Simpsons: Where's Maggie ----Reworking. 60% done. New Demo-12/24/06

Joseph DiPerla · Wed 01/02/2006 00:10:24

DISCLAIMER: This game is not officially endorsed. Matt Groening, Fox, or any other legal affiliations neither endorse, know of or are affiliated with us. This game will be free of charge. Graphics are taken from "Virtual Springfield" and "Simpsons Cartoon Studio" which are no longer being commercially sold or updated. We simply made this game out of our spare time as a contribution to AGS, Adventure games, and Matt Groening and his Simpsons. We are in no way affiliated with Matt Groening or Fox.

Since this is seperate from the "Simpsons: Springfield Woes" and "Simpsons Game Template", I wanted to post a seperate forum. This is the closest project I have to completion so far. I have even included a demo which showcases the entire Introduction and allows you to move about the Simpsons Home and control the Simpsons Characters.

The game itself is being aimed at being a Short to Medium Length game. If I get more wild idea's, I will make it longer. Although, I just want to release something and get my contribution to this community done and over with. So, you may not see the game be longer than medium size.

Game Description:
After Homer discovers that Mr. Burns is giving him only one last chance to get his act together at work, Homer immediatly finds himself in a pickle. Marge was informed of one of Bart's many pranks that he committed and must now goto his school, search his desk and make sure there will be no foul play committed yet again...

In the meantime, Marge asks Homer to bring Maggie to the Babysitter before he goes to work. Risking being late and getting fired from Mr. Burns, Homer goes to upstairs to Maggies room to bring her to the Babysitter. Much to his surprise, the door is LOCKED, and he cant find the key! Struck with bad luck, Homer decides to Employ Bart and Lisa in a quest to help Homer get Maggie out in time before he loses his job. Will Homer make it? THAT is up to you...

Take Control of Homer, Bart and Lisa in this "Maniac Mansion", "Day of the Tentacle" style 3rd person point and click adventure game. Find and combine objects to help further reach your objective. Have constructive conversations with the members of your family. Explore all the rooms in the Simpsons House and more in this mind-challenging adventure game.

Progress Report:
Background graphics: 100%
Character art: 90%
Inventory art: 85%
Music/Sound: 90%
Story: 100%
Puzzles: 70%
Font: 100%
Testing: 0%

Current Status Report:
Total Rooms: 20
Playable Rooms: 15
Characters: 7 (With possible mystery characters)
Inventory objects: 13 at the moment.
Playable characters: 3
Music/Background music: 3
Sounds/voice files: 2

Special Features:
640X 480 resolution
Playable on Windows, Mac, and Linux
Languages: Currently only English is supported. Italian to come soon.
You can Control upto 3 different characters
Each character has his own GUI
Trademark voice effects
Special Simpsons Font!
Custom Cursors
Custom Options and Save/Load screen
Original Style interface

Screenshots:
Homer, Bart and Lisa in the living room

The Skip Intro screen:

Burns Yelling at Homer:

Burns, Smithers, Homer:

Each character has their own seperate GUI:

The options screen:

Instructions:

To play the game, simply unzip the contents of the Zip file to a directory. Click on Winsetup and choose your options. PLEASE NOTE: 640x480 is the best resolution for the game. Also note, this game was compiled with AGS version 2.71.628. To be able to play this game in Windows, just use the winsetup.exe file. To play the game on linux, please go to this thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=24598.0
To be able to play the game on a mac, go here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=21531.0

"The Simpsons: Where's Maggie" was made with Adventure Game Studio(AGS) found at www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk . For the latest version of AGS for Windows and the AGS Editor, please visit the technical forum over here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?board=2.0

In-Game Instructions:
*Clicking through messages: Click the left mouse button.
*Moving a character: Click the left mouse button where you want the character to move to.
*Changing interactions: Right Click the mouse button and the players personal GUI will appear. Clicking on their 'leg' would allow you to make them walk to whatever part of the screen you want them to walk to. Clicking their 'eyes' will put the cursor in look mode. Clicking the 'arm' will put the cursor in interact mode (Try it on Homer). Clicking their 'mouth' will put them in talk mode.
*Finding a hotspot: Move the cursor over various locations to find various hotspots. The hotspot location will be displayed on the top of the screen in Simpson Font, towards the center of the top.
*Changing rooms. Certain times you may need to walk over a hotspot to change location of rooms. Other times you may need to interact with the hotspot, such as a door.
*To save a snapshot: Press F12. The snapshot will be in the same directory as the game.
*To save a game or to load a game or to even quit and restart a game: Press F5 and hit the right options.
*To switch characters: Press F9 and choose your character.

