Collateral Jelly

Started by Ghost, Sun 24/02/2019 03:41:10

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Ghost

It's happening! Aliens are RIGHT here, PROPER alien invaders, and they are planning to take over Earth. Mean and green? Yes. Hatching their troops from gooey eggs? Oh, yes. And that whole thing with the plant pods, the body snatching, the screeching and
the acid blood, the telepathy and that invulnerable extra sphincter? Check, check and double check.


Lost Craft optimistically resurrects:


An alien fleet makes their home right under a ramshackle asylum because you gotta have a sinister home base. It's a matter of style. And they have a plan. An evil, secret plan, deliciously overcomplicated and with just enough wriggle room to fail.

Enter Willow, Earth's last- and best- hope.
She knows the plan. She can save us all if she plays her cards right. Unfortunately, she's several cards short of a full deck, and an ace up your sleeves isn't much help when you're in a straitjacket.

So, er. Hi. It's been a while... and here I am again, with an old idea and some fresh optimism. I recently got back into AGS; and what better way to properly get back than, you know, making a game maybe? It's a thing I'm looking forward to. t's really been a while.
Some of you may remember an old prototype of Collateral Jelly, which started life as a 640x480, hand-drawn point-and-clicky thing that never got anywhere. And I found a way to fix that- just going full retro. It's what I do best.

Some early WIP screens for your consumption- more to come. I'll make this a proper project with dev diary and everything.


Alien body snatchers, teleporter mishaps, and offscreen flying saucers- the 80s called; they want their tropes back!


Meet Willow- a perfectly fine lass with impeccable fashion sense. Cotton never goes out of style!

Proper Progress Percentages:
Story - 95%
Scripting - 30%
Graphics - 10%
Sound/Music - 0%
Collateral Jelly will be available for puny human earthling enjoyment end of 2019.

Developer's Diary - Febuary 24
The game's  reached a point where it's worth showing around. It's basic stuff but robust, reliable and I even found my favourite speech fonts on an ancient USB drive.
I got back into scripting by making a custom "BASS" once more, just to see if I could still do that. The boilerplate stuff is out of the way, there's two rooms and some objects to play around with, and at least static views for the main characters. It's looking promising, and this time I do have a simple plot with a couple of interesting challenges that come from the nature of the protagonist. Willow has only limited inventory space and can logically not fully use her hands, which makes for logical restrictions I'm really happy with; restrictions like that lend themselves to really, really oldschool stuff like stashing items somewhere, and having to convince people to help. I have also set up the code for a "mood system"(which I already played around with in the first build)- Willow will react to alien invaders and everyday challenges mostly depending on her current state of mind, so there is a lot of room for puzzles that are not your traditional use x on y.
All said and done, this has really got me excited again. Coming back after such a long time, I feel like a noob again, and just making and not caring too much for "perfection" seems the way to go.

Developer's Diary - March 03
The week has been good- I got most of the plot sorted into a nice sequential order and the first "chunk", which serves as intro and tutorial for the game, is completely scripted. I'm playing it very safe here and included different types of puzzles to showcase how some stuff in the game is non-traditional (and hopefully fun!). I know that I tend to be very, very wordy and did my best to hand over control to the player as soon as possible, too.
The whole process is still very "rough-and-ready"- I don't make final graphics for rooms and that means there's not too much cool stuff to show yet.
Made a nice little speechcycle though; take a gander!
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/OeqkHeG.gif[/imgzoom]


LimpingFish

Loving the graphics! Looking forward to seeing more.  :)
Steam: LimpingFish
PSN: LFishRoller
XB: TheActualLimpingFish
Spotify: LimpingFish

Slasher

A mad woman saves the world  (laugh)

Sounds like a recipe for a smash hit.  ;)

dactylopus

This looks really cool, and very promising.  Looking forward to seeing it finished.

I love the idea of taking a step back from super serious game development in order to get stuff done.  I've been trying to do that, myself.

Best of luck!

Tabata

                 
Aww ... such cute graphics ... you still have it in you, Mister!

Willow has been tied up for the story and I feel laced to that new Ghost game already. 
You got me, a puny human-mouse-earthling, hooked straight. 

VampireWombat

Definitely looking forward to this. Everything so far looks and sounds awesome.

cat


Cassiebsg

Oooooowooooo  ;-D

A new Ghost game and it looks awesome as expected! Looking forward to it!
Good luck with production and remember to always do a bit (at least) everyday.  ;)
There are those who believe that life here began out there...

Darth Mandarb

I feel like I've just seen a ghost...

This game looks and sounds intriguing.

Welcome back and good luck with the production!

Kastchey

Welcome back Ghost! The alien creature looks super awesome.

Side note, I had a similar train of thought regarding going 640x480 a while back.

selmiak

oooh, this is cool! I want to cuddle that monster :)
Have fun making this :D

Ghost

#11
Thank you all for the kind welcome backs and good lucks!
And I'm glad to see the idea getting some interest. Stay tuned, I'll sail this one home at least :D

Dactylopus: The "break" wasn't exactly a voluntary choice but I can't say it hurt to take a couple steps back. i had too many projects back then, too much I felt needed to be done, and the fun started to take a backseat.
Especially  now where AGS has a couple of members who "made it big", it was very easy to get the idea that everything needs to be polished to higher standards. 
But right now I feel charged and have some distance from "old failures"- so yeah, altogether a good thing, in the end. And seeing you guys remembering the old Ghost and seeing comments on something I make, that is like giving your brain a nice, hot shower.

Kastchey: 640x480 was fun and i really liked having more room for details- but I think it doesn't lend itself too well to "manual animation". I never got it to look right. Still a sweet spot between low and high res I think. I'll dig out some screenshots from the old build. It was so garish it makes me smile :D

Dualnames

Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Ghost


Hobo

Looks beautiful and sounds intriguing, those close-up shot are top notch. I do remember something vaguely about the old version and it's great to see that you decided to pick this up again. Can't wait to join Willow on her crazy adventure. Have fun and enjoy the development!

Kastchey

Quote from: Ghost on Mon 25/02/2019 15:24:13
Kastchey: 640x480 was fun and i really liked having more room for details- but I think it doesn't lend itself too well to "manual animation". I never got it to look right. Still a sweet spot between low and high res I think. I'll dig out some screenshots from the old build. It was so garish it makes me smile :D
You do that, I'd love to see it :) I vaguely remember your previous WiP thread but it was quite a while ago....

Ghost

Quote from: Kastchey on Mon 25/02/2019 21:58:20
You do that, I'd love to see it :) I vaguely remember your previous WiP thread but it was quite a while ago....

The old thread still exists but I had it locked, and all images are gone- it's super ancient. But an old dog never throws away his backups :D

Truth to be told, this has not aged well :D

Stupot

Looks good, man. Nice to see you're still kicking about. :-) x

WHAM

Ghost is back!
Gost is making a game!
Ghost is making a NEW game!

The three best pieces of news so far this year! \o/
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Cyrus

Wow, I'm absolutely elated to see this revived! Being the digital hoarder and virtual necrophile I am, I remember this game in great detail. I love it that you switched to retro style, especially that second screenshot with the aliens. Some things I was curious about:

1) Given that the main character is a mental patient, will there be "unreliable narrator" elements? For example, visual hallucinations (or could it be that the aliens themselves are a hallucination  ;) )?
2) I also remember Once Upon A Crime 2; have you considered reviving that one as well, or is it 100% dead?

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