Ouroboros: The Sacrifice

Started by Firgof, Fri 10/04/2015 01:47:05

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Firgof


Fate is cruel.





Game Info
Resolution: 800x600  Color: 32-bit
Music: OGG  Sound Effects: OGG
Some voiced parts, mainly in the introduction.

Developed for the GameJolt Adventure Game Jam - due to be completed by April 17th.  An experimental build is available now for those who'd like to get a taste of the game before it's complete and provide feedback.

Unfortunately, I was not able to complete the title in time for the AGJ.  The game is still in production however and I'm taking extra time now that I have it to polish it up.

Ouroboros is a first person 15-30 minute horror-themed adventure game developed over a period of 2 weeks. It is the first game I've developed using AGS.  Ouroboros is set in 'Serzahnk', a fictional low-to-high-fantasy/horror setting with living gods, strange cultures and races, its own mythologies, and cthulhu-esque ancient cities with anachronistic technologies.  This episode, 'Sacrifice', follows an older Firryn who in his older days seeks a way to honorably end his seemingly endless suffering or return home by completing a Journey - a destiny pre-ordained by the Gods - which throws him into the arms of the Goddess of Death herself.

Demonstration Build

Features

  • 20-40 minutes of gameplay.
  • Voice acting.
  • Hand-drawn backgrounds and characters.

Firgof

Having trouble deciding whether to break from style for this one setpiece or keep it in-style (and it be less menacing as a result)

What do y'all think?




MufasaRKG

The top pic is an awesome horror feel out of the two.

-m
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Darth Mandarb

#3
STOP!!

THIS IS NOT THE CRITICS LOUNGE! (please review the forum rules again!) 

If you want advice like this please post in there where it belongs.

Firgof

#4
Finished the last piece of scenery art for Ouroboros: The Sacrifice today after some 8 hours of drawing (had 6 pieces to do).

The final one, the Ritual Room, came out the strongest.  (Warning: Blood  Click image to enlarge.)

Now all that's left is the coding of the last three puzzles, the finalization of the dialog so I can send that off to my esteemed voice actors, and hooking everything up.  I'm really hoping this'll be a decent turnout for my first AGS project.  I could see myself making more of these in the future if this first attempt is at all successful.

Monsieur OUXX

Cool style anyways. Try to make sure it's well polished before releasing and we'll all be very happy like it's Christmas :)
 

selmiak

indeed this is very cool looking!

Firgof

#7
Quote from: Monsieur OUXX on Mon 13/04/2015 09:20:53
Cool style anyways. Try to make sure it's well polished before releasing and we'll all be very happy like it's Christmas :)

I'm trying!  Gods, I'm trying.  I'm still just an AGS newb though so please don't expect the world of this game.  I'm giving it all I've got, captain, but I've only got so much! :P

Edit: The first track of the soundtrack is now available for y'all to listen to:  http://soundcloud.com/soundverber/ouroboros-theme-song

Firgof

Getting closer.  Introduction sequence is now fully voice acted and now has images to boot!  Still need to run the non-voiced parts through an editing pass to fix up grammar and spelling mistakes.



I'm guessing about 6-9 good workhours and it'll be complete.

Firgof

Spent some of those work hours today working on portraits for characters.  Things are looking good so far.


Seen here: three dieties whispering in Iyu's mind.  (Left to right: Pyros, Felanor, Voshim)

Been having a lot of fun giving these characters expressions.  It's a shame my ability to draw bodies isn't decent enough to do a 3rd person adventure game.

Firgof

#10
Phew!  Tough crowd!  :)

Guess I'll pull out the big guns then.

I completed the final (large) piece for Ouroboros: The Sacrifice today, pushing my Art completion to 98%.  All that's left are some small optional icons and a final splash image.

Estimating some 5~ hours of work now until the game is ready to be played by the masses.


Eggie

Looks frickin' raaaaaad!! I love this look!

