Messages

@Tabata:
Thank you, just managed to finish the game, with 5 of 8 achievements. Now to get the other three...

@Jaffles

Spoiler

If I remember correctly you need to look for a seperate hotspot from the other chemicals (but in the same area), don't know what it was called though.

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Great game, like part 1 I am enjoying it a lot so far!

However I'm kinda stuck now...

Spoiler

The two agents are free, but Scar has been imprisoned and I'm currently trying to find him. Trouble is, the elevator in the basement isn't working. Tried everything on the control field but I wasn't able to repair it yet.

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Also some minor bugs (probably) that I've encountered:

Spoiler

1. The first time you enter the screen where the car runs over Agent Moss, the whole menu bar is deactivated and only reactivated once you've opened the game menu via ESC or escape the car.
2. I entered the main entrance to the facility with Agent Moss and triggered the cutscene where the window in the room with the dead animals is opened. At this point I hadn't yet used the elevator with Scar and when I did that and found the room with the window, it was still closed and couldn't be opened via the switch on the side either. When I switched to Moss and back to Scar the window was suddenly open.
3. At the point where I am stuck now, I burnt a hole into the crane window and used the crane controls. A cutscene was triggered where the magnet with the gun was raised to the roof level. However, in the next screen the magnet with the gun is still visible at the same height as before.

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By the way,

Spoiler

so far I've found two toy soldiers as Moss and one as Scar. I guess these are bonus items to collect? 

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When I first started to work with AGS I tried several times to make small one or two room games. But nothing ever came from it, I guess because I lacked the proper motivation. For me it all boiled down to: what’s the point of releasing a short test game? There are hundreds of them out there already, and it’s not as if my art was so great that anyone would jump at the chance to play mine.

Instead I focused on what I really wanted to do. A big game world, lots of interactions, tons of puzzles and simple enough graphics to make it all possible. Yeah, it meant that I worked for two whole years on my first game, but for me it was worth it. The development process wasn’t always easy, but all this time I had a very specific idea of what I wanted the finished game to be, and it just took hundreds and thousands of baby steps to finally get there. The hardest part is to keep your eyes firmly on the end goal and to not let yourself be distracted, which of course is much easier said than done.

Like Ascovel said, you need a strong enough drive to see it all through, you must be convinced that your game is worth to be finished and played, and of course you also need the basic skills, enough time and some work ethics.

Great work on the new website!

One issue though: maybe it's just me being blind and stupid, but is there a way to show the most recently added games? I like to download and test every newly released AGS game, but with the current setup of the games DB I don't really see a way to do that? 

EDIT: Nevermind! Looks like new games are added to the end of the uncategorised list, as long as there are no votings yet. Still, would be great to also allow filtering or sorting games based on their release date.

Ugh, since mediafire crapped out on me, I've now replaced all the screenshots and added a new one - the Emporium of Wonders, an important location in the second chapter. Hope you like it!

Development of the game is progressing nicely if slowly, I'm still on course for a release some time next year.

You can find further infos about the development process on my semi-regularly updated blog, including a very early teaser trailer for chapter 2 that was shown at AdventureX last winter: http://thefarcornersoftheworld.weebly.com/developers-blog.html

Yep, the early end of nominations caught me by surprise too. Didn't manage to nominate any games yet, as I planned to play through a few more candidates first.

Thanks for the pointer, I love watching that kind of stuff! Pity that it's so short though. Looking forward to the next part!

Yay! So nominations will go till the end of March?

That's true. Of course Kickstarter keeps a small percentage of the money they raised, but it's a huge success any way you look at it.

Wohoo - that was fun! Final result $3,335,265. Adventure games are dead? Don't think so! Of course I totally got caught up in the spirit and raised my pledge to 110$ at the last minute. What can I say, the special edition box and t-shirt were too enticing. The next few months are going to be interesting!

Wohoo! Great work everyone, getting the bundle done!

Currently downloading the games - there goes another productive weekend!

@WHAM:
Thanks for your opinion and suggestion! Shading would definitely improve the graphics, and I'll try my best. However, drawing's not really my strong suit and the game's quite expansive, so I cannot garantuee huge improvements without considerably prolonging the development time. But a few nice people from these forums have offered to help me polishing the graphics once the game is closer to completion - we'll see what will come from it. Right now my first priority is getting the basic graphics and the game logic done, which will take some time still.

