Topic: The Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones - Issue Fixed

[MUFFINinc]

Yo cats.

This is the second AGS game I've ever finished, the first one being a completely moronic game called Frankenpooper that I've taken down on account of how it was totally stupid.  This game is one of two "practice" games I've been working on in order to learn the ins and outs of the AGS scripting language.  I took a class on Java programming last year and was able to apply a lot of the core concepts to the AGS language, so I'm actually pretty proud of how this game turned out, at least in technical terms.  Nevertheless, I wanted to make a silly game with a silly story to test out my new skills, because I have some ideas for some more serious projects, and I didn't want to attempt any of these ideas until I had a slightly better idea what I was doing.



That said, this is a detective game that centers around a very silly character named Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones.  They call him "Frankfurter" because he likes to punch old ladies in the face.  He is a special investigator for a super secret branch of the FBI that handles special cases.  He is sent to a small town in Ohio called North Weenus in order to investigate the theft of a pair of F. Scott Fitzgerald's overalls from the local historical society.  In the process of investigating the McCullogh family household, he uncovers an insidious conspiracy involving the occult.

WARNING:

This game is pretty offensive to the sensibilities of the average person.  I honestly think I have tourettes or something like that; I don't even know what is wrong with me, but I feel almost a compulsive need to make up sophomoric and obscene stories that are completely ridiculous and offensive to anyone who might consider themselves to be a halfway-decent person.  While the humor in this game could only be truly appreciated by a sociopathic eleven year old, it should probably not be played by children at all, unless you want them to grow up to be as messed up as I am.  Seriously; you've been warned.  Unless you are the kind of person who, like me, is amused by stupid, gross, offensive things, you probably shouldn't play this game.  Possible thematic elements you might be exposed to if you play this game include:  explicit dialogue, mild violence, mild sexual situations, explicit references to bestiality, and the utter mutilation of one of America's most treasured literary classics.

ANOTHER, LESS SERIOUS WARNING:  This game will take up approximately 250 mb of space on your computer, mostly due to the large soundtrack file.  There is a lot of audio in this game, because I am primarily a musician, and as such put a lot of care into the auditory features of all of my projects.

Also, I have tested this game as thoroughly as is humanly possible, and have given it to a couple of my friends to test as well, but like anyone else, I'm not perfect.  If you experience any bizarre problems or errors with this game, please let me know, either by PM through the AGS forums, or through my email:  quoons@therealmuffin.net.



Features:

- Glorious 3D rendered graphics
- A special case notebook that records important information as you play
- An absolutely ridiculous amount of original music
- An in-game mp3 player to keep track of all of it
- A mildly addictive arcade-style minigame
- A bunch of totally stupid Easter eggs, including an original, unpublished draft of The Great Gatsby on audiobook, hidden throughout the game
- A finite but surprisingly immersive game environment, which I have gone to great pains to make as interactive as is humanly possible

Wow, I almost forgot to post a link.  How silly of me.

http://www.therealmuffin.net/games/frankfurter.zip

This game has also been added to the AGS games database.

[OG]

They call him "Frankfurter" because he likes to punch old ladies in the face.

I'm sold! Downloading now and will let you know what I think a but later on san'.

[MUFFINinc]

thank you for the download.  I look forward to hearing what you think.

[OG]

Well I haven't (haven't had the time) completed it yet but I can assure the players that the dialogue is strong. Heh... The graphics are nice, I can tell you have worked to a fair length of time with this game. I personally love the humour, though I don't know if I am alone on that. When I have 'travelled' further I will let you know what I think of the ending, but if the previous is anything to go by, I lol'd.

[MUFFINinc]

hey, I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying it so far.  I certainly hope you continue enjoying it and will be glad to hear your final verdict.  I've definitely learned that making adventure games is serious business, as even this completely silly title has consumed massive amounts of my time, so I'll probably use a more serious idea for my next project, but I am glad to hear that someone is getting some enjoyment out of this one.

