Super Best Friends Played: The Cage of Sadness

Started by Trample Pie, Tue 23/08/2016 11:17:10

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Trample Pie




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.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/m628Ao2.gif[/imgzoom]

(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

#1
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

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

Danvzare

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

Quote from: Trample Pie on Tue 23/08/2016 11:17:10
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.
(laugh) Ha ha, if you keep accidentally making it larger, then we might be waiting for a lot longer than two months.

kconan

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

Mandle

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

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

Cassiebsg

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

Fitz

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


Trample Pie

#10
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

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

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

Trample Pie

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

#13
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

Still diggin' that beautiful Lucasarts feel to the graphics!

kconan

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

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

Those screenshots look amazing.  Really want to play this!  :grin:

Trample Pie

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

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


Trample Pie

#20
Time for another weekly update! (heh)

I've been re-doing large parts of the game lately. It's not entirely on purpose, more that I had no idea what the heck I was doing when I started all this. The first room is such a mess I'm afraid to touch it in case it explodes, but it all works somehow?

The hallway room is now gone and replaced with 2 others, with most parts of it rearranged elsewhere.



I changed Matt (the main character) also, as he was the first piece of pixel art I ever drew, and it was looking out of place next to some of the newer characters. I would say it was a dumb decision thanks to all the animations that need to be fixed now, but I wanted to do it anyway.



I really want to show another room, but as there are only 7 it seems a bit insane to spoil any more.

The good news is that I'm getting faster and faster at making stuff. A lot of animations are finished and ready to place into the game, and the backgrounds are all done.

There's no concrete release date, but I wanted to let people know it's still being worked on and I hope it won't take too much longer.

Privateer Puddin'


Cassiebsg

Loving it, keep up the god work. And now I'm intrigued with that 1st picture. (nod)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Two Tales

I don't know how I've missed this before but glad I know about it now. I think using a Lucasarts art style but with your own designs is fantastic. Definitely looking forward to seeing this progress through to completion.

BrainMayhem

Really love the aesthetic, keep us updated on your progress :D

Trample Pie

Thanks for the replies! :-D

They mean a lot as I've spent so much time on this game and there's always a little voice in the back of my head saying that no one will be interested.

Thank you!

SarahLiz

VERY nice graphics!  This is the first time I'm seeing this game, and I can't wait to hopefully play it--looks like fun!!  I love the big dude with the yellow teeth--he looks like trouble.  ;)

Fitz

Quote from: Trample Pie on Thu 08/02/2018 04:47:04
there's always a little voice in the back of my head saying that no one will be interested.

Oh, sounds so dreadfully familiar ;) (except I usuallly listen & give up, and you're actually getting stuff done!)

Keep up the good work. The world needs more crazy, colorful adventure games.

Also, the red-haired fella makes me think of Brian Posehn.

Stupot

Looking great. Glad you're still working on this :-)

Jojo_the_monkey

I really like your aesthetic!! I thought on the first picture the boxes were adventure game boxes!! I am looking forward to this.
I should have listened to my mother---I should have practised.

Trample Pie

#30
Thanks guys! It means a lot to me that you like it. Hopefully it's actually fun to play :P

I thought I'd post some comparisons to show how I've been redoing the game over time. Every room has been redone at least once, some a lot more.

The street room has been the worst culprit by far, needing to be changed again and again. Thankfully it's finally done. It's up to save 53 in Photoshop!






bx83

It has the look of, colour off, and animation of Sam & Max - can't wait to try it :D

bx83

...And actually that car scene is the front of building scene in sam and max.

Trample Pie

Busted! :shocked: I think you're the first person to notice that.

The street room was originally just going to be a quick intro you would spend 20 seconds in so I used Sam & Max as a reference. I love that game, and the guys at Lucasarts were such great artists it's almost depressing.

But the intro was no good, it didn't do enough to introduce the plot so I scrapped it and made something different. I couldn't bring myself to just throw out all that work though, and I kept changing things and adding new characters and rooms and puzzles... Eventually tripling the size of the game.

Which is why it's taking so long. I'm 99% 80% certain it won't grow any larger though.



The Sam and Max room it's based on.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/D00Mf.png[/imgzoom]
My "homage".
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/Z6VyJQw.png[/imgzoom]
The current version.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/kXXHfU6.png[/imgzoom]


Hopefully it's changed enough that it's more of a homage than a rip-off now.

bx83

#34
Oh, I'm all into homages/ripoffs ;)

And Sam & Max was designed, drawn and animated by Steve Purcell - an artist and long time employee of Lucasarts as someone who used Sam & Max in training material while the SCUMM scripting system was benig developed.

edit by Darth - non game-related images removed. Feel free to send via PM!

shaun9991

Support Cloak and Dagger Games on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=460039

MrPr1993

Born from the 93's

CrashPL

Wow, this is great! I love seeing such scrolling backgrounds in adventure games! Gotta love all of the smaller details as well. :D

Benworks Creations


Jared

Wow, I haven't logged on to these forums for at least a year, so I can't believe practically the first thing I see is a SBF fan game that looks amazing. Were you likely to need a hand with anything basic, such as testing, or writing some filler dialogue?

Man, I can't get over how good your pixel art is. Mine's really sucky and it took YEARS to get there. Do you also have a misspent youth fiddling around with MSPaint? :grin:

Trample Pie

#40
Thanks for the replies!

I love scrolling backgrounds too, they make up half the rooms in the game. None quite as long as the street though thankfully.

