Centaur Mania , pirate games , and other ideas

Queen Kara · Thu 29/04/2004 04:09:13

I hope I'm right in assuming this is ok to put here since it has no screenshots or anything , so it doesn't belong in "games in production" ...and since it's adventure related , I thought it didn't really belong in general...anyways , I have kicked around this idea for a while now and even started working on it but with a different engine , but I think it'd be a better idea to have it as my first ags game. The biggest problem is that I have no plot , so it's just "well it hasn't been done before but I only have a very basic idea about what I want to do"...which is...you play as a centaur , in a game about centaurs , hence the title , Centaur Mania. I read this article where a person complained that you could only see centaurs as NPCs and such , but you'd never actually get to play as a centaur , I agree and think there should be at least one game out there in which centaur lovers like me can do that. Yet when it comes to anything more creative than that ( like what is the players motivation..save a princess or what? lol ) , I can't come up with anything / am lazy and haven't come up with anything.
It's annoying because I consider myself a pretty creative person , or I at least try to be. Yet , so far , all I see in my head for this game are centaurs and pretty tents out in a desert.
Soo ....should I go with a cliche and have the plot be a "save royality / the world" or what?
Oh , and of course it's supposed to be pretty funny , since the word mania is in the title.

DragonRose · Thu 29/04/2004 04:25:53

Have you tried looking at Greek myths that actually involve Centaurs? They were they tried to steal brides from weddings, they were often drunk, and in general they were more concerned about having fun than anything else.

Exception to the rule was Chiron, who was the teacher of Jason and Achilles. He was very wise and formal- so unless he's the straight man, he'd be no good for basing a comedic game off of.

Maybe you could have some sort of story where your Centaur needs to kidnap the princess instead of saving her?

Queen Kara · Thu 29/04/2004 04:41:57

Yes , I love Greek myths , but it's been awhile since I've actually read anything involving centaurs. -_-;
I considered having it be about kidnapping a princess or something before but I guess I just quickly forgot about it again. lol
Is it possible to make an ags game where you get to choose your gender? I haven't seen anything like that yet and originally my idea was for the main character to be a female centaur ( forgot to mention that earlier ) but just now I thought , maybe some people would rather they get to choose which gender instead of "being forced" to play as a female. I know I get sick and tired of having to play as a guy in games , so I thought it might upset some guys to have to play as a girl. *shrugs*
I hadn't even considered putting Chiron in the game , that's a great idea! Thanks for the help.
When / if this project ever gets finished , you'll be in the credits.
Anybody else helping me out will , of course , also be mentioned in credits.
*makes a mental note to research centaurs again sometime if she's going to be making a game about centaurs*
On an almost unrelated note -
I love pirates but pirate games have already been covered in AGS , so , would people get annoyed if I made a pirate game? Should I just have pirates as cameos or some thing in Centaur Mania or would it not be a big deal to work on a pirate game after Centaur Mania?
I love google.
Thanks , Os.

LordHart · Thu 29/04/2004 05:22:54

Okay, heres just a link to google after I searched for greek mythos centaur. I don't have much time now to go through everything, so I'll leave that to you.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=greek+mythos+centaur&btnG=Google+Search

ElectricMonk · Thu 29/04/2004 09:55:25

Quote
I know I get sick and tired of having to play as a guy in games , so I thought it might upset some guys to have to play as a girl. *shrugs*

Personally, as long as a character is well written, I don't care about the gender. And most of the time, playing a female character in an adventure game is a refreshing change from the norm (cough, withtheexeptionofphantasmagoria, cough).

DanClarke · Thu 29/04/2004 23:17:29

Quote from: ElectricMonk on Thu 29/04/2004 09:55:25
Quote
I know I get sick and tired of having to play as a guy in games , so I thought it might upset some guys to have to play as a girl. *shrugs*

Queen Kara · Fri 30/04/2004 00:10:43

What about pirate games? Any comments for me on the whole pirate thing? Any body?

