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Will anyone ever finish VGA support for SCI Studio? Or possibly SCI Companion? The former can open newer SCI games but can't save any edits that are attempted on them. Come to think of it, can ANY program edit SCI VGA files?

My third attempt at making The War of the Worlds...



Now... that's all I'm going to be showing for now; obviously I've got to get the programming done first; you know that's the most important thing. But is this simpler shading suitable? It's somewhat easier for me.

Now there's an interesting game - comes pretty close to the SCI formula, I'd think. Would there happen to be someone who composed an expanded soundtrack on this game?

[Project:]

Project:
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Details:
An adventure based upon the concept album.

Positions Available:
First: I need someone who can assist with the background design; it's just not one of my fortes. What I need is someone who is knowledgeable about London and the Home Counties in 1898, and possibly be able to draw the whole city from a birds-eye perspective as well. This might arguably require multiple artists, but we'll see. As for the Mars backgrounds - leave those to me!
Second: I've tried multiple times to animate the Martian Fighting Machine's walk-cycle, but all of them have gone badly wrong, so I'm going to need someone to help me animate the machines. All of them, if that's possible. Come to think of it... I vaguely remember someone suggesting to me that the machines could be rendered from 3D, with most everything else painted or something. I'll check.
Since we're shooting for a standard 320x240 resolution, only those who work better with low-res sprites need apply. I may end up calling on others for the characters too, but we'll see what happens.

Deadline:
To be blunt, I want to work on this as quickly as possible, so I don't end up lazing out on it like I did before!

Comments:
Interested parties can reply to this thread or contact me via PM.

Is it possible to continuously scroll the background of a room without running into any edges?

[imgzoom]http://www.majhost.com/gallery/EvilGuy/TWotW/titel.png[/imgzoom]

Yeah! My first real project wasn't really dead after all, just in a state of developmental limbo. But with The New Generation album and tour on the horizon, I figure there's no time like the present to resurrect this game adaptation!
Right, to start off, what do you think of these title cards, and a brand new icon bar? I'm shooting for something loosely based on Glimmar's Steampunk texture pack for Minecraft.

[imgzoom]http://www.majhost.com/gallery/EvilGuy/TWotW/card1.png[/imgzoom]
My thoughts were to make a sort of intro like Dr. No... hmm. Does that sound good at all when there's a Steampunk atmosphere...?

[imgzoom]http://www.majhost.com/gallery/EvilGuy/TWotW/iconbar.png[/imgzoom]

Now I think we're talking major programming here! You know that maze in LSL3? Quoting Al Lowe:

There was a 72-screen maze in that game where you got lost in a bamboo grove. The entire maze was made up of one background picture of intersecting paths in a bamboo grove that exited out all four sides of the picture. We also made 4 cells that were mostly transparent, but that contained enough bamboo to completely cover each of those exits. We overlaid them onto that picture. For example, if there was an exit to the top, we didn't add that overlay, thus you could exit out the top. So usually we added two, or sometimes only one, overlay.

But why didn't the scenes all look identical then since every picture was the same? Simple. Every time you exited one screen, we flopped everything horizontally and thus projected the picture backwards, like a slide reversed in a tray. By eliminating disk access, this technique made everything work really fast, took up little memory, and only a tiny bit of disk space.

Presumably, something like that is possible in AGS; has anyone done it before? How does the script work?

I've longed to build an Apollo Moon mission sim for quite a while, and at one point I decided, why not make a point-and-click one? Like those two "Apollo 18" games? (Perhaps I should get "Searching for Sam & Max" out the way first.)
I've made a start already; using Eagle Lander 3D and Orbiter NASSP for reference, I drew up the LM cockpit. Now, assuming that the instruments have a mouseover label, and the numbers on the altitude dials are made a little larger for convenience, would you say this screen delivers all the important information to you, i.e. fuel, altitude, velocity, thrust, all that?

Would there happen to be some sort of code that makes the viewport follow the cursor, rather than the player character? As in, the screen scrolls to follow its position?

Is this styled dashboard truly suitable for a game of my calibre? Especially considering it's loosely based on the one from The Wizard of Oz.



The dashboard pulls out to reveal most of the standard icons.



The shadow on the centre-right is a placemark for the inventory item. (Perhaps I ought to have retained the save/load icons....)

[Project:]

Now I know I asked about this - but I might as well face it. I can't write a good story at all. So here goes.

Project:
Searching for Sam & Max - an affectionate romp through New York, first to find the Freelance Police, then to get them out of retirement.

Details:
This adventure takes place two years after the events chronicled in The Devil’s Playhouse. The 25th anniversary of the formation of the Freelance Police is coming up, an event that a handful of people are looking forward to. After watching a slide-show of the past quarter-decade in the party, the protagonist â€" who goes simply by "Richie" â€" asks himself the question everyone else has asked: where are they now? Or rather, where's Sam now? The most widely accepted theory is this: Max was killed in that monstrous rampage two years ago, and after a disgracefully short period of time, Sam retired from policing altogether. Or did he? Richie imagines that he's visited by Max's ghost, who reveals that he cheated death thanks to the time-travel paradox they made 5 years before. He advises Richie it's been far too long since they've been called with an assignment... so he goes on a search. Where are the Freelance Police? What kind of state are they in now? And what's going to bring them back into the limelight?