I don't have a misspent youth doing pixel art, just lots of cartoon drawing (it was misspent in general though). I did study 3D animation for a few years which is actually why the game exists.

After spending ages working on a really fancy rig (In an attempt to become a 3D generalist) I encountered a scripting problem I was too dumb to fix. After the third week banging my head against the wall I started making some fan art of some great letsplayers I like. It was supposed to be just an image, a what-if kinda thing.

Now it keeps getting bigger and bigger.

And I will definitely need testers when it's a bit further along if you're offering :)

(Hopefully the formatting of this post is ok, I have no Internet access right now so had to post from a phone, which is awkward) 

Trample Pie

#41
Moving house sucks. Not just all the cleaning involved but I've been 3 weeks without internet and it's gonna be another 2 before it gets installed. I'm going a bit crazy.





At least it means plenty of time to work on the game. These are updated screenshots with the final backgrounds.

I'm sorry that they are similar to what's been shown before, but they are finally all visually consistent.

Also I'm sorry about not responding better to some of the replies. I'm kinda an eternal lurker and I find it hard writing this stuff.

ManicMatt

Looking great! If I ever do a cartoony game again I'm going to take inspiration from art like this, like not using outlines on the backgrounds makes all the difference.

JSH

Wow, love the look of this! I hope the development is going well, looking forward to playing the game! :)

Trample Pie

Thanks Matt! I've spent a huge amount of time on the backgrounds trying to make them nice. I keep looking at DoTT and Sam & Max backgrounds for inspiration and discouragement. The Lucasarts guys were so talented it drives me nuts.

And thank you JSH! Development is progressing slooowly. I've been making a lot of stuff but it's been improving/fixing so I haven't gotten any closer to release :(




These are the new character sprites.

I've learnt a lot since starting this game. And gotten way more comfortable with animating in 2D.


Danvzare

Quote from: Trample Pie on Wed 02/05/2018 11:00:37
I keep looking at DoTT and Sam & Max backgrounds for inspiration and discouragement. The Lucasarts guys were so talented it drives me nuts.
Don't sell yourself short. You've done an incredible job at imitating the style, while adding your own flare.
And by the way, all of your art is absolutely brilliant!

Trample Pie

Thank you for saying that. I'm very critical of what I make and it's a hard habit to break!

Monsieur OUXX

Yes. Your working is amazing. Now you must finish this game (allow me to insist (roll) ), for two reasons : 1) so that the world can enjoy playing it, and 2) so that you can kick the "Night of the meteor" team in the butt with your art, for them to finish their project. (laugh)
 

Trample Pie

Thank you Monsieur! If you insist :P
It will get done eventually. It's just taking ages because there's a LOT of animation. Characters are fun to animate but effects.... 8-0 :shocked: 8-0

Also your game looks fantastic. Indiana Jones desperately needs another game and the stuff you've put in the critics lounge looks great!

Trample Pie

Hi guys, I wanted to give another update on the game.

Part of the reason it's taking so long is that I keep redoing everything. The other reason is I'm working on another game as well! I was always viewing this as a learning experience with the end goal of being good enough to make something to sell for actual money. I'd love to do this as a job someday.

So anyway, the intro has been completely changed after I watched an interview with Dave Gilbert and he mentioned common mistakes newbies make, and one was exactly what I was doing.

All the backgrounds have been redone or replaced, and same with the animations. And writing.

I'm almost at a point where half the game is done.

Slow going but there is no way it's being redone again. This is it. I promise.


(Spoliers considering the small size of the game, but I wanted to show another room)






(The making of the Diner room)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/m628Ao2.gif[/imgzoom]

(this animation uses the older Matt sprite)



Spoiler

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/ltvRlRe.png[/imgzoom]
(I had to change the puzzle so this animation is no longer in game)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/JhMwwFX.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/6Fk7zrd.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/BGqAfxF.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/2F2Nfbj.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/YI5VG6E.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/TYQzRDs.gif[/imgzoom]
[close]

Danvzare

Awesome! Another update!

I'm still looking forward to this. :-D
This is definitely a game I'm going to play when it's released.

Stupot

That ‘making-of' gif is great. It really shows your thought processes.

paolo

I'm late coming to this thread but I really like the walkcycles and animations!

shaun9991

Support Cloak and Dagger Games on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=460039

Trample Pie

Thanks for the replies! I've spent so long toiling away and not showing it to anyone, it's really nice getting some feedback! Thank you :-D

CrashPL

Wow, this looks so delightful, love the art style and choice of colour palette. Great work! :D

ManicMatt

I've watched that guy fall off his stool  a few times too many. What can I say, I'm inspired!

Jack

Fantastic pixel art.

And this is such a great walk cycle. Gives me a bounce in my step too.


ZapZap

"Loose ends have a way of strangling you"

Privateer Puddin'


Trample Pie

Sort of. I'm still a bit shocked that the guys I based this game on have broken up. I've had a string of bad luck lately, and managed to injure my right wrist which has badly affected my workflow, so I was thinking of halving the size of the game anyway. Continuing my pattern of great decisions if I hadn't been spending so much time on my next game it would have been released before this all happened.

As of right now I'm going to finish up one last room, add the sounds + music and release it in the new year as a tribute and thanks for all the years of entertainment. It all works story wise with a bit of tweaking.

I'm a little embarrassed at how small this game will be considering the time spent on it, but I was always viewing it mostly as a way to learn pixel art and game development, and just have to hope it pays off with the next game.


Thanks for asking, and thanks to everyone for the nice compliments! I'm quite introverted so it's pretty much all the feedback I get :P.

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