Some other ideas - a game where you're a cat ( I love cats and kittens and get annoyed when people talk badly of them ) ...an egyptian based game , at least one hobbit / vampire related game ( one of my characters is a vampiric hobbit - Chillwise Bonfire ) , and of course there just has to be a game set in outer space since one of my characters is an ex-space pirate ( oh yeah there's another pirate game idea already...so that's one for the regular idea of pirate games and one for an ex-space pirate..lol ) who now owns a successful pizza resturant (sp.) chain.
Oh , and of course I'd have to do at least one horror game.
Hehehe.

LordHart · Fri 30/04/2004 01:21:40

Oh no... you had to bring up pirates, didn't you... :o

* Os Ã Å¡ltimo QuÃ£o Queijo ^_^ jumps out of the way of the many pirate crazed AGSers...

Davis · Fri 30/04/2004 23:42:57

Quote from: DanClarke on Thu 29/04/2004 23:17:29
Quote from: ElectricMonk on Thu 29/04/2004 09:55:25
Quote
I know I get sick and tired of having to play as a guy in games , so I thought it might upset some guys to have to play as a girl. *shrugs*

I find I don't really mind playing as a girl if I get to see her boobies. And if she's really two dimentional, like, character wise. Really helpless. Helpless and topless. Yeah.

Queen Kara · Mon 03/05/2004 06:04:36

I've been messing a bit with AGS while reading the beginner's tut.
I hate coding.
Here's that screenshot I promised , I know it must look odd since it got pixelated from changing it so that it's in 256 color mode but I like it that way too. I didn't want to lose too much quality so I'm sorry it's not any smaller. I know how to get it to work as a room but only for a high resolution , even in 256 color mode i think I had problems with some things I tried ...I personally like the look of the cartoony stuff against a photographic-quality pic ...I don't do 3D so how would you feel if I wanted my game to be a mix of photographic and "cartoony" quality graphics? I know higher resolutions aren't ok for cartoony stuff but since it would be a mix , I'd need to have the game in high resolution mode just so it doesn't mess up the look of the photographs. If I remember correctly , Dada used a mix of mediums ( photography and painting or something ) so I hope that people like this idea too. I enjoyed Dada very much but I'm not very good at making realistic / professional looking backgrounds so I'd prefer to use photos and such for the backgrounds. I consider myself ok at making characters and such though.

Davis · Tue 04/05/2004 01:24:53

nt

Queen Kara · Tue 04/05/2004 02:19:54

I do understand sarcasm but at that point in time I didn't know you were being sarcastic , sometimes it's hard to tell online what "tone" a person is intending in their message ,
(and there wasn't anything added that would've clued me in that it was sarcastic) , sorry for my previous post.
$:-\$
( lol I just noticed that smilie is called "undecided" but when I used it , it was supposed to be like "oops , sorry" )

Back on topic , would somebody please give their opinion about my ideas?
I need to know because if somebody feels like "not another space game" or something , then I just won't use that idea.
Deal?

Oh , here's some background on the whole "ex-space pirate" thing :

Cassia

Ashen · Tue 04/05/2004 12:04:27

You want opinions? OK then:

1. Provided the game's actually any good, and you don't just use Roger, I don't much care WHAT the PC is.

2. That said, playing as something other than a human/ human-like alien in a full game would be an interesting change, but there'd have to be a better reason for it than just 'it's never been done'.

3. None of your ideas make me go 'oh no, not another ..... game', but you haven't really said anything about them (plot, characters, etc) so it's hard to say.

4. You'd need to post a screenshot with one of your characters on it, as it is that's just a photo of Stone Henge that's been made 256 colour. But, yeah, the style could work.

Hmm, reading them back I sound kind of harsh, sorry about that, have this link to make up for it:
http://smith.dailyjolt.com/pictures/picture.html?picture_id=15272

Davis · Wed 05/05/2004 01:52:09

Aww! I wanted to say something that could be considered harsh too, but now I just can't.

No, but seriously, basically your first post was "Dude, wouldn't it cool if there was a game with centaurs? I love centaurs. I think there should be more centaurs in games."

Now you're asking what everyone thinks about your idea. Here's what might get you a little better results:

"I've got this idea for a game. The main character will be a centaur, named _______. He's part of a roving band of centaur pirates and ruffians (and rapscallions, even) who roam the desert robbing caravans. However, one day as they're robbing..."

