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I think this is the only kind of game that I could make on my own (with stolen sprites, art, etc). It would be limiting to only be able to use the MI backgrounds and sprites but it might be a fun challenge to come up with an interesting story and good puzzles. If only I had more time on my hands.

I probably spent about 6 - 10 hours playing it as well. That's close enough to $1/hr of entertainment which is pretty great value compared to, say, a movie.

I really like the look of this game so hopefully it'll get completed. Been a while since I played a game with text parser though!

Finished the game - thought it was great.

Will definitely buy the sequel when it becomes available.

It's really cool people are doing stuff like this with AGS. The graphics are have a great original style and from those screenshots, it can't fail to be an absolute blast.

Also the gameplay and puzzles are very well thought out and completly logical. Story is brilliant, and enough to reach 3 episodes (remember that this is just a prologue, not even a 1st episode, but should last for more than an hour, if you know what you're doing, with a walkthrough).

2007 is the year that The Forgotten Element will be released (and I'm not talking about December 2007... but earlier...)

The more I hear about this game, the more I anticipate it! The quality of AGS games just gets better and better.

The Devil Went Down to Barstow[/b]

Mortimer Bonethresher is a humble soldier in Lucifer's XXVth Skeletal Horde. They're months deep in a campaign to overrun the Earthly Realms and things aren't going too well.

They weren't defeated by military might. They weren't cast out by the power of Jesus. They were overwhelmed by superior marketing. For example, you can get rat onna stick for a mere silver coin on Earth. And it comes in a little bag with a cute picture of a rat on it! What soldier of the undead could turn that down?

Mortimer has plans of his own too. There are cut-price holidays to the Fiji islands and he's thinking he can make up for the past three years forgetting his wedding anniversary.

It's a nice idea but, as usual, there's a problem. His wife is still in Hell. And the only person with a master key is Lucifer, last seen leading the final stand against the human armies. It's not going to be an easy quest, but there's a marriage at stake. Plus, the island where he's going serves those drinks with cute little umbrellas in them. What soldier of the undead could turn that down?

[/end pitch]

I'm looking for two people (possibly one, if your talent runs deep) to help out in the graphical realm. I'm intending the game to be a comedic adventure in the classic LucasArts vein (eg MI1/MI2/FOA/DOTT), so low-res etc. Since my abilities in this area are totally lacking, I'll need a SPRITE ANIMATOR and a BACKGROUND ARTIST to work with me on a medium/full-length (i.e. 20 â€" 30 screens) game. While there won't be any financial credit, you'll have major credit in the game. The project is guaranteed completion, as long as I can find suitable artists to work with.

Any interested parties, please PM me and I'll give you my email address so you can send me a sample of your work. I'll then send the story outline/notes on the first part so we can try and get some concept images/sprites going.

Hopefully some people out there can help me

I have to confess I'm losing motivation to continue now. Maybe my expectations were too high, but the very few comments on here are by people I consider friends on AGS, except for one (Bet you can guess who, too), which makes me feel like there is little interest in my game. I regret posting my game in here now..

I'm impressed that you have the balls to do a game entirely by yourself. I'd love to, but I'm not confident enough with my graphics/animation to do something. I'll hopefully start off as a writer-for-hire and build my way up to having a team of artists/animators to work with

Of course, while I'm doing that, you'll be working on fully fledged projects of your own... so good luck, and keep going!

Getting further through the game and I have to say this is one of the best-written AGS games I've played. Although I mentioned that there's a lot of dialog in my earlier post, it actually serves to drive the character development a lot more than most games that skimp a little in that area. As a niggly, picky writer it's great to see someone who puts more evocative and interesting situations and characters in as well

I posted something earlier in the Super Jazz Man thread about graphics and The Blackwell Legacy is another in that vein - it has the same style and feeling as some of the classic LucasFilm/Arts adventures. In particular, some of it reminds me of FoA which is all good in my book. It's a style I've tried to achieve myself but always failed - the level of detail in these backgrounds is wonderful.

It seems there's a lot of discussion/feeling around AGS games being sold for profit but if it drives excellent teams to come together and create games like this, it seems that we could see a resurgence in point-and-click adventures that easily transcend the amateur status and could become classics of the genre themselves.

EDIT: Oh, and the puzzles are totally ingenious!

Call it nostalgia or whatever, but I prefer the pixel-y old school graphics. A lot of the AGS games evoke the same style as the classic LucasArts adventures (despite being worked on years later, most of us wish there were more of those great games from that era, right?) and I'd rather pay $8.99 for a retro experience than pay $49.95 for most modern-style games.

The graphics/animation on this look absolutely brilliant. (Even if the main character is a little too obviously aimed squarely at the hearts and er... minds? of teenage boys everywhere).

I'd go so far as to say that the graphical quality is easily up there with the best professional pixelated games. As long as the gameplay, puzzles and writing live up to what you're doing with the art, this is going to be incredible.

(No pressure, obviously.... )

Finished the game yesterday. I loved the whole thing. Well written, nifty graphics, great music and some brilliant scripting touches.

As far as 'full speech', in some ways I prefer the classic non-talkies since I nearly always have issues with at least one character (even in the 'professional' games). I guess that's my age showing though

I'm enjoying the game so far and it's money well spent, in my opinion. I noticed a couple of instances where the audio dialogue wouldn't run or the audio didn't match the text.

Loving the character of Joey, by the way. Although, if I can be honest, I find Rosa a pretty annoying character much of the time.

EDIT: Pretty annoying, but still very believable.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying the game. Overall, it seems very professional.

Since I paid money for it, I feel like I can air my grievances. I find the voice of Rosangela a little grating and combined with the sheer amount of dialog I find myself clicking through a lot of it rather than listening to it all. Possibly could have been edited at times (although, since I'm a writer myself, I'm far too picky over this).

Those are really (very) minor gripes though - it plays very well and it's an engrossing story. Definitely worth the money.

Yeah, I got it, thanks. Once I stopped concentrating on the musical red herring, it wasn't too difficult to figure out

I thought it would be pretty mean... but, if you follow the drum pattern in one particular part of the song you can get a reasonable combo going. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough but it's enough that it was driving me crazy!

As far as a 'pattern' goes....

Spoiler

is it a musical pattern or am I totally barking up the wrong tree?

[close]

I'm glad you're enjoying it!

You guys really don't like rap though, huh? 

Personally I see the game more about that whole consumerism aspect of music. It was just chance that it ended up as Jazz vs. rap. Or was it?

Regardless, it's a fantastic game. I haven't completed it yet, but so far the puzzles have been logical but not obvious and the world is a lot of fun to explore and play around in. Quite possibly the most 'complete'-feeling AGS game I've played, and definitely worth the price tag. Good luck, and I hope the financial aspect begins to make it all worthwhile for you guys - you deserve the success.

Bought this and loving it so far. Well-designed puzzles, nifty retro graphics and great music.

You guys really don't like rap though, huh? 

This looks fantastic. If it plays as well as it looks, it could be one of the better AGS games. Looking forward to seeing a demo!

Well, you can count on another sale once it's sorted out - the game looks very impressive and I can't wait to play it.