Topic: Alpha Dog

[DrWhite]

Oh no!
Evil Ivan, the dog-catcher, captured Mike. So his friends have to break into Ivan´s dog-prison to rescue him. You play Frank, the hamster, Dog, the cat and Stanley the turtle.

Screenshot


Download here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1240

Alpha Dog was designed, written, coded, and established with three powerful pieces of music by DrWhite.
Testing, speech-animations and lots of advice by Helme.

Features
320x240 lo-res graphics
three pieces of lo-fi music
three playable characters with their own abilities
probably still a lot of funny bugs

This game is an entry to this month´s MAGS competition. You can find the thread about the competition here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=39241.0

[Leon]

Nice one. Some thingies...

- The windows in the backyard are hotspot6
- The tap in the kitchen is hotspot5
- The rack next to the worktop in the kitchen is hotspot13
- The lamp outside is latern --> lantern.

and most stange of all:

Spoiler: ShowHide

to the left side of the building is a tree with a window behind it. When Frank looks at it, he says: can't reach them and besides, they're closed. But when Frank is in the kitchen and looks at the same window (with the tree): the window's broken and can climb out without a problem. First of all: how can a broken window be closed and second, how can you get out when you're in a closed vent?

typo: Frank looking at the bin: You can call me a poodle it --> if

[DrWhite]

Tanks, Leon. Should be fixed now.

[Leon]

Wow, talk about speed. The tap is still hotspot5 though..  

And another one: if Dog looks in the container while Frank has the leash...

Spoiler: ShowHide

Dog says: But I'm already carrying something.

[abstauber]

Sweet little game. I liked Hamster Frank the most - he's really sweet and authentic.
Also the music is totally fitting, if not outnumbering the graphics style. Playing at night and having those retro-sounds, it totally reminds at Nick Knatterton (as I've already written in the MAGS thread).
So the graphics are basic and that's fine. The music is groovy and that cool. The gameplay is glitchy as hell and that's... - well fix it already!

I bet, you've spent most of the time, writing the music

a minor bug:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Also climbing the rope inside building can be done from anywhere. Being the hamster on the top of the screen, I can fly to the kitchen and back again. Also Dog has some flying capabilitiers

[kaputtnik]

Lovely! Graphics style and colour choice are great (if minimalistic), music is hip and the three friends are friendly!

[Helme]

I wish I would have more time for testing and bug fixing, but it was fun to help.

[Leon]

Again strange behavior:

Spoiler: ShowHide

When Frank puts the needle in the cable, Dog hits the switch and Frank walks to the next room, when I return to the one with my friends, the character is changed to Dog and Dog is in the vent shaft as well?

Then when I try to push F9 a crash with: Error: Unable to restart game (error: File not found).

[DrWhite]

@ Abstauber: I´m glad you like the music - it was most fun writing it. But the most time I spent on coding-stuff, as I´m not really good in such things .

@ kaputtnik: Great you like my minimalistic approach - I thought chosing low-res graphics was the only way for someone who hardly cannot draw.

@ Leon: Hm, I couldn`t reproduce these bugs. Did it happen only once? But thanks for the info, I´m going to take another look on the script.

[Leon]

Yeah, the second try it worked OK. Must be a similar glitch as I had with Robbing the Princess where Alec ended up on the roof (where he normally couldn't be). Had to do with the findpath routine or something. Maybe OneDollar can tell you more.

I must have a 6th sense for that. Or maybe I should try and play the lotto... I seem to be lucky at something... 

[OneDollar]

Just finished this and I enjoyed it, though I admit to looking at the walkthrough twice

Spoiler: ShowHide

(I couldn't work out where to use the rope or the needle)

Anyway, what it lacked in graphic shine it made up for in charm. Having three playable characters, each with their own abilities was a good feature (though some text to tell you what those abilities were would have been useful). The characters had a lot of... character, and the music was good. It reminded me of finding an adventure game by chance on one of those CDs with hundreds of shareware games on, and that's not a bad thing.

I hardly come across any bugs. I saw the previously mentioned "Hotspot5" label for the tap and noticed that Dog can walk around the title screen. Also the title itself has a mouse-over label of "oAlpha". Nothing major.

Good work!

[DrWhite]

Thanks for your feedback, OneDollar. I also have the feeling that I should have added more hints, where the abilities are useful. Sadly there wasn´t enough time, I´ll eventually upload a better version.