Orbital: Part 1 - The Problem Child (Retro, EGA, Sci-fi)

[JayeJaye]

Progress
22nd July 2013
Graphics 70%
Puzzles 50%
Scripting 20%
Music/sound 50%

A Team-O Production:


Background Artist & Team Leader: JayeJaye
Story & Dialogue: CaptainD
Scripting: Crimson Wizard
Music: Jon Babb

Story Outline
Rumpapunsky Paffenbarger, AI droid, resides with his humanoid friend (and his daughter) in their residence located on the desert continent "Whispering Sands", aboard the massive Seras Orbital (with a surface area x20 that of a regular M-class planet). Paffebarger must investigate the disappearance of his friend and follow clues that lead him to unlikely and bizarre destinations, until he tracks down his friend and uncovers a dangerous plot that is more sinister and threatening to the safety of the Orbital and her citizens than anything he could possibly imagine. Where has Paffenbarger's friend disappeared to? Who took him? Why did they take him? And who is involved in this sinister plot in which he somehow finds himself entangled?

Setup
(all following material taken direct from game design manual)
Memory fragment: Our friendly little PC awakens to the sound of his devices being tested and diagnosed. His sight is the last thing to come into play, and gives us an image of the silver lined face of the orbital avatar looking down from above.
PC tells his story of how he was activated, and how he came to find himself living with his closest friend in his remote desert dwelling. We get a view of the orbital, as well as some description of the hub and the overall size of the orbital � which helps to place everything into context.


By jasonjarred at 2011-05-21

Setting
Desert: hot, dry, inhospitable, unfriendly. Raging windstorms make trekking into the desert unwise, even for an artificial life form, and downright suicidal for a bioform. Frequent sandstorms blow through the desert, making the sinkhole dwelling a safe haven or oasis of sorts in the middle of this hostility.


By jasonjarred at 2011-05-21

By jasonjarred at 2011-05-21

Sinkhole: A safe haven amongst the harshness of the raging windstorms, heat and weather of the desert. The sinkhole interiors are decorated with brightly painted walls and motifs, tapestries, greens, blues, plants and even a water feature in a carefully maintained garden area. The sinkhole should feel safe, cozy, and be reminiscent of the cave dwellings on Tatooine (Star Wars). Plenty of open views and vistas while maintaining a �cozy� setting to avoid the player feeling confined or claustrophobic.


By jasonjarred at 2011-05-21


By jasonjarred at 2011-05-21

Overall Look/Feel
Sierra stylized game, with artwork primarily based on styles developed from the following Sierra games:
�   Quest for Glory II
�   Space Quest III
�   Leisure Suit Larry III
�   Quest for Camelot

This game aims for a primarily retro, late 80�s, Sierra adventure gaming feel. One of the goals is to reignite the nostalgia of Sierra adventure games by mimicking their style of artwork and storytelling, by presenting a �brand new� adventure (The late 80�s game that never was) in this style and presented in the world of The Culture, as created by Iain M Banks.

The Interface
�   EGA
�   SQ4 stylised, but with unique PC designed icons
�   Walk / Roll, Get / Activate, Look / Scan, Talk / Communicate, Inventory, Save/Load menu, About
�   Menu should be unobtrusive � completely disappears until the mouse cursor hovers over the top
�   Right clicking mouse switches between the different cursors
�   When an inventory item is selected, the cursor actually looks like that item (ie LSL6)
�   Icons not too large � perhaps smaller than SQ4 style (nice and compact)
�   Sleak and user friendly design
�   Icons look like what they�re supposed to represent
�   Should be novel � we�re playing as a PC, so there need to be very �PC� feeling icons and interface style

Dialogue
Same as LSL3, but with coloured dialogue boxes, coloured header, coloured text. *Not* VGA Monkey Island style, we�re aiming for retro 80�s nostalgia.

Sketches

By jasonjarred at 2011-05-27

[SpacePirateCaine]

This looks really interesting - I've always been a big fan of sci-fi. Are these in-game shots? I'm not seeing a character sprite or GUI at the moment.

Love the EGA look. It appears that you're strictly adhering to the classic EGA 16-color palette? It's one hell of an undertaking, but the screens are looking mighty fine. From the menu screen (the last screenshot) and the information you gave, it seems that you're doing a mouse interface, but are you planning on implementing a text interface as well? I've actually recently just started playing QFGII (The original, not the remake) again after a long, long time and am enjoying the hell out of it.

I'm going to be keeping an eye on this project. Best of luck!

[Armageddon]

This reminds me of star wars. Really nice background with this many colors.

[Frodo]

This looks great.     Interesting story, and lovely backgrounds.   

I looked at your screenshots, and thought they reminded me of early SQ\QFG.  Then I read down, and you say they overall look\feel is based on Quest For Gloey II, Space Quest III, and Leisure Suit larry III.   

Looking forward to this one.   

[Darth Mandarb]

[moderator]
Are these actual "in game" screens?  As mentioned by Cain there's no GUIs and/or characters?  Since you've provided several graphic examples I'll let it slide but it would be nice to see something from within the game itself.
[/moderator]

Love me some EGA!

Is that the NSEA Protector?

[JayeJaye]

[moderator]
Are these actual "in game" screens?  As mentioned by Cain there's no GUIs and/or characters?  Since you've provided several graphic examples I'll let it slide but it would be nice to see something from within the game itself.
[/moderator]

Love me some EGA!

Is that the NSEA Protector?