@Ascovel:
When doing the AGS workshops that I wrote about on your site, I developed several of these small mini-games/utilities that might all find their way into the series sooner or later. Thank heavens I had the foresight to backup the code, saves a lot of time now. But of course I'm STILL sidetracked all the time by new ideas I want to check out and include in the game(s)...

Thanks for the interest guys, this lifts my spirits after a long, hard day!

@Bogdan:
I'm glad you are liking the look of the game and I'll do my best to ensure that the day you can play it isn't too far off!

@»Arj0n«:
Sure thing! Come beta time I'll count on you scrutinizing FCotW2.

@SarahLiz:
The plan is for FCotW2 to capture the things that worked in the first chapter and improve on them where I can. We'll see how that works out!

[satisfying]

@Ascovel & Sane Co.:
Thanks guys! Glad that you liked the graphics after all! I agree that they could certainly be worse.

It's just, more often than not, my graphics don't turn out the way I imagined them, which can be quite frustrating. Drawing is a slow process for me, espescially in part 2 where I try to add more details here and there. And in the end, the greatest part of the development time is spent on what I personally feel is one of the weakest aspects of the game. But I guess we must work extra hard on the things that don't come naturally to us. And it's satisfying when I get another one of these pesky backgrounds done...

@lucydark & Puddleglum:
It's always nice to learn that people are enjoying my games - big thanks for letting me know!

While this is my first released game, I've played A LOT of adventures over the years, and I tried to incorporate many of the things that I myself deem enjoyable. This includes detailed descriptions for everything, makes the game world feel that much more alive. And hey, I must compensate for the sub-par graphics somehow...  

[For Your Consideration: The Far Corners of the World - Chapter 1: The Book the Box and the Key]

For Your Consideration: The Far Corners of the World - Chapter 1: The Book the Box and the Key

This is my first released AGS game, and all things considered it turned out quite well I believe. You can get the game HERE.



Story:
Young Jeffrey Carter has it all: a great flat, a good job and a beautiful (and rich) fiancée. One day however his peaceful life is turned upside down when he receives a mysterious message from his estranged sister. What starts as a journey to atone for past failings soon takes a sinister turn. Little does Jeff know that the adventure of his lifetime is about to begin...

Stats:
- 82 screens, including 52 playable rooms
- 59 characters
- 80 Inventory Items
- 162 views
- 35 GUIs

A few player reactions (see HERE and HERE):
- As far as the game goes, in a word: Wow! [...] TFCotW hooked me BIG time.
- Excellent Game! Nice solid, original puzzles!
- This is an absolutely outstanding game.
- So far it's wonderful - interesting, charming, not too hard, but not too easy.
- A brilliant example that graphics aren't everything.
- Fine writing, well depicted characters and some old school puzzle solving, I am enjoying this greatly!
- Thoroughly immersive and enjoyable.
- Great game, everyone should play it.

Some suggested award categories:
- Best Original Story
- Best Puzzles
- Best Dialogue Writing
- Best Player Character
- Best Non-Player Character

[The Far Corners of the World - Chapter 2: Unfamiliar Territory]

The Far Corners of the World - Chapter 2: Unfamiliar Territory

     

                       

          

   

Story:
Last time we met our hero Jeff Carter, his quest to help his sister Suzie had taken a peculiar turn. Now he must navigate alien lands, meeting new friends and foes in the process. And while Jeff's reunion with Suzie is closer than he dares to believe, new trouble's brewing just around the corner...

Seeing as I announced Chapter 1 around Christmas a couple of years ago, it seems appropriate to continue the tradition by giving you an early first look at chapter 2 of the FCotW-series today.

Chapter 2 will answer many open questions from the first part and feature two different paths through the game, three playable characters, another small arcade game, dozens of brain-twisting puzzles and more story-twists and turns than you can poke a stick at.

However, due to that pesky thing called real life, the complexity of the project and above all my own laziness, FCotW2 will take me at least another year to complete. But as you all know, good things take time and constant dripping wears the stone, or something like that. If you are interested in the development progress, you can always check my webpage!

So cheers for now and a Happy New Year everyone!

@HandsFree: Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it! It's good to hear that you found enjoyment in the game, makes me want to do an even better job on chapter 2!

About the soundtrack, DrWhite composed the following original tracks:

Spoiler

Title Screen Music
Jeff and Tiffany's Theme
The hospital
The park
The hotel restaurant

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There should have been a readme file with a small manual and stuff in the game folder, but I just checked the zip-file and of course I forgot to include it. I'll reupload the game including this file, which also contains the full list of additional music.

The Orphanage, with its creepy scavenger hunt.