Psychic Sam and the Postal Service of Doom

[MonkeyLover]

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After a few honest reviews of my first work I'd ask that you look at my artwork in this post and simply look out for my future efforts. I have learnt my lesson!
(such as my forthcoming 'Rocks and Minerals music player' created using AGS)
I say this, rather than you downloading the large file for the short game play...
It is still available through the link though...
But don't say you were'nt warned!!!
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Hello!

I'm new to the posting and the threading, but not to the observing from afar and quietly scrambling together a couple of AGS created games (although strictedly speaking the second - I'll post in another thread - is a music video menu and player).

This first post then is all about...

Psychic Sam and the Postal Service of Doom...

GAME EXPLANATION
You are Samanda.
(Not the twins from Big Brother, but a woman born to a sleepy mother who misheard the name Samantha leading her to believe that it was a real name)
A Psychic. A woman with a cause.
A woman with a mission...
to write a card for her sister 'Georgina Keable'...
who, it should be stated, was at that time 30... And is now much older.
As Samanda you must prepare for Georgie's birthday... Good luck!

In short, this is a game I made for an audience of two (myself and my aunt), a one room game with most of the jokes referencing my own little world...
but as my most recent project (something for the masses) is taking much longer to get started than I planned...
and as I'm quite proud of my early efforts...
I hoped somebody might review/critique it for me.

The longer version is all in the readme file! (Including in-joke reference guide, spoilers, and a brief history of the games birth)

Anyway...

I'll let some pictures (which I had to crop slightly in order to stay under the 600pixel width limit) do the talking now...

And here it is... the page to download the game from...
(You'll need the Psychic Sam.zip, sam60.zip and IMPORTANT PsychicSam Download ReadMe)

Psychic Sam and the Postal Service of Doom by Far Too Much Time On Your Hands productions

You'll notice they are large files, but I hope some kind person will still take a look.
(My next project will not use any videos; they just eat up space)

Anyway thanks for atleast taking a look at this newby's thread (that sounds wrong!).

And if you do download...
Enjoy! 

[miguel]

Hi MonkeyLover, I tried to download but it went down twice just before starting. I'll try again later.

[Leon]

I'm having a go at it at the moment and will let you know my findings as I progress....
The screenshots look promising ...

The first few things I already noticed:

- The animation slows down the game big time. They are not skippable so you just have to sit and wait while Sam lights a cigarette. The cursor also changes into an arrow instead of hourglass (?!).
- The same with the text. Although the timeout of the visibility is sufficient, there's way (and I mean way) too much text per item. Two full screens just to look at the light. And since it's not skippable, I have to sit it out.. Doesn't increase the playability. Why not take the statements from your text and randomly show these when looking? That way it stays interesting for the player to look at things, you can say all you want to say and it increases the speed.
- The items in your inventory are not transparent (does make the interaction between the objects a little strange).
- The first part of the credits might have been done by scripting instead of MPG so the file size is smaller.
- You  could have left the teaser (not sure if that's the right word here...) at the end outside the game and lead people to a site with another download.


Huh... oh?.... that's it? Well..... ok.....

I must say, I'm very disappointed.
You already said that the long version of the game was in the textfile but I didn't expect this. A massive download of 70Mb for a game you have to click 3 objects in? The intro and credits are the longest part of the game.
I'm not sure in which category this should go: demo (for demonstrating how big a game can be without real gameplay), short games (for the amount of gameplay), long games (for the amount of time you have to wait), joke games (but then only you understand the jokes)...

Don't get me wrong here... I never made any game so I'm the last to criticize but I just expected more. Especially from your announcement and the screenshots. And you asked for it.... 

Looking forward to a next project to see the progression.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

After just a few seconds into the game, I second Leon's comment about the cigarette and animations. They are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too slow.

But Leon, text *is* skippable. Heh, you almost made me post the following:

Non-skippable text?

Ok, I'll give this one a miss. I thought people had learned by now never to make unskippable text outside of a well-synched cutscene.

...but it IS skippable. Use the "." key.

[Leon]

...but it IS skippable. Use the "." key.

