin:
Can't wait for your Kickstarter to go live - really want to back this! :grin:
The only thing I would say about the Kickstarter page... in the list of tiers, one of the lower tiers says that it's DRM-free.
Being DRM-free is very important information - that's what a lot of people look for in Kickstarters. I would suggest that you mention in all the tiers that it's DRM-free. And also mention it near top of the page, so no-one can miss it. :smiley:
Thanks Frodo! The DRM thing is a very good idea, noted!
So, in big Gibbous news, we now have a trailer: https://youtu.be/qSrxpdFSIRM
...but most importantly, THE DEMO IS AVAILABLE! 8-0 Get it while it's hot:
DOWNLOAD WINDOWS (http://tinyurl.com/h84yntr)
DOWNLOAD MAC (http://tinyurl.com/h7luvmd)
DOWNLOAD LINUX (http://tinyurl.com/z6q2jeo)
You can also download it from our website (http://www.gibbousgame.com)...
And from the campaign draft page (http://tinyurl.com/gn54xq3).
Important note: if you want to back Gibbous and be notified when it launches, there's a button on the top of the draft campaign page that will help notify you when it goes live.
Can't wait to read what you guys thought of our demo! ;-D
It's here! Throd! THROD!!!
On a side-note... Is the role of Kitteh taken? Because while I'm not a professional voice actor, I think I have the right voice (https://soundcloud.com/itzfitz-1/dragon) ;)
Quote from: Fitz on Wed 30/03/2016 17:44:44
It's here! Throd! THROD!!!
On a side-note... Is the role of Kitteh taken? Because while I'm not a professional voice actor, I think I have the right voice (https://soundcloud.com/itzfitz-1/dragon) ;)
Woah, that is IMPRESSIVE! Straight outta R'lyeh. We might have a talk if we're funded! ;)
I just had a look through your trailer, and the art is amazing. Noticed you're using Toon Booom by the way. Had a look at that a while ago, and it got on my nerves really fast. How is it working out for you?
Quote from: moloko on Wed 30/03/2016 18:37:24
I just had a look through your trailer, and the art is amazing. Noticed you're using Toon Booom by the way. Had a look at that a while ago, and it got on my nerves really fast. How is it working out for you?
Hmm, weird - I guess it really depends from what you transition to Toon Boom. In my case it was Flash, and I must say it was like going from a beat-up Yugo to a brand new Maserati. The network view might seem a little intimidating at first, but other than that it's a breeze, and super friendly, and - especially compared to flash - the pencil tool actually feels like a pencil, which is great for rough animation. I guess it probably depends on the version, too - we are using Harmony. FYI, I think they recently went to a subscription-based thing and it's really affordable, you might want to check it out. I've basically rediscovered the love of animating via Harmony (and no, they're not paying me to say that :) )
I'm migrating from Flash myself, and a beat-up Yugo is a charitable comparison. :) I really had a decent look through Harmony, but a couple things didn't work for me at first glance:
*the unending layer palette
*the compromising xsheet
I never got past the trial, and then their sales rep got pushy, but looks like you're doing some amazing things with it. Think it's worth it, then?
Yup, absolutely. Now, this probably depends on your background as an animator. We are all self-taught, so stuff like the X-sheet... to be honest, we never really used that. Also, the network system is heaps above flash's movieclips - as for the puppet style thing, we haven't really used that, but I can tell you the deform stuff is stupid easy to use. It also really, really helps if you have a Cintiq.. but I'd say its strengths are line quality (and diversity), easy tweening system and general friendliness. As a disclaimer, we havent' really moved past Harmony 10.0.3, so your mileage may vary. Full disclosure, I haven't gotten a chance to try 12 yet. Basically, if traditional, frame-by-frame stuff is your daily doing, Harmony is for you.
Oh yeah, and I've never tried TV Paint yet, I've heard good things about that one, too, might wanna look it up!
I remembered overnight why I dismissed Harmony: the tweening system. Easing out or in seemed like entering twelve people's phonenumbers per frame. maybe I'm mistaken there. From your replies, I gather you're satisfied using it, so maybe I ought to give it a shot again. :) At least I didn't have the user manual printed and glued for nothin'. :)
On a separate note: noticed you coming from a somewhat similar track with a similar outset. Guess we'd both benefit from having a look at each other's projects every once in a while...
Haha, yeah.. Well, it's a lot more intimidating than Flash's eases, true, but just use the beziers and you should be good. Hit me with a PM of your work if you feel like it!
I played the demo and oh boy, is it fun! Kitteh is an obvious favorite -- but the little girl is a piece of work, too. Her breaking the 4th wall wss especially was hilarious -- and a little creepy (laugh) You could flesh out Buzz's response to using the cookie on her. I mean, c'mon: a stranger offering pastries to a little girl alone at night ;)
Oh and thanks for reminding me how criminally bad I was at Monkey Island 3 (roll) I'm stuck! Kitteh won't do the obvious thing and the girl won't give me a valid reason that'd convince the damn furball ;) Got the picture, too, but it's even more useless than Kitteh :P
Quote from: Fitz on Thu 31/03/2016 11:37:07
I played the demo and oh boy, is it fun! Kitteh is an obvious favorite -- but the little girl is a piece of work, too. Her breaking the 4th wall wss especially was hilarious -- and a little creepy (laugh) You could flesh out Buzz's response to using the cookie on her. I mean, c'mon: a stranger offering pastries to a little girl alone at night ;)
Oh and thanks for reminding me how criminally bad I was at Monkey Island 3 (roll) I'm stuck! Kitteh won't do the obvious thing and the girl won't give me a valid reason that'd convince the damn furball ;) Got the picture, too, but it's even more useless than Kitteh :P
There's a sort of dialog puzzle there - you need to befriend certain characters in order for new dialog options to pop up in OTHER character's dialog. If you're still stuck PM me and we'll get down to the nitty gritty ;)
As for the cookie combo - yyeeeah, that was a very delicate decision, and I thought maybe not straight up referencing roofies and little girls in the same response is the best way to go. Piscilla's one of my favorite characters, too, and the voice actress did an AMAZING job - she'll be a recurring character for sure.
I'm slightly behind the pace here, but just wanted to say - that is a very good Kickstarter page.
Thanks cap'n! We worked our butts off, truth be told :)
Holy Nyarlathotep!!!
How could I have missed the portents and siguls that tell of the coming of the GREAT DEMON!?!?!?
I've been waiting for this ever since you first announced the game!
DOWNLOADING!!!!
Yaaay! Can't wait to hear what you thought about it!
The art style and the fluid, totally cartoony, animation is completely adorable, especially for me, as I used to animate stuff in Flash before, and always aimed at such level of fluid playback/in-betweens. Amazing skill, I'd say! :D
Overall it really does remind me of Monkey Island 3, and that's one of my all time favourite games, not just adventure ones, but in general. I totally need to check the demo version when I get home. :)
Best of luck with the Kickstarter and the development! :D
Quote from: CrashPL on Fri 01/04/2016 10:40:37
The art style and the fluid, totally cartoony, animation is completely adorable, especially for me, as I used to animate stuff in Flash before, and always aimed at such level of fluid playback/in-betweens. Amazing skill, I'd say! :D
Overall it really does remind me of Monkey Island 3, and that's one of my all time favourite games, not just adventure ones, but in general. I totally need to check the demo version when I get home. :)
Best of luck with the Kickstarter and the development! :D
Hehe, good to see people picking up on the heavy visual influence that CoMI is on Gibbous. Yep, I'm a big Bill Tiller fan, and same here: Curse is one of my favorite adventures AND games, ever. Could be that it holds a special place in my heart because it was one of the first games I ever played on my PC back in '97, but it's definitely not just that. The cartoony graphics were INCREDIBLE at the time, and they still hold up enough that a re-mastered version is not necessarily required visually (although that'd be pretty cool, too), and the humor is absolutely top notch.
Oh and a juicy tidbit: Larry Ahern, co-director of CoMI, said he'd play the demo! Even if I never hear back from him, just that made my whole week/month/year.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 01/04/2016 10:23:30
Yaaay! Can't wait to hear what you thought about it!
Couldn't get it working properly on my crappy old computer...So I will have to try it out on the work computer sometime soon...
Probably graphics support issues I guess: The game ran but the only things visible were characters, a bridge, and icons. The rest of the screen was light blue. Perhaps everything with an alpha channel is not working?
