Author Topic: Super Best Friends Played: The Cage of Sadness (Read 12186 times)

Trample Pie · « **on:** 23 Aug 2016, 11:17 »

This is a fan game I've been working on a while (months and months and WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME HOW HARD THESE ARE TO MAKE?!?!?!).
I needed a break from some rigging I was working on, and decided to make pixel art of these Let's Players.

After that I thought, why not put it into AGS? and of course they need walk cycles now.

From there I just kept escalating as it was so much fun. I've been pretending in my head it's the beginning of a long lost and forgotten LucasArts game from the early 90's.

It is heavily inspired by Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max.

(These animations are from the older version)

The Plot:
A famous game designer is sick of his games being insulted, and wants revenge!

Progress:
I haven't added any sounds or music yet, but for the art/coding/everything else:

Room 1: 100%
Room 2: 95%
Room 3: 100%
Room 4: 100%
Room 5: 70%
Room 6: 80%
Room 7: 80%

I'm hopeless at estimating a release date. But I'd guess 2 months? It was supposed to be only two rooms and very short, but I kept accidentally making it larger.

O.K. now it's 7 rooms. Whoops?

Maybe 3 months.

NickyNyce · « **Reply #1 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 12:13 »

This looks great. I love the art and the characters and walk cycles are well done.

The problem you have is that you're having fun...lol. Once you're sick of making your game and your brain starts to hurt, that's when your game will be finished. I fell into this same trap of thinking I could make a small game, but fun ensued and I woke up 3 years later.

Music and sounds really bring a game to life. You'll reach a new fun level once you start doing that too. Good luck with a speedy production.

ThreeOhFour · « **Reply #2 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 12:32 »

This looks so good! Wonderful animations, so smooth, I love it!

Danvzare · « **Reply #3 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 13:59 »

This looks great. I seriously can't wait to play it!

Quote from: Trample Pie on 23 Aug 2016, 11:17

I'm hopeless at estimating a release date. But I'd guess 2 months? It was supposed to be only two rooms and very short, but I kept accidentally making it larger.

Ha ha, if you keep accidentally making it larger, then we might be waiting for a lot longer than two months.

kconan · « **Reply #4 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 14:28 »

Great job! It looks like you used to work for Lucasarts or something.

Mandle · « **Reply #5 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 15:03 »

This looks incredible!

I also love the up-and-down lovey-dovey-eyes on the taller girl and the shorter dude...That's comedic attention to detail right there!

Hope to be playing this soon!

AnasAbdin · « **Reply #6 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 15:23 »

LOL I love this! Even for a short game I know this is packed with fun!
Lovely pixels

Cassiebsg · « **Reply #7 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 15:41 »

This looks lovely!
Good luck with the project, and sure hope you can keep it to the 2-3 months...

But carefull about keeping adding to it... my "2 month short" game has now been in production for a year.

Fitz · « **Reply #8 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 16:00 »

To quote the obvious classic: "Neat!"

I could share a whole bunch my own stories of underestimated production times -- but I'll just say: good luck and have fun!

DOTT happens to be my all-time favorite, too. That first room's layout is a nice homage. Another one that the game made me think of is AGS's very own The Bum.

BTW, can we expect some romance between the dude and the blonde (who makes me think of Daenerys Targaryen)?

Matti · « **Reply #9 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 20:25 »

This looks lovely. Can't wait to play it!

Trample Pie · « **Reply #10 on:** 23 Aug 2016, 23:43 »

Thanks for the replies everyone! I really appreciate the kind words

I'm preeetty sure I can avoid more feature creep, the time remaining mostly depends on how long it takes to do the animations. Plus everything I make looks terrible at first until it's iterated a bunch of times, and I get a little caught up in things that will only be on screen for 1 - 3 seconds. Whoops!

I still haven't decided about a relationship between the girl and Matt. The dude in real life is happily married, but his Let's Player persona would definitely give it a shot! If I extended the game even more (after this first release) I'd probably put their girlfriends/wives in-game too.

I went through my old saves to show the progression of Matts room. Changing from 9-verb to the verb-coin caused so much heartache, I almost stopped working on the game completely.

Danvzare · « **Reply #11 on:** 24 Aug 2016, 09:53 »

Ooh, I just love that animation of how you slowly made the room.
Even some of the first iterations were pretty fantastic.

May I ask what made you decide to change from a 9-verb system to a verb-coin system?

Trample Pie · « **Reply #12 on:** 25 Aug 2016, 00:59 »

Thank you

I switched the system because none of the verbs really fit some of the interactions I had set up. With the verb-coin I could change the prompt to show exactly what I wanted (instead of "use" or "push" cat, it's "pat" cat). Getting that extra screen space is a nice bonus too, but I had to redo a lot of stuff and couldn't even get it to work for a couple weeks. I nearly switched to Unity, but I couldn't figure out how to get pixel perfect movement working with the Adventure Creator addon.

Trample Pie · « **Reply #13 on:** 23 Jul 2017, 05:28 »

So it's been a while since the last update...

I got really discouraged with the street view and stopped working on the game entirely for about 6 months.

The street was originally intended to be a quick cutscene, but after adding Woolie and Liam (the other members) I made a new intro and then tried fitting the street into gameplay and it just wasn't working. Then life got in the way and I moved on to other things...

But I'm back! I've redone the street and am really happy with the puzzle, have added 2 more rooms and I'm whizzing through my to-do list.

I'm really determined to finish this. There's no release date as it's always 2 months from being finished (I don't understand time) but I'm working on it every day now, and I have a lot more hours available than I did previously.

I hope you like the new screenshots, and it WILL be done. Eventually.

Mandle · « **Reply #14 on:** 23 Jul 2017, 05:42 »

Still diggin' that beautiful Lucasarts feel to the graphics!

kconan · « **Reply #15 on:** 23 Jul 2017, 07:09 »

I'm glad to hear you returned to the game. Good luck with the remaining development, and please track me down when/if you are in the market for a beta tester.

Hobo · « **Reply #16 on:** 23 Jul 2017, 14:52 »

It's great to see that it's back in production. Looks visually quite impressive, especially those smooth animations. Don't really know anything about Super Best Friends, but it seems like an interesting premise.

And whenever you feel stumped again, don't hesitate to ask help from other forum members. There's plenty of helpful and talented people lurking around in Critics' Lounge or the Recruitment section.

Stay determined and have fun!

Frodo · « **Reply #17 on:** 23 Jul 2017, 15:08 »

Those screenshots look amazing. Really want to play this!

Trample Pie · « **Reply #18 on:** 24 Jul 2017, 00:46 »

I really appreciate the comparison to LucasArts. I've spent a lot of time studying their artwork and they were amazingly talented. And I'll definitely be looking here for beta testers when the game is ready.

There were a lot of times I wanted to ask for help, but I don't like asking dumb questions (most of them were) and was able to figure things out eventually thanks to the wiki and years of responses on these forums.

Thanks for the replies

xBRANEx · « **Reply #19 on:** 24 Jul 2017, 06:43 »

It's beautiful! I would love to test this one out!

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Author Topic: Super Best Friends Played: The Cage of Sadness (Read 12186 times)