You're right. My mistake. I think I'm too attached to my mouse... In fact every key on your keyboard skips the text...... (but it gives a whole other meaning to the 'point' and 'click' experience ....)
Makes the game a bit more playabale....

And now I look further... so is the intro with the [ESC] ... and part of the outro.... Man! Now I can play this game in .8 minutes instead of 3.6 ... 

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Ok, I gave it a real try.

After watching her light 5 endless cigarettes I quit and deleted the game.

It's no fun being forced to watch the same long unskippable ugly animation without reason every 5 clicks or so.

[MonkeyLover]

Hello all... okay I take all the criticism, and you are completely right. It wasn't until I'd made the game that I realised that the animations were in super-slow motion, and yes Rui 'Trovatore' Pires you are correct most of my animations are 'ugly' :'(... this is all new to me, and that really is my only excuse.

I'm sure nobody-else will be wasting their time downloading it now after your posts... which is probably for the best ... but I'd ask that you give my other attempts a look all the same, especially as I'll be posting info in a new thread about a completely different 'thing' that I've already created using AGS (which I can honestly say will not make your eyes bleed nor your soul slip into another time zone!)

Leon can I ask a few questions/make comments about a few things that I thought were excellent advice:

- The items in your inventory are not transparent (does make the interaction between the objects a little strange).
I really don't understand?! Do you literally mean I should make the objects see-through? Or am I completely misunderstanding!
- The first part of the credits might have been done by scripting instead of MPG so the file size is smaller.
I will be doing this in future for intro and outro as it seems reasonably simple (no more complicated than creating the vids and getting them playing anyway)
- You  could have left the teaser (not sure if that's the right word here...) at the end outside the game and lead people to a site with another download.
I hadn't thought of that... I don't know if I'll necessarily use a "teaser" again but if I do I will definitely use that idea.

Seriously, thanks guy's for taking a look.
Needless to say I won't be posting this game on the main AGS site!
I just wanted a bit of feedback and honesty... which I clearly got!   
I hope you didn't take offence, feeling I'd wasted your time, etc. But I did give a warning in my first post!

[Play_Pretend]

Looking at the screenshots, the transparency problem probably means the background of each inventory item is a different color than the inventory window.  If you go back through your inventory item sprites and color them all so the background around the item is all the same shade of purple as your inventory window, it'll solve that problem.

I didn't download the game, so I don't know...if the cursor changes to the inventory item when you click on it, you'll need to muck about with some more complicated solutions.  I always use alpha-channeled sprites which have naturally transparent backgrounds around the inventory items, so it's never been an issue for me.  I'll be happy to help you with that in private messages if you like.

Don't give up, man!   Think of it like this, sure, your game might be short and junky now, but you are 1000% ahead of every slacker that had a great game idea, fabulous art skills and genius programming, but *never made their game*.  We all have to start the learning process somewhere.  So kudos to you for giving it the old heave-ho.

[Ghost]

Hi there... so, I d'loaded and played, and I faced the same troubles as Rui and Leon, but I'd also like to state something else (no need in repeating what ha already been said, right  )

First, impressive to see a user figuring out quite a lot of basic concepts in his first game. The movies were not bad (not outstanding either, but still okay), and if you managed to get them in by yourself, right. Also, while there was a *lot* of text, it was quite nice to read through.

What I'm trying to say, really see the points we make as *constructive* crits- there is potential there, and the mistakes you made are clearly common "newcomer mistakes". You've tried to cram a lot into one game, resulting in reducing the player to a mere watcher, but the basics are there.

So, good luck on the next one!

[Leon]

- The items in your inventory are not transparent (does make the interaction between the objects a little strange).
I really don't understand?! Do you literally mean I should make the objects see-through? Or am I completely misunderstanding!

Yes, you can. It's like gifs giving transparency by setting the background to the 'transparent' colour. When you have a look at this game (6 day assassin) it shows what you can do with inventory objects. That game is in  more that one way a good example of a one room short game. It's less than 500kb and can be played in 10 minutes.

Seriously, thanks guy's for taking a look.

You're welcome

Needless to say I won't be posting this game on the main AGS site!