Sorry to hear that. I'm running it by Nick, our programmer, hopefully he'll figure it out!
e: Here are the minimum specs for Gibbous:
OS: Windows XP SP2+, Mac OS X 10.8+, Ubuntu 12.04+
Graphics card: DX9(shader model 2.0) capabilities, GDDR 512MB+, 900MHz+
CPU: DualCore 2.2Ghz+
HDD: At least 900MB of free space.
And a note from Nick: please provide as much info about what you have been doing and computer specs.
I, in turn, managed to get it to work perfectly on the laptop. It indeed was the forced 16:9 that was the issue: on my desktop pc I couldn't see anything to the left of the lamp post -- and this was where the adventure only started! And boy of oh boy, was it FUN! You're really having fun with all sorts of occultism. Aside from the ones openly mentioned I think I spotted a reference to satanism. That woman's name seemed like a demon's name or a weird anagram -- and I remember reading a story about satanists spelling theirs backwards. Whether that's a thing or not, still -- interesting...
I also had tons of fun trying the most outrageous replies in conversations. I think I'll enjoy the hell out of this game, because large dialogue trees with risky responses are my favorite thing both playing and making games myself :D
You might want to add an option to wait for the player to click before going to the next dialog. Once the little girl was talking so fast that I couldn't fully read what she was saying. Also maybe a way to view your score and alignment. Will the good or evil choices you make in dialog or actions have significant effects on gameplay? Was a pretty cool demo.
I added the dialog thing to our feedback sheet. Right now the stats thing is just there for fun, we'll see if we actually develop it into an actual functional mechanic once we start producing. The good and evil will probably have effects in the game, altering some situations but not the outcome of the game itself.
I just played the demo for about 30 minutes on a computer where it works fluidly:
The positive side: The graphics are flawless! The animations are beautiful! I was excited and ready to let the demo take me for however long a ride it had in it, and leave me yearning for more...
But...
I'm going to hide my negative comments so as to not influence others, as they are just my opinions, and also because...
Spoiler
...this might get quite long I'm afraid:
I'm going to list from least to worst issues (and once again: These are mostly just my personal feelings. If nobody else comments negatively on these same points then you can probably just disregard what follows: )
(1) The demo still contains a lot of glitches with certain voice acting interrupting each other, even with the same character interrupting themself at times. There are also glitches with speaking character animations continuing even after the player has clicked to skip the speech and the voice acting has ended due to the skip (the little girl)...I also encountered a glitch interacting with the "hypercollumn" (and I still can't figure out what's wrong with its geometry after having looked at it for quite a while) when I tried the gear interaction with it and it must have overlapped with the exit screen hotspot and Buzz walked off the screen even though he had just started his response...
Any potential customer is going to be turned off if even the short demo has glitches: It does not bode well for the integrity of the full-length game.
(2) The demo starts partway into the story and actually spoils the opening act by just telling the player what happened previously. WHY would you do this?! Why not just start the demo from the START of the game?! Were the first sections not ready yet, or not interesting enough for a demo?
So...I'm suddenly thrown into a world and situation I know nothing about except for the vague allusions in the first cutscene. I don't know where I am, who I am, or even what my goals or motivations are. There is no backstory except that the Necronomicon made my cat speak and I'm trying to reverse that. Is this the main goal of the game or just the first imperative that gets me investigating? I have no idea! Nobody told me!
There is a point where I'm supposed to tell Margo who I am and I'm given a list of choices: I don't even know which one is true as I don't know who I am. I guess I'm the librarian as that choice led to her not challenging my "lie", but I could just as well have been an undercover cop for all I knew...
I felt zero immersion right from the start because of these problems. I also felt disappointed by having a potentially dramatic opening act already spoiled for me. BUT I thought to just keep slogging on as the graphics and animations were too charming to resist. The voice acting is also really, really good but...well...I'll get to that in the next point...
(3) Was this demo translated from another language other than english? A lot of the responses were quite clunky and lacking in basic grammar ("I don't need to show her a photo of Attractive Guy."...shouldn't it be "an attractive guy" or have we already given him this nickname?). In a few cases the onscreen text and the voice actor said different words: This is always jarring to the player and hints at a lack of professional polish.
Also, did the voice actors play or view the game before their performance, or receive direction on how their lines should be spoken? There were cases where this did not seem to be so...For example: "There is that woman over there on that bench...". It seems the line should be read "There is that woman...", pointing out to the cab driver a potential customer, but it's just read completely flat so it seems Buzz is just randomly pointing out Margo without reason...
A lot of the humour fell flat for me because of these reasons, but of course humour is a personal thing so maybe it's just me (Kitteh was pretty funny though mostly)...Also, to paraphrase "The Incredibles": If everything is a joke, then nothing is:
Guys...not every line of dialogue or description has to be a joke. It really wears on the player. Sometimes it's fine to just say that "It's a taxi." instead of adding "Oh, and obviously it's yellow.". Pace your jokes out and they will stand out, instead of the gems just getting lost in a muddle of also-rans. Pick the ones that are actually funny and cut the rest.
There is also a case where Buzz is telling me how Buzz feels about something (I think it was the mysterious door) as if he is suddenly the narrator instead of himself...
(4) Parody vs Taking The Piss...
I'd imagine that you are aiming this game at Lovecraft fans, and as a hardcore Lovecraft fan I started to feel more and more that you were taking the piss out of the source material rather than showing a healthy respect for it as a parody.
I lost patience at the point where Buzz shows the Necronomicon to the Gentleman and they talk about how it's patterned like an argyle sweater instead of being all scary-looking and shit. The "Evil Dead" movies knew when to leave the key horror elements intact, and when to do the comedy bits: That's why they are classics. If you are going to make all the key horror elements into jokes then no Lovecraft fan is going to have respect for your work. Are you going to have the Mythos entities also be bumbling comedic characters? Is Dagon going to show up wearing a Groucho-nose-and-glasses? Is Cthulhu going to speak with a lisp?
Please....I beg of you....Keep the scary stuff scary and base the comedy around bumbling Buzz trying to deal with it, instead of making a farce out of the mythos. Maybe I just speak for myself here, but I have a feeling I speak for most, if not all, Lovecraft fans.
Make the game "Reanimator" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-Animator) style...Not "Repossessed" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repossessed_%28film%29) style...PLEASE!!!
(5) This is the point that caused me the most frustration:
Breaking the fourth wall is a risky and delicate thing in adventure games. By its very definition it breaks immersion, and adventure games live or die by their immersion factor, or else we are right back playing "Collosal Cave" again...
If it is done once in a while and the jokes are real zingers then 4th-wallers can be good for a tension-breaking laugh and then left off of for the good while needed to reimmerse the player back into the game.
But, jesus guys...It seemed that every second line was a 4th-waller, and most of them were not zingers.
You even had Buzz several times directly remind the player that they are playing an "Adventure Game"...
A few here and there, maybe about 30 mins apart in gameplay, are edgey and cool. A dozen (or more) packed into a short demo get tired and just force the player back into the real world where they are clicking a mouse and looking at a monitor screen.
Immersion into the story and the characters is where the true magic happens in adventure games and why we hardcore fans still search for the gems that provide this. Your game has such beautiful visuals and character animations that you are already halfway there, and it seems such a waste to me to throw this away on cheap jokes and too many 4th-wallers...
I realize that this is just the demo, but a demo's job is to show the potential player what they should expect from the full game and, I'm sorry to say that, at the moment, and as an interested player and Lovecraft fan, I would not invest my time or money in the full game based on this particular demo.
I'm sorry if I seemed harsh in this critique, but remember please that it is only my opinion. I only got harsh because I felt a great opportunity for a really special Lovecraft game may be getting lost along the difficult path you are walking in developing such an imposing project...
That all being said: Best of luck with the project!
The world needs more good Lovecraft games!!!
Cheers!
Ah, got to love Mandle. It's soul-crushing, well-documented and elaborate, and, as usual, completely true. If you make a game and manage to take everything Mandle says into account, I'm sure you've just made the best game ever created.