Note for the Demo:
I tried to cut out most of the interactions from the game. This will go through most of the intro. After that, you can move around the house and interact with almost anything. There is no music or sound in this version either. Character portraits are still missing as well. Even the voice effects are not there. I totally stripped it so that you get an idea with the demo of what the game will play, feel and look like and to give you an idea of what the story is about. This way, when the final game version is released, you will see a major difference with it and enjoy it more.

Download the Demo here: http://energon-plant.com/OLD_ENERGON/SimpWM.zip
It is 3.2 megs

Here are some related sites to this game and to me:
My Simpsons: Springfield woes and AGS Game template site: http://www.energon-plant.com/Simpmain.htm
My Simpsons Game Template AGS game page: http://adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=546
My Simpsons Game Template and Springfield woes thread at AGS (Other games Main Forum): http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=2667.0
My Simpsons Game Template and Springfield Woes thread at Simpworks: http://www.simpworks.com/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=66b78d7dae94f598c80661f90d1cd803opic=3784.0
My Where's Maggie AGS thread(Main forum): http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=24863.new#new

My Transformers Site: www.energon-plant.com
My All-purpose adventure gaming site: www.pncadventures.com

--------------------------EDIT---------------------------------12/24/06

This game demo has now been compiled with AGS 2.72. So Linux and MAC support might not be available with this version of the Simpsons Game. Atleast not until we get an updated port for both versions.

CHANGES:

I fixed three bugs I found with the game so far.
I moved hosting from ScrubEngine.com to energon-plant.com
I added some minor test interactions with this one. Its just to give you a feel for it. Try interacting with the Cereal Bowl several times.
I updated some graphics. Not much from the last demo. But from the full game, I have added much.

NOTES:
The game runs the same as before.

WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR:

Find some bugs. Look at the graphics and tell me how to improve it. Look at the interface and tell me how to improve it.

And what do you guys think? Should I do the Sierra Style portraits with the characters, or should I find someway of animating their mouths as if they are talking? If its the latter, I am going to need some help...

Disco · Wed 01/02/2006 01:39:15

Nice. I'd just like to point out that in the fourth screenshot, Homer is seen both on the monitors (Sector 7-G no doubt

) and in Burns' office :o.

Joseph DiPerla · Wed 01/02/2006 01:48:29

Good catch! I noticed that about a month ago, but I just never decided to do anything about it. I was thinking of leaving it in there as a spoof, or I was gonna add a story about it in the game where Homer may need to buy some time and remembers he left a picture of himself on the security camera in Sector 7G so that Mr. Burns doesn't know the difference.

I wanted to ask everyone a question... Would you want a timer to run on this game so that it would make the game more challenging? Maybe I could make an easy and hard version of the game. Easy would have no timer. Hard would have a time limit. What do you guys think?

Tracubetto · Wed 01/02/2006 08:41:31

Quote from: Joseph DiPerla on Wed 01/02/2006 01:48:29
I wanted to ask everyone a question... Would you want a timer to run on this game so that it would make the game more challenging? Maybe I could make an easy and hard version of the game. Easy would have no timer. Hard would have a time limit. What do you guys think?

IMO timer is not good in adventure games. It make them more challenging? who care of challenge in a ag? if u want challeng play hyper holimpics

For me ag are good because i can take my time and no one bother me telling "hurry up".
Just my 2 cents.
Bye
Nico

Das Plans · Wed 01/02/2006 09:24:58

Oh, how I waited for this ... It looks really great so far!

As for the timer - I'm not a big fan, either. I guess, the solution with the game including two versions would be best then.

Good luck with the game!

Joseph DiPerla · Wed 01/02/2006 23:35:05

Ok, I will have the game be basic for now. Later on, before being ready to release it, I will make an option to either play Easy or Hard. Easy would be without a Timer. Hard would be with a timer. I think I will give you 1 hour and a half of in-game time to complete the game with the timer. I will include a medium difficulty level as well. Medium is the Same as hard, except Hard will not allow you to Save or restore the game. Hows that sound?

Nikolas · Thu 02/02/2006 07:59:41

Well all this hard/easy/medium makes me want to ask you one thing:

Why?

