The Further Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones - Ep. 2 in production

Started by MUFFINinc, Fri 23/08/2013 00:47:13

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MUFFINinc

Frank Further:  The Further Adventures of Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones
A MUFFIN Game by Styop Quoons

UPDATE:  Episode 2 is in production

Okay, so after a brief (read: 1.5 year) hiatus, I have finally resumed work on this game.

I haven't done a whole hell of a lot in terms of the actual development, mostly just building the environments and getting the preliminary code laid out.  The good news is, I'm getting much better at developing these games; I'd even say I'm somewhat organized about it.  Instead of just haphazardly adding features to the game whenever they occur to me and fixing conflicts between new features and old existing features with sloppy duct-tape code, I'm actually planning this project out (on paper even!) and writing the code for just about everything mechanical the game will do before even attempting to start working on the fun parts.

The interface is pretty much implemented at this point; as soon as I finish the remaining rooms I can get to work laying out the story details and designing puzzles.  This episode of the game (and all remaining episodes hereafter) is going to feature multi-character gameplay and a time-travel theme that will allow the player to explore the same areas at different points in time, similar to Day of the Tentacle.  However, thanks to my newfound ahead-planning abilities, I have designed the game in a way that will theoretically allow any character in the game to be playable.  The player will have at their disposal a set of two, maybe three, communications devices, and can switch back and forth between whichever characters possess a communicator.  The communicators can be transferred between friendly characters as inventory objects.  Different characters will have different skills and reasoning capabilities, make different observations in the same environment, will interact differently with other characters, and will have access to different areas.  I am hoping that this will enable me to design puzzles that can be solved creatively in multiple ways, and increase the replayability of the game, which seems to be a frequent gripe about the adventure genre.

Below is a general summation of the direction the story is likely to head, hidden under a spoiler tag if you haven't played the first chapter yet.  For those who haven't, a general summation of the game's story appears at the bottom of this post.  Or, you can just play the damn game since it's free anyway.

Spoiler
Stinky Pete has successfully resurrected his ghost pal Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones...unfortunately, in the wrong century.  Good thing there's a guy in town who is building his own time machine!  Unfortunately, this man also happens to be an ultra-paranoid neo-Nazi who is obsessed with bringing down the Federal government.  How he got to be friends with FBI Agent Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones is a story for another day.  In any case, now that he and his new friend Priscilla are on the lam, the pressure is on for Pete to find a way into the past before the facility staff (and maybe even the police) can catch up to them.

Meanwhile, in 19th century Bumhazel, Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones has gotten himself into something of a pickle...
[close]









Progress (for Episode 1 at least):

Story:  15.002%
Scripting: 41.3%
Graphics: 40%
Puzzles: 0%
Sound/Music:  0%

General Progress Rating:  I'm working on it, get off me.

NOTE:  Values are very approximate.  I don't really plan my projects; I just sort of sit down and start working.  I tend to start by coming up with a very general story idea, then making some environments, putting some characters in them, and just kind of letting everything work itself out from there.  As such, I have only a vague idea how long this game is even going to be, so it's a little hard to calculate how far along I am at this point.  However, I've created a value called "General Progress Rating" that I think pretty much accurately reflects where I am in development, and if you want to know how far I am, this is probably the closest thing to an accurate representation I am able to come up with.

WARNING:  THERE ARE SOME VERY MILD SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THE FIRST GAME.

I don't think I give anything too serious away, but it's impossible to explain the premise of this game without giving away a tiny bit about how the first game ends.  If you don't want to spoil anything for yourself, I would highly recommend playing the first Stanley "Franfurter" Jones game, which can be obtained thusly: 

Official Website  // Oh, one more thing.  I forgot to pay my web hosting fees back in December so my website got deleted, and I haven't gotten around to putting it back up yet.  This link isn't going to work for a while, however all links to download my games should work fine.
AGS Forum Thread
AGS Games Page Entry

The Story:

In our last adventure, Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones uncovered an insidious plot with the help of an unlikely ally, 12 year old Stinky Pete McCullogh.  Now, a year later, Stinky Pete is a resident at a home for orphans and displaced children, and Stanley "Frankfurter" Jones is MIA.  However, life for Stinky Pete is disrupted suddenly when he receives a strange message from Stanley's spirit in the form of a dream.

Soon, the unlikely companions find themselves flung backward in time, trapped in the world of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and unable to return home.  Along with their new-found friend Jim (a former slave, militant black radical and pyromaniac of some ability), they embark on a journey down the Mighty Mississip, in a quest to return to the present and save one of America's classic books from being censored by a group of angry librarians.

This game will most likely be released in serial form as chapters, with a possible complete re-release when it's all finished.  I am currently undergoing a crash course in Xcode, and am hoping to get a Mac and iPad version of this as well as the first SFJ game out at some point in the future.

Features:

•  800x600 true color graphics!
•  All-new 3D rendered environments!
•  Character animations other than just walk cycles!  At least a couple of them!
•  An all-new original soundtrack composed by Styop Quoons!
•  Multi-character gameplay! 

Development Diary:

I maintain a blog which I use to keep people updated on my current projects (including this one), as well as jabber on about movies, games and other junk I like.  I try to post frequent updates on the progress of this title on this blog, which can be found here: 

The Opinionated Quoons

I will also post major developments to this thread.

MUFFINinc

Just bumping the thread so people notice the update.  For more in depth updates, go to www.therealmuffin.net.

Giraffadon

Just noticed the coffee machine lol.

Here in england muff is a term used for a woman's pubic hair. :-D

MUFFINinc

Quote from: Giraffadon on Mon 28/04/2014 00:14:50
Just noticed the coffee machine lol.

Here in england muff is a term used for a woman's pubic hair. :-D

Yeah, we have the same terminology in the US.  It was meant to be kind of a subtle (or not) play on the name of my software studio, MUFFIN.   (laugh)

Ghost

Quote from: Giraffadon on Mon 28/04/2014 00:14:50
Here in england muff is a term used for a woman's pubic hair. :-D

In Germany, a muff is a hollow tube of felt or wool you put your hands in when it's cold...
All of a sudden, this sounds extremely wrong. 8-0

miguel

I can't tell what muff means in Portuguese, because...You know.
Working on a RON game!!!!!

ThreeOhFour

I am of the opinion that the "Believe in yourself" poster is the finest thing to appear in any game to date. Well done on that.

Grim

Quote from: ThreeOhFour on Mon 28/04/2014 14:17:18
I am of the opinion that the "Believe in yourself" poster is the finest thing to appear in any game to date. Well done on that.
It's definitely up there with the "Fuck the police" poster :P

MUFFINinc

Glad people are enjoying my posters!  Basically I wanted art on the walls but wasn't quite sure what to put there yet, so I just cobbled a few dumb images together from funny stuff I had on my computer to use as placeholders.  I wasn't sure if those were going to end up being a permanent part of the art but I think I will leave them since they seem popular. (laugh)

Thanks for the comments and encouragement; hopefully I'll have some serious progress to show off soon.

MUFFINinc

Posting a quick reply in order to bump the thread and draw everyone's attention to the update which is explained in detail in the main message.  I hope to have this game done by Fall.

MUFFINinc

Episode II work has commenced, see original updated post for details.  Snootch to the nootch.

Theyeyboss

So happy to see that you've started working on Episode 2. Loved the first two games.

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