The Knobbly Crook

Started by Bavolis, Thu 21/06/2007 05:55:35

Previous topic - Next topic

Bavolis

Yay for pong! I'll have to keep this in mind for a quick project-between-projects thing. Thanks :)

Kromagnon

Awesome!
I love your graphic style :o
I try the demo as soon as possible!!!
 Gros pixels for ever!       Game in production: CADAVER HEART=> http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=36373

Bavolis

Holy necro again. So The Knobbly Crook is back in full production with actual *team members* now so I'm not doing it all alone. We've got our design doc started, a plan for the full first "episode," a facelift into higher resolution, and a redesigned O'Sirus the Snip avatar. I was a bit busy working on slightly bigger projects in the past few years (i.e. Assassin's Creed), but I'm doing a big push now to make this thing happen. I find I enjoy the small indie project vibe to the 200+ team vibe (although I am still writing at Ubisoft - I've realized doing this at home is a great stress reliever!). Anyway, here's a preview of the new look. More soon, I promise. 

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/081/9/e/paincutioner__s_court_take_three_by_ringmasterbent-dycn76.png

WHAM

*begins to type something about "necroposts"*

*Looks at the first poster's name*

*Reads more closely*

Holy cows! A project seemingly dead since 2008 is BACK TO LIFE!? Now that's what I call dedication! First time I'm seeing this game and I've got to say: I'm curious!
Let me know if you need voice acting or beta testing at some point.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Bavolis

I'll certainly post here first when I have something ready for abuse :)

I'm making a note of the voice acting offer - it'll be a while, but I will definitely need some help on that end!

The Suitor

I was wondering what happened to this, and I'm glad to see it's back in production. I've been waiting for an update on something seeps, but this greater news, haha.

Victor6

I'm not sure exaclty what it is, but the art style reminds me of that used by New world computing for HOMM (the original DOS one). It's that mix of character style, detail, and shading.

Takyon

This looks incredible and sinister, looking forward to it.
ghost.

Bavolis

Thanks for the motivational words. I've updated the zip file linked at the beginning of this thread to show off the new version of the game. Any feedback you guys have would be fantastic because I'm very rusty at AGS. A few disclaimers:

1. It's a 35ish meg download.
2. The audio is placeholder, so expect levels to be off and voice acting to be grating in places. I'm doing my best to give a mood preview with the files that are in there.
3. The cinematics are gone - that's because I'm reworking them and they didn't match the quality of the new look. I'll be updating this thing again a few times in the near future.
4. The UI and inventory system haven't been touched since the old version. They're functional, but not polished.
5. The second room is a stretched out, terrible, unplayable thing. Close the window fast when you see it, lest your eyes come away scathed.
6. The colon extractor's voice is my 5 year old daughter. She really wanted to hear herself in the game, so I put her in there for fun and forgot to rerecord it. Now that I hear it again, my god it's disturbing.

arj0n

Bavolis, I'm really glad this one is brought back to life!

Bavolis

I updated the first post with a new first room view, this new walk cycle:



And I've also uploaded an update for the .zip file with a more high res interface and some tweaks. The second room, however, is very much a placeholder with notes on it. It's going to be a wire-boat called the Draft Horse, complete with a bar in the back called the Horse's Ass. I've got the whole game now charted out on note cards on my office wall (expecting a lot to change of course).

I'm not sure if I mentioned it in the first post, but I intend this game to be 100% free. I'll likely be throwing it up onto Kickstarter soon to get some funding for proper voice acting and perhaps a stylish intro.

Anyway, it's hard to tell progress has been made, but I've got a LOT in the works. I also have an old design buddy from Strategy First and Ubisoft named Julien Fullum who is pumping out some great concepts (the early sketch of the Draft Horse is his) and coming up with weird gameplay ideas.

Eric

Quote from: Bavolis on Mon 09/04/2012 04:50:00I'll likely be throwing it up onto Kickstarter soon to get some funding for proper voice acting

Please retain the services of your daughter. Even with your note, her voice still took me delightfully by surprise in the demo.

Looking forward to poking around the update, probably later tomorrow!

Bavolis

Quote from: Eric on Mon 09/04/2012 05:28:05
Quote from: Bavolis on Mon 09/04/2012 04:50:00I'll likely be throwing it up onto Kickstarter soon to get some funding for proper voice acting

Please retain the services of your daughter. Even with your note, her voice still took me delightfully by surprise in the demo.

Looking forward to poking around the update, probably later tomorrow!

Hah. I'll probably end up trying to get a better take out of her and may even leave it in there for the shock value. I do plan to put both of my shrimps in there as tiny Knobcrookians with bigger (and less disgusting!) roles. 

