Byte of the Draculator II

Started by Baron, Sun 30/10/2011 01:42:36

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Baron

Just in time for Hallowe'en.....
BYTE OF THE DRACULATOR II

PLOT: You play as Merrick, the erstwhile corporal who became a vampire to try to impress a pair of sexy-vampire twins.  But then he is immediately kidnapped by the army and enrolled in a top-secret robotic implants experiment!  Now he is half-vampire, half-robot, and more than half-confused.  One thing he does know: he must escape the base or spend the rest of his days as the lap-poodle of the military's chief mad scientist!



BACKGROUND: This game is the fruit of the Swarm, an experimental collaborative project.  Have a look at the vast list of credits to see how many, many AGSers collaborated on this project, or see how many I can remember to mention in this Developer's Playthrough  Congratulations on finishing, team!

FEATURES: This short 10 minute game is jam-packed with goodies.....
-Full voice acting! (All by prominent AGSers!)
-Fully animated!
-Humorous cutscenes!
-Exciting climactic boss-fight!
-Puzzles that only a vampire could face!

EDIT: Spanish translation now available!

THE DOWNLOAD: 17 MB Here!

ThreeOhFour

Brilliant work, so cool to see that such a crazy project actually got finished :D

Congrats to Baron and his swarm for this, and something fun to play on Halloween, hooray :D

Igor Hardy

I'm very proud of my huge contribution to this project of suggesting adding number 2 to the title.

But seriously, huge congrats on finishing - it was an unique endeavor. I can't wait to play it!

Baron

Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 30/10/2011 01:54:48
I'm very proud of my huge contribution to this project of suggesting adding number 2 to the title.

Gah!  Now I have to update the credits again!

Dualnames

GO SWARM GO. This is a proof that when this community...
Who am I kidding? This is all Ascovel's work. YOU MUST HONOR HIM FOR LIFE. COMING UP WITH THE TITLE IS SO HARD.

:P
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Icey

Ohh it's out! Cool now to share it with all.

Hudders

*sits excitedly by the phone, waiting to be "discovered"*

Ponch

Hey! My name is in the credits! I'm somebody now!

I too now sit and wait to be discovered.  8)

Igor Hardy

The voice of Merrick is hilarious - great work!

Baron

Quote from: Ascovel on Sun 30/10/2011 01:40:19
The voice of Merrick is hilarious - great work!

But that's ShiverMeSideways' everyday voice......    ;)

Top marks for him, too, fighting through illness to get hundreds of lines recorded in time for release.  What a guy!

Frodo

This looks amazing!   :D
Can't wait to play it. 


*starts downloading*

Tabata

Congrats on finishing this unique project, Baron!

Those who know some of the swarmers can imagine, how hard it must have been to handle this sack full of crazy fleas.

You did a great job here!

           

Peder 🚀

#12
Awesome! Congrats on releasing it! ;D

NOW I demand a SOUNDTRACK! ;D. LOVE the music :P.

Grim

But... the Halloween has only just started! ;) I'm still at work... must wait to play it...

I'm really looking forward to it ( unless the background I made was removed and replaced by a better one, in that case doom on you! ;) ).

Secret Fawful

Congrats! So happy to see this got finished!

ShiverMeSideways

Congratulations to all the swarmies! While this game is a testament to what the AGS community can do, a gigantic thank you must go to Baron, who has been a gentleman and a trooper in putting this together - indeed, a great Swarm Daddy!

Also, thanks, Ascovel for the kind words :)

I have yet to finish the game, because, as usual, I got stuck!

Spoiler
I suck at adventure games soooo badly...
[close]

But I will, for true vampires never give up! * turns into a bat and flies away *

Icey

Hey Baron are you still planning to release the source later on?

kconan

  Thanks Baron, and fellow swarm-ites.  8)

Ilyich

Yay, finally! Congratulations on the success of your mad experiment, Baron! We all laughed at you when you proposed the idea of the Swarm, but you showed us! YOU SHOWED US ALL!!  :D

And it resulted not in a stitched up monster/vampire/cyborg-thingy, but in a totally sweet byte-sized (see what I did there? ;)) adventure!

