Alpha - X TECH DEMO Version 1.2 RELEASED!!!!! (2-2-07)

[esper]

SEE THE DEMO HERE: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=852

UPDATED April 1st, 2007

Welcome to the year 2195. You are Rhys Dryden, detective for the department of Bureau 6 responsible for hunting down and bringing to justice dealers of the deadly new virtual drug, SMASH. You have been transferred to District 13 to assist them in a difficult mission: one of the Bureau's own, a Cleric for Bureau 7 named Zadok Allen, has changed sides. Not only is he dealing in the drug, but he is also assisting the other local SMASHers to smuggle information out of the worldwide database known as Alpha-X to create a counterfeit system accessible to those less-than-law-abiding citizens he has joined with. The time has come to take him down.

Alpha X is the sequel to the recently-developed short "Alpha-X: Project SMASH." It features better, hand-drawn graphics, a much longer (full-length) story, and some other special features...

   -First person adventure
   -gunplay system... the spacebar arms and holsters your ion blaster, and clicking fires.
   -access to the whole ALPHA-X system, granting you knowledge about the many characters, locations, and ideas in the gameworld
   -a DRIFTER (pictured below), with many functions including a scanner which can help discover otherwise undecipherable clues
   -a deep storyline with twists and turns aplenty.



This is the lovely Katherine Jackson, secretary for Bureau 6 HQ in District 13.



Meet your robotic D.R.I.F.T.E.R., Roger. He'll become your assistant and your best friend in Neo York.


The government-sanctioned church where you learn "the truth..."

Current Progress:
Story: 100%
Background Art: 100%
GUI: 100%
Character Art: 40%
Cutscene Art: 0%
"Specialty" Scripting: 95%
Regular Scripting: 45%
Sound Effects: 98%
Music: 45%

[Steel Drummer]

I could do music. MP3 or MIDI, it doesn't matter. Do you need epic stuff or techno style stuff? If techno, then no.

[Candle]

Wow looks cool.. should be fun to play.

[TheCheese33]

I liked your little teaser game, but I felt that I was a machine instead of the person, the way the GUI was made. I think it would be good to keep that idea of two different actions to do everything, but make it look a little more like you're an actual person. That's what drew me into games like that one where you have to find that little kid's toys and The Oracle.

[esper]

Hey guys, glad everyone is liking it so far.

Steel Drummer: Check your PM's

Candle: I hope so. A demo will be out within the week.

Cheese: The GUI is reworked. It still looks futuristic, but instead of making the whole motor sound when you click on it, instead, you click on your DRIFTER companion, the little robot pictured in the second screenshot. When the game starts, before you have access to the DRIFTER, there is no GUI... you simply right click to cycle cursor modes and then use them. There are three main cursors: interact (which doubles as "take" and "talk to"), move (which, unlike in the teaser game, changes shape when you pass it over moveable hotspots to reflect which direction you'll be moving), and Investigate. When you get your DRIFTER, a SCAN option becomes available on your interface that allows you to do a deep scan of an object to find clues invisible to the naked eye. Finally, pressing the spacebar arms and holsters your gun, so in all there are five different types of interaction.

[TheCheese33]

That sounds really awesome, Esper. I'm looking forward to playing the finished game.

[esper]

Coming along nicely. I haven't yet updated the completion percentages above, but there has been a good amount of progress, and I want everyone to know that a demo will be available by next Sunday. I have Steel Drummer on board for most of the music so far, and the demo is almost completely scripted. It will include:

--a demonstration of your DRIFTER's scanning capability, although with no evidence to be scanning he pretty much just makes fun of you for trying to use it on things like styrofoam cups...

-- A shooting gallery where you can try out your skills. Like he does most times, Roger will make fun of you if you do too poorly 

-- Full sound effects and two musical tracks by Steel Drummer.

--the Bureau 6 headquarters complete for your perusal, including the chief's office, the lobby, the operations center, the autotran parking lot, and the moving walkway linking them all.

--access to the Alpha-X database, where you can learn about the game world, or type in the names of the characters you meet in the game to learn more about them.

Stay tuned.

