Journey Home (Now available for Windows and Linux)

[Neat Fire Games]

A sharp clap of thunder jolts you awake and you find yourself cold and alone in a dark forest clearing. You scrabble through your mind for some sense of who you are, of what you're doing here, but the memories lie hopelessly out of reach in the darkest recesses of your subconscious. The only thing that offers you any comfort is a distant light, a shining beacon that you instinctively recognise as a place of safety. And so you begin your journey home…

Neat Fire Games proudly presents Journey Home!

Journey Home takes strong inspiration from Playdead's Limbo and LucasArts The Curse of Monkey Island. You use a classic point-and-click interface to navigate a (mostly) mute young boy through a series of challenging (and often deadly) puzzles, making your way towards your goal, “home”. The tone of the game also reflects these two titles. It's dark and mysterious, but it's not lacking a sense of humour.

You'll face numerous deadly creatures and environmental hazards on your trek, utilising whatever you can lay your little hands on as you make your way towards the distant light. And you might just find that there's more to this strange pilgrimage than meets the eye…

Neat Fire Games is currently a one man team (Hi, I'm Jim by the way ), but I have a couple of excellent programmers on standby should I need any help with the scripting work. I might be looking to take on additional help with future games, but for the moment I am really enjoying learning every facet of the production process for myself. I'm creating the game using the default AGS interface.

I initially intended to do a small 5 room game to get used to the game making process, but the project quickly grew to twice its original size. It's currently been in production for just over a year. This game is the fulfilment of a long held ambition of mine, a true project of passion.

Screenshots:






Current status (as of Sept 9th):
• Background Art 95%
• Puzzles 95%
• Animation 95%
• Sound 25%
• Scripting 5%

Features:
• 9 rooms (linear progression, aiming for around 30 mins gameplay)
• Alternate endings (depending on number of deaths and optional puzzle strand)
• Hidden puzzles and secrets
• Deep and detailed 3rd person text based commentary on objects/hotspots etc.
• Over 120 custom animations and sound effects
• Crisp 1080 x 1920 resolution
• Freeware (to get as many people as possible playing)

Release date: Aiming for late 2017/early 2018

Visit the (so new it's still warm) Neat Fire Games Facebook page; www.facebook.com/neatfiregames

Thanks for reading!

[Click'd]

-          Crisp 1080 x 1920 resolution

Any idea what happens if you try to play it on a lower resolution screen?

[Stupot]

It looks and sounds great. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

My only concern is these screenshots are super dark. I know it's supposed to be night but I have to squint even with my screen on full brightness.

[Click'd]

My only concern is these screenshots are super dark. I know it's supposed to be night but I have to squint even with my screen on full brightness.

I can see everything just fine.

[Neat Fire Games]

ClickClickClick: Good question, I haven't had the opportunity to test it out on lower resolution screens yet. Hopefully everything will scale down nicely and I won't run into any issues. I will look into it at some point very soon. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

Stupot: Thanks for the reply, I was wondering when this might come up yes you're right, its very dark, mainly by design. But there's clearly a line between atmospheric effect and the brightness being outright frustrating, which it sounds like I may have crossed on your set-up. I will be looking into right after I have finished creating the soundscape for the game. It might need brightening up a tad, rest assured I will be testing this thoroughly very soon.

[CaptainD]

I have to say that although it's dark, all the details are extremely clear.  The spider in its web freaks me out a little somehow - not just the fact that it's a massive spider, but the combination of shapes and colours does weird things to my eyes!

I hope it translates well to lower resolutions as the graphics look really nice and it looks an interesting game.  Hope development goes well!

[Hobo]

I have no issues with the darkness, everything looks clear enough on my screen. As for the resolution, then AGS usually scales it down rather well. I don't think it will affect the graphics too much, some animations might look a bit disorted, but it probably won't be that bad. The text and GUIs, on the other hand, may suffer from this. If you don't use a suitable font, then it's possible that the texts will become difficult to read or even completely illegible.

Good luck with the scripting, it looks like it's going to be an enjoyable little adventure.