Bavolis

A little bit of an art update to demonstrate the process from cool sketch to really ugly modified version of cool sketch to something more complete looking. I'll have a couple more steps to add in as I go along.

This is the Draft Horse. The thing to keep in mind is that the Knobbly Crook (and surrounding areas) was created by a giant explosion of animate magik, creating a chaotic wave of life that reconfigured (or brought to life) all the junk and wildlife in the area. This boat is technically alive, though it's not very "horse" any more. Once aboard, you can venture into the head of the thing, talk to the ladderman at the side, or head back into the Horse's Ass bar at the rear.The first series of puzzles revolve around getting this thing to stop and let you off.

The original concept for the Draft Horse came from Julien Fullum, who is helping me build up the world. It looked like:




I had some technical concerns with it. First, the zoom out was a little too far. I wanted to use this as a bit of an overhead "map" for this area, so I zoomed it in. I also started thinking about how to get you to understand where to go, so I dropped a couple of little blue men in there as placeholders. I definitely wanted one in the horse's eye and one to be a bit of a gatekeeper to get off the ship. The bar in the back - I planned an elaborate fan thing that would feel a bit like looking at the back end of a baboon. It's not there yet in this version:



Now it's starting to look more like the rest of the game so far. I tried to use the angle of Julien's horse head, but it kept looking more like a wolf to me and didn't have the creepy horse face I wanted, so I turned it. The perspective went down the toilet at that point, but that's OK. I've gone into this understanding that I'm not a trained artist and that my style relies on being weird and I think it benefits from being *wrong,* so you'll find my perspective is often mind-boggling and my light sources come from 2000 directions. You can see a bit of the baboon ass here, though it's still a placeholder sketch remnant. I modified the ladderman on the side (he'll be an animated character) to fit the theme of the Knobbly Crook - the Knobcrookians are all gobliny things mixed with junk objects. This guy is half ladder. Another major problem with realizing Julien's vision is that the sketch implies movement down the stream. I intend to keep that movement, but I think I'll have to greatly simplify what you can see to create the illusion. This isn't a cinematic ship on a set path, it's looping as long as the player stays there.



I've also been playing around with the team logo, which is based on the old song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." I mixed it with the old Gnarled Scar logo to see how well they mesh, but obviously I need to change the color schemes to match. I'm considering attaching the small logo to a blimp or something and having it sail by and I'll likely do some simple animations on the Devil part. I'm also working on an idea to make it more "logo-y" and less like a full screen painting that touches every edge



I try to keep the version of the game (.zip file) updated on the server, so if you ever want to check in on the progress, you're welcome to go grab it. The extremely WiP Draft Horse is in there now and functional, but I warn you - there's some *hideous* placeholder art if you venture into any rooms.

Bavolis

I've now got the Draft Horse itself pretty much finished and I'm trying to work out how to animate the sucker. I suppose I can have it rock using background animation and use moving characters for clouds/waves, but I haven't tried anything like that in the engine so far. It'll be fun to experiment at least. I dropped the "baboon butt" concept in the back to better show off the lore of this universe. Scissors trump paper, so they've created a Knobbcrookian engine using their physics - a sail made out of various samples of wallpaper. I'm going to add in an animating pair of snipping scissors on the back - which "scares" the paper and propels the boat forward. Fortunately, my wife is a graphic artist, so she's got a huge supply of wallpaper for my needs :)



If I'm violating any rules with the size of these images, please let me know. I'm trying to show the color/detail as it is in-game.

Eric

This is yet another lovely image. I'd love to see more of your rendering process, the in-between of the two images you posted above.

arj0n

Nice shot! Reminds me of the floating boat in Goblins 3 somehow  ;-D

Bavolis

Quote from: Eric on Wed 02/05/2012 07:11:54
This is yet another lovely image. I'd love to see more of your rendering process, the in-between of the two images you posted above.

I'll try to post some more inbetweens on the next big room.

Quote from: »Arj0n« on Wed 02/05/2012 08:29:36
Nice shot! Reminds me of the floating boat in Goblins 3 somehow  ;-D

That's fantastic if it's channelling an old style people enjoyed, that means I'm on track - I haven't played Goblins 3 yet (only the first one, if I remember right), but you definitely have me curious now :)

Tabata

WOW - that IS impressive! 

Can't wait to watch this being animated!   8-)

Also looking forward to more "inbetweens" - always very interesting to study! 

Bavolis

Quote from: Tabata on Wed 02/05/2012 19:50:15
WOW - that IS impressive! 

Can't wait to watch this being animated!   8-)

Also looking forward to more "inbetweens" - always very interesting to study!

Thanks! I'll be sure to keep them coming, though I'm not sure if anybody would ever want to try my art method - it takes 10x as long and absolutely destroys your hands :)

SMF spam blocked by CleanTalk