Hey, I was expecting to be able to donate my soul to the Old Ones after midnight last night! You better hurry or you will FEEL MY WRATH!!! (laugh)
Madle: Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
Spoiler
I will admit sometimes it felt there was too much effort into making every line funny -- but it didn't bother me very much. Nor did I mind breaking the 4th wall. I KNOW I'm playing a game. Bad things happen when people FORGET that ;) I think you're being way too serious about this. Yes, there are some technical issues: I noticed the girl's anim not stopping when her audio does -- but it's not like it breaks the game. A simple code tweak similar to AGS's EndCustcene(); should do the trick. Yes, the creators aren't native speakers of English (they're from Transylvania) -- but language issues can be fixed by having a native speaker proofread it. And finally: do you expect this to turn into a full-blown Cthulhu story? Are you offended by Cthulhu plushies as you are by the the silly jokes, almost as if they were a vicious attack on your faith?
Dude, chill ;)
I get it, if you're considering an investment, you want it to be worth your money. But my impression is that the game would have to change everything that it is for you to approve of it. On top of being absolutely, 100% technically flawless in every way. AAA titles with budgets of zillions of dollars won't guarantee you that. So please, cut a handful of creative people some slack, okay? You made some valid points there, but you made it all sound like "YOU'VE FAILED ME! I HAVE TO STOP YOU FROM FAILING ME AGAIN!!!"
Quote from: Mandle on Tue 05/04/2016 14:49:22Is Cthulhu going to speak with a lisp?
Not sure about the details, but a certain lisper (https://soundcloud.com/itzfitz-1/dragon) was promised a role ;)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 01/04/2016 11:19:06
Hehe, good to see people picking up on the heavy visual influence that CoMI is on Gibbous. Yep, I'm a big Bill Tiller fan, and same here: Curse is one of my favorite adventures AND games, ever. Could be that it holds a special place in my heart because it was one of the first games I ever played on my PC back in '97, but it's definitely not just that. The cartoony graphics were INCREDIBLE at the time, and they still hold up enough that a re-mastered version is not necessarily required visually (although that'd be pretty cool, too), and the humor is absolutely top notch.
Oh and a juicy tidbit: Larry Ahern, co-director of CoMI, said he'd play the demo! Even if I never hear back from him, just that made my whole week/month/year.
Hey, another Bill Tiller fan? High five then! :D I remember playing CoMI around 1997, as I had the demo version on one of the shareware discs (man, remember these grand little things?). Fell in love with the graphics at the first sight - I was so pumped, I just HAD to get the full version! Also - great news with the Larry Ahern as well!
Just finished playing the demo. I heard several issues with the audio playback, though it was already adressed by the others (most noticeably the little girl conversation). Other than that - I really enjoyed playing it, the fluid animation looks even better in action (man, how many key and in-between frames are you drawing, to achieve such level of fluidity?). :D Can't wait for more - keep up the great work!
@CrashPL yep, good times. All our "studio" walls are covered in Bill Tiller and Steve Purcell art.
In other huge news, our Kickstarter is LIVE!!! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure
If you can spare a dime to make Gibbous happen, now's the time. Thanks, this is so exciting!!!
Quote from: Fitz on Tue 05/04/2016 18:32:47
Madle: Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.
Exactly! Which is why I said that if I'm the only person the devs hear these complaints from then just disregard them. If, on the other hand, they hear similar issues from other people then they may have a problem.
Quote from: Fitz on Tue 05/04/2016 18:32:47
So please, cut a handful of creative people some slack, okay?
Yeah, sure...I do that all the time with freeware indie games. But this game is a commercial project, which means the devs are spending their real-life time and money on producing it with the eventual goal of releasing a fun game and turning a profit. This being the case I would imagine they would desire all the feedback they can get, both positive and (especially) negative. I didn't sit for over an hour writing my feedback to flame the devs. I wrote it because I believe the least kind thing to do if you have negative feedback is to "cut some slack" and sit on your hands in silence, especially when a real-life money investment is concerned.
Are the paying customers going to cut them some slack just because they are creative people?
OK, let's break it up. Some things you said I agree with, some I don't, no need for another tirade explaining what and why. What KS means for a person and what they expect of a campaign is different for everyone. I pitched in and wish Stuck in Attic best of luck, and if I can help, let me know :)
Meanwhile, Gibbous's campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure) took off last night and is nearing 6K as we speak!
Guys, we are very grateful for backers and feedback alike. Let's put the Love in Lovecraft and set our differences aside! For adventure gaming! Onward, point and clicking warriors! Wooohoo!
I must say I agree with most of Mandle's points. The demo looks and feels excellent and I really like the atmosphere and the visuals with their "dark yet cartoony" feel. But breaking the fourth wall the way it's done in the demo is really getting old and annoying and completely takes me out of the game. And that's a pity, because there's a lot to like here. I will still back this Kickstarter, and I think this could be a stellar game if you focus on its strengths. Of course it's always a fine line and impossible to please everybody. But for me, full-length games that try to be funny all the time usually fall flat (short games are a different thing). If you want me to care for the characters, then it's a good idea to play it straight from time to time.
Anyway, you still have my support and I wish you good luck with the campaign! :)
Quote from: Problem on Wed 06/04/2016 12:32:36
I must say I agree with most of Mandle's points. The demo looks and feels excellent and I really like the atmosphere and the visuals with their "dark yet cartoony" feel. But breaking the fourth wall the way it's done in the demo is really getting old and annoying and completely takes me out of the game. And that's a pity, because there's a lot to like here. I will still back this Kickstarter, and I think this could be a stellar game if you focus on its strengths. Of course it's always a fine line and impossible to please everybody. But for me, full-length games that try to be funny all the time usually fall flat (short games are a different thing). If you want me to care for the characters, then it's a good idea to play it straight from time to time.
Anyway, you still have my support and I wish you good luck with the campaign! :)
Hey there! First of all, thanks for backing. Now, I don't want to seem like I'm defending the demo too much here, but maybe I should elaborate on some points, like the 4th wall jokes.
The demo is relevant to what Gibbous the final product will be like more in the sense of production values - art, animation, music, voice acting (this latter very much depending on how much funds we manage to get). Other than that, it's a very "compressed" experience, if you will - we tried to load it with as much stuff as possible, including animations, music, jokes - and 4th wall jokes, you are right, work when they are few and far between. Believe me, I am very aware of that, and rest assured there won't be a quota of at least two per screen or conversation :-D Again, this is supposed to give you a taste of what's to come, and cramming so much into a couple of rooms inevitably leads to some negative expectations that we don't exactly want to fulfill.
Pacing ourselves for the full length game will be essential. The story itself exists in a draft version, but I haven't elaborated on it yet for several reasons, one of them being that not getting funded would probably mean no game. Thus, the demo has been written and produced sort of in a vacuum. It still is representative for the quality of the experience, but so, so much is subject to change that I won't even start listing points here. We are very much looking forward and listening to feedback, and will tailor the game accordingly.
Again, thanks for backing, and I hope it's a little bit more clear now. Hey, I'm an animator, I'm doing this PR thing by the seat of my pants :)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 06/04/2016 12:55:36
Hey, I'm an animator
I would add: An INCREDIBLE animator!!!
Agreed. The attention to detail was amazing. I remember seeing the process of drawing and animating the fairy, and being in awe of how much work went into it -- and it's such a tiny animation in the game. Kitteh's animations are super fluid, too.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 06/04/2016 12:55:36
Other than that, it's a very "compressed" experience, if you will - we tried to load it with as much stuff as possible, including animations, music, jokes
That was my impression of it: a showcase of your general style and artistic direction. Back when demos were a thing in the mainstream gaming industry, games would routinely thrust you right in the middle of the action with little to no exposition. Here's your gun, shoot the pig cops. Why? Who cares? Demos for "Soldier of Fortune" or "Mafia" would have you play some of the later missions just because they were the most fun. Not to mention the actual beginnings of both games were very underwhelming.
Thanks guys!
One more point on Lovecraftian stuff: rest assured, Gibbous will not go for the low hanging fruit "lol Cthulhu is weak or cute" thing. We do have fun with the Necronomicon but it cuts off at the Old Ones. I will be detailing this in our first update, which tackles exactly that - Lovecraft and Comedy. Mind you, the cute Cthulhu has been done before, and well (Cthulhu saves the world), but it's not the case with us. I can't go into a lot of details without spoiling stuff so I'll just say there will be a huge contrast between humans (where all the comedic stuff will stem from) and the supernatural entities. Trust me, I'm a huge Lovecraft fan myself, and I'm not taking this spoofing thing lightly - we're trying to do everything so it stays respectful to HPL's original work, just be a little playful with it. It's a hard friggin' task trying to balance everything, keep Lovecraft fans from getting offended, making it friendly enough for people who only know Cthulhu from the plushies... I am very much aware it won't be easy to deal with all that. But overall please keep in mind this is very much a work in progress, there aren't many things that aren't subject to change, and any and all feedback is welcome and carefully saved and taken into consideration.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 06/04/2016 15:02:50
We do have fun with the Necronomicon but it cuts off at the Old Ones.