Then I won't be making a walkthrough! 

I hope you didn't take offence, feeling I'd wasted your time, etc. But I did give a warning in my first post!

Playing games is never a waste of time, it's nice when you have time to waste.... And it's all an adventure. So must be the making of..... 

[Ghost]

Playing games is never a waste of time, it's nice when you have time to waste.... And it's all an adventure. So must be the making of..... 

Wait... if the making of an adventure game is in itself an adventure, and if each adventure can be made into an adventure game, could you make an adventure game about a man having an adventure made into a game, and then have adventures about that?

Sounds like the plot for yet another X Files mock-up  I need to lay off the caffeine.

[Dualnames]

You do that.. in the mean time the poor little guys went off.

[MonkeyLover]

First another thanks, the last few posts really gave me a lift (although I really do see the shortfalls of my game so took every earlier comment at face value too).

Strange Vistor, I'll take up your offer regarding alpha chanelled sprites (I wanted to remove the background and at first I thought it would be the same as all other sprites, but when that didn't work I got lost entirely), but how do you 'private' message?

Ghost, I was indeed trying out as many aspects of the software without entering into too much scripting (as those bits were entirely learned as I went along... although I grasp the nature of the beast now; I understand the maths/science/babble behind it to a degree) And I did put loads in one room with a kind of interactive movie feel in mind, as the plot is very basic!!
And as for the text, obviously that is a very personnal opinion as to if its good or bad, no two people like the same style, theme, humour, quantity(!), etc... plus the speech is not a good example of what I can achieve (I've written performed stage play shorts! ) So it was nice to see somebody completely understanding where I'm coming from.

Leon, I will be checking out '6 days assassin' asap for a few pointers (I have played all Monkey Island, Indian Jones series, infact almost all Lucas Arts adventure games, a few Sierra, Adventure Soft, Broken sword series, and a few fan-games... but I really need to check out another AGS user to see what they achieved. I've began a couple, Nelly Cootalot for one, but haven't completed any yet)
Thanks again, and if you feel like writing that walkthrough (if you dont ask, you dont get! )the post may well be used here at times to find the game (I didn't know your website until 30 mins ago! I will perhaps access it in times of need!)... of course this leads me to my next question...

I was not going to post the game on the main AGS site (as I've mentioned in earlier posts)
but wondered if other people think this is the right choice, or am I chickening out??!!

Secondly, did anyone notice any actual bugs? (I think I found them all before uploading it)
As there is critique for the actual gameplay but no mention of the scripting/compellation of the game... did I do good there?

And lastly can anybody spot why there is so much speech in my game?!!!

[MonkeyLover]

Ghost,
With the 'Adventure game makers Adventure game' you could have multi-multi-endings...
eg. as the adventure game maker you decide/discuss the list of multiple endings for the game that you are creating, which the player subequently plays (back and forth from game maker game and game made by maker), only the said discussion/decision is based on actions taken in the game maker game (and possibly even the game made by the maker)...

You follow right? We could refer to them as gmg and gmbm if that makes things easier!?  :

The discussion could even be styled in the gmg as a game makers forum page thread!!!!!!

You've started something now!

[Leon]

Allright! You asked for it! Here you go! And it might be that the walkthrough is even longer than the game ... 

About adding it to the database: I think you should. But maybe an adapted version where the movies were taken out/cut short). These projects can be an inspiration to others, one way or another and can show progression in your work. But then clearly state what one can expect from it (duration of gameplay/animation etc).

[Ghost]

You've started something now!

If you can squeeze a game out of that, do so, I'd be more than happy!

[MonkeyLover]

Leon,
Thats great! I have my very own walkthrough 

I'll be posting my other creation, wait for a bit of feedback and then put there appropriately altered versions on the main site then.

Also I played 6 days assassin and it was VERY good. I played a few other SHORT games which seemed to stand out amongst the crowd, and I can see why I got such scathing reviews... there really are some fantastic examples of what AGS and the humble human can create together. I'll take my old French teachers advice; "Must try harder!"

[miguel]

I hope I'll be this humble when I finally release my poor little game.
You're a good man MonkeyLover