Okay, okay, let me try another pun: I thought it would end up a stitched up monster, but instead it ended up leaving me in stitches! ;D

Anyway, kudos to all of you swarmies, you've done a great job. Splendid production values all-round - from the wonderful art direction(and execution) to the hilarious writing and voiceacting. The puzzles and the idea itself were also very funny and inventive, and stereotipically adventure-gamer-minded, which makes it feel even more like a communal project. And that feels great. Thanks, it was a joy to play!

P.S. Awesome title. Especially the 'II' bit.

Snarky

Awesomeness!

Tons of credit to Baron for making this happen, for all his work, and for the original idea of making a bionic vampire game. But I'd also like to single out Hudders, who (as far as I can tell; I might be mistaken) wrote most of the dialog and many of the best jokes, and who provides some great, droll line readings. That really took the game to another level, I think.

And a big high five to all the rest of us! Go Swarm!

Wonkyth

Aww, doesn't my Roboporn comment cut it anymore?  :'(

So happy this came through.
Looking forward to playing it, and even more to being able to actually contribute in the future! :D
"But with a ninja on your face, you live longer!"

Ghost

#21
D'ya know what's underrated?
Well now, being DRACULATED!
You get the fangs, you get the suit,
ya, vampire twins, too, all seems good!
And then what happens? Listen to me!
I will not tell you! You'll have to see!
A swarm's around to tell my tale!
So download it- link will not fail!
So really, friend, if I were you...
I'd check out DRACULATOR II!


Yays in abundance! Baron, thanks for helming the swarm! Swarm, thanks for swarming! Game, thanks for being great! Does that make sense? Does it need to? It's Halloween!

Radiant


abstauber


straydogstrut

Congrats to everyone, what a highly polished final result!! The backgrounds and animation were lovely - loved that poodle one - and the voice acting was very good. The solutions to the puzzles were wacky and fun. Really, really good first swarm game - again everyone involved deserves a big round of applause - looking forward to part 3 ;)

ZapZap

"Loose ends have a way of strangling you"

Wyz

Omg this is awesome, what a great timing also to release this with Halloween!

When I said this I was joking, but little did I know Baron would actually go through and even less did I know he would pull it off. Fantastic job to him and everyone who worked on it. You all did an amazing job!

Btw Shivers, that must feel so awkward being stuck in a game listing to your own voice. :D
Life is like an adventure without the pixel hunts.

Ekeko

Hey guys!
Awesome game! (Although I already played the beta so I knew about it)
But I think I found an error or something: :-\
Didn't Merrick have an animation getting shot by the guards? Because when that happened to me, there was no animation, just a text-box telling me that Merrick is dead!

Snarky

It sometimes plays and sometimes doesn't. If you click on a guard, I think it doesn't, but if you walk too close to them, I think it does.

Baron

#29
Ahhh.  Back to the drawing board, I guess.  In the mean time, I've uploaded version 1.1 with a missing animation and some sound edits.  I'll investigate this getting shot nonsense when I get a bit more time.

Quote from: Wyz on Sun 30/10/2011 13:21:10
Btw Shivers, that must feel so awkward being stuck in a game listing to your own voice. :D

"Vhat do I do now!"  ;D

Matti

#30
Nicely done, very entertaining! If it just would've been a bit longer  :'(

Can't wait for part.. um.. part IV?

Thanks to all the contributors!

qptain Nemo

Haha, that was lovely! Loved the voiceovers, ShiverMeSideways and Hudders were especially great. Also loved the insane adventuregamey puzzles. :')
Music was very pleasing as well. Good job, JackPumkinHead!
So yeah, cheers to everybody who participated, it was an incredibly cute game. :)

Quote from: Wyz on Sun 30/10/2011 13:21:10
Btw Shivers, that must feel so awkward being stuck in a game listing to your own voice. :D
Hahaha :D

Hudders

Quote from: Wyz on Sun 30/10/2011 13:21:10
When I said this I was joking

So the question is: have we changed game making forever?

selmiak

great! Funny writing, superbe voiceacting, sweet animations. The puzzles or the solutions were great. The outcome of the magnets, I didn't even think of that but it made perfect sense afterwards. Well done Swarm :)

Sinitrena

It's great to see the final product.
Well done, everyone.  ;D

Armageddon

Yay, I drew the first thing you ever see! 8)

Igor Hardy

Finished! Great game. I kept laughing all the time. Was sad that it ended so soon.