After the comedy with the Necronomicon, if you take the Great Old Ones seriously and make them scary as shit, it will surprise the player and take them off-balance in a most delicious way...
That would be a delight to experience indeed!
Give the player their comfort zone in that this is just going to be a silly parody of the mythos...Nothing that rough...Just like the plushies...
And then rip that comfort blanket right out from under their asses and plunge them into some hardcore mythos horror...
OMG...THAT would be a legendary thing to pull off indeed!
Will it be possible for the player to die in this game? That would certainly be a dark turn. But you better not do anything to poor little Kitteh, or us cat owners will be most upset.
Quote from: mkennedy on Fri 08/04/2016 05:47:46
Will it be possible for the player to die in this game? That would certainly be a dark turn.
In the world of Lovecraftian horrors, you're often lucky if you
just die...
Haha, Mandle's got a point...
Well, mkennedy, I'd love to answer that, but it'd be a little too spoilery, and I really have to watch my big fat mouth, it tends to develop a will of its own when I get over-excited about the plot. But I can assure you, we are huge cat people here at Stuck In Attic, and while we don't want to make a lot of socio-political commentary with Gibbous, the one thing that we will add as subtext to the game are our pro-animal rights views. Not that we're people that spraypaint your fur coat or flip your table over when you're having a steak, but we do love animals a lot and we think they deserve much better lives than we as humans are allowing them.
I just re-read that paragprah - please don't imagine we are actual huge cat people lumbering around our sleepy town, crushing cars under our gigantic paws and scratching at buildings. Although that would be pretty badass.
Mandle, this video should address how Gibbous will handle Lovecraft and comedy. Let me know what you think! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiK7dpJMNWI
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 08/04/2016 18:17:08
Mandle, this video should address how Gibbous will handle Lovecraft and comedy. Let me know what you think! ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiK7dpJMNWI
Entertaining
and informative and, in parts, strangely familiar-sounding... :P
I've also been watching a lets-play on youtube of the demo, not by any major youtuber or anything, but I think that's more of a plus: Some average-Joe kinda reactions rather than people whose income depend on being entertaining...Anyways:
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHNLP_AhQu0&nohtml5=False (Watch from 7:00 minutes until about 7:30)
Same video: 24:50-25:10 (Look at comment in chat-box. Not one of my points but a valid issue if true...)
Same video: 1:11:40-1:12:10 (Chat-box again and host's reply...Some positive comments too though!)
Same video: 1:20:00-1:20:20 (A 4th-wall joke gets an honest laugh from the host)
Same video: 1:34:00-End (Some comments on voodoo puzzle and a short wrap-up of opinion)
(And, I'm really not trying to be pedantic about my earlier points or say "I told you so"...I've also included on this list times when their reactions go against my own opinions...Consider this some free market research... :-D )
I did not actually play the demo all the way through to the end on my first sitting (I got as far as The Gentleman), but now I have seen it played through to completion:
Spoiler
The demo shows off the graphics, animation, voice-acting, and beautiful music perfectly. 100% score there...
But...There are NO puzzles in this demo, unless you count revistiting dialogues and thinking to click on options that you already tried before, and the game gives you new options that didn't exist before, as puzzles?!
The one point where it looks like the game is actually going to supply an interesting puzzle (making the voodoo doll) it just turns out to be (an admittedly) funny pun that you can just find via trial-and-error (also a...sigh...dialogue menu), and makes the devs look clever but doesn't make the player feel clever (which is the meat of making an adventure game fun, or why not just watch a comedy show on TV?)
In my opinion the game needs a MAJOR overhaul in the way that puzzles are handled. Do you guys only know how to use dialogue trees for puzzles? If not, then sorry, but: That's how it looked to me, and that's how it probably looks to most adventure game fans...
Even getting the letter from the back seat of the cab is handled via a dialogue tree...And even then you have to revisit the cab driver's dialogue when either:
(A) Him just giving it to you at first would have been way less confusing...
or
(B) You have to LOOK in the back window of the cab and then you find it sitting there...
...would have made much more sense...
Sorry guys...But you are putting far too much effort into making yourselves look witty, and way too little effort into allowing the player to feel clever by solving PUZZLES, and no amount of beautiful graphics, slick animation, or cool music is going to solve these basic flaws.
You guys are supposed to be hard-core adventure game fans, right?! Have you asked yourselves "What were the most fun moments in adventure games I like?"...It's when you figure out a hard but fair puzzle that depends on some intrinsic in-game logic that the game teaches to the player: Interaction and feedback loop...Like the sword-fighting puzzle in Monkey Island, or the time-travel-logic puzzles in Day Of The Tentacle...
And in your latest video you even use the Grim Fandango image... Putting on some pretty big pants there, guys...
Sorry again for the harsh critique but, to be brutually honest, the demo is a complete bore as a game as it stands. Once again, only in my opinion: Maybe the modern audience prefers a game with sparkly achievements whenever you randomly do something right, and I'm starting to sound like a grumpy old guy so I'm gonna shut up...
Except to say: get a talented puzzle designer onboard for the project...
Okay, I'm done...Sorry again, as I really LOVE everything positive about the demo...
Fun video update.
Oh, and just today I stumbled upon this comic (http://www.gry-online.pl/komiks.asp?ID=97385) from my neck of the woods. Note the character talking from off-screen. Now, in the commeent section, the guy with the Guybrush avatar goes "Oh hey, btw" -- and links to Gibbous KS, which other people readily pick up on. Nice to see the news spreading!
Fitz: That's awesome! Sure is nice to see it spreading!
Mandle: You can imagine we're pretty busy here so we didn't get a chance to watch all the letsplays completely, but incidentally last night when I got home I had received a link to exactly that video you posted and watched it all, eating cold pizza with blood-shot eyes at 4 o'clock in the morning. It was a fun (yet cringey here and there) watch, and I really appreciated that the criticism was on-point and constructive. That final puzzle, maybe I've mentioned before, was to be less a puzzle and more a nod to the infamous monkey wrench, but I can see how it would make people go "this is just trial and error" - cause it is (unless you've REALLY inspected the environment, and you get an achievement for that, wink wink).
This demo's biggest flaw is that we didn't really get a chance to test it. The cold reality was that April was an absolutely must not miss month for us to do the Kickstarter, thus very little playtesting (or bug testing). Letsplays really help because it's like an after-the-fact playtest and you're not influencing the player in any way. After watching some of them, I have a pretty good idea of what should stay and what should be thrown out the window, taken down a notch or just refined. The only big concern, though, is getting the Kickstarter funded, otherwise it might all have been for naught. And I really wanna make this game, make it bigger, better, and sexier. And punnier, just to fuck with the nice translating people if we hit the EFIGS stretch :)
I actually just updated my last post with another (sorry) harsh critique on the demo...Probably while you were typing this response...
After hearing your woes about making the kickstarter deadline I actually feel terrible about how much I ripped on the demo, but I'm going to let my comments stand (with another apology...sorry guys: You are doing something awesome!), but I also feel that the honestly of what I was saying still holds true...
Haha don't worry, man. I understand the points you are making, and agree with some of them, like the Taxi Guy shooing you away and over-relying on "getting to know" the characters (it was an experimental thing we tried and reactions were all over the place). But I think we might never agree on a lot of stuff, because we are clearly into adventure games for very, very different reasons.
You might argue that puzzles are the most important thing about an adventure, and that's very cool, because it's a valid opinion. Then again, I might argue that to me, characters, story and humour come first. That might sound downright blasphemous, and not something players would want, right?... Well, just look at the success of Dear Esther, Gone Home, The Walking Dead... To you, over-reliance on dialogue-tree "puzzles" (not sure they're exactly puzzles) might stink of bad design to high heaven, but a lot of players appreciated exactly that, and the fact that (well, in the demo) there isn't a huge emphasis on picking up everything that isn't bolted down and McGuyver-ing your way out of puzzles. There was this discussion on another forum about whether puzzles should be seamlessly integrated to the plot, or can just appear as logical roadblocks you need to solve, and wouldn't you know it, opinions were split almost exactly in half. As you'd suspect, Lucas fans were partial to integration, while Myst-heads could give a rat's ass. Yes, we call them all adventure games, but to me e.g. a Blackwell game is so different from Curse Of Monkey Island that they might as well be completely different genres.
