Messages

It looks good to me. If you want help with music and sound send me a message and I'll see if I can do something.

Thanks for the offer, but at the moment, I'd like to keep myself to the early Dec release date. It's not fair to ask/expect someone to deliver something in such a short timeframe.

However, depending on the feedback the game gets and how I feel about it, I'm considering working on a full speech/sound/music version next year.

Thanks for the kind words. I've pretty much finished all the sprites now, so it's just the last three backgrounds to do and I'm done, done, done with the art!

As of today, I'm still on track for an early December release date 

Shot where you can see a sprite...



Again, my graphical skills are lacking, but hopefully it shouldn't be too distracting in-game.

[Curious Yellow Productions]

Curious Yellow Productions

presents

Ebb Tide: A Jake Fisher Mystery

The Story

Jake Fisher is a medium. Reluctantly so, but it's not the kind of thing you can just turn on and off when you feel like it. After a high-profile case ends in disaster, Jake retreats to remote Ebb Island in an attempt to cut himself off from the world. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, the world has other ideas.

(NB: I began this game well before I saw anything about The Blackwell Legacy so hopefully people aren't too put off by multiple medium-themed games)

Pictures!

Disclaimer: My graphical shortcomings are legendary but I'm too proud to do paintovers. Hopefully these backgrounds won't put anybody off from playing the game...

Thrill to the classy decor of your Ebb Island hideaway!

Go indirectly to jail!

Bribe the dead to give you information!

Progress

Story: 100%
Puzzle Design: 100%
Backgrounds: 85%
Sprites and Animation: 80%
Scripting: 50%
Music: 0%

Sales Pitch

- Quite a few backgrounds of varying qualities!
- Lots of characters with talkcycles and some with walkcycles!
- Bonus animations!
- Point and click interface!
- A whole pile of puzzles involving object manipulation!
- Dialog trees!
- Global integers!
- A beginning, a middle and an end!
- Horror, romance and delinquent behaviour!
- Probably no music or sound so there better be something you like in the above points!

Release Date

I'm aiming to release early December... and definitely before 2007 hits.

I can confirm that that's exactly the method I used for those backgrounds.

And very nice backgrounds they are!

Thanks people - looks like exactly what I'm looking for.

Hi all,

I've (slowly) been increasing in ability as far as background art goes. (Well, I'd like to think so, anyway). I'm having a little trouble with gradients for things like walls and I was hoping people could help. Up until now, I've been colouring walls one flat colour and then adding noise to give a little texture.

The look I'd like to achieve is highlighted to good effect in one of the screens from the new Dave Gilbert game, The Blackwell Legacy, as seen below in the back wall of the apartment (once you zoom in).



I've tried using gradients in Photoshop and then tinkering with the noise settings, but I just can't get that look. Is there a technique to achieve that, or is it hard graft of adding individual pixels?

Thanks for the interest - I've been in two minds about the graphics, veering between carrying on down this path or trying to do completely new backgrounds from scratch. What I'm finding is that I'm learning a lot from tweaking existing stuff and hopefully by the time I've finished this game I'll be a lot closer to being able to do something decent under my own steam.

As for all the MI-related mythology questions - the answers should be contained within the game (though not all in the demo) so I won't give anything away now - save to say his last name won't be "Monkey"

Edit: A few notes about the MI universe and how it relates to my game

1. This is in the Monkey Island universe but many years after the original games so you won't find lots of old characters floating around (although descendants are another story).
2. The main character isn't a pirate.
3. Very few buckles will be swashed (at least in the demo).
4. LeChuck isn't the bad guy.

What I'm hoping to keep is the spirit and style of the original games (plus lots and lots of voodoo). Hopefully what I'll keep is the adventure, humour, horror, islands, puzzles and, of course, monkeys.

The demo's still on track and should hopefully be done in a couple of weeks so you should see what's going on then.

Yeah, I'm not completely sold on the name either... I just wanted something slightly unwieldy as his first name (he'll have a nickname, but still). Thanks for the advice - I'll try to come up with something better

[Deja Voodoo]

Deja Voodoo

The Story

Set in the Monkey Island universe (but in the present day), Balthazar Marley is a lowly graduate working as a technician at a research facility in the Caribbean jungle. His company's been working on ways to make consumers more consumptive but there are stranger forces at work than anyone realises...

Some screenshots

I'm not sure what people are going to think of the approach I'm taking at the moment... this may change but it's the way I'm working around my lack of artistic skill...







Development Progress

Part 1:
Story: 100%
Graphics: 30%
Scripting: 50%
Sound/Music: 0%

Rest of Game:
Story: 75%
Graphics: 0%
Scripting: 10%
Music: 0%

Development Diary
Things are progressing nicely. The first couple of sprites are all but done and I'm hoping to have a demo of the first few screens up within the next few weeks.

That's really cool - it's amazing (for me) to see what can be done from the same starting point. I really like what you've done with it, although it doesn't really suit the main character for my game. I would, if you don't mind, like to use the new beard though. Is that cool with you?

Thanks, Illustrious. Some really nice touches there - I particularly like the changes on the hair and the hem/collar of the shirt. I tried to keep the proportions of what I was using for the template, but I did make some tweaks and I must've gotten it all screwy somewhere along the way.

If anyone else wants to have a touch-up, it's all much appreciated. I'm learning a lot from looking at different sprites and seeing what people do to improve them.

Sorry about that... here it is in .png format. I've made a few mods from the original post...

Cool - thanks for the tips. That's exactly what I'm after. I'm also intending to tweak the expression a little bit, cos I couldn't get that right. He looks a bit evil at the moment....

Here it is in double size for anyone curious:

Hi all,

I'm no kind of artist but I have my heart set on coming up with a game that looks presentable at the very least. To that end, I've been working towards backgrounds, sprites and the like. This is the first sprite I've come up with. It's acceptable, but not much more. I'd really appreciate comments and criticism on how to improve.

I used eric's templates so I can piggyback off the walkcycles he's provided - I just modified the shape slightly and re-colored it.

Anyway, here goes... and please understand this is the first thing I've done anywhere near this arena.... so be gentle 

Wow - thanks for the speedy turnaround. I should really have had a go at debugging it myself, but I'll wait until I've finished the manual before I dive too deep into the code

Hi all,

I've recently downloaded AGS and I'm very impressed with it. Since I'm a LucasFilm/Arts junkie from way back, I was over the moon to see that there was a template that allowed you to use the classic Lucas UI.

However, I've had a problem using the MI2 template with AGS 2.72. When I click on a hotspot, the game crashes. This happens with the demo game. You can reproduce it with the test game by walk left and walking to the door to the woodcarver's hut.

The full error message is:

(ACI version 2.72.920)

in Global script (line 425)
from Global script (line 444)
from Global script (line 543)
from Global script (line 550)
from Global script (line 789)

Error: GetGameParameter: invalid frame specified.

This problem doesn't occur with 2.71, so I can still get on and work on my game (which, at this stage, mostly consists of learning to draw) but it would be nice to use the latest version.

Thanks in advance.

Apologies if this has been answered upthread; I did look through but couldn't find any solutions.