[Neat Fire Games]

Thanks for the feedback CaptainD and Hobo, much appreciated!

I've been working on a few promo images for the game today, I'll be releasing more of these in the coming weeks. First up...
   

[Neat Fire Games]

Another creature you'll meet on your Journey Home...

[Neat Fire Games]

Project status update 19th October:
• Sound design is now 95% complete, now moving into final testing and tweaks before beginning the coding work
• Project is still on track for a late 2017 release

Another danger lurking deep in the forest...


And here's the main character walk animation...

[Neat Fire Games]

Project status update 31st October (Happy Halloween everyone!!!):
• Final tweaks and testing have been completed. I've decided to boost the brightness significantly in Photoshop having completed testing the game on multiple monitors and brightness settings. This should ensure that the game is comfortably playable for everyone whilst still keeping the mysterious/night-time feel I'm going for. Thank you all for your input on this so far! Thankfully the batch editing process in Photoshop will help me to brighten everything up with minimal time spent.
• I've started to wire everything up and bring it all to life. Happy with my progress so far but it's a steep learning curve! Watch this space, further updates coming soon.

[Neat Fire Games]

Project status update 13th February:
• Game is nearly finished and ready for release! Just doing some final playtesting, bug fixing and polishing.
• Looking at a provisional release date of Friday 23rd February, though this is subject to change.
• Putting together some marketing materials so that I can reach as many people as possible with my first release.

I'm really happy with the way the project has gone, and very thankful for all the help and support of the AGS community. You dudes/gals are pretty awesome, so thank you!

Here's the most dangerous foe you will meet on your journey, your nemesis...


And probably my favourite enemy you will have to dispatch to make it to safety...


More to follow very soon...

[Mandle]

Looking good!

I have some small issues with the octopus' tentacles though:

* The left-hand one has one line of suckers but the right-hand one has two lines.
* The way the twist in the right-hand tentacle is drawn makes it appear that the tentacle has suckers on both sides.

[Neat Fire Games]

Looking good!

I have some small issues with the octopus' tentacles though:

* The left-hand one has one line of suckers but the right-hand one has two lines.
* The way the twist in the right-hand tentacle is drawn makes it appear that the tentacle has suckers on both sides.

Thanks Mandle

The left hand tentacle also has two lines of suckers, it's just that one is hidden as it's a side view. I like to exaggerate certain features in some animation frames for dramatic effect, which sometimes looks a little odd when viewed in isolation.  It all makes more sense when you see it in the animation cycle, i promise!

[SarahLiz]

Nice screenshots, I look forward to checking out your game!  Oh my LORDâ€"â€"those spider drawings.  I can't look at them without literally shuddering (which is a good thing!)...

[Neat Fire Games]

Thank you SarahLiz, I appreciate it. I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it!

I'm glad you like the Spider, would it help to know that if you're not careful he can jump at you as well?! dying at the hands of the various creatures in the world is counted in the background and is a contributing factor in determining which of the 5 endings you will recieve when the game is completed.

I will be posting more images later on, probably this evening, so watch this space!

[Neat Fire Games]

Some new screenshots for my upcoming release, not long now!

[Neat Fire Games]

Here's a little promo screen I put together for my upcoming release

[Cassiebsg]

Looking good!

[Neat Fire Games]

Thank you

[CrashPL]

I like how you managed to combine cartoony visuals with dark and creepy atmosphere. Definitely looks interesting, good luck with the release!

[Neat Fire Games]

Thanks CrashPL, I appreciate it

Yeah it was a very deliberate choice, I wanted to create a tension between the visuals and the feel of the game. It also reflects my key influences, in that I wanted to create a game that was a sort of mash-up between Limbo and The Curse of Monkey Island. Strange I know, but that was my jumping off point! I hope you like the game.

[Neat Fire Games]

Morbid I know, but here's a couple of the death animations from the game

[Neat Fire Games]

New teaser trailer

   

[Neat Fire Games]

Here's my final update before release, some animal animations

[Neat Fire Games]

This game has now been released. Thank you all for your input and help in it's creation, hope you enjoy the game!