It's an interesting discussion that we might never come to an agreement upon, because it's obvious we're looking for completely different experience in our adventure games . And while I agree some things in the demo were horribly sign-posted (or not at all, whoops!) and show an obvious lack of experience, I'm sticking by the overall philosophy, and I now know what to improve and what to leave as is.
And just to put my letsplay where my mouth's at, this is the kind of player that Gibbous is, indeed, aimed at : https://youtu.be/RFJIcvM90Ag. This dude sold the game better than I ever could have. So, again... different strokes. If you come at the game looking for iron-clad brain melters, you'll be disappointed, because it clearly is directed a lot more toward the heart than it is toward the mind. That's a very overcomplicated way of saying the game is dumb, yes. From a hardcore puzzle man's point of view, it really is just a dumb fun game, and won't be winning any puzzle design awards pretty soon. You see, I'm an artist, not an engineer or logician, and it definitely shows in everything I create. But, hey - a bunch of people seem to really enjoy it, so I'm happy :)
an adventure game without puzzles? 8-0
You might as well call it an interactive cartoon then. :P
And as an artist, you have nothing to be ashamed of, it's perfect!
Thanks Cassie! Well, not without puzzles, just without highly logical ones, heheh!
Oh, one more thing. It hadn't occured to me that using Manny's head in the video might come across as boasting, holy moly! Far from it - the infographic-like nature of the video called for a simple, widely-recognizable symbol that would immediately scream "adventure game". Here's a fun exercise: try to come up with an alternative image for that that doesn't implicitly reference a well-known character or franchise. It really isn't that easy ;) ...and just to put things into perspective, from recording the voice to animating to editing it, it took me exactly 5 hours to complete the video. This is your life when you are Kickstarting - everything is happening at 4x compression, and some details will inevitably elude you. So, again - in no way am I comparing Gibbous to Grim from a quality point of view. Manny's head just symbolizes adventure games ;)
Ah... okay... I thought you were comparing Gibbous to be like Grim Fandango... sorry, guess I misinterpreted that as well. :-[
Anyway, good luck with your project. (nod)
Will you be able to engage in conversations with Kitteh? It was somewhat disappointing in the demo that you couldn't chat her up like the other NPCs. Maybe she can give you some helpful hints should you get stuck.
Quote from: mkennedy on Tue 12/04/2016 04:02:00
Will you be able to engage in conversations with Kitteh? It was somewhat disappointing in the demo that you couldn't chat her up like the other NPCs. Maybe she can give you some helpful hints should you get stuck.
Yeah, we had no time to implement none of these: the plan is to have Kitteh act as a sort of hint system (that sounds colder than we're envisioning). There will be two kinds of Kitteh interactions: you'll "use" her from the verb coin, and talk to her like you would with anyother NPC - there will be a couple of flavor/stoy options, and one that gives you a hint, so you can ignore that one if you want a challenge.
Oh, forgot to mention this: made a nice video (well, animated) update about how I discovered adventure games and came to love them. Let me know what y'all think! https://youtu.be/V7pRWzZ0IG0
Just a heads-up that we've been Greenlit on Steam in just 10 days. Woohoo!
Huge new update with some great Voice acting and crossover news (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/1548425).
Gibbous loves Starr Mazer and viceversa! :-D
Gibbous got funded! Congrats! Which reminds me of a certain exchange from a month ago :-D
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 30/03/2016 18:10:26
Quote from: Fitz on Wed 30/03/2016 17:44:44
On a side-note... Is the role of Kitteh taken? Because while I'm not a professional voice actor, I think I have the right voice (https://soundcloud.com/itzfitz-1/dragon) ;)
Woah, that is IMPRESSIVE! Straight outta R'lyeh. We might have a talk if we're funded! ;)
Unless my humble offer was since shunned, now that you guys have Don Thacker onboard :P
Yup, just saw it on the crowfund watch. Congratulations Mr Underhill, and the whole Gibbous team! There's still some time to go, so I hope you'll also nab some of the strech goals. :D
Thank you guys so much. Almost $56,000 raised out of a $40,000 ask, and 1929 backers. More than we ever dreamed of. Thank you all so much, gals and guys! We're gonna make a kick-ass game!
I saw the trailer and, wow, this might just be the game that has me most excited this year! 8-0
I love Lovecraft's craft! And the dark humor and Disney-style animation!
Do you plan on releasing this game on steam? :)
Sure thing, Blondbraid! We're already Greenlit, and it's looking good for GOG, too: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games :)
Great, I can't wait for this game to be released!
I love everything I've seen and read about it so far and wish you best of luck!
What's up, dude-y-os! Haven't updated this thread in, oh, a looong while! Anyways, since we're all adventure makers here, I wanted to share our streaming channel with y'all. If you do Twitch at all and are interested in watching me live-paint adventure game backgrounds, give it a follow. I try to stream at least every week, and I'm happy to talk to the chat. If there's anyone else streaming adventure-related art, let me know and I'll follow you back.
https://www.twitch.tv/liviuboar
Been a while since I posted here. Well, thought I'd show you guys what the game's been looking like lately. Not to shabby if you ask me, but please don't because I'm making it and I can't be objective.
Something sinister is going down here:
(http://i.imgur.com/mluI5Vj.gif)
Real time lighting fx in burning library:
(http://i.imgur.com/74JympG.gif)
Something really surprised this guy!
(http://i.imgur.com/TxjIFbj.gif)
A Fishmouth citizen, on the lookout for intruders:
(http://i.imgur.com/We9dPPM.gif)
Tad the dog:
(http://i.imgur.com/AQLKBMM.gif)
...and a few more in this imgur gallery (http://imgur.com/gallery/X9QDX).
Basically we're trying to up the ante graphically and atmosphere-wise by adding real time lighting fx and a dynamic weather system, little cool details like that which add a lot to the world feeling more believable.
But gosh darn it, is it a lot of work! ;-D
Wow, this looks really awesome! 8-0
I'm serious, the animation and effects looks on par with Disney!
Quote from: Blondbraid on Thu 20/04/2017 11:17:51
Wow, this looks really awesome! 8-0
I'm serious, the animation and effects looks on par with Disney!
Thanks Blonbraid! That's very flattering :) ...but there's still a long way to go to Disney quality :)
An important experience I've gathered from working on Gibbous is that being good at animation in general doesn't necessarily translate 1:1 to working on the game. I personally adore working on very dynamic stuff, with a lot of squash and stretch and crazy camera angles, and I can safely say that making the goddamned walk cycles for Gibbous is the hardest thing I've had to do in my life, professionally. The disconnect is that, unlike just animation for the sake of it, they have to respect so many rules, and fit so many scenarios, and that's a very challenging thing to face when you're used to being all loosey-goosey with your animation work.
I'm STILL not happy with ours, after 3 or 4 revisions, but Nicu our programmer is already threatening to kill me if I change them again. I probably will again further down the line :P but right now we have so much art and animation done, and it's just time to sit our butts down and wire everything into the game, worry about polish later.
Its looking extremely impressive, Disney-quality or not! (I suspect you do not have *quite* the resources that Disney can throw at production! (laugh))
It's beginning to remind me in terms of graphical quality of The Journey of Iesir, and I can't give you much higher praise than that.
Those animations are looking so amazing! :cheesy:
I backed you over on Kickstarter, and I'm VERY excited for the game. :grin:
Thanks so much for your support, guys. We're getting there! :)
It's amazing! Very nice smooth animations, backgrounds and... everything!
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 21/04/2017 08:58:17
Thanks so much for your support, guys. We're getting there! :)
Awesome, I'm so excited for this game, when will it be released? ;-D
There's still a ways to go, but I'm super happy to be AAALMOSSST DOOOONE with the backgrounds. Where almost = probably more than a month of work. What can I say, guys, that's the trouble with HD art, lots of ground to cover, both literally and figuratively :)
Buuuut in case you're curious how we do stuff, we just launched a 1 hour long documentary which covers 4 week of working on the game below, as a thank you for our backers' continued support and understanding.
