Shadowplay (updated 27 Jun. 2005)

[Flop]

I must say I'm very excited about this game. I first heard about back when I read that article i pcp about a year and a half ago, but had forgotten it untill recently. I'm glad to see you're still working on it.

I hate to be a pain in the ass, but I don't suppose you could give us an update or something? I'd love to see some screenshots and/or get some more info about the game. And how is that demo coming along?

I'll stop bugging you now, I just had to ask.

[GarageGothic]

You're not a pain in the ass . It's perfectly true that I've take much too long with the demo and made a lot of empty promises about a it's release date.

The current status is that the standalone demo has been put on hold - I simply wasn't able to come up with a demo design that I was satisfied with. For some reason I find it extremely difficult to write "comedic gameplay" a la LucasArts, which was the style of the demo story. If Modgeulator hadn't written all that cool demo music (which doesn't really fit the full game), I'd just drop the concept altogether.

However, I DO intend to release something quite soon. Not a full demo, but more of a "tech demo" which shows off the interface and some of the techical features of the game. I won't promise anything, but if you've looked elsewhere in the forums, you'll know that a "Release Something! Day" has been announced very soon...

[ildu]

Stand by your game, man. I, too am very excited about this game. I don't really care if/when you release a demo, just that you stick with the project. If you have troubles making up a premise for the demo, just make it the a sequence from the actual game, so when the demo is done, you have a headstart to completing the game.

My own project is split into three acts, so that I release them separately. But before any release, I'm going to release a demo of the first act. This gives me some hope of getting the whole thing finished some time in the future. If you're having trouble writing your own story structure or dialog, get someone to do it for you. I'm betting many would be interested.

[Flop]

Don't worry about the pushing back of release dates and what you call empty promises. As long as you're still working on the full game, I'm satisfied, and I could do without the demo since I rarely play those anyway, preferring to wait for the full game in all it's glory(although if you already got someone else to make music specifically for the demo, I can see why you'd want to release it).

If nothing else, it's good to see that big business hasn't monopolised the concept of pushing back release dates (yet!).

Anyway, I hope you're getting some work done on the full game, as well as the demos, and that you're not completely neglecting your studies.

[GarageGothic]

Thanks for the support guys.

ildu, the reason for making the demo as a stand-alone game was that I myself, just like Flop, usually prefer to "wait for the full game in all it's glory". Releasing just the first day of the game as a demo would mean that people would have to wait 6 or 8 months for the rest of a story they've begun . Plus, the first couple of hours with the full game would be spent on something they'd already played. That doesn't seem very satisfying to me. For the very same reason I gave up the idea of publishing Shadowplay in acts - it needs to be one whole package.

I'm currently in the "general systems" stage of development, where all the functions that are re-used throughout the game, are set up with as wide a range of functionality as possible. The tech demo will show off some of these features, the most recent of which is the html-like system used for the in-game computers.

Regarding the "Release Something!" day on the 25th (which is tomorrow), I realized that it's a Saturday I won't be able to get online. I hope to upload something on Monday though, even though it's a bit late.

[ildu]

The way I'm making my game and demo is that the whole game will be made in 3 parts, for each day of the gameworld. Each part will be released separately and there will probably be no full release in the end (if I ever get there). Each of the parts will have a intro and outro video, and the intro video for parts 2 & 3 will include a 'what happened previously' -sequence. The first two parts will have a big cliffhanger in the end, so that people are able to anticipate the next installment with more ease.

The demo will be the first scene of the whole game, somewhat of a storybase and a moodsetter. So it's gonna be the start of the first day (not literally). But what I'm going to do is I'm going to add stuff into the demo scenes in the first day release, so it feels fresh to gamers.

This is pretty much the same idea that was used with the game Still Life. It had a huge cliffhanger in the end. Some people complained, but I was very happy with it and I'm awaiting the next installment.

Splitting the parts will not only help organizing my workload, it will give me somewhat realistic midpoints to achieve in the whole development process. This way I won't get so easily discouraged and I won't switch to new projects. If you're planning to release the full game and it's a long game (I presume) it will be a huge huge undertaking to complete fully. I'd hate to see this project die with all the other important projects I've seen fail miserably in my 5 years as a modder and gamemaker in different communities.

[Snarky]

This is pretty much the same idea that was used with the game Still Life. It had a huge cliffhanger in the end. Some people complained, but I was very happy with it and I'm awaiting the next installment.

Didn't you hear? Microids sold their Canadian branch to Ubisoft. The people who made Still Life will be (may already be) working on Ubisoft titles. There is no one to make the next installment.

