Topic: Z&ZC: Zniw Adventure - 97% completed (up. 20.09.2018)

[CrashPL]

A good tester manages to break games. Yay me. Second game broken in as many days.

And nice little bug that is! There's a problem with playing AudioChannel* stuff, when the digital sound is set to none in winsetup.exe (I always thought it will just ignore all the musical stuff, but it seems the engine tries to play it on non-existent hardware anyway). Thank you again, ClickClickClick!

I'll get to it right away, but for now please try the demo with a configured audio device. You can always mute the game from the in-game options menu.

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm, yeah, that's seems to be an AGS bug. I've found that "problem" before too, when I needed no sound in game and the game it self did not have the option...
If you're on windows you can mute/control the sound volume with the sound icon on the lower right of the open applications.

[C.L.I.C.K.]

If you're on windows you can mute/control the sound volume with the sound icon on the lower right of the open applications.

I know I can. But when an options menu offers the, ahem, option to switch off sound I use that. And before trying Kanji Gakusei and Zniw Adventure there were never problems with it.

Also, the point of testing isn't just "doing what works", but trying all sorts of wacky shit. On this forum I've got a direct line to the developers, a future customer does not. And nobody tells them what not to click on.

If I remember correctly, you can disable parts of the winsetup. Do that, then.

[Cassiebsg]

I don't think I was criticizing you 3xClick...

[C.L.I.C.K.]

And I was explaining, nothing else.

[CrashPL]

Handled that error, along with other minor/small fixes (mostly grammar ones, big thanks for everyone who tried the demo and sent me feedback!) I'm really glad OneDrive/DropBox doesn't break the IDs, while uploading small updates to the existing files. Makes such ninja commits rather easy to do.

We tried to make the error as non-threatening as possible.


Well, back to the full version and the remaining stuff...

[CyberUncleCat]

Ok so ive played both demos so i'll share some of my thoughts.

First, the graphics - they are delicious. Nuff said. Very good use of cartoon style and absolutely charming animations. I stalked Caroline's YT channel and i realized why she is the one up for the task of making graphics - cartoon - it's just her natural style in which she feels confident so results naturally will prove to be very good at least. But i have one question - why not higher resolution? Cartoon style is not extremely detailed so there should be not really any extra work for Carol to make stuff in, say, 2x current game's native res. Just curious.

Next is sound - oh man, how i enjoy this music. You composed and did it Crash? If yes, then you really are one man army (well, minus graphics but we cant be certain about that!). Question here also - how about voice acting? I mean, sound effects and music are SO nice that it would be a SHAME not to voice the dialogs. Damn if i got the good enough voice recording hardware i could even help you as i can speak both languages, and people sometimes say i could VO the cartoons with my tone(s) of voice.

Gameplay wise - its ok. Its easy (well, demo ver. at least), but we have to take into consideratrion thay this game will also be played by children so as long as riddles are fair on logic level (and those in demos are) then its fine. There don't have to be riddles demanding reading between lines of a poem for adventure game to be enjoyable.

This game will be good. At minimum. One has to be blind and stupid not to see amount of love you both did put into this game.

[ThreeOhFour]

Fantastic! Great little demo, really enjoyed it. Great work!

[CrashPL]

Fantastic! Great little demo, really enjoyed it. Great work!

Thanks, we're really glad you enjoyed it!

And thanks CyberUncleCat as well! Really glad you liked what we did so far. And about the things you asked...

why not higher resolution? Cartoon style is not extremely detailed so there should be not really any extra work for Carol to make stuff in, say, 2x current game's native res. Just curious.

We were discussing the resolution way back in 2014, and finally settled on 640x480. Larger ones would be a bit time consuming to draw (especially considering we're already working in our free time only, and Twarda is a one (wo)man graphical army), and the large/FMV animations would be much harder to animate in larger resolutions, especially the more "action" ones (like the 'Pterosaur landing' scene, which can be seen on the trailer - that one alone took around a week of extensive anatomy studying and creating clay models of the creature's head, just to capture it correctly!)

You composed and did it Crash?

No, the soundtrack was composed by our fellow AGS user Denis 'Problem' Comtesse. And agreed, he did an excellent job with the soundtrack! I'd say he captured the mood of what we were trying to achieve perfectly.

Question here also - how about voice acting?

We also spoke about it early in the production, and decided to just stick with text only. If we had decided to do the VO for English language, we'd have to do the same for Polish as well (and maybe other languages, if there will be enough interest... somebody already asked me about Spanish and Portuguese translation), which would mean double the work, and sadly I wouldn't be able to afford it. (I'm not comfortable with people doing so much work (ZA features quite a lot of dialogue text) for free). Maybe in the sequel, or some post-release patch...

Its easy (well, demo ver. at least), but we have to take into consideratrion thay this game will also be played by children so as long as riddles are fair on logic level (and those in demos are)

Phew, really glad then! We were carefully designing each puzzle, having younger fellows/inexperienced gamers in mind. I'm glad we accomplished it so far.
These two locations are a bit early in the game, and have several puzzles cut for the sake of the demo version flow (like getting the Croc-away in Rivenn-na (you already start with it) or the entire ladder/boulders quest in the unknown cave), so things will pick up a bit in the full version (along with several extra objectives for shiny pebbles/encyclopedia pages), I promise.

Nevertheless, thank you everyone!

[CrashPL]

Aaaand ZA hit the 10 000 sprites, friends!



Hopefully we won't exceed the 30K limit, since the most complex animations are still not polished (and imported) yet. Here's an example, still a work in progress animation, so excuse the weird framerate, doubled frames and others oddities:


 

[CaptainD]

The attention to detail being put into this is wonderful.

[AnasAbdin]

Congrats on the 10K milestone! And as always, your animations are awesome

[CrashPL]

Thanks, guys!

Anyway, some new screenshots, woo. You might recognize some of them, if you have seen the updated ZA AGS database page:







And also the absolute bane of our existence - the FMV cutscenes.
The more complicated ones are absolutely the worst. Like this little landing segment from one of the cutscenes - it took around two weeks of carefully planning, studying the anatomy, several line tests, and even creating clay models, in order to capture the movement and anatomy correctly.

[Riaise]

Well all that hard work paid off, because the animation looks amazing! The movement is so fluid, really good!

[CrashPL]

Thank you, Riaise!

Mostly boring/unimpressive stuff today, dealing with some cutscenes:

Oh, and almost all of the hi-res items artworks for the encyclopedia are done!

[Creamy]

I don't think I took the time to tell you how much I enjoyed the demo, so let's just do that : "I enjoyed the demo very much"

[CaptainD]

This continues to look absolutely wonderful.  I suspect once it's released it'll be even harder to get the kids off the PC so I can get stuff done!

[Two Tales]

The amount of time and effort that is going in to this game is just amazing and it's certainly worth it. I will definitely be playing the finished game without a doubt.

[Blondbraid]

Wow, the encyclopedia artworks look absolutely gorgeous!

[CrashPL]

The amount of time and effort that is going in to this game is just amazing and it's certainly worth it.

Haha, let's hope so... I wish we wouldn't have to do our normal, daily jobs and fully devote our time to ZA - surely the game would've been long completed by now. But hey, thanks for the kind words! Thanks to Creamy, Captain and Blondbraid as well!

Anyway, more missing animations (and a bonus rough line sketch). And a dangerous mud pit.





Also a new thumbnail, as the old one was... old. A few tweaks, and most likely it'll stay as the final one.