Click the picture below to watch it on YouTube.
(http://i.imgur.com/GvDLMB1.jpg) (https://youtu.be/vm709GBFCIo)
Aaand quote is not modify,and I'm an idiot. Disregard this post :P
Really inspiring!
I have been following the progress of your game for a long time now and it's great to see the real passion you all have for this project.
I have always had a romantical fascination with Transylvania (maybe because I was born in a "sylvania" (Pennsylvania)?) seeing the environment you're developing in seriously makes me want to move there! I, as an American who lives in an area with, at most, 100 years of "history" would be constantly inspired in such an environment!
Poor Cami... I wanted to give her a hug sheeesh! I think we all understand that stress/worry about our passions and devotion to a project like that!
I have no doubt your game will be a success (geographical location doesn't matter as much these days!). However even if not you guys could make your own way as documentarians. (nod)
I will not claim (or pretend) to be a Lovecraft fan but this game exudes style and professionalism even to somebody not versed in that world.
It is my most anticipated game right now.
Kudos and keep up the good work guys!
Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Wed 10/05/2017 16:40:53
Really inspiring!
I have been following the progress of your game for a long time now and it's great to see the real passion you all have for this project.
I have always had a romantical fascination with Transylvania (maybe because I was born in a "sylvania" (Pennsylvania)?) seeing the environment you're developing in seriously makes me want to move there! I, as an American who lives in an area with, at most, 100 years of "history" would be constantly inspired in such an environment!
Poor Cami... I wanted to give her a hug sheeesh! I think we all understand that stress/worry about our passions and devotion to a project like that!
I have no doubt your game will be a success (geographical location doesn't matter as much these days!). However even if not you guys could make your own way as documentarians. (nod)
I will not claim (or pretend) to be a Lovecraft fan but this game exudes style and professionalism even to somebody not versed in that world.
It is my most anticipated game right now.
Kudos and keep up the good work guys!
Woah. Those are heart-warming words,Darth. Shared them with Cami and Nicu, too. It feels so good to get positive feedback like that, it really makes us work even harder and be even more determined to make a kick-ass game. Thank you!
Azor is a Transylvanian kitty who is really convinced he's a doggie. The bit of plot he's involved in is one of my favorites so far :)
(http://i.imgur.com/Yv2fQJs.gif)
Looking amazing on the art side, guys!
I'm going to watch your documentary for sure!
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Sat 17/06/2017 15:58:19
Azor is a Transylvanian kitty who is really convinced he's a doggie. The bit of plot he's involved in is one of my favorites so far :)
Couldn't help thinking of this quote!
(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/powerpuff/images/4/45/Ghostbusters_3_cats_and_dogs_living_together.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161121154217)
Quote from: Mandle on Sat 17/06/2017 16:17:52
Looking amazing on the art side, guys!
I'm going to watch your documentary for sure!
Woot, appreciated! Yeah, as an indie dev I'd love to see more indie dev documentaries, even zero budget ones like ours :)
Quote from: Blondbraid on Sat 17/06/2017 17:33:46
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Sat 17/06/2017 15:58:19
Azor is a Transylvanian kitty who is really convinced he's a doggie. The bit of plot he's involved in is one of my favorites so far :)
Couldn't help thinking of this quote!
(http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/powerpuff/images/4/45/Ghostbusters_3_cats_and_dogs_living_together.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20161121154217)
Haha, true!
Hey guys, just put up a hefty update on the VFX we'll be using in-game :-D
Link to update here! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/1924760)
(http://i.imgur.com/L66h0af.gif) (http://"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/1924760)
This is looking pretty pretty ;)
everything that moves is fixed in place, but what happenes to the clouds once they leave the screen?
Hmm, don't know exactly, I think they die and are randomly respawned. Well, not really randomly - we have a definite array of paths that they can follow.
The link on the picture is not working.
But that looks great. (nod)
Quote from: Cassiebsg on Fri 30/06/2017 20:32:48
The link on the picture is not working.
But that looks great. (nod)
Whoops, PHPBB kicking my butt :-D I put the link above the gif now.
Wow, that really looks impressive!
How the hell have I missed this thread up until now?! This looks really exciting. I'll be following your progress from now on.
Thank you so much, everybody!
In tangentially-related news, I decided to finally sit down and write a post mortem / guide to Kickstarting, building on our great crowd-funding experience of last year.
The idea behind this is to gather all the information I've had to hunt down in several places during 2015-2016 and write it down into one cohesive thing. Well, three of them actually - I had to break it into chapters because of sheer length.
Part I, which deals with the pre-campaign period, is now published and a featured post on Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LiviuBoar/20170714/301662/Helping_You_Kickstart_Part_I_The_PreCampaign_Period.php).
I really hope this helps you out if you are thinking of crowd-funding. I keep seeing great games that would deserve to get funded and don't because their campaigns don't match their games' awesomess, so here's to my article hopefully being of some use.
Kitteh demonstrating adventure game players' approach to solving puzzles:
(https://i.imgur.com/g1kTfje.gif)
Kitteh rules :wub: :grin:
I'll bang that trapdoor open with my head! (laugh)
Hey! It's screenshot saturday! :)
(https://i.imgur.com/uyZoqfv.gif)
Those are some nice, smooth animations, Mr Underhill.
That guy's eyebrows are freaking me out a bit though! :-D
Looking awesome.
It's fantastic to see how well the animation and dialogue flow together, it looks awesome!
Also, is the couple an American Gothic reference? ;-D
Thanks, guys. @Blondbraid: yes, very much so :-D
Here's a link to our latest update, rife with tons of gifs and other cool stuff! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/777841902/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/1997441)
Just a taste:
(https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/018/468/881/e8fe66f24b592f3ea1cbc8c6c5f703c0_original.gif?w=639&fit=max&v=1506341992&auto=format&gif-q=50&q=92&s=658e2ba3027c818fc85f4672399d107f)
...and a work-in-progress of part of our intro cinematic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHv_ry1edu0
Looking very professional, Mr Underhill... all those animations must take forever to make!
wow, very interesting the best past of the intro is how he appears from out of the dark @ 1:12.
the light from the side changes from redy orange (best color imho) to bright green to bright yellow orange (and the phone disappears on that, probably behind the paperwork). Some of them seem like neon sign outside of the office, but then, why would the neonsigns outside your office change so much, so this indicates a change of location to me. if there wasn't the green light it could be different heights of the sun outside the office, but the green gave me that neonsign vibe. just saying.
@Andail: Yeah, they do take a lot. Luckily we're pretty experienced, and client work has taught us to be fast and furious ;-D
@selmiak: The color change in the office reflects different moments of the day - we see Don poring over occult stuff at night first, illuminated by different lights from outside as you correctly noticed, and then when he's checking his wallet it's already morning light. Details in the backgrounds are all temporary - to be honest, they're not really actual backgrounds. We wanted to show what we have so far in the update, so we (shamefully!) used slightly touched-up color script panels as background art. Never do that in a final product :D
There are plenty of other small goof-ups but we'll iron those out before launch proper, right now this is probably what's going in the backer beta build as an intro cutscene.
Thanks for the interest, guys! It's our first game, and it's always good to have feedback from people more experienced with adventure game makin'.
This is coming along grandly.
Keep it up :-)
WOW! I just watched the trailer for the detective intro and it is AWESOME!!!
I hope you have ditched the Argyle-cover-on-the-Necronomicon joke... That's still way too cheap a shot to take at the mythos for the quality of the game you are producing...
Lovecraft fans can forgive humour at the expense of the characters, but they will not forgive any cheap-shots at the mythos itself...
If the game includes humour then my advice would be to emphasize it early on in the game and then slowly phase it out bit by bit as the horror factor ramps up...
This gives the player their comfort zone early on while the character they are playing is still in a good mood, and then slowly takes it away as the character and the situation slowly descends into madness...
The player will feel the rug taken out from under their feet and feel uncomfortable as the game changes tone from comedy to horror...
Then you could have a unique and substantial take on Lovecraft gaming... A path that few games have walked...
But if you continue with the comedy throughout the game you will keep the player in their comfort zone and provide a merely entertaining game for them...
Sorry to be that guy, but I feel you could do something really special with this game if it was handled with the care that the mythos deserves.
