Topics

http://frictionalgames.com/?q=penumbra

Three musical tracks I did for the game:

http://rapidshare.de/files/21410089/sarost.zip.html

 Let's face it - it's extremely hard to tell a story that's 100% original - in the games we make with AGS we all include at least one common/cliched element. I confess I thought "Sar" and "Ambers of Dream" to be based on totally original concepts - till I found THIS list of fantasy cliches:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/8584/stuff/cliche.html

  Now, I shamefully admit "Sar" to be guilty of incorporating following themes from the list:

  - Retelling of Arthurian legends or the Robin Hood story (although in a setting that's not quite typical for this type of story)

  - Fantasy names with too many vowels (Lee-yan-day).

  - Warrior cultures based off of the Samurai or Spartans.

  - Churches based on the medieval Catholic Church but that have a history totally unlike the Catholic Church: 

   
   

  - True feudal societies where the king holds absolute power.

  - No such thing as an atheist in the world; everybody believes in a god/gods

   That would be all for "Sar". Is there anyone else who'd like to admit what cliches he/she had used in their own games?

While scripting action sequence for "Sar", I realised that if I drew the enemy sprites at the same heights and scaled to different sizes, I'd get effect of quasi-3d. But to do so, I'd have to replace built-in AGS animation loop with one of my own making. And I did it.  Not only the technique worked, but proved efficient in scripting custom graphic and/or animation effects without resorting to standard entities of AGS engine, like characters or objects.

  The main principle is that: data about the object we want to draw is stored in a structure that contains information of the object's position, scale, animation frame and other custom properties. This data is in turn accessed by raw draw functions, which perform the rendering. In order for the technique to work, the screen has to be saved with RawSaveScreen method when player enters the room, and refreshed with RawRestoreScreen on the onset of every game cycle.

   What can you do with it? Basically, everything you can imagine. The technique allows to draw, move and animate almost infinite number of objects without having to create them manually in the editor. For example, let's say we want to draw x number of birds, animate them and make them move across the screen. Data for each bird would be then stored in a following structure:

    bird.x
    bird.y //x and y position of bird on the screen
    bird.z  //z parameter, on the basis of which we scale the bird

    bird.frame // the current frame of animation for the bird
    bird.sizex //computed from the z parameter
    bird.sizey //let's say it's equal to bird.sizex*2, so we keep the aspect ratio
   

    Now, after having restored the screen with RawSaveScreen we invoke the RawDrawImageResized and pass number of the sprite that is starting frame of the animation + frame parameter, x,y,sizex and sizey for each bird. To go through all the birds in array, we use the while[] loop. Now, if the birds have different z parameter, they're scaled to different sizes, which creates impression of some of them being closer to the screen than the others. We need, of course, to update each bird's position in each game cycle, and to keep track of the current animation frame, but these are in fact minor problems each AGS user should be able to deal with on his own. I admit that some of the ascpects of the technique are crude and in need of refinement, but this would take a professional programmer - and I'm not one. Tell me, please, what you think about the technique. If you want, I could dump the code from my own game for demonstrative purposes.

[edit by darth]

Story takes place in fictional state, or even Empire - Aettan. Aettan is in a state of crisis after failed war with Tor Haun. Insurgent  movement arise, striving to overthrow thain, or the monarchic ruler of Aettan. Thus the Guard is formed, in order to protect thain and current order. At Teuren is one of the Guard members, currently on trail of Assasin Lodge. As he wanders abadonned, crumbling streets of the city of Wosmanto he learns of the existence of Order - a sectarian organisation, whose members believe the only way to atone sins of Aettan citizens is to be found on the nightmarish planet of Leeyandai, in a place called Sanctuary. Sceptical at first, At Teuren departs from the Guard, joins the Order and embarks on a jorney to Leeyandai.

I will follow this post with some screenshots, demonstrating how poor this game's graphic design is.