Hi Darth, no these are not in-game screens, apologies for that - I did my best to comply with the rules of the forum but somehow overlooked that detail. I will replace them shortly. And yes, it certainly is the NSEA Protector, you'll find some more Galaxy Quest references in Part II of Orbital Adventure (which takes place on a cruise-spaceship).

Originally I began working on the entire game: Pensurian desert (as pictured), Cruise spaceship, and resort island, but decided to break it up into 3 separate parts to make the game more managable and less intimidating. This approach is working, though I should inform everybody that this work has already been two years in progress, which is why I decided not to post a WIP up until this point (I'm currently a full time uni student, studying medical science, though I devote plenty of my free time in holidays to working on this project I'm rarely able to work on it during semester).
Part I may not be too far from release, and I have put in hours upon hours of work into the backgrounds, storyline, sprites and overall game development in these past two years.

It appears that you're strictly adhering to the classic EGA 16-color palette?

You bet - the goal here is to emulate late 80's, EGA, Sierra adventure style. I've found that by limiting my resources in this style has forced me to be more creative with my backgrounds and artwork, and I'm really hoping to recreate some nostalgia through a new adventure in retro-style. You might notice that the desert scenes are *very* similar to those in QFGII - note that they are *not* ripped directly from QFGII, rather I have spent many hours deconstructing artwork from QFGII and SQ2 in order to emulate their style, and hopefully produce some original and unique artwork of my own (as I said previously, to design an 80's, EGA, Sierra adventure style game that never was).

This reminds me of star wars. Really nice background with this many colors.

Some of the backgrounds for this game are based on reference pictures, and in fact the sinkhole picture was certainly based on a Tatooine picture which I found via Google pics. As my skills have improved over the years, I have gradually relied less and less on reference artwork - it's actually easier to draw my own pictures rather than rely on reference pictures.

I will provide occasional updates - I expect to get some real work done these coming holidays after my mid year exams.

[selmiak]

This looks so cool. You're doing a great job on recreating these EGA Gfx.
But what do you mean, you play as a PC. PC as in Personal Computer?

[Darth Mandarb]

I think he means "player character"

[Sam.]

Memory fragment: Our friendly little PC awakens to the sound of his devices being tested and diagnosed. His sight is

I might argue with the Darth! This looks lovely, looking forward to ingame.

[SuperDre]

ah, looks great, brings back real fond memories of the original space quest series.. looking forward to playing.. only thing that scares me is the 'part 1' as I don't like playing games which have a 'real' ending and not knowing if it will ever continue..

[JayeJaye]

I think he means "player character"

Yup, that's right.  I simply refer to my main character as 'PC' (Player character) as I find it difficult to settle on names until the characters are fully developed. It's something I like to leave until last.

Pictures have been replaced with in-game screen-shots as promised (except for the very first).

[Ubel]

The Space Quest 3 vibe is indisputable. SQ3 is one of my very favourite adventure games so the visual style of this game appeals to me a lot! And that alone is reason enough for me to have high expectations of this game! Good luck with it! I hope we'll see it released soon!

[Zenger]

Great work JasonJarred  , I love it ... ohhh those golden Sierra days   .... now I fell nostalgic  


Looking forward to seeing more  

[JayeJaye]

It's been a couple of years since I've posted anything for Orbital, but rest assured that development *is* ongoing and a lot of progress has been made since the creation of this thread. We are closing in on a demo deadline, which ought to be finalised by the end of this year (if not sooner), and the overall game is really coming together very nicely. Without wanting to give away too much of the artwork and spoil the game experience, here is a section of the intro screen:



I think Orbital is going to be a great game when she is finally released, reminiscent of retro-EGA Sierra games, but in our own unique Team-O style. I have adapted an approach to what I like to call "inspiration driven creation", in which I attempt to capture the atmosphere of those Sierra games I most love while I am travelling overseas immersed in a foreign culture. When that's not possible, plenty of coffee and caffeinated beverages get me through

The backgrounds aim to be visually pleasing, providing a travel experience for the eye, and I've personally spent many hours over the past years deconstructing retro-EGA artwork from those artists we all love and admire (particulary for the games Leisure Suit Larry, Quest for Glory, Space Quest, and Conquest of Camelot).

A reworked desert screen:


And finally, one more screen - which some may already have seen in another thread - from a crashed shuttle in the sands of the Whispering Desert continent located somewhere on Seras Orbital:



Team-O

[Ubel]

So glad to see this is still happening! The new art looks great!

[SuperDre]

Yeah, it looks absolutely great again.. keep it up.. looking forward to playing it in the near future

[Armageddon]

Halo ring? Great to see this is back though.

[dactylopus]

I've been hoping to hear more about this one!

Thanks for posting this update, everything is looking great!

Definitely anticipating the release.

[ThreeOhFour]

That's some stunning EGA work. Absolutely lovely!

[JayeJaye]

So glad to see this is still happening! The new art looks great!

We may have been quiet over these past few years, but that's not because the project has died - rather that our progress is a little slow but it's absolute. We *will* finish this game, whether next year or 3 years from now, of that you can be certain.

Halo ring? Great to see this is back though.

This is an Orbital, a concept of recently deceased novelist Iain M. Banks, my favorite author. I understand they're very similar to Halo rings, a game I never played myself (but I've heard of it and seen the Red vs Blue parodies) but I think they may be smaller.

That's some stunning EGA work. Absolutely lovely!

Thanks ThreeOhFour, I've spent countless hours reverse engineering my favourite scenes from my favourite Sierra games in order to obtain a similar look, style and feel as the classics, and I constantly touch-up screens after months and even years until I'm happy with the final result. I look forward to releasing some sort of playable demo in the near future for people to enjoy.