Very slick intro cinematic, it felt like watching an animated movie! ;-D
Thanks Blondbraid! We will hopefully have a few of these punctuating important plot points.
Quote from: Mandle on Tue 26/09/2017 18:22:36
WOW! I just watched the trailer for the detective intro and it is AWESOME!!!
I hope you have ditched the Argyle-cover-on-the-Necronomicon joke... That's still way too cheap a shot to take at the mythos for the quality of the game you are producing...
Lovecraft fans can forgive humour at the expense of the characters, but they will not forgive any cheap-shots at the mythos itself...
If the game includes humour then my advice would be to emphasize it early on in the game and then slowly phase it out bit by bit as the horror factor ramps up...
This gives the player their comfort zone early on while the character they are playing is still in a good mood, and then slowly takes it away as the character and the situation slowly descends into madness...
The player will feel the rug taken out from under their feet and feel uncomfortable as the game changes tone from comedy to horror...
Then you could have a unique and substantial take on Lovecraft gaming... A path that few games have walked...
But if you continue with the comedy throughout the game you will keep the player in their comfort zone and provide a merely entertaining game for them...
Sorry to be that guy, but I feel you could do something really special with this game if it was handled with the care that the mythos deserves.
No need to apologize, I completely understand where you're coming from with this, and it's an interesting discussion to have, for sure. I'm a huge fan of Lovecraft's, and I'm not at all into cheapening and disrespecting the very thing that inspired us by taking cheap shots.
However, it's also a matter of perspective and interpretation. The Necronomicon example is incidentally a very good one: comedy is primarily relegated to humans. They might make fun of the triangle-based design of the Necronomicon, sure... That doesn't make them right, or make the Necronomicon itself less scary ;) Lovecraftian media that tries to achieve a comedic effect by belittling or cute-ifying the Old Ones, while it doesn't offend or bother me, just isn't my thing.
But heck, I made a whole animated video about this, check it out :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiK7dpJMNWI
Heyo! So, we got Gibbous running on Apple TV, how crazy is that?
Show starts at about the 2 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9eigNI1DxM
If you're interested, we do dev streams every Monday to Tuesday, this including art, development, music, animation... pretty much everything on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/gibbousgame).
Quote from: Mandle on Tue 26/09/2017 18:22:36
Lovecraft fans can forgive humour at the expense of the characters, but they will not forgive any cheap-shots at the mythos itself...
Weird, since Lovecraft himself made fun of his usual tropes with indescribable horrors in this short story (http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/u.aspx).
I'm of the opinion that things can be funny while also being scary, it's just hard to pull off right.
It will be very interesting to see how this game turns out!
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Tue 26/09/2017 19:21:50
But heck, I made a whole animated video about this, check it out :D
I already did. I believe my original criticisms of the same points might have been the reason for this video. :P
But awesome work on the game and good job at keeping with it all this time! Anything from true fans that brings the world
closer to the brink of the awakening and return of The Great Old Ones more Lovecraft is always a good thing!
Mandle, you'll have to forgive me, I am old and my memory is feeble and I'm the kind of guy who tells the same joke to the same people until someone stops him :-D
Blondbraid, true! Was just listening to this beautiful thing:
(https://i.imgur.com/SFrUKaD.jpg)
...and there's a part where the actors reading it discuss exactly that, how even in his 20s the man knew himself and his style so well that he would self-parody himself in writing. Granted, that doesn't mean that it's an easy task for a rube like me to successfuly mix comedy and cosmic horror together... But I am encouraged by the fact that I feel I've found my voice with it and writing comes naturally. This does not make it necessarily good, it merely makes it not disjointed, but that's an important step to feel you have conquered when you mix such radically different alchemical elements together. Really curious how the beta will be received from a writing standpoint :)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 29/09/2017 15:51:07
Mandle, you'll have to forgive me, I am old and my memory is feeble and I'm the kind of guy who tells the same joke to the same people until someone stops him :-D
Hahaha... no worries... I remember being a bit rude in my evaluation of the game at that point... sorry for that...
(Hidden to avoid being seen as an advert for another game)
Spoiler
By the way, have you checked out "Chronicle Of Innsmouth" at all?
It's an AGS-made Lovecraft game. Also mixes comedy with the horror mythos but in a disjointed way: The comedy is early on in the game and then fades out as the horror factor ramps up.
It's on steam and I believe that the fully voiced deluxe edition is available now. (Or, if I'm wrong, will be soon and free to anyone who downloads the original version).
Just thought you might be interested in checking it out as a way to blend comedy and horror. I'm not saying it's the only right and/or perfect way, but quite a few reviewers have found the mix pleasing (and a few have not as well)...
Yes! Bought it right when it came out, only got to play about an hour and haven't really had time to touch it since, but looking forward to it!
Hidden to avoid derailing the thread:
Spoiler
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 29/09/2017 18:20:28
Yes! Bought it right when it came out, only got to play about an hour and haven't really had time to touch it since, but looking forward to it!
I think if you check your Steam account you might find you can upgrade to the fully voiced deluxe edition for free...
Or, if not now, then soon.
I would highly recommend doing so because the voicing is very good and adds so much to the game experience.
(And it took me many flasks of midnight oil to track down "all" of the actors' misreads and correct the text to fit.)
Hey, it's not a problem, really. I'm all for talking adventure games and Lovecraft in general in this space (I don't think there's enough interest to warrant a separate thread... OR IS THERE? (laugh))
Personally I'm still salty Agustin Cordes' The Case of Charles Dexter Ward didn't make int on Kickstarter back in 2014. I understand people felt it was wrong to double dip before delivering on Asylum, but it's still a shame.
With the official Call of Cthulhu video game delayed until next year, what I'm really, really, REALLY looking forward to and buying day one is The Sinking City (http://frogwares.com/gallery/?cat=sinking_city). Granted, not really an adventure game, but we can't really be that picky :)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Sat 30/09/2017 11:54:14
(I don't think there's enough interest to warrant a separate thread... OR IS THERE? (laugh))
The admin will probably decide that if the time comes ;)
Have you tried the "Elder Sign: Omens" computer game based on the original board game?
I've watched Let's Plays of it on youtube and it looks like an absolute must for Lovecraft gamers!
Again, not an adventure game, but has elements that will appeal to adventure and RPG gamers I feel.
No. Sadly my game playing has been reduced by a whopping 80-90% (yes, really!) just by working on Gibbous. Gonna have a lot of catching up to do once we're done with this thing! :-D
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Wed 04/10/2017 12:25:12
No. Sadly my game playing has been reduced by a whopping 80-90% (yes, really!) just by working on Gibbous. Gonna have a lot of catching up to do once we're done with this thing! :-D
I know the feeling, but a day off now and then to just play games is a really important thing for a game dev I feel.
Don't get out of touch with the very thing you are creating.
One day I'll get my hands on that Ben Chandler and yank out of him the arcane knowledge of both outputting a ton of good art AND playing tons of games. Oneee daaaay...
I just found this image and came to think about this game with the mix of comedy and Lovecraftian horror :) :
(http://78.media.tumblr.com/9f1b5870f6e0feb3133b318d201861cd/tumblr_mp8f1dac531r2cn4go1_500.png)
Quote from: Blondbraid on Mon 09/10/2017 10:57:21
I just found this image
and I suggest you put it carefully back where you found it and place a large rock on top of it. :P
We weren't exactly happy with our previous main menu screen, so I've overhauled all the graphics and now they parallax-scroll in what I dare say is a pretty sexy way.
(https://i.imgur.com/yY6NWGq.gif)
Yay!
Trippy. :cheesy:
awesome.
I'd even go as far as making the green light from the necronomicon pulsate in brightness (or flicker or whatever) and also on his face and the people on the foreground and/or some smokey chimneys in the background :)
Yeah, adding some real lighting is in the plan, plus some extra layers, but we're focused on pushing out the beta build asap, so those nice to haves will probably have to wait til release proper :)
WOW! :shocked:
I loved it before, but this new screen is just AMAZING! :cheesy:
Fantastic work! :grin:
That is an awesome menu! :-D
Thanks, guys! :) Now back to my 102-point revisions list for the beta build... :-[
While the rest of the team is busy putting the final touches on our beta build, I've been writing so many additional hotspot descriptions that taking a break and making a quick custom pick-up animation felt like a real fun distraction :)
(https://i.imgur.com/eHF7tTU.gif)
Where other games have the "I can't reach that" excuse, you got an acrobatic cat. (laugh)
I think that may just be the single most awesome cat in gaming history! 8-)
Nothing can stop Kitteh :wink:
So cute!