You can download it from two separate locations: my own home ftp server (84.40.234.219, account name "public", password "public"), and rapidshare (http://rapidshare.de/files/5642311/Sardemo.zip.html). Play it and tell me if you like it or not.

edit by darth - added in the story from your last post, which shall now remain locked.  Please update this thread with the progress of the game!

edit by The Book Thanks, Darth! Few words about the demo: it takes place in one of the optional storylines - that is, one of the optional side-games that are triggered when At decides to listen to other people stories. This one puts you in shoes of Mar Man, official in Ainmar prison in Toeg (where he meets At Teuren), who once lived in Imperial colony of Mes Wosman. While being brief, the demo demonstrates basic concepts behind "Sar" - non-linear puzzles, inlusion of action sequences, and ability of the player to influence the story - to certain degree - by his own decisions, or by his reactions to situations he encounters. Have fun!

It is only recently that I changed my operation system from WinNT (which forced me to use one of the eariler versions of the AGS) to XP. Everything worked fine, till I decided to put videos in my game - instead of playing the video, game displayed "Video initialisation error: InitRenderToSurface failed" message. The videos, composed in Blender and exported in Windows Media Video 9 codec worked well under WinNT. Does it mean AGS games don't display avi videos when run from XP? Or is it only problem with earlier versions of AGS and the soultion is to switch to a new version?

Feel free to criticise this background image.

... that might or might not appear in "Sar" - although it most probably will.

Imperial fleet before the battle in Erebo Wosman system - the very battle that marked the onset of Empire's decay.



I hope you like it at least a bit

Portrait of character I wanted to appear in "Ambers of Dream".

 "Sar" has monologue-driven narrative. There is a moment in the game when the protagonist, At Teuren, looks at the clerk in Guard headquarters. A monologue follows:
"
I didn't know the guy's name, to me he was just 'the clerk' and nothing more.
Every time I stepped through the narrow door to our humble fortress we exchanged looks; and this exchange carried more meaning than any verbal conversation.
As our looks met, so did our madness; each sprang from different source, each had its own, mute tongue.
Mine was a madness of hunter, hunting its prey down the empty streets.
This was the madness of constant alertness and insomnia.
His kind of madness was the opposite of mine.
It was a madness of infernal stasis; an eternity of motionlessness without a faintest hope for relocation.
This was the madness of constant boredom and insomnia.
Several times a week, these two kinds of damnation met in mute conversation that occured within the evanescent moment when we looked in each others eyes.
How close to each other we were; how alien at the same time. "

I'd like to ask english users to correct any stylistic or grammar mistakes in the monologue.

I don't know if it qualifies...

I made this image using GIMP, in my spare time. Feel free to criticise the picture and insult its author. 

Another project that I probably won't complete, but I'm taking a stab.

Story takes place in fictional state, or even Empire - Aettan. Aettan is in a state of crisis after failed war with Tor Haun. Insurgent  movement arise, striving to overthrow thain, or the monarchic ruler of Aettan. Thus the Guard is formed, in order to protect thain and current order. At Teuren is one of the Guard members, currently on trail of Assasin Lodge. As he wanders abadonned, crumbling streets of the city of Wosmanto he learns of the existence of Order - a sectarian organisation, whose members believe the only way to atone sins of Aettan citizens is to be found on the nightmarish planet of Leeyandai, in a place called Sanctuary. Sceptical at first, At Teuren departs from the Guard, joins the Order and embarks on a jorney to Leeyandai.

I will follow this post with some screenshots, demonstrating how poor this game's graphic design is.

Leeyandai's orbit:



Toeg's cityline:



Leeyandai's surface:



Street in Toeg:

The story is a bit complicated... It involves a mysterious archeological finding in Russia, death of a russian scientist who made the discovery,  demise of a polish high school student beaten to death by his colleagues... What is the link between them? Click on this link to see screen captures for the game:
Game's page

Hi,

This is demo of a game I destroyed in a fit of self hate - the game was destroyed, the demo remained. I hope you enjoy it.

You can download it (3,5 MB) from

http://yanna.freehosting.net/Totaskalan.html

Don't hesitate to express your opinion. I'm quite used to being criticised...