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Hey all. Just thought I'd show some of the art I've been working on for "Terra Incognito", an AGS Horror adventure I've been working on in my spare time over the last two years. The game itself is far from finished, due to time restraints and hectic working hours, but luckily I'll be able to continue with it again soon.



This is a wallpaper featuring two of the main characters, Sarah and Alex.



A still from one of the story cutscenes.

Ah, it's been years since I've had any time to actually get onto the forums or work on my adventure games.

I work for an Indie games company now, and we're in the final stages of marketing for our first 3D Platform game release (A game which took us about 3 years to develop), and our next project is much smaller and less ambitious, so I'll finally have some time to work on my AGS adventure "Terra Incognito" again.

So, hopefully, I'll be on here a bit more often again.

Heck, I missed being here!

Also, I'm planning on resurrecting The Arcana Magazine, so if anyone is interested in contributing, drop me a line.

[In the Darkness, Dreaming]

This is the first part of the prologue to my second novel set in the fantasy world of Darnathia.

Please tell me what you guys think so far.

PS. Quite a long post.

In the Darkness, Dreaming


   Tiny creatures scuttled into the darkness of the old mine as the trio passed them.
   Creatures with eyes unaccustomed to light fled toward the darkest corners as the blinding light of the party's torches stung their eyes.  A small rat-like animal was overcome with curiosity and sneaked closer to the strange intruders, its elongated nose twitching at the alien smells emanating from the two-legged creatures.  It shrieked and ran as a purple bolt of energy exploded next to it.  The tiny critter fled into the darkness, its fur smoking slightly.
   â€˜That wasn't very nice,' Tulip scowled at her mage companion.  ‘What did the poor thing ever do to you?'
   The mage sneered down at the halfling woman.  ‘We've been walking through these cursed mine tunnels for hours now, and still no sign of the five sigils. I think Kara's map is a fake.'
   The raven-haired Kara spun on her heel and poked him hard in the chest, a sneer distorting her delicate features.  ‘We didn't ask you along on this expedition, Caldon.  You virtually forced us to take you along, so don't come complaining to us about not having that treasure yet!'
   Caldon took a step backward, clearly bewildered by Kara's reaction, and bumped the diminutive Tulip right off her feet.  The halfling landed hard on her rear-end and grumbled something unintelligible up at the mage.  Caldon, a look of pure consternation on his face, reached down to help her up, but she slapped his hand away.
   â€˜No, thank you,' she grumbled. ‘I can manage quite well by myself.'  She pushed herself off the ground and shoved past the mage, clearly incensed.
   Caldon threw his hands up in defeat.  ‘Look, I'm sorry, alright?  It's just that I'm tired, I'm hungry and it feels like we're walking around in circles.  This place is a veritable maze, and I still haven't seen anything on that map that seems familiar.  I think you can understand that I'm feeling a tad irritable at the moment.'
   Kara sighed as she studied the mage.  He did seem sincere in his apology.
   â€˜I can understand how you feel, Caldon,' she said.  ‘We all feel like that at the moment, but that's still no reason to take out your frustrations on us.'
   â€˜Or defenseless little critters, for that matter,' Tulip piped up from somewhere up ahead.
   Caldon sighed.  ‘Are you sure that map is authentic?'  He looked at Kara almost pleadingly.
   â€˜I'm certain. After I found it in those ruins I took it straight to Myron.  He verified that this map was almost as old as these mines,' she said, unrolling the yellowed parchment.
   â€˜It could be an ancient prank, for all we know,' Caldon said, shaking his head.
   An angry retort died in the back of Kara's throat as Tulip suddenly called back to them excitedly.  ‘I think I've found something!  Hand me the map.'
   Kara and Caldon glanced at each other briefly, then rushed over to where Tulip stood staring at a spot on a wall.  Kara handed Tulip the map and stared at the wall, puzzled.  There was nothing there.
   â€˜What, exactly, are we looking at?' Caldon asked, straining to see some pattern on the rock.
   â€˜At this, Numskull,' Tulip said and traced her finger over an area on the wall.  After a short moment Kara and Caldon could discern the shape of a dragon carved into the rock.
   â€˜By Darnath's beard,' Caldon gasped.  ‘Well I'll be a Gwalrath's bib.'
   â€˜Maybe you will,' Tulip grinned up at him.  She pointed to an identical dragon symbol on the map.  ‘According to this, the dragon marks the entrance to a side passage.  From there it's only a short ways to our treasure.  Now we've just got to figure out how to open it.'
   Caldon stepped forward and traced the dragon carving with his finger as he chanted words of power under his breath.  A faint blue glimmer formed in the carving and he stepped back, turning to his companions.
   â€˜It's a magical ward,' he smiled at them.  ‘It's a good thing I came along, else the two of you would've struggled to get this thing open until next Helmfast.'
   Tulip rolled her eyes.  ‘Just get on with it, will you?'
   â€˜Why, certainly,' Caldon grinned as he placed his hands on the wall.  He closed his eyes and began to chant.  The blue glimmer in the carving slowly started to change to a deep red and the wall started to vibrate under his hands.  The vibration abruptly stopped, and Caldon stopped chanting.  He took a step back and shook his head in puzzlement.
   Nothing happened.
   â€˜Well done, Mister Mage,' Tulip glared up at him.  ‘You've miraculously succeeded in keeping it closed.'
   Caldon was dumbstruck.  The ward was a simple magelock, and not a very skillfully woven one at that.  A yearling apprentice could open it with the least effort.  Yet he had failed.
    Kara looked at the wall before her, then turned to Caldon.  ‘Try it again,' she said.
    Caldon shook his head, still disheartened by his failure.  He stepped hesitantly back toward the wall.  Before he could do anything, however, there was a loud grinding sound from somewhere beyond the wall, followed by a hiss.  The wall shook slightly, then started sliding upward.  The stench of death and decay assailed the companions' nostrils long before the secret door had even completed its ascent.  The door came to a grinding halt and the companions stared at each other.
    A deathly silence hung over the area.
    The companions stood staring into the gloom beyond the newly formed doorway.
    ‘Well, shall we?' Kara asked nervously.
    A deep growl came from somewhere down the passage and Caldon turned toward Kara.
    ‘By all means. After you.'

