Lucas Mendoza - Amateur Detective (DEMO available!)

Started by Amateur Detective, Sun 27/06/2021 02:00:13

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Amateur Detective

Lucas Mendoza - Amateur Detective



Story
Lucas Mendoza wants to be a detective in the peaceful city of San Guche. Unluckily for him, his first case will grow into a huge mystery from another time, involving a secret organization called 'The Searchers of the Beginning'. Unluckily for everybody else, he is the only one who can stop them.







Description
Lucas Mendoza - Amateur Detective is a classic point and click adventure game, that combines humor with a deep story, taking inspiration from games like "Day of the Tentacle" and "Sam & Max". 
Various playable characters along multiple timelines trying to solve a mystery as big as time itself. Well, maybe not that big.
This is my first game on AGS (and ever), and I'm a solo developer. It all started as a simple one-room test, and kept growing. Almost all of the artwork consists of free images that I've got online, so I'll be needing an artist going forward.
And as you may have noticed, I'm not an English speaker, so expect some weird sentences. I'll also be needing a translator. The Spanish version is the most accurate one for now, although you can find some weird sentences in that one as well.
Made in AGS with the great Tumbleweed template.

I'll appreciate all the feedback I can get from this great community.  ;)

Features
Old school point and click adventure game, with 9 verbs interface, inventory puzzles, branching dialogs, nonsense humor, and all that good LucasArts vibes.
Different playable characters interacting through time and space.

Progress
I've been working on this as a side project since 2020, and I have a playable demo, which I never thought I would. So, I'd say progress is steady.
Story: 100%
Scripting: 50%
Graphics: (it's mostly borrowed art, so 0%)
Music and Sound SFX: 0% (it's a silent demo) 

The demo
You can download a full playable demo of the first two chapters. Chapter 2 is missing some puzzles and locations due to time issues, but is fully playable.
Available in English and Spanish, with a big warning to English speakers: I'm sorry.

Download the DEMO:
WINDOWS: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D-2ktHI5TfCHbnG0Y8C0v7_gcemxOlTg/view?usp=sharing
LINUX: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LvD9Vztg8Bg5OIVQ3Ub6cTFpMVaXHXpS/view?usp=sharing
(DEMO updated 13 Oct 2021)

Credits
My name is Diego, and I did this thanks to AGS.

sthomannch

Hey, nice game!
I like the graphics and puzzles and humor. The English texts needs a little polishing as you wrote yourself.

For the first part, I had one thing I did not understand
Spoiler

I got the name of the journalist, which was the second clue, but then got a bit stuck until I found the tile (very clever!). Wenn I had the paper with the two cities, I could again tell the supervisor about Mia and this was the third clue?
Perhaps something got messed up in the dialogues and instead the game should have offered something about a travel to other cities
[close]

And then a bug
Spoiler

The interview went on well, of course a bit confusing because the stories are (intentionally) mixed up. I hope I did not overlook something. Anyway, after the first interviews I switched to Lucas and went out, downtown and to the house right of the warehouse.
I wanted to enter and then the game just locked up, always giving the same few lines again and again (Lucas speaking). I had to crash the game.

I got the following crash information: "room32.asc, line 46". Perhaps the dialog is triggered when the detective is close to the door and he cannot move away anymore?
[close]
Congratulation and keep up the good work!



Amateur Detective

Hey, thanks! That's the kind of things you can't realize by yourself. It's all fixed now, and the link updated.  ;)

Thank you for playing the demo!

sthomannch

Restartet, but now
Spoiler

I have only the book and the clue from the calendar, cannot get a third clue. But the problem with the calendar seems fixed, does not count as two clues anymore.

The new version also shows new text (and four numbers) when you worked on the tile, seems necessary for the safe. In the first version I did not get the numbers.

So all in all improvement over the first version.

Still: You can get the cat food and the flash light twice, by closing and re-opening the cabinet doors.
[close]

Amateur Detective

Hey, thanks! I'll keep polishing it and fixing bugs.

So...

Spoiler
The safe dindn't open with the numbers?
[close]


sthomannch

#5
Thanks, this hint helped me to try something else...

Ian Aloser

#6
sthomannch,
which tile do you mean ?
I am missing one clue, guess it has to do with it.
Very nice game with a lot of good humor !

EDIT: Nevermind, found it out,nice one :-)

sthomannch


sthomannch

Well done!
This was more than a demo. It was much fun playing it. Funny dialogs, good riddles and the graphics style matched well.

I hope to see the next chapters soon.