Now you have to continue with the Bryde of the Draculator as Snarky suggested.

m0ds

Looking very nice well done! Hope to play it in the week :)

Tenacious Stu

Just finished this and thought it was amazing. I read about the Swarm back in April and wanted to be a part of it, but never got around to it, but now I wish I had  ;D. Maybe for the next Swarm?

Well done to all involved on a brilliant game. Loved the Art, Voice Acting, Dialog, Puzzles and Music!!! I thought the GUI's where impressive too.

Congratulations to all involved.

DutchMarco

This game is brilliant! So is Merrick's voice! (and the talk-anim of the professor in the introduction!

But I must admit, I'm rather stuck at the UV-light, now.
Spoiler
]Do I need an item to throw at te light switch? The carrot and blood won't work.
[close]

Frodo

DutchMarco.   :)

Hint 1
Spoiler
You need to give yourself more colour, to survive walking through the UV light.  Now what has a lot of colour in it?
[close]


Hint 2
Spoiler
Eat the carrot by using it on yourself.   ;)
[close]

Corby

I have to mention that my favorite voice was the Ginger Scientist.  :)

"Get back you mean thing!"

Armageddon

Quote from: Corby on Mon 31/10/2011 23:01:08
I have to mention that my favorite voice was the Ginger Scientist.  :)

"Get back you mean thing!"
I agree.

"HOLY CRAP, THE VCU IS AT LARGE!"

I must have heard that six times and I still bust a gut.

Tabata

I love to hear the other one shouting „Horror! Horror!“ from his position.

It somehow remembers me of an old lady, who forgot their cake in the oven  ;D

Jackpumpkinhead

this is amazing!!!!

@Peder Johnsen+:

Here are the songs from the game (The Official Soundtrack ;D)


1. Draculator II - Theme


2. Title Screen


3. Merrick Explores


4. Vamp Twins


5. RoboFight!
currently on an indefinite hold.

Igor Hardy

#45
What about the song that you can hear during the credits? Was it the main theme?

Hudders

Hey, we're pick of the month!  8)

Dualnames

Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

paolo

It crashed on me (see below). Here's what I did:
Spoiler
I went into the lab, got the probe, killed the blond scientist, then exited. The bad guy showed up and then the game crashed.
[close]

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.21.1115)

in "room8.asc", line 41

Error: Error running function 'room_AfterFadeIn':
Error: Null pointer referenced


---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Baron

Quote from: paolo on Wed 02/11/2011 13:13:33

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
An error has occurred. Please contact the game author for support, as this is likely to be a scripting error and not a bug in AGS.
(ACI version 3.21.1115)

in "room8.asc", line 41

Error: Error running function 'room_AfterFadeIn':
Error: Null pointer referenced


Impressive that you caught the 1 game loop that the audio clip wasn't playing!  I've added a condition to check whether the audio channel is playing before changing the volume.  Thanks for the report!

I too am excited by the four cup rating -wow!  I've never been a part of a "quality" project before....  And all along I thought the plan was to do it "quick-and-dirty".  I guess we made a wrong turn in the design document somewhere.....

Peder 🚀

Thanks Jackpumpkinhead ;D.
downloading!

ddq

Got a bug here, infinite loop.
Spoiler
After using the cheetah blood on Merrick in the room with the 3 guards and trying to leave the room, Merrick says the "I must use this power while I can" spiel ad infinitum.
[close]

SpacePirateCaine

Quote from: Corby on Mon 31/10/2011 23:01:08
I have to mention that my favorite voice was the Ginger Scientist.  :)

"Get back you mean thing!"

Aww, thanks! It was a lot of fun recording the lines, but honestly, it's all about the writing: Everything I was given was easy to record. To be honest, I preferred my other reading of the character, but in the end, it seems to have gone over quite well, so cheers Baron for having better taste in voice acting than me!
Check out MonstroCity! | Level 0 NPCs on YouTube! | Life's far too short to be pessimistic.

tzachs

Fantastic game! I laughed a lot, and now the entire swarm has been Goat Parked.