Sometimes I wonder if it's worth putting the extra few hours into fun little animations like this, but hey, apparently it is! Thanks, you guys :-D
Sure it is!
That's what adventure games live on, small details like that just show how much care and love the developer has put into the game. (nod) And you doing it brilliantly! Keep it up. :-D
Hey, so, in case you were wondering what's taking this game so long to appear, among others it's responses. Custom responses. LOTS OF THEM.
But everything is better grasped visually, so I made a gif:
(https://gifyu.com/images/lng.gif)
...this number doesn't include the actual bulk of the writing, that is character to character dialogues.
Fun times! (laugh)
Love the BG!
And yes, lots and lots of text... that some players will never actually see (some just do the basic to get the game moving, or just follow a walk-through missing all this richness! 8-0)
Keep up the long, tedious and fun work. (laugh)
Thank you, Cassie. Well, they always say adventure games aren't big on replayability, so while it doesn't affect the plot, you can have another go just to see what you've missed.
I was initially considering a "rubbed everything on everything" achievement, but at this point it would be nigh unachievable (laugh)
Oh, not me, I click everywhere!
I like to exhaustively search a "room", before I move on (not to say I actually find everything the first time though). (laugh)
Happy Halloween, folks! Hope you have a better one than Kitteh ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/CFUM3uj.gif)
Hey peeps.
New Kickstarter update is up, clickety-click! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stuckinattic/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/2122856)
I know those of you who backed us (thank you again!) already know, but I figured I'd link it in here for everyone else, too.
We talk about moving office (gasp!), getting two more girls on the team (double gasp!) and being content complete. Check it out!
Great to see you're getting near the end of development!
An encouraging thought for you - the last 10% takes as much effort as the previous 90%! 8-0 8-)
Thanks Cap! Yep, we're aware :-D
Do you have any plans to set up a steam page? This will definitely be going on my wishlist!
Definitely coming really soon. We keep saying "Hey, we should put that Steam page up" to each other, and keep getting caught in production stuff.
It's coming! ;-D
Sneak preview of Don's appearance in our upcoming launch trailer.
(https://i.imgur.com/pApfb4h.gif)
(He won't be looping in the trailer)
It looks 3d-ish, but it's just lots and lots of transparent pngs (30, to be precise) being moved around and scaled at different speeds.
When you can't afford 3d, fake it! ;)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 16/03/2018 12:50:44
It looks 3d-ish, but it's just lots and lots of transparent pngs (30, to be precise) being moved around and scaled at different speeds.
Smart idea! ;)
_
Wow! The latest animation looks great, nice 3d effect! 8-)
Yes, awesome effect! (nod)
Stop... stop pointing at me. I didn't do it. I'm innocent, I tell you. *cowers behind the settee* :tongue:
Seriously though, AMAZING effect! Love it! :grin:
It looks more 3D than 3D! I swear it looks like his hand is coming out of my monitor.
It's the dark arts!
Thanks guys! Dark arts are what we do (nod):-*
So, what's been up with Gibbous, you ask? Big KS update coming soon, but the tl;dr is that the game per se is done, and we're super hard at work implementing the ~12,500 lines of dialogue, plus the animated cutscenes. Cthulhu have mercy on our souls!
Until then, here's a x20 speed Transylvanian scene to tide you over. I've always loved how beautiful clouds' shadows passing over hills looked, so I had to have it in the game ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/G5Ogb7O.gif)
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Sat 12/05/2018 10:02:25
(https://i.imgur.com/G5Ogb7O.gif)
Well done Underhill, very atmospheric!
Spoiler
Where is the light source for the shadows of characters? I'm a bit confused...
_
Wow, that last screenshot looks absolutely gorgeous! 8-0
Stunning! (nod) :-D
Keep the good work!
Thank you all! Your feedback is super-encouraging, while soon releasing the game is hella frightening :)
Quote from: TheFrighther on Sat 12/05/2018 11:29:49
Well done Underhill, very atmospheric!
Spoiler
Where is the light source for the shadows of characters? I'm a bit confused...
_
Artistic license :D light is moving at a waaay slower rate (x20 so), so it wasn't really worth the effort to move the characters' shadows; also, they're actually lit by a different, off-scene light. It makes more sense at normal speed than I'm making it sound :D
Hey guys! Thought I'd let you know what exciting things have been happening lately in zee world of Gibous.
Yesterday we went into the studio with Rolli, an INCREDIBLY talented local 18 year old violinist. An incredible contribution to the soundtrack - we were absolutely blown away.
He took a glance at the music sheets, and was like "Yo, can I improvise?". We gave him an enthusiastic go ahead, and... Well, it's all in the video below, but to give you the tl;dr EVERYTHING is 100% improvised, and all takes were absolutely perfect and will make it into the song as they are.
Truly mind-blowing. We're super grateful to all our backers for allowing us to afford such jaw-dropping talent.
https://youtu.be/mnWpiEEdnhY
WOW, that guy is amazing! :cheesy:
Thanks for sharing this.
W00T, thanks! We just published our latest Kickstarter update, containing much more info about where we're at. Check it out! (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stuckinattic/gibbous-a-cthulhu-adventure/posts/2209705) :)
It's screenshotsaturday, so here's a bit of our launch trailer!
(https://i.imgur.com/9wSyA9a.gif)
coooooooool!
Everything just looks so good! (nod)
Good job and hope you're getting close to a release. (nod)(nod)
Does the sentence continue after "Experience an occult"?
Just asking because "occult" is an adjective and needs a noun following it to make sense.
For example: "Experience an occult ritual."
Probably you guys have it covered but thought I'd mention it just in case...
This looks awesome! 8-0
Thanks guys!
We are getting closer to release, just editing and inserting voices into the game like there's no tomorrow.
Basically, it would probably have been out by now, had it not been for me insisting on having unique responses to all possible combinations, which resulted in a script the length of the freaking...
I mean, here you go:
(https://i.imgur.com/55iRvh8.png)
Quote from: Mandle on Sun 01/07/2018 17:19:17
Does the sentence continue after "Experience an occult"?
Just asking because "occult" is an adjective and needs a noun following it to make sense.
For example: "Experience an occult ritual."
Probably you guys have it covered but thought I'd mention it just in case...
Yeah, it does. I cheekily ended it there so it left people a bit curious. It goes "
Experience an occult globe-trotting adventure" :)
Uhm, not sure that worked. I just thought "why is is it cut?".
Heh, yeah. Well, it is just a gif. Getting this trailer right takes so damn much I might as well show off bits here and there.
Have you guys - who've already had trailers out - had such a hard time getting yours right too? Is it just me?
Speaking of trailers...
https://youtu.be/JAMl8W2HeDE
Whew! That sure took a lot to come out :) Alright, back to feverishly finishing this game.
Also, here's the Steam page. (https://store.steampowered.com/app/914020/Gibbous___A_Cthulhu_Adventure/) It would really mean a lot to us if you took a moment to wishlist it. Apparently Steam's hermetical and unholy algorithms take the number of wishlists into account, the more there are the more visible the game on launch. Thanks! :)
Wow! That was an awesome trailer! :-D
Wishing you and your team the best of luck! (nod)
I already added it to my Steam wishlist! :)
Yay! Thanks, you guys! :-D
P'nglui mwgnwafh fhtagn, thread resurrected!
Gibbous launches August 7, 2019!
https://youtu.be/Zfbel8N52xY
Congrats on your AdventureGamer Hypometer success guys! Well deserved. ;-D
Looks amazing.
Whoa 8-0
Yay! Thanks! :grin: We're as excited as we are scared.
Quote from: Mr Underhill on Fri 12/07/2019 12:45:20
We're as excited as we are scared.
I hope the players experience both these emotions too when playing!!!
Best of luck!
YES!!!
Very ready to play this game (nod)
Aw, the latest trailer just looked awesome! :-D
I am so looking forward to this game!
Thanks guys! We're releasing a week from Wednesday. SO EXCITED AAAAAH! :-D
Now available on Steam!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/914020
Or Good Old Games!
https://www.gog.com/game/gibbous_a_cthulhu_adventure