The Cold Hand Reef [MAGS AUG 2015]

Started by WHAM, Wed 02/09/2015 10:37:15

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WHAM

Download from: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1955/

EDIT: Uploaded a new version on 8th of September, fixing a baseline issue which could cause a character sprite to be displayed incorrectly.



A young girl and her father, struggling to make ends meet, are forced to seek their fortune amidst the treacherous rocks of the infamous Cold Hand Reef. But there is more to the reef than just mere rocks, and something evil awaits in the darkness.


I set myself an additional challenge of making a game that would never need a translator, and could work with players of all languages. As such there is no written or spoken english (or any other language) anywhere in the game. The game also sports a very simple one-button user interface, suited for even the Macintosh computer mouses of old. ;)

I hope you enjoy this short adventure. :)
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Mandle

Quote from: WHAM on Wed 02/09/2015 10:37:15
I hope you enjoy this short adventure. :)

I know I did!!!

And I'm sooooo praying for a sequel already!

Maybe:

Spoiler
Where you play a certain character from under the water's surface?
[close]

WHAM

#2
Quote from: Mandle on Wed 02/09/2015 10:39:49
And I'm sooooo praying for a sequel already!

Maybe:
Spoiler
Where you play a certain character from under the water's surface?
[close]

Hee hee hee, you are more right than you think.
Spoiler
But the 'sequel' won't be about the character you think it will be about. ;)
[close]
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Slasher



QuoteI set myself an additional challenge of making a game that would never need a translator, and could work with players of all languages. As such there is no written or spoken english (or any other language) anywhere in the game.
There's a novelty (laugh)

Lazy devil (laugh)

Looks good (nod)

kconan

Looks great WHAM!  The "universal language" deal is innovative; I'll check it out.

WHAM

Quote from: slasher on Wed 02/09/2015 14:33:00
Lazy devil (laugh)

Quote from: kconan on Wed 02/09/2015 19:39:00
Looks great WHAM!  The "universal language" deal is innovative; I'll check it out.

It was a surprising amount of work, actually, and made it extremely hard to keep track of in the code.
Where usually you'd use something like:
Code: ags
player.say("I love pie!");

I would instead have to use something like
Code: ags
Speakbubble(player.x, player,y, 2, 65, 68, 50);
Speakbubble(player.x, player,y, 1, 77, 0, 40);


In hindsight, I could have planned this better...
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Cassiebsg

There are those who believe that life here began out there...

WHAM

Quote from: Cassiebsg on Sat 05/09/2015 12:32:06
Argh... where's the save option? ???

The game lasts for 12 minutes. There is no save function.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Cassiebsg

Do you mean it runs for it self? :P And is that with or without the long intro?
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

WHAM

That's without the intro (which automatically skips after the first startup of the game).
See what happens when the sun sets...
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Creamy

#10
It was interesting.Kudos for the universal language. A couple of bubbles are hard to understand
() but the game plays mostly fine and I'll relay it to the french forum.

I have a weird bug : on a few specific occasions, my cursor moves on its own up to the top of the screen. For instance, the first time I look at the back of the boat on the deck.

 

Cassiebsg

Creamy, don't think it's a bug but a "feature", that we fight against, to show the tasks to do. (wtf)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

WHAM

Creamy: Yeah, I found it really hard to convey certain concepts via symbols. The left one in your image is my universal symbol for "nothing found", ie. a couple of flies. The second one is a needle and some thread.

Cassiebsg is correct. The mouse cursor moving up on its own is meant to indicate to the player that moving the mouse up can be used to see what tasks there are to be done.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Creamy

QuoteCreamy, don't think it's a bug but a "feature", that we fight against, to show the tasks to do. (wtf)
Sorry, it seems so obvious now :-[

About the symbols : I see what you mean now that you tell me, but the resolution is so low that it could be anything.
For instance, I thought the first symbol was "sparkles", and the second one "a spoon, a plate and a cup".
 

WHAM

It's nowhere near perfect, but I hope the unclear symbols didn't ruin the whole game for you. :)
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Creamy

#15
Not at all. I have been surprised by the depth of the game.
I have posted it on the french website.

Spoiler
Is there a better end than the "handy" one?
[close]

 

WHAM

#16
Quote from: Creamy on Sat 05/09/2015 21:06:19
Spoiler
Is there a better end than the "handy" one?
[close]

Yes. ;)

EDIT: ooh, and thanks for posting the game on the french site! I didn't understand much of the post, but I got the "anglo-allergy" -part. :D
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Cassiebsg

Nice one WHAM, just finished it. :-D

A couple things that I didn't like: The huge screen was annoying, as it filled my entire screen. I like only using about half of the screen. So this is a game more for those that like playing full screen.
And then the no "save" option. Even if it's a short game, I like having the option to stop and return to it later on. Specially since I was stuck in one of the puzzles. :P

Would be nice to polish the speech bubbles, they take quite some time before they disappear. Would be nice to be able to "cancel"/skip them by clicking the mouse, like when using text. This got a bit annoying in a couple parts...

But loved the art, story and ambiance in general. Very well done! Congrats (nod)(nod)(nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

WHAM

Thanks Cassiebsg, glad to hear you enjoyed the game, at least for the most part.

The game is designed at 640x480 resolution and I believe it defaults to scaling up 2x. You should be able to drop the scaling in the setup exe that comes with the game, although if you already beat the game, this is a bit of a moot point now. :)

The "no-saving" this is an idea I like to do with games that have time-based elements. I feel that if it is possible to just load back a couple of minutes, this allows people to practically ignore any time-based elements of the game, saving and loading to achieve game objectives in minimum time to ensure they have as much time left as possible. Then again, Cold Hand Reef was supposed to have a few more time-based actions that I had to cut due to the deadline, so...

Argh! Excuses, excuses! I could've done better, let's just leave it at that. :D

Lastly the speech bubbles: I had an idea about allowing you to skip individual speech bubbles with the mouse, but due to AGS restricting you from running a cutscene inside a cutscene, I decided against it. The idea came too late in the game's development and would have required me to go back to fiddle with code I had made at the very start of the project, and I dreaded doing that, fearing I might break something.

Well this post turned into me just defending my poorer design choises, so let me distract you with this picture of a lemur:

Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Cassiebsg

No worries, the polish was just a suggestion in case you wish to polish the game after voting ends. ;)

I did remove the scaling in winsetup at first, but that made everything so small that was unplayable (for me anyway). Mostly the problem is all that black on top and under. Still is makes for a lovely scene when above... (nod)
But am not here to complain about design choices, just cause I don't appreciate them, doesn't mean they should not be there, in the end it's your choice. (nod) But then you most also wonder who your making your games for. (roll)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

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