I will be very interested to hear some post-mortem from Baron, what did it take to manage all that, what worked, what didn't, how many people actually managed to work for under 1 hour, all that fun stuff...

And now, for some issue/bugs/quirks I had.

* I didn't hear the music playing for some reason...
* There were some occasions that I had to press the left mouse button more than once for it to respond (probably the mouse mode not always switch after looking at stuff).
* No hotspot label for the inventory items.
*
Spoiler

I drink the Cheetah blood, become very fast, but after I kill the first guard, I now have a human blood in me, so I should not be fast anymore, but I still am...
[close]

Baron

Quote from: tzachs on Fri 04/11/2011 17:06:10
Fantastic game! I laughed a lot, and now the entire swarm has been Goat Parked.

Yay for publicity!

QuoteI will be very interested to hear some post-mortem from Baron, what did it take to manage all that, what worked, what didn't, how many people actually managed to work for under 1 hour, all that fun stuff...

I'll probably get to that this weekend.  I'm in crash mode right now....

Quote
And now, for some issue/bugs/quirks I had.

* I didn't hear the music playing for some reason...

The only thing I can think of: is your computer is so advanced that it cannot play MIDI files?  Cause that's what they are -OLD SCHOOL.

Quote
* There were some occasions that I had to press the left mouse button more than once for it to respond (probably the mouse mode not always switch after looking at stuff).
Hmmmmm....  I have noticed this once or twice.  I assumed it was the "dead space" on the end of some of the voice lines (thus the left-click would just register as ending the clip instead of activating something new).  I'll look into it further, though.

Quote
* No hotspot label for the inventory items.

Ah!  They made me take it out.  They MADE me do it!  Those labels were in there until two days before the final release, but the consensus was they cluttered the GUI.  There you have it -damned if you do, damned if you don't  ;)

Quote.....I now have a human blood in me, so I should not be fast anymore, but I still am...

If the Jedi can lift things with the force, why can't they lift themselves and float around?  I guess this is just another case of "suspend your disbelief" and just enjoy it.

Quote from: ddq on Thu 03/11/2011 03:30:57
Got a bug here, infinite loop: Merrick says the "I must use this power while I can" spiel ad infinitum.

That's actually a feature.  Dualnames was supposed to turn it into a rap but he never came through for us.....  I mean, he got out the baggy pants and the bling, but there was some problem with the bi-atches and things just ended up falling apart.  Long story short, I guess I should fix the game.

Igor Hardy

#55
Quote from: Baron on Sat 05/11/2011 00:27:38
Quote.....I now have a human blood in me, so I should not be fast anymore, but I still am...

If the Jedi can lift things with the force, why can't they lift themselves and float around?  I guess this is just another case of "suspend your disbelief" and just enjoy it.

Nah, everything is fine - Merrick is just so damn fast at drinking blood from the guards that his metabolism doesn't kick in until he drank from everyone.

This game is so perfect that every little, seemingly insignificant detail fits - testament to the collective genius that The Swarm can achieve.

Grim

Finished it!

Good game, with a very strong retro feel to it. A bit on the short side... but I think the main reason is that less people than expected have participated. I mean, we were talking about a thousand people at first, right? So, considering that it was a lot less than that, big thanks to Baron for putting it all together.

   Personally, I think that for the next project, if there's ever gonna be one, we should do something more crazy, with  more room for Dali-esque imaginery that would involve lots of different art styles and ideas all connected by a Alice in Wonderland kind of storyline... which doesn't mean the story in Draculator II wasn't good! The writing was superb, and so was the voice acting! I didn't expect our hero to talk with a foreign accent... so it was a fantastic surprise, so funny! I also noticed that Icey did the lines of the blonde scientist- that part about a bonzai just cracked me up:)

  Overall, I'd say great game, 4 out of 5. I'm happy and proud that I've contributed to this project. Thanks to all of you!!! ;)

Buckethead

I'm a bit late with my comment, but better later than never.

First off I would like to thanks Baron for managing the whole thing. I think it's pretty awesome that he had an idea and went all the way through with it, and took us all on a nice joyride.