Just saying, "Wouldn't a game about centaurs be like, mad sweet," isn't really... a game proposal, you know? Not to harsh your mellow, just saying.

Ashen · Wed 05/05/2004 01:55:00

I've found kittens make most things easier to take. I try to have one around when ever I insult someone, it totally throws them off.

Layabout · Wed 05/05/2004 08:48:27

I don't think we really need any more pirate games unless they are so awesome they rock peoples worlds.

But centaurs could be interesting.

Queen Kara · Wed 05/05/2004 11:09:59

"3. None of your ideas make me go 'oh no, not another ..... game', but you haven't really said anything about them (plot, characters, etc) so it's hard to say." Sorry , I haven't really worked on characters yet , I have files righ now labeled things like "spritessinging.bmp , spriteswalking.bmp , portraits.bmp , ect." but right now they're just blank space with a label somewhere at the top , poor dears are waiting for actual graphics to cuddle and spoil.

As for plot , I've mentioned a few times that sometimes I have trouble with plot ideas. Thanks to this thread I've got some possible game elements to add into the whole centaur thing now but for the most part it's not planned. Even though "it's never been done before" is a part of why I want to make a game about centaurs , I love centaurs and my star sign is also known as the Horse or Centaur. I love mythology and fantasy ...once I start working on the textboxes / "speech" , I will "teach" what I know after I finish researching again throughout the game. So , hopefully , through most of my games one will not only be entertained but maybe they'll come back from "the experience" knowing things they may not have known before.

""Wouldn't a game about centaurs be like, mad sweet," " Huh? I don't see how I was like that. You must be thinking of the guy I was qouting , not me. I was just saying that I agree with him. I realized it wouldn't really count as a game in progress , so that's why I posted here instead of in "games in progress" , per the rules , I did not post in there because I basically have little to no plot , didn't have any screenshots ready at the time and only have one screenshot for now ,
ect. Please remember that I'm not a professional at making games and that I'm new to the forums. Even small games can't be great right away and since I want Centaur Mania to be a nice big game ( or at least a series of well made small games ) , it's going to take me even longer and I've barely scratched the surface. Everyone has to get their start somewhere and all good things start with one idea.

I don't understand every aspect of Surfer or whatever lingo you're using. What does "Not to harsh your mellow" mean?

"1. Provided the game's actually any good, and you don't just use Roger, I don't much care WHAT the PC is" That's part of why I made this thread, since I'm so new , I haven't done much yet. Unfortunately , right now the PC is a roger , but as soon as I get the main character sprite done and all her animations , he'll be kicked out. In the other version of Centaur Mania that I have worked on and still haven't finished , I haven't really got much of a plot in that one either but already worked on text for the game , I haven't looked at that version in a long time but I will as I work on the AGS version for ideas since I had done alot in the other one....I tried making original graphics for that version but they wouldn't work , in AGS it's easier to import your own graphics and have them still look good. The all important hotspots , animations , ect. haven't been worked on yet because , again , I just started a while ago on the project. I wouldn't have made this thread at all if I wasn't in need of help for ideas and such. Even though I haven't yet , I will also be asking people via pms for help with the game with the all important scripting and such since those things scare me , especially script coding.

Centaur Mania is already being worked on..it's just slow going since I'm new and I need help with plot and other things, just in case I didn't make myself clear about that before. I apoligize for the lack of plot but that is why I posted here. If I had more stuff already , I would've posted in "games in progress" , but because of the rules there , I posted this thread in here. I apoligize for any confusion and annoyance this may have caused. Even though in a way I'm disappointed with how this thread is going , I am glad people are posting in it. Please remember that I'm an amateur at making games and am new to the forums. I don't have tons of stuff to show you yet because I just started a while ago. Please keep that in mind when posting your opinions. Thank you. Oh , and I haven't even started work on other games yet because I have been trying things out a bit with AGS and working a bit on the Centaur Mania project. Thanks again for posting.

Sorry my posts are so long.

LordHart · Thu 06/05/2004 23:28:31

Dont know if you recieved my reply, as it didn't turn up in my outbox when it was sent... but if you wanna talk some more, email me at lordhart@tdrdesign.net...