Screens from games that never were

[Balin]

Rise of the Hidden Sun was canceled?! Aw, that's a shame! I was really looking forward to it, hope it makes a comeback!

[m0ds]

Really? That's news to me, and a great shame! Josh seemed very keen. Though, I do get a little skeptical that games made for a magazine article or tutorial will ever be finished.

[Ghost]

I'd like to state that I'm still working on Deamons In The Attic, and without me wanting to abuse this topic for advertisement, all you need to do is look at my signature to see that there's indeed some humble progress.

Let me tell you a small story. I found AGS by sheer accident, and saw it could do all the stuff I would need to make a really good adventure game. So I set out to make a small prototype to see if I was up to it- animation, backgrounds, coding. That went very well because I could use a vague idea from a game I did a year or so before, using Klik&Play. It way a Goblins-style affair with little story and little rhyme and reason, but it became the core of DITA. Within a few days I made my little demo and put it up here. The feedback really surprised me. People liked the graphics I had intended to be placeholders. They found little things I never thought they'd try- Aussie for example found a small special effect happening when you tried to take some light bulbs. The feedback was, all in all, so very positive that I wanted to give back something.

I think this has happened to many designers here: A small project suddenly starts to grow big. For far too long I made my little brain-child more and more complicated. I also made two or three little one-roomers to improve scripting. And suddenly two years have passed without DITA getting anywhere near completement.

If someone recognises him or herself in this story, it wasn't a wasted post. I'm still working on the game. It has become something now that can be finished: I made it smaller, more compact, but I still want it to be good, really good. Of course, there are some hindrances, one of them a life with a pretty demanding job, a friend and two kittens.

But I think quite some games mentioned here are not "never where". They are still being worked on. I like it better to work on a game and then release it than doing it (SORRY!) Rubacant-style and flood all forums as soon as yet another room has been whacked together. LOTTL is, in my eyes, a good example how it should be done: Announce the game, even hold the thread active for as long as you may need C&C- but then do the game, not posting every two days that you've changed the colour of the GUI.

Just wanted to say that.

[Squinky]

This thread makes me realize how much I want to get to work on another, better ags game. It's been forever. I always get started, but I don't seem to have the time in my life like I used to, especially since I have been focusing on my art after work at night.....

[Ionias]

Just figured I'd add to the thread. Here is a game me and Scid started to make just after Pizza Quest was finished. Sigh, good ol' days them were. Here's a screenshot:



... and please download the unfinished demo it's good for a laugh or two. Scid wrote all the dialog and he's a funny dude.

http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/cqwin.zip

[ShadeJackrabbit]

They cancelled Pleurghburg 2 and Ignac? I really gotta investigate this stuff more. Pleurghburg was awesome. A sequel would have been too. I don't think I have anything from old games that were cancelled... if any comes up, I'll post it. But it's neat to see the old stuff that died.

[m0ds]

In a way it's almost as if Chrille himself was "cancelled"

But we musn't complain. His superb game making energy is being concentrated on far more important matters. Keeping ships clean.



Castle Quest...ahh, I remember that, and the demo! It was very funny indeed

[Jdinky]

[Snarky]

What game are those from?

[Jdinky]

What game are those from?

Dropsylum

[Eggie]

I made a good start on it, then I got frustrated with my inability to draw backgrounds and get sprites looking good and now it's just sitting on my hard-drive...neglected and unloved:

[Nikolas]

Eggie, I love your style and from my ignorant poit of view, I find the screenie to be amazing!

Is there anything we can do to get you back in this (or any other?) game?

[Igor]

Eggie, let me tell you that this looks absolutely fabulous! Great loose style.. kicking backgrounds and sprites. Very fresh and fun!

[Snake]

Eggie, that does look great -it's very unique. I'd like to see you finish it as well

I'd like to know what happened to that game, I think it's called, "The Dead Walks". It was a very good looking zombie game. I hope that's still in production, but I haven't seen it around
I was looking forward to that one.


--Snake

[ManicMatt]

Eggie, I egg (sic) you on to go back to making that!

Yes it's quite wildly drawn, but thats what makes it so appealing!

[Vince Twelve]

I'd like to add my name to the list of people who'd really like to see a game with your art, Eggie.

Actually, I was developing a game last year with the intent to eventually approach you to ask you to do all the characters.  I was developing Dwight of the Living Dead as a card-based RPG entirely with placeholder graphics with you specifically in mind when I imagined what the final graphics might look like.  If I hadn't decided to set the game aside, you would have heard from me soon.

And if you're interested:

Playable Tech Demo

Screenshot:



Info:

Dwight of the Livind Dead is possibly the first TBABCRPG (Turn-based Adventure Board Card Role-Playing Game).  The game play is governed by your deck of cards as you navigate the board-game style levels.

The game has a few pre-set rooms populated with zombies of varying levels.  Higher-level zombies will have a higher movement speed and are more likely to go straight for Dwight, rather than stumbling randomly about.  The layout of the rooms should be randomized, so they should never look the same each time you play the game.

It should be noted that all of the graphics in this game should be considered placeholders.

-------------------------------------

Playing should be pretty easy to figure out.  On Dwight's turn, choose a card from your hand.  You will then be able to move a number of tiles equal to the rank of the card that you chose.  The rank is displayed on the upper-left corner of the card.

The "Move" tab on the upper-right corner of the screen indicates that the player will choose a card to move about the screen.  The "Use" tab will allow the player to utilize cards for combat/puzzling purposes.  Currently, the useable cards include the punch card (hit any zombie within a 2 square radius) and the shotgun card (hit any zombie in a straight line).

Coming into contact with a zombie will cause a head-on battle (that hasn't been implemented yet).  Once a room has been cleared of zombies, you will be in "Free Move" mode.  You can then move freely about the room without choosing a card. Though you may still use a card for solving a puzzle.

When you are standing on a tile adjacent to a door, an "Open" button will appear.  Clicking it will move Dwight to the next room and use up his turn.

-------------------------------------

The game is currently just a collection of rooms of zombies of various levels.  Higher level zombies will have a larger roaming radius as well as higher stats in battle.  You can play around with it for a while and get a feel for what the final game might be like.

[Eggie]

Oh wowie. That sounds exactly like the kind of thing I'd like to draw.

[IceMan]

Apologies for the size of this one, but then it was a huge room (at 320x240!)Ã,  Basically my first attempt at painting over a scanned sketch.

This was the first screen of a game in the vein of Monkey Island, mixed with old-skool Jules Verne adventure stories.Ã,  Too many puzzles, too many locations, too little timeÃ, 

[m0ds]

Looks great, Iceman! I would whinge about you bringing it back but we have DNG2 with it's fabulous art & animation to look forward too!!

[chapter11studios]

Rise of the Hidden Sun was canceled?! Aw, that's a shame! I was really looking forward to it, hope it makes a comeback!

Canceled? Not precisely, no. The game was put on hiatus so that I could focus on getting my career as an adventure travel writer off the ground (http://www.theamericanadventurer.com). It requires me to travel all the time (obviously) and leaves me with a lot less spare time than when I began the project. I'm also married and have a baby now.

But, to put the rumors to rest, no: Rise of the Hidden Sun has not been canceled!

In fact, I expect to have some details (and new artwork) sometime in the next few months about the game's future. I'm currently working on a slightly scaled-back version of the game. Hopefully I've learned from my overly ambitious mistakes of the first go-round.