Johnny Rocket Adventure!

[Khris]

Nice work Mark, really impressive for a first game! It's cool to finally see what your questions were about, my imagination was running wild whenever I pictured that gas leak

I think the game would benefit greatly from a two-button interface (think The Dig) and a single resolution, but these are really just minor quirks.

I'm still stuck at the gas leak, will keep playing though.

[Pixelton]

Thank you Khris - again things would have been alot different if you wern't around to help! Puzzle design wise I was alittle limited by my coding knowledge at the start (I guess when your coding ability is very petite your scope for design is quite limited but as I got abit better I tried bigger ideas which....got me stuck at a few points, but you've always been the one to answer my questions when I felt like throwing in the towel.

I still have no idea how to use global variables and things and I'm sure half my problems with the gas puzzle would be solved if I used them but nevermind...theres times for that Holmes!

As this little game was more of an exercise in learning AGS I don't mind sharing the source file with other people like me that are learning the ropes. I'd appreciate it if people didn't use my artwork (as in...don't...it really isn't that amazing anyway, you will do better by practice and creating your own style Like Ben, Wham or Calin!), it's only really ment for looking at the code and seeing how things knit together and how I botched some of the puzzles together. www.blacktreeuk.net/downloads/Rocket_source.zip (5.68mb). I'm no coder so I don't know if it will be much use but it may help people that are at my kind of level in AGS.

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oops link fixed

Thanks guys.

[Sslaxx]

As this little game was more of an exercise in learning AGS I don't mind sharing the source file with other people like me that are learning the ropes. I'd appreciate it if people didn't use my artwork (as in...don't...it really isn't that amazing anyway, you will do better by practice and creating your own style Like Ben, Wham or Calin!), it's only really ment for looking at the code and seeing how things knit together and how I botched some of the puzzles together. www.blacktreeuk.net/download/Rocket_source.zip (5.68mb). I'm no coder so I don't know if it will be much use but it may help people that are at my kind of level in AGS.

Thanks for fixing the link, got it!

[Dualnames]

As this little game was more of an exercise in learning AGS I don't mind sharing the source file with other people like me that are learning the ropes. I'd appreciate it if people didn't use my artwork (as in...don't...it really isn't that amazing anyway, you will do better by practice and creating your own style Like Ben, Wham or Calin!), it's only really ment for looking at the code and seeing how things knit together and how I botched some of the puzzles together. www.blacktreeuk.net/download/Rocket_source.zip (5.68mb). I'm no coder so I don't know if it will be much use but it may help people that are at my kind of level in AGS.

It's currently 404ing.

I got it succesfully in case you feel like it I can upload  it somewhere else, or e-mail it to you.

[Pixelton]

The link should be fine Duelnames, I just made a typo originally

Cheers man!

[Mordalles]

Just finished it and really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed that gas leak puzzle. That was clever! And some really nice sprites and background! Especially the 2 soldiers. And the gore is always a plus with me! 

[LUniqueDan]

 :o I'm really impressed by the drawing
*DOWNLOADING*

[Peter Bear]

I am so glad there is only two ways of dying ...

I figured one in the first minute of playing

[Pixelton]

haha cheers guys

Yeah about Death, its always a funny mechanic in adventure games....over done and it can be a nuisance (like space quest - although that was born during the days where games were incredibly tough and trial and error based). I wanted death in it...simply becasue its fun to implement and animate as a developer and some kind of peril is always good for the player.

I think a death at the start and a death at the end was enough and they wern't sneekily squeezed in...the player was given enough cues that...."yes the wires are really nasty" and "yes....if you touch that gas you WILL die" so I'd like to think I avoided the pain of dying somewhat (but I'll let you guys be the judge of that!).

Thank you so much for playing it and giving it a good blast, I appreciate it

[SuperDre]

got these 2 errors with the current build (you really should number the builds, that's a mistake that happens a lot around here, they always keep the same filename so you never know which build you are downloading or if you have the latest build)..

(in room 3): Cannot load ambient sound 1
(in room 1): Warning: ChangeCharacterView was used while the view was fixed - call ReleaseCharView first

I agree about the comment made above here about the 2 button interface.. Also I would suggest having 'tooltips' when you hoover over a spot, most games have it these days so you won't have to pixelhunt (which is very annoying)..

I also hope you'll expand this 'test' as it looks great and could make a great game..

Keep up the great work..

[Ubel]

I think a death at the start and a death at the end was enough and they wern't sneekily squeezed in...the player was given enough cues that...."yes the wires are really nasty" and "yes....if you touch that gas you WILL die" so I'd like to think I avoided the pain of dying somewhat (but I'll let you guys be the judge of that!).

I played this game for a little while and then died at the beginning. And because dying seemed so easy I didn't feel like playing further. I am a big Sierra fan but I wasn't in the mood for random dying at the moment. I'll probably give it another go later since I was apparently wrong in assuming it's one of those death-filled games.

But if I may, I'd like to suggest that if you want to use the player's death for its comedy value in your games and especially if it only occurs in a couple of specific places, please don't make the player restart the game or load a save game. Instead do what Leisure Suit Larry 6 did and let the player continue from the point before the dying happened. Otherwise the player might become annoyed and in the worst case scenario continue the paranoid save-early-save-often routine throughout the whole game, therefore not being able to fully enjoy the game itself.

In fact, this suggestion goes to all adventure game developers who want to include dying as a possibility in their games. Dying was never a good design point in adventure games. Sierra developers made a mistake! Don't make the same one.

Sorry for rambling, I'm sure your game is enjoyable once I feel like giving it another go. I always love a good sci-fi adventure and this one sure looks fantastic!

[SuperDre]

In fact, this suggestion goes to all adventure game developers who want to include dying as a possibility in their games. Dying was never a good design point in adventure games. Sierra developers made a mistake! Don't make the same one.

I personally disagree with dying being a bad designpoint in adventure games, I do agree with your solution of continueing before the dying point.. I'd rather think let the player die instead of saying "oh no that's to dangerous I might die, I won't do that" just let the player make the mistake and die.  What I really think is bad design is letting the player play through the whole game and only finding out at the end it forgot something on screen one so he/she can't finish the game (and therefore make all savegames worthless)..
But as I said, if you do add dying to the possibilities, make sure you restore the player to the point before dying and not let the player rely on his/her savegames (unless you have an autosave function or something like that).