Spoiler

I opened the strongbox in the bank, but have the books already in the inventory, so what was in the safe?
[close]

Ian Aloser

Hey sthomannch,
you mean the
Spoiler

safe in the living room, the one that opens once you have the coordinates?
It contained the super secret notebook, my third evidence
[close]

Amateur Detective

Hey sthomannch,

So...

Spoiler
Inside the box is part 2 of the manuscript. You need both parts 1 and 2 for something that will happen in Chapter 3. There are a lot of things that I didn't include in Chapter 2 for the demo, although I hope you could understand the story somehow.
[close]

Thank you for all the comments on the demo, it really helps me! And I'm glad you've found the dialogs funny in spite of my English!

Amateur Detective

Hey Ian Aloser!

Thanks for playing the demo! I'm open for any suggestions or comments.  :-D

sthomannch

I thought I got both books earlier. But I should have kept in mind the different authors  :cheesy:


Amateur Detective

Yeah, maybe having to find a whole bunch of different books and writings is not the most interesting thing to do... will surely look into that  :-D

sthomannch

Amateur Detective: I would keep that, made sense finally and the books and binders were related to different things.

heltenjon

I'm a bit late to the party, but I could see from the sheer volume of posts that this had to be something special. And it is.

That was a really great game! The first chapter would be a long demo on its own, and the second chapter is a quite long game in its own right.

I really liked the storytelling in the second chapter, where I could alternate between the characters and timelines, in Day of the Tentacle style. Lots to do and very good puzzles. The tone is humorous throughout, more so in the second chapter than in the first. (Possibly because I liked the female protagonist better.) It's fun to revisit the same locations and get different repsonses with the two main characters. It's also a nice touch to have different characters who tell you what to do with slightly different agendas.

Lots of dialogue and dialogue puzzles. I like that. My favourites was the worker dialogues. I think that some of the more descriptive dialogues should be available for rereading, like now, but the dialogues that trigger actions ought to occur only once. At least the action ought to occur only once.

I encountered one game-breaking bug, when I was caught in the secret room with the same message repeating when I tried to exit without anything. And also when the reporter talks to the scientist after he has changed his position, she walks to her first dialogue position to talk, even though the scientist is no longer standing there. The key card was possible to take more than once (getting two in my inventories).

Quote from: Amateur Detective on Sat 03/07/2021 23:27:32
Yeah, maybe having to find a whole bunch of different books and writings is not the most interesting thing to do... will surely look into that  :-D

Please don't change that. The plot is crazy, but makes the time switching work. (As far as the story has progressed.) I think finding the books and research works very well. Besides, it doesn't matter very much what the McGuffin/treasure is in such a story. Maltese falcon, magic ring, enchanted sword, diamond or research paper.  (nod)

All in all, a very good effort. I look forward to seeing more of this story.

Amateur Detective

Thanks heltenjon!

I'll fix the bugs. All the feedback and comments really help me a lot. Thank you!  :-D

Shadow1000

I completed this game last week and I posted my comments on the hints and tips. I think that everyone who's played it more or less said the same thing.

Overall, the story and puzzles are VERY strong. I had a lot of good laughs while playing.

- Section 1 was really tight and I was able to follow the story easily and solve the puzzles.
- Section 2 at first was hard to follow. I don't know if anyone else found the same, but at some point I found that the dialogues felt endless and I didn't realize what was going on. I had some people in the Hints and Tips fill me in and then things made a lot more sense. I realize that some other players didn't have this problem but you might consider making the beginning of Day 2 more brief.

There are many little glitches that should be cleaned up such as being able to get the same item more than once. The translation needs some help.
Spoiler
The bank marked as bench took me forever to figure out
[close]

I don't know any Spanish but I know Portuguese so I was able to figure out a few things, for example "banco" in Portuguese is both bench and bank. As well "cortada" means "cut" (feminine past participle), without realizing this the joke would not make any sense.

I hope that the feedback from those who have played so far is helpful in getting the release polished!

Well done

Amateur Detective

Hey Shadow1000!

Thanks for the feedback, it's really helpful. So I fixed all the issues you've mentioned here, and updated the DEMO link.

And will surely keep working on it!  :-D

Amateur Detective

The Spanish word for BANK and BENCH is the same, and I have them both in the game, so they've got mixed up in the translation file. I had to change one, because I couldn't find any another solution.

And I've also found some Spanish text showing up in the English translation, whenever the object description is too long. AGS cuts it and then can't find the corresponding string in the translation file. Also haven't found a solution to this.

I think I'll open a thread in the correct forum. Thank you all!

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