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Topics - Mr Underhill

#1
Hey everyone, and welcome to a shameless self-plugging thread about this game we're making called Gibbous.



Gibbous is a classic 2d point and click adventure, and yes it's a Lucas Arts-like game. It also is, as the subtitle so unsubtle-y gives it away, a loving spoof of everything Lovecraftian, and then some.

The Story

You get to play as two characters (well, technically three):

Don R. Ketype



Grizzled, jaded badass private detective Ketype is hired by mysterious patrons to seek out the dreaded Necronomicon, and that's how the game starts out. How bad could things go, really? After all, it aint nothin' but a book of some sorts… Don will cater to your noir needs, including describing how the rain pattered down on the concrete like a neurotic jazz band percussionist, sometimes without anyone around to appreciate his poetic similes.

Buzz Kerwan



Buzz is no more than a mild mannered cust... erm, librarian putting in hours at the Miskatonic University Library to pay for his belated tuition (he's in his 30s, but that's cool, man, y'know?). He accidentally stumbles upon the Necronomicon, and also accidentally turns his cat, Kitteh, into a…

Kitteh



...well, a grouch, really. Kitteh is REALLY pissed off at Buzz inadvertently yanking her from her serene, illuminated state - everyone knows cats are buddhists. She doesn't want to worry about stuff like death cults seeking out the very object that personified her; all she wants is to go back to a worry-free life of sleep and kitty treats.  Thus, Buzz and Kitteh set out to find someone, anyone who can help reverse Kitteh's transformation.



Ok, ok, what about Cthulhu?

This story doesn't take place, as you'd probably expect, in Lovecraft's 1920s. It's a tale of an alternative present where death cults are popping out everywhere, all in competition to find the Necronomicon and awaken Cthulhu, a lot of them just to prove that THEY're the real cultists, and the rest are just a bunch of posers.

About the game...

As I mentioned before, we're going for that old school point and clicky goodness. All characters are fully animated, mostly frame by frame, but also combined with some cutout animation; all backgrounds are handpainted (which takes up a lot of  time, but that's the way to go as far as we're concerned).

The game will feature all known traits of the genre, and one I'm particularly determined to enforce: almost every possible combination of two items, whether in inventory or in the game world, will result in anywhere from one to five unique responses, so no more doing different actions just to have the same grating line thrown back at you. Of course, that takes a hell of a lot of writing, and makes voice acting a harder goal to reach, but, again, it's something we really don't want to compromise on.

We're developing the game in Unity.

The influences!

Gibbous is a love letter to HP Lovecraft, Tim Schafer, Alfred Hitchcock, Steve Purcell,Ron Gilbert, Karl Pilkington and some other folks. Not that we're big on sending love letters to dead people. 

The team!

The team consists of three people: myself as a writer, character & background artist, secondary animator, game designer and music composer; a main animator who also does sfx and additional music, and a programmer. We're based in Tirgu Mures, Transylvania, Romania.

Coming soon!

Gibbous is expected to have a fully functional vertical slice demo some time this coming spring, and we definitely want to Kickstart the project, since you can probably tell it will take some finances to get a game like this going smoothly.

So that's that, looking forward to your feedback and I'll be happy to  answer any and all of your questions, as long as they're not about programming stuff  or winning lottery numbers.
#2
Hey everyone! I'm new around here, so, hey everyone!

There's this thing that's been on my mind, and I figured the best place to ask was this forum where everyone is into, well, adventure games - it's about object/character interaction in a 2d point and click adventure.
Me and my small crew of other 2 are working on such a game (not in AGS,though), and I've always been interested, with each new adventure game played, on how they'd implement the look at / use stuff. Verb coin seemed at the time of CMI to be THE way to go, but then I think the height of streamlining (and not over-simplification) was the one click look, one click use. But therein lies the question: which is best suited for which?

I'll explain in more detail. In our game, there are lots and lots of observation that the character you're playing is making on the stuff he examins (usually 2, but up to 4). The game's a lucas-y spoof of Lovecraftian horror stuff, so yes, all the feedback you're getting from your character examining stuff goes towards "the funnies". Now, in most games left click is asigned to using, right click to examining. But when you do that - and the example that comes to mind is Primordia - I think 9 times out of 10 the player won't bother to right click, and will go straight to left clicking, since it's apparent that the look at mechanic is mostly optional (even though in that particular game, too, it's essential here and there).

So I'm pretty hellbent on going the other way around: left click examine, right click use. Except I haven't seen that implemented yet, and that's what I'm here to ask you guys: what do you think? Are there other games doing this? Is it completely retarded and forcing the player to look at stuff? (well, examining is essential in our game). It kind of makes sense to me, since examining will tell the player whether it's worth bothering to right click, rather than just going ahead and 'using' everything and seeing what works and what doesn't. Then again, I don't remember seeing this in other games (granted, I haven't played everything out there...).I'm real curious to see what people with experience in point and clicks think, whether it's from a player or a developer point of view, or both. Thanks in advance!
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