[Fribbi]

Has no walktrough be made of this game yet?

I'm stuck.

When am I going to use the blond wig to fool the Mr. McCullogh so I can use his computer again?

What is the password for the laptop with the mp3 music I found where fat drummer kid was.

Ps. I really like that game.

[sthomannch]

Fribbi, why not open a thread in Hints&Tips?
Anyway

Spoiler: ShowHide

You need the wig and something else later to trick McCullogh

Spoiler: ShowHide

If you have shown a printout of the picture to the wife, talk to her again. If she goes to another room, follow her and talk to her again. Seduce her

[Shadow1000]

Absolutely awesome game! Exceptional in many ways.

There were some technical glitches, but other than that, hats off to the author!



SHADOW

[MUFFINinc]

Fribbi, I have thought about writing a walkthrough for this game, as there are a few things people have been asking about that are not immediately apparent.  I found your thread in hints and tips.  When it is done I will post a link.

Shadow, I am curious to know what the technical issues you mentioned are.  I tried to test this game as thoroughly as possible, but I don't doubt that I missed a few things.  Please PM me and let me know what the glitches are and I will try to fix them.

Thanks to everyone who has commented and/or played this game.  I am very glad to hear that people have been enjoying it.

[Shadow1000]

The Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones is a very impressive second game from MUFFINinc. Despite being a practice game, MUFFINinc has used all the traditional elements of adventure games masterfully to create this game that should take about 2-3 hours to complete.

CAUTION: Mild spoilers. Please only read once you've played

WHAT I LIKED ABOUT THE GAME

• Most of my assessment of the quality of a game goes for the structure of the puzzles and the plot. I'll start my list of good stuff with those. While there is nothing particularly groundbreaking in the puzzles, the one thing that catches my attention on this game is how traditional puzzle elements
  Spoiler: ShowHide

  (find the key, password, open the box using a tool you find, complete a task based on a map you've found)
  are used in a balanced way with entertaining dialogues to solve the puzzles. Possibly the biggest mistake early game authors make is excessive use of frustrating dialogue or illogical puzzles. The puzzles in this game were challenging enough to make me think for most of the time I spent playing, but never did I find myself so stuck that I was frustrated or finding myself needing to post or read the forum. Similarly, I NEVER found myself saying "ok, now what? I don't see any goal in the game to accomplish to continue". These qualities are VERY rare
• The plot for a "on the longer side of short" game was really well done. I don't want to give away too much but I am impressed with how the story starts off with an apparent simple task that evolves several times into something much bigger. Excellent element of surprise there.
• Kudos for the ingame hint system (you know what I mean if you've played) and the "whodunnit" system of needing to collect clues to bust the guilty party. Well executed.
• Great balance of items to interact with with items and rooms available with the length of the game and items you don't need to use. Another area that challenges novice game authors.
• Impressive background pictures. Enough detail to provide the right environment without looking cluttered. The music was also impressive
• While I'm at it, you get points for the minigame, MP3 player, and picture rotation puzzle (I'm being vague deliberately). I'm always impressed when games go that extra distance to provide a bit more

AND NOW FOR THE MINUSES

• Couple of technical glitches that I PMed to the author
• I put the background art in my list of plusses. However, the 3D attempt for the characters didn't really work for me. They looked out of place and didn't mesh well with the backgrounds.

CONCLUSION
It's clear that a LOT of work went into this game. The most difficult elements of designing a game are clearly clinched. I hope that other players enjoy this game as much as I did and that the author use his talents to create a sequel, and perhaps a full length game one day.

Congrats on a job well done!

SHADOW

[MUFFINinc]

Shadow, thanks once more for your comments and overwhelmingly positive review of this game!