Even though I've only contributed a few things it still was a lot of fun to do so. And the end result is amazing really. The game is suprisingly polished and keeps consitent all the way through. The writing is witty and funny. And the voice acting makes it all the more enjoyable.

I also like the puzzles in this game a lot. Some of them really are quite inovative.


Good job everybody!  ;D

Baron

Alright, new debugged version is uploading as I write this!  To my knowledge this new version fixes all outstanding issues so far identified.  I've also finalized a translation file (some people expressed an interest in the swarm thread but I thought I'd mention it here as well if anyone is interested).

dunnoson

Baron,

I was doing my weekly AGS game scan for downloading/playing.  Usually, I pass over games that has bad graphics, storyline.  However, your game has EXCELLENT looking graphics which shows dedication to the game.  Also, a Robot Vampire?  That is an interesting character, and you need to fill us in on the background of the story.

How did you come up with this idea?  How long did it take you?  I want to know all about this game, because I am trying to come up with a good CSI game that has excellent graphics.

I look forward to your response.

James
currently working on:


I am in the Brainstorming stage.  Also am trying to gather a team.
I am committing to this game.

Thinking about creating another game, NCIS themed.

Baron

Ha, well.... where to start?  Really, if you want to know every detail of how this project came to pass there is a whole thread documenting the process here.  Answering your questions directly....

Quote from: dunnoson on Fri 11/11/2011 01:39:39
How did you come up with this idea?
My original plot idea was for a love-lorn bionic vampire to escape a military base, since it would make for a short game with a clear objective.  There were many writers who adapted, altered and fleshed out that original concept to create the final product.

QuoteHow long did it take you?
The swarm project ran from May to October (five months), but there was a lot of down time in there.  My personal active time on the project (excluding correspondence, recruitment, discussion, etc.) was probably around 80 hours.  This entailed most of the programming, debugging, some animation and drawing, importing assets (and editing them to fit, if necessary), writing interactions and doing the documentation (code comments and readme file).

QuoteI want to know all about this game, because I am trying to come up with a good CSI game that has excellent graphics.

Well, I didn't have much to do with drawing a lot of the graphics....  If you're looking for art direction, you should consult with our art director Ali.  If you are looking for how-to tips, you should read the swarm thread and PM anyone who has submitted background art or animation that you admire.  If you are looking to recruit artists then you're going to have to get them enthusiastic about your game and convince them that it will be successful when finished.  To do this it is helpful to have already released a game, thus proving you can follow through on what you propose, so I recommend working on a small project first to hone your skills (perhaps a MAGS entry?).

QuoteAlso, a Robot Vampire?  That is an interesting character, and you need to fill us in on the background of the story.
All I know is in the readme file, which is basically what appears in the completed game announcement (above).  We didn't really spend a lot of time fleshing out the back story as we felt that it would just weigh down the story in such a short game.

Baron

#61
Sorry to double post, but I thought I'd link to our Developer's Playthrough that attempts to document the contributions and processes behind this game.  This is my first ever playthrough, so I apologize in advance for it being unpolished in places.  Enjoy!


EDIT: Part 2

EDIT: Part 3

Wyz

#62
It's fun to see people not realize the game was made by a swarm rather then a single person. That's a good job on consistency to at least some degree :D
Life is like an adventure without the pixel hunts.

discordance

hey did anyone notice this was on pc gamer? you guys are famooous

Armageddon

Hey! I know the guy that wrote that, cool to see he's working at PC Gamer now. :D

Baron

Hey Spaniards and Spanish speakers: we've got a Spanish translation now!  Many thanks to Ekeko for his hard work translating -it takes real talent to translate the vibe of all of our bad jokes. 

If you're new to this and trying to access the Spanish translation, run the Winsetup file in the game directory and toggle Spanish under Game Language.

Ekeko

Quote from: Baron on Wed 18/01/2012 02:56:07
It takes real talent to translate the vibe of all of our bad jokes. 
Awww, it was nothing, I mean, I can translate MY terrible jokes!  ;D

Jared

#67
Woo! I got in the credits of a game. All I had to do was draw a single standing sprite of a black guy..

EDIT: lol only just noticed how long ago this came out. Man. Was very funny though and pleased to see it was left open for a sequel..

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