Positions Available:
Simply put: I need a couple of artists who can put together some animations for me. I might be able to handle a few myself, but I'm not sure if my poor old computer can stand saving all those frames... someone who can draw cartoon animation should be enough.

Writer - FILLED. Someone who can expand on the mere shell of a plot summary I cooked up and turn it into something impressive. Obviously knowledge of the Sam & Max cases is recommended. If the writer can think up a few puzzles, that would be splendid as well, although I can probably think of one or two myself.

Deadline:
No real deadline is set. Work is slow enough as it is!

Comments:
Interested parties either can reply to this thread or contact me via PM. They can tell me my plot is rubbish if they want to - like I say, I can't write to save my life!!

For something like a sinking ship, is it possible to write a script that, in essence, "floods" every room on board in a synchronous manner? That is, filling the rooms with a water graphic in a specific time-frame and way?

Playing around with ideas. Again. I'm thinking of reviving my journalist sprites for use on something like... the Titanic! Do you think this looks appropriate for - say - a second-class passenger?

So I put together two "talkie" portraits of Sam & Max, since I'm sure they'd come in handy for the next person who's eager to make another game. Now I utilized Steve Purcell's original lip-sync illustrations as well as the LucasArts colour palette... I just need a few opinions. Are these a little jittery, or...? Should I have reduced the head bobbing, perhaps?

A thought struck me last night - has anyone yet been able to sufficiently convert a Roland MT-32 sound bank into a General MIDI one?

Pardon me, I might not have made myself clear: is it possible to set the music output to MT-32, somehow put a General MIDI patch in place, so it plays standard MIDI music? What I'm getting at is, could I get one of Sierra's early SCI games to play General MIDI?

["No one would have believed... that slowly, and surely... they drew their plans against us!"]

"No one would have believed... that slowly, and surely... they drew their plans against us!"

The War of the Worlds is being converted into a point-and-click adventure! It's set to be primarily based on the musical album, although I'm hoping to add in a few of the deleted scenes (from the Collector's Edition). As you can see, it's in a very early stage at the moment - that said, the Journalist has all of his directional sprites and talking portrait done, so that's a good sign!

The Earth has been invaded by Martians! Having studied our planet they have landed in preparation to colonise and seize it from the Human race. All is swept before them by their mighty technology and savage "Heat Ray". Huge tripod Fighting Machines stride across the countryside, bringing chaos and slaughter in their wake. Red vegetation takes hold and begins to change the very nature of the land. They feed by capturing people, draining their blood and injecting it into their own circulatory systems!
   Our character, the Journalist, leaves home in search of his fiancée Carrie, travelling through the Home Counties and the deserted streets of London. He must conserve his energies as there are testing times ahead. Every Martian has a life of its own and every event that occurs will eventually affect him, regardless of how far away they are.
The Journalist's strength and state of mind will be affected by everything around him and one shock too many could finish him in one stroke! As time passes the landscape becomes more alien. The slimy vegetation which gives Mars its red appearance takes root, creeping and crawling across the land with living scarlet feelers that ensnare and choke its prey. The Journalist can pull free, but it will sap his energy.
   The Earth belongs to the Martians.... or does it?

A few considerations in design:

• Considering possibly putting in the prelude - or perhaps leave that for the sequel...!?
  
• Am hoping to make a relatively large part of London and the Home Counties explorable.
  
• In regards to the music, well... I'm not a very good MIDI artist, so that's going to be a bit tricky. If I could, I'd ask if someone could compose MIDI tracks (or possibly pseudo-Sound Blaster music!)...
  

Now you'll have to have some patience with me; I'm new at scripting you see, but I think I'm actually getting somewhere with it...

Development Log

17. Jan. 2012
Okay, we're back on track again. Since my last update I drew the cursors in the style of the RTS game, and have started on the opening credits, amongst other things. I also decided to add in the prequel too, as well as maybe a spoof copy protection screen (a first, I think!).
I might get a video too when it's a little further along. And I've written to Sony about using the album music. If they deny permission, I might need to hire some MIDI people, if that's ok.


21. Jan. 2012
Well I've come to a few decisions. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to make a few cutbacks!
Inconsequently, I'm pulling the "Special Collector's Edition" label... I mean, this game it's nothing special, is it!? 
Anyway, until I'm granted the license to use the official music, I'm going to use MIDI after all. Bad news for the composers; I'll have to commission a long list of tracks for this project! The speech will have to be put aside for now too. I imagine it'd be a pain to assemble all those PAMELA sync files an' all!
I suppose you could say this is the floppy-disk edition.