[ManicMatt]

I'm glad you went with the full on hand drawn graphics! Wooh!

[Erenan]

This looks really cool. Reminds me a bit of B.A.T., but I imagine that combat will be exactly one million billion times better in this game. Looking forward to playing!

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I just played Project SMASH and I was impressed, you've come a long way since ESPER. And now I find this thread... congratulations on your evolution. I'm really looking forward for the completion of Alpha-X. Everything about it - graphics, gameplay, story, use of music and sound effects as seen in SMASH - calls out to me, CALLS OUT I say, I feel myself drawn, you hear me, DRAWN, to the finished product, to have, to hold, to smell, to play, play PLAY! SO FINISH THE THING!!!ONE!

Ahem.

I'm eagerly awaiting the release. I said this before and I'll say it again, I think 2007 will be a great year for the AGS Games database.

[Duckbutcher]

Looks classy. Reminds me a bit of an old Mega CD game called 'Snatcher' - a possible influence?

[o0zer0]

I am interested in helping you out with music. I'm willing to compose whatever you feel will best fit your vision.

contact me at peteralex82@gmail.com

thanks
-Peter

[esper]

Duck: yes!!!! I haven't seen or heard mention of that game since it came out! I played it, loved it, and wrote a really crappy Alpha-X comic based on it. Sadly, both my copy of Snatcher and that comic have been lost to the annals of time, but I still remember...

The opening segment (which will consist of the entirety of the demo) will be one big homage to Snatcher. Bureau 6 HQ has a moving walkway, the chief's office, a shooting range, a computer that you can look up anything on, and a lobby with a secretary. In fact, I even found a MIDI of the theme song and gave it to my music guy for inspiration.

Snatcher was the best... game... ever. With the exception of the fact that to do anything you had to examine and interact with every object five times to progress.

Rui: thanks so much. I really appreciate that coming from you.

Peter: sorry, pal, I've already got someone to work music. I also have someone to make the battle animations, but I'm still looking for someone to make ambient background animations.

Also, I'm looking for someone who has a band (heavy metal, grunge, industrial, anything like that) to spotlight one of their songs in a bar scene. If anyone would like to have their song in the game, drop me a line. Anything's cool. The only exception is that the song can't mention anything we know about today, or in the past. One of the premises of this game is that all history before the year 2100 has been lost.

[o0zer0]

no prob thanks anyways

[TheCheese33]

There are a couple of really good songs in the Dead Rising soundtrack that would fit your description perfectly. I have the manual, so I'll upload the list later.

[esper]

Well, first off, that would defeat the purpose... I would like to showcase the work of a musician who is a part of AGS. But I agree... I have Dead Rising and would love to have "Gone Guru" by Lifeseeker (the song they play during the fight with the convicts in the courtyard).

I could use it, as I have the MP3 (downloaded off Lifeseeker's MySpace page), but I also would like to try to not use copyrighted shiznazzles.

[Nikolas]

You would definately need to ask permission first before using anything. Not that they would find out, or care, or hurt them financially, since it is already available through myspace, but you do need their permission to put it on your game. That said of course it's most likely that they will say ok. There are already many examples of songs, with permission granted, to AGS games (Prodigal for example...)

And it really honours you to hear you say that you want the game to have music from an AGS musician! BRAVO!

The game itself looks lovely, and you really have gone a long way since esper... (And the HOA...) Graphics look lovely and the story is intriguing as I would expect it to be.

Just wish I wasn't so damn busy...

[esper]

TECH DEMO NOW AVAILABLE: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=852

[Duckbutcher]

Duck: yes!!!! I haven't seen or heard mention of that game since it came out! I played it, loved it, and wrote a really crappy Alpha-X comic based on it. Sadly, both my copy of Snatcher and that comic have been lost to the annals of time, but I still remember...

Twas written by Hideo Kojima, don't you know (the guy who writes the Metal gear games). Shame you lost your copy, it's worth a small fortune now. Look forward to playing this!

[LimpingFish]

Very nice tech demo.

Snatcher was an absolute classic, and it took me over a decade before I got to play it properly. On an emulator, I might add.

I'd give my left nutball to play the sequel.

Keep up the good work.