Thanks also to everyone else who has played this game and enjoyed it.  As I have discussed with shadow, it seems there are a number of small bugs that made it past testing, which I am currently in the process of ironing out.  An updated version of this game, including bug fixes and a couple of minor changes, should be completed within the next few weeks or so, depending on how much time I have to get it done.  There is also a walkthrough being written, so keep an eye on this thread and the thread in hints and tips for updates.

Thanks again for playing, everyone!  I've got a couple of ideas for new games, including a sequel to this one, as well as my second "practice" game which should hopefully be dropping soon, so keep an eye out.  Hopefully you will all be hearing from me again very soon.

[MUFFINinc]

Sorry, I totally meant to do this like 4 months ago, but I got sidetracked by other projects, including an AGS game which will be substantially better than this one, as well as an idea for a "Frankfurter" Jones sequel.  Anyway, here's the link for the walkthrough:

http://www.therealmuffin.net/games/frankfurterwalkthru.txt

[Stupot]

How have I missed this? Your 'warning' alone just had me in stitches, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a go

[TassieDevil]

Is it possible to do a release without sound/music please?
I always turn sound off as I listen to the radio or play at night and a very sllow internet connection prevents to download such big games.

Thanks

[MUFFINinc]

Is it possible to do a release without sound/music please?
I always turn sound off as I listen to the radio or play at night and a very sllow internet connection prevents to download such big games.

Thanks

If you open the Menu (furthest box to the right in the menu bar at the top of the screen) there should be a slider that controls audio volume.  Just drag it all the way to the left and it will mute out the volume.  If the concern is about the downloading of the game itself, the main thing that bumps up the size is a bunch of extra audio that was included in the game for fun and not essential to the story.  I could probably remove those files and re-compile it if that helps you.  Sorry about the lateness of my reply; I need to pop onto these forums more often than I do.  Anyway, I will get on that in the next couple of days.

How have I missed this? Your 'warning' alone just had me in stitches, so I'm looking forward to giving this one a go

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it!

[MUFFINinc]

UPDATE:  Episode 1 of the sequel to this game is very nearly complete.  I have posted an update to the development thread detailing it.  In order to whet people's appetites and remind them that this series exists, I decided to release a brief updated version of the original game.  It's not a huge update, in fact most players probably won't notice a difference.  However, I did iron out a few bugs, most notably a rather serious one that could cause an unwary player to become trapped in the basement.  I also modified the bonus audio system so that the mp3 files add to the player automatically, and the Gatsby chapters now add in chronological order, regardless of where they are found.

The link to download is exactly the same.  At some point I would really like to do a complete overhaul of this game, particularly with improved graphics.  However, this has been my only significant AGS project since 2012 and I am getting a little tired of doing SFJ, so I am hoping to take a break once chapter one of the sequel is done and maybe try to bang out something a little more serious.

On a side note, I would also kind of like to find a talented artist interested in collaborating on a real project.  I can't draw for s---, and my 3D is passable at its absolute best.  I prefer the hand-drawn look for adventure games anyway, I only use 3D because it's all I can do.  However I feel pretty confident about my game design, writing and programming abilities these days.  If anyone who can draw is looking for a designer/writer/coder to hook up with by all means PM me.

[MUFFINinc]

Hey all.

It was recently brought to my attention by Theyeyboss that the version of this game that was available for download did not work properly.  The game did not include a winsetup.exe program and would display an error message when attempting to load the game.  When I overhauled my website a month or so ago, I took everything down and then put it back up when the new website was complete.  Turns out that I uploaded a messed-up version of The Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones by mistake.

Anyway, the issue has been corrected, and the game should download without any issues from both the AGS site and my website, www.therealmuffin.net.  If you have downloaded The Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones within the last month or so and have been unable to play it, please download it again.  It should work just fine now.

I apologize for any emotional distress, broken families, suicide attempts, or substance abuse issues the temporary unavailability of this game may have brought about.  If there are any further issues with this or any of my other games feel free to contact me regarding them.  Thank you and enjoy the game.