MufasaRKG

The illustration art is dope!
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Darth Mandarb

The first post no longer contains 2 in-game screenshots... please update very soon

Firgof

Took 6 hours but I finally finished Iyu's (the character you play as) base camp from the introduction.  That much closer to being finished.  (click for full resolution)


Bulbapuck

Absolutely stunning art style, looking forward to it! :grin:

Firgof

#16
Fixed up parts of the introduction today and swapped the text-based journal system of before with a more lore-appropriate and immersion friendly GUI/image system.  The Journal serves as your puzzle-guide/hintbook in the game, allowing you to get a glimpse at the working parts behind any puzzle you encounter in the game.

Of course this Journal isn't yours - it's full of other notes and hints beyond the puzzles too, from a man deep in the world's past who searched for something similar to what you're seeking now.


Delacroix

I just downloaded the work-in-progress demo and will give it a whirl pretty soon. However, just from this thread alone I see that you have an awesome game there and I wish you the best in completing it. Question: will it be free or commercial? If the latter, how big of a pricetag are we talking about? And another question, if this is commercial - will you be trying your luck with Steam Greenlight? I prefer to get my games on the Steam platform, hence the question.

Firgof

#18
That version's pretty out of date so I feel I must apologize in advance for the lack of some of the great content I'm showing off.  That build is about 3 weeks old now I think?

Given the duration of the game (20-50 minutes, expected) I'm not sure it's a good fit for a commercial release.  If this episode of what could be a series goes well then I may perhaps create a longer game, containing 2-3 additional episodes worth of content/time.  1-4 hours is something that I'd think would sell better.

Delacroix

You could make episode one free and then every subsequent episode release as a paid update/DLC. If you catch a good drift, who knows how long the full series will be? I definitely think it's worth it.

Firgof

Perhaps.  All depends on whether people like it enough that they'd like to play a second one.  This is a bit of an experiment, a testing of the waters.

Stupot

This is looking gorgeous, Firgof.
In a way, it's a blessing that you missed the Jam deadline. This kind of project needs the love and time it deserves :-)

Firgof

#22
I've updated the build on GameJolt to my current build.  It's still not complete, but it's closer to complete than it was before.

Still needs some polish in places and the Temple and outro aren't finished yet - but I'm getting quite close now.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Also, some behind-the-scenes stuff.  I spend a lot of time trying to get my puzzles to be both logical and comprehensible.  The temple's drum puzzle was one that took more than four full iterations to complete.
Many of the earlier attempts for the puzzle were either too difficult to figure out or too esoteric to easily explain.  Since I wasn't able to create a puzzle that was both straight-forwardly-logical and novel, I instead went with something a little more conventional.

With a little work, though, I think the frameworks of these two potential puzzles have merit.  You may be seeing them in later installments if this game is popular enough to make some when I can find a way to better present how to solve them.

The first attempt:
Spoiler
[close]

The second attempt:
Spoiler
[close]

What I went with in the end:
Spoiler
[close]

AnasAbdin

Very interesting  Firgof ;-D I love the art and the idea :)

kconan


SilverSpook

Fantastic style!

Really looking forward to seeing this come out.

Firgof

Thanks y'all.  I'm working on it as fast as I can.  Got delayed a bit while I worked on some stuff that folks recommended I fix in the comments for the game on GameJolt but now I'm back to working on finishing the game.  Working on one of the last pieces of art for the game currently.  It's just a sketch at the moment but I think it'll be pretty nice when it's complete.


aikex222

This looks just fantastic. (nod)
I so wanna go and see what's beyond that gate, xD well i guess is a gate or maybe a portal

Firgof

#28
For those who would like to watch, I'll be streaming the completion of that piece of the next few hours.  Feel free to join me.
http://www.twitch.tv/firgof


(mostly) Finished.



Firgof

#29

Just wrote the last line on the last page of the script - the game can now be played completely from start to finish. 
All that's left now is editing, a crap ton of polish work, some playtesting, and adding stuff like credits and maybe a teaser for the next part.

I'm hoping there'll be a fully playable build up by the end of the weekend.  I've got a lot of lines to record and implement between now and then for the Goddess.

Firgof

And the game is now complete.  I hope y'all enjoy it.

Sidebar:  What do I do now with the thread?  Is this one going to get moved over or should I start a new topic in the completed games subforum?

Darth Mandarb

Start a new topic in Completed Games. Congrats on finishing!

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