[Kweepa]

Didn't you hear? Microids sold their Canadian branch to Ubisoft. The people who made Still Life will be (may already be) working on Ubisoft titles. There is no one to make the next installment.

http://www.microids.com/newsdetail.aspx?n=68
"This agreement does not cover any of MC2-Microids intellectual property or projects currently under development."
Interesting. They bought the employees. How Victorian.
Presumably the IP is still held by Microids proper rather than Microids Canada. So if there's a sequel in the works, perhaps the development will continue elsewhere?

So, err, Shadowplay! Yay! Looking forward to the demo!

[GarageGothic]

Frankly I hated the ending of Still Life and those responsible should be eviscerated with a rusty blade. But on to the Shadowplay related stuff...Ã, 

I didn't manage to wrap up the tech demo for today, but on the other hand I thought it was lame just to apologize for the 100th time. So I decided to post some screenshots instead, showing the interface. Click the links below the thumbnails to view full-size shots. I also threw in a dialog picture of Lucas, player character in the demo, sidekick in the game. If I cancel the demo, this picture will probably not be used as his asymmetrical hairstyle prevents it from just being flipped.
Oh yeah, please disregard the spelling errors in the conversation log. It was just some text I wrote for an interface demo I showed Modgeulator.

The icon bar

The conversation log

The save interface

And this is Lucas, the sidekick character
in the full game, and supposedly the player
character of the demo.

Edit:Ã,  All right, the pics and links should be working now. It turned out that only file in the first of the three selection boxes on Neole's upload page works properly. Strange...

Edit 2: I should note that these are interface screenshots only. Background is unfinished, hence the off-perspective bench.

[Hobbes]

Wow, this looks wonderful! The GUI is stylish and easy to understand, which is absolutely perfect!

And you've very script-wise sorted the dialog... looks very neat and goes with the theme of the game very well.

Keep up the great work!

[GarageGothic]

Yeah, the conversation log is in screenplay format (except it should be "EXT. CINEMA - DAY", but this way works better in game terminology). The log interpreter even adds "(MORE)" and "(cont.)" if a piece of dialog is split across a page break.

Edit: By the way, seeing the features that CJ added in the new beta, I'm glad that I didn't rush the demo finished for today.

[ildu]

Wow wow wee waa. It looks super stylish, not to mention great. It seems that you've put a lot of effort into getting down the style you want. This one just moved up to my most anticipated indie game list. I'd say it's pretty high on the mainstream game list as well.

EDIT: You should really change the thread title to "Shadowplay (updated 27 June 2005)". This amazing update has generated only two replies in 2 hours. Or am I being too hasty? 

[Vel]

That looks classy, stylish, nifty and whatever synonyms there are in the thesaurus. Keep up the good work, GG!

[Flop]

This is great stuff. Thanks a lot man. And I'm glad to hear about the unfinished backgrounds (well, the bench was my only grudge, and it's not as if I couldn't have overlooked that ). Anyway, it looks really good, and don't worry too much about the demo (although maybe an "it's done when it's done!" disclaimer would be in order ). Looking forward for the full game.

[GarageGothic]

Thanks for the comments guys. Funny thing is that I'm myself getting a bit fed up with the look of the gui (the windows, not the icons), so I actually intended to change it again for the finished game. We'll have to see...

Another thing that I should point out about the interface is that those "DAY 1 - EXT. CARBON ARC" plus the time/date, are default savegame names generated by the game if the player doesn't enter a savegame name of his own.

[Flop]

Well, I kind of like the GUI the way it is (although it's a difficult to say, based only on a couple of screenshots), but I did actually suspect that the save names were autogenerated. I usually like it when the saves are organized like that, but I tend to prefer having the option of adding a remark to the savegame as well. I that a possibility? And why can you switch off the "append date and time to description" thingie? Not that I mind having that option, I just can't see any reason for using it.

[GarageGothic]

The toggle box for date/time doesn't affect the auto generated names. It's for custom names only, and it allows you to input longer savegame namesÃ,  (I think its 18 more characters, when time/date isn't used).

There's not enough space to add a remark to the generated names, but as you can see the location in the thumbnail, it should be enough for most people to write names like "DAY 1 - after talking to police dude" or similar. My main reason for including auto generated names was that I've become too lazy to name savegames myself. Especially when playing AGS games I end up calling my savegames "1", "2" and so on. So I thought this was a good solution.

[Flop]

Okay, I didn't realise you could still alter the names as you like. In that case, I think it's a pretty good solution. I have the same problem as you with naming my save games (except I usually call them Flop1, Flop2, etc. ), but it's still nice to be able to name them yourself at critical locations (savegames you might want to load later if everything goes wrong).

[Flop]

*bump*

Any news? It's been a while, so I thought I'd ask.

Sorry for doubleposting btw.

[Darth Mandarb]

Good lord ... this is becoming an epidemic.

Flop - do not post in here again until you read the forum rules.  You know ... the thread that says, "READ FIRST BEFORE POSTING"

GG - how 'bout a little update now that, after 4 months, your thread has been dug up.