I don't think that it will add anything to the game except to annoy players...
But as I always say, it's your call... You may very well do as you please.

btw, I would be very pissed not be able to save and have to leave urgently, thus losing all my hard works game...

Joseph DiPerla · Thu 02/02/2006 13:36:58

Well thats the thing, some people like the challenge. Others dont. I would make a difficulty level so that everyone will enjoy different levels of the game.

And its simple too. All I would need to do is create a variable. When the proper variable is hit, the timer starts(Medium). If another variable is hit, I would disable the save/load Functions(Hard).

It wouldn't be too much to code. It would allow you to either play the game without losing, or play the game with the risk of losing. If you want to be able to save the game, just pick medium. Its the same as hard, but with Save/Load enabled.

big brother · Thu 02/02/2006 15:14:37

Where are these people?

Joseph DiPerla · Thu 02/02/2006 15:18:08

Their scattered around the world.

Seriously... How many people complain that some game puzzles are not challenging enough? There are a few. Then there are some who complain that the games are too challenging. Adding a difficulty level will not ruin the game if you choose to play it the way you want to play it.

Neil Dnuma · Thu 02/02/2006 17:47:06

There's a difference between difficulty level and frustration level. You might as well add an option to play the game in black&white, or in complete black (extra hard). Or in microview (5x5 pixels). Or with a gigantic pig blocking your view.

Seriously, if you want to challenge adventure gamers, work harder on the puzzles. How about implementing more hints if you play at an easy level? How about adding extra inventory items needed on the tougher level. Extra puzzles. Lock up some doors (cheap solution), introduce more dialog options, dig a hole in the street, put the couch on fire.

tc · Thu 02/02/2006 19:11:09

i don't see what's the problem with a time limit or a huge pig covering the screen as long as the player has the choice to switch these settings on and off.

Joseph DiPerla · Thu 02/02/2006 20:30:12

Seeeeee... TC gets it.

Scummbuddy · Thu 02/02/2006 20:40:32

And in Monkey Island 2 and 3, there were Hard or Lite versions. Just some puzzles removed, although I never played the games on the lite versions, myself, nor know anyone that did.

Babar · Thu 02/02/2006 22:29:30

Timed/non-timed version might be plausible, but I think disabling save/load is going a bit too far. There is no "puzzle element" in this.

Joseph DiPerla · Thu 02/02/2006 23:41:41

Sure there is... If you want to prove to yourself that you can finish a timed game, you would get rid of the temptation of saving it after discovering each puzzle and then looking through a walkthrough to find the next.

big brother · Fri 03/02/2006 00:01:53

But that doesn't prove anything. It's likely you will not finish the game within the time limit on the first try. Then, knowing what you did up to then, you will beat back that far again. It doesn't demonstrate that you're a better adventure gamer, just a more patient (to the point of stupidity) one.

Here's an example of a better, more-fair "hard" difficulty. (Hypothetical) On this setting, Homer doesn't start out with any items. Instead he must built a makeshift pocketknife from things lying around and he has to find his car keys. Perhaps on this setting he can even die if he does things wrong. Maybe this mode has a few timed or arcade sequences.

This option would be more attractive to the player, since I suspect people would only try the hard setting out of curiousity, not to actually win it (maybe even after they win it on easy).

Better yet, combine the difficulty levels. When you play the game, there are always two solutions to every puzzle (easy and hard).

A time limit seems like a cheap solution to a game design challenge.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Fri 03/02/2006 00:17:07

There's nothing wrong with timed 'sequences' in games, but I think timing the entire game might be a mistake. I would just go on with an easy and hard option and beef some of the puzzles in the harder version and possibly add a timer to a few. Looks good so far, though a bit blocky for hi res. Also, you should modify homer's walk speed. Right now he animates much slower than he actually moves. Keep at it!

tc · Fri 03/02/2006 00:26:49

Quote from: big brother on Fri 03/02/2006 00:01:53
On this setting, Homer doesn't start out with any items. Instead he must built a makeshift pocketknife from things lying around and he has to find his car keys. Perhaps on this setting he can even die if he does things wrong.

Joseph, if you make Homer die be sure to show a screen with him proudly holding a darwin award.

Joseph DiPerla · Fri 03/02/2006 23:39:10

No, I am not going to make Homer die. I will leave that up to Matt Groening. Plus, this game is a prequel game to a much larger Simpsons game. So, Homer lives.