Picaroon - The Lost Years - Part 1: Mysteries of the deep

[Marion]

It looks a bit too much like Monkey Island, but I'm waiting for it

[Electroshokker]

November 2009

After a year where development crawled to a halt due to my life getting totally swamped, things are about to change;

Due to recent events in my life, I find myself all of a sudden with a lot of spare time, and a burning desire to continu where I left off, see what the guys have been cooking up while I was away (animations & stuff looking pretty cool), and take back the helm of the ship.

All my other projects are temporary put on hold, I'll finish stuff sequentially, rather then trying to finish everything at the same time, resulting in getting nothing finished.

The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do.

[Bulbapuck]

That sounds GREAT!!!

Thanks for the update, really looking forward to this one.

[Cyrus]

When can we expect new materials?

[Electroshokker]

When can we expect new materials?

For the moment, I'm still digging through everything that's been happening the last couple of months.

I won't post any new materials for a while, instead, focus on getting the game in a playable state. (transforming the raw materials into AGS-friendly stuff, aka the whole 'sprite-size reduction' animation integration stuff; Can't just pump in full 640x480 animations, gotta be clever if I want the game to be playable and not slow down to a crawl when animating.)

I will, however, post more regular updates, and reveal a little more information about the game every time.

(Like: how BIG is this game anyways, how many locations are there, how many characters will introduce themselves, maybe a little more on the background story... how far along are we after all these years, how 'come it took so long and more!)

Now if you'll excuse me for a while, I gotta dust off some old ags project files and boot up the game to see where we were, then compare it to the puzzle outline document, etc;

Less talk, more action!

[Electroshokker]

Update:

- the project's been almost at a standstill for a while (except for the animation department, thanks crew!)
- finally got round to fixing some bugs and getting some more puzzles in.

My TODO list is still freakin' huge, but I'm tackling it one thing at a time. I'll be contacting old friends & crew soon to jumpstart the project again in the other departments.

The project's scope is now fixed, no new fancy stuff until part 1's playable from start to end.

[Jeopardy]

Glad to see you're back on your feet, I've really been looking forward to this game.

[arj0n]

seconded!

[Cyrus]

What's that box on the shelf? Is it LeChuck's action figure? 

[Daniel Thomas]

Uh oh! 

[Electroshokker]

In other news, here's an estimate of our current status:

GUI coding	99%
Puzzle coding	90%
Animations	40%
Static art	80%
Character Dialogs	60%
Interaction dialogs/monologs	30%
Music	90%
Sound FX	40%

Currently main focus is finishing the puzzles and dialogs/monologs, so the game's playable from beginning to end.

Considering the current status and how much work we actually get done each month, I believe that we might be able to have it finished... sometime next year.

Can't be more specific. It all depends on circumstances.

[Fitz]

The screenshots look GORGEOUS. They do have that Curse of the Monkey Island feel to them - but that's GOOD in my books. It's such a shame that huge studios that DO make adventure games have to make them 3D. I liked Sam & Max all lo-res and pixelated so much more!

Aaanyway, fingers crossed for this one! Arrr!

[Electroshokker]

News:

* I'm bringing the t-vandepoele.be website down this weekend, made a full back-up to my hard disk. The plan is to bring it up again in a week or two at the latest. (Changing hosting solution)

* Beta testing will NOT commence, since I got delayed a lot (my job required/requires a lot of overtime the last couple of months and upto the end of februari at least), as alpha testing hasn't even started yet. Alpha testing will commence in the next couple of weeks.

I'll keep you posted. Until the website is back up again, this thread will be your source of news regarding the game.  

[Darth Mandarb]

Please update the first post to include the [now broken] images!

[Tabata]

Good luck for finishing this game!

It looks wonderful! ... and these backgrounds â€" wow â€"  :o
Just the kind of game I really like to play!

. . . go, go, go . . . 

[Electroshokker]

Ok, turns out my subscription is running 'till 16/03 (so deleted everything a little prematurely)

I won't re-upload the entire website, though. This does mean I can temporarily put back some files where needed.

@Darth: I uploaded the images again (shortened the path)

[Cyrus]

Any updates on this? I'm really sorry for bumping it, but the website is still unavailable.

[Darth Mandarb]

You didn't violate the rules.  However; since you seem to think you did, and bumped the thread anyway, make sure you don't do this on any other threads.  Just PM the author as the rules suggest.

Electroschokker - I'm going to lock this as the first post is now broken (no images displaying).  Let me know when you have that sorted and I'll re-open the thread!

[Electroshokker]

Ok, the site's back up and the first post's been updated again. Thanks for unlocking the thread!

This project's still on, with me working on it.

That's all I'm saying for now

[Cyrus]

Sorry for bumping up an old thread, but I would like to say the following. Several years ago I volunteered to beta-test the first chapter of the game; unfortunately I haven't been able to contact Electroshokker (he didn't reply to my email), so now I've put up the demo on Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/PTLYDemo01

P. S. Electroshokker, if you're still working on it, and you want it to be secret for now, please contact me, and I'll take it down.