Well, some time last year I created a private detective adventure game using RPG Maker 2000 graphics.  I didn't, however, finish the game since I didn't think hardcore adventure gamers would enjoy playing an adventure game using RPG graphics.

That is, until I saw Catacombic. It uses RPG graphics, and still turns out to be a great game, so I decided to continue with my PI game.

The game sees you as Sam Martin, a private investigator who is down on his luck.  Sam has a month to make some money or he loses his PI business. One night, while having a somber time with his good friend Jack Daniels, a beautiful woman enters his office. She hires him to find out who has been stalking her for the last two months.
Sam gets invited to her family's mansion, but a few minutes after Sam arrives the girl is murdered in the study, behind a locked door, with no other exits from the room.
Can Sam solve the case of the locked room corpse?


Here are some screenshots:






That ugly textbox GUI has gotta go!

All-in-all the game is about 80% complete, but I want to do a few changes and tweaks, so the game should be available some time in the next 2 weeks.

Also, I'm looking for some good film-noir style music that I can work off to create the soundtrack to the game, since I'm not too good at that specific style of music. But I've got to learn sometime. If anybody knows where I can get some midis which fall into this genre I'll be very thankful.

Ok, I'll say it again. I'm no 2D artist. I suck at drawing and don't know much about drawing techniques.
But anyway, I decided to try my hand at sprite art just to see what comes out.

This little dino guy is the end result.
I wanted to add scales to his body, but when I did, it came out really bad.
Anybody got any idea how I can add scales to his skin quickly and easily?



Please, any C&C appreciated.

PS. Excuse the white blotches, they appeared due to anti-aliasing when I resized the image.

   Hey all.

   Just thought I'd let you know that The Arcana's 2nd issue has been released, with reviews of two AGS games namely Escape from Evergreen Forest and Two of a Kind.

   You can download it at: http://www.freehostz.com/darctyde/arcana.htm

 Hey all.

Today I signed up with another gaming forum. Almost immediately after my first post the flaming started. I got treated like a bloody kid who didn't belong there.

This is not the first time this has happened either. Various other forums I have joined over the years seem to have the mentality that all newbies are either idiots or little kids who have no clue what they're talking about.

I'm 27. I've been a forum junkie for almost 5 years now.

The worst is that most of the time I get treated like an idiot by people very much younger than me.

Luckily there are great forums where newbies are treated like people, like here in the AGS Forums and over at the AD forums.

Sorry for ranting, I just needed to get this off my chest.

Has anybody else ever experienced this?

Does anybody know where I can buy Phantasmagoria Stagefright for a price that won't break the bank? I've searched the most well-known sites, and I can't seem to find it anywhere (except for E-bay, but PayPal is not supported where I am).

If anybody knows where I can get my hands on it (where I don't need to use PayPal), please let me know. I've even advertised in some local newspapers for a second-hand copy of either of the two Phantasmagoria games, but no luck.

Any help will be appreciated.

Ok. I've decided to remake all my rooms with a new shading technique.

Here's the old shading:



and here's the new:


As you can see I've also fixed up the perspective. All that still needs to be done is to add the brick patterns on the walls and the candleholder shadows on the floor.

Please tell me which technique looks the best.

Hey all.
I've been trying to remember the name of an old arcade game for more than a year now.

The game featured you as a guy in a red spacesuit with boosters in his boots for higher jumps.
You could choose between various planets which you could explore. The last planet was something that looked like the death star from star wars.
I played this game in the late 80s/early 90s at a shop near where we used to live.

Please, this is torturing me. Can anybody help me out?

This is the main character of the game Ravensmere. I thought that I needed to update his character graphics a bit, so I redid him.

NOTE: The shirt is supposed to be torn.



And also a better view of him:

Greetings, fellow musicians. Are you ready?
Well, here it is again, the music contest continues.
The theme for this contest is as follows:

It is deep in a peaceful forest on a clear summer day. All around everything seems peaceful and serene. But unknown to the unwary traveller, a group of bandits waits, hidden in the trees, for the next mark to come by.

Any music format is permited, and there are no other additional rules to the contest. The entries will be judged on how close you get to the original idea of the theme.

Good luck to you all, and have fun!

I have decided to trash the old dull midi and have created a new MP3 for the main title theme of Ravensmere.
You can get it at http://www.freehostz.com/darctyde/Ravens2.htm right at the bottom of the page.
Have a listen and please tell me what you think.

Hey there.
Just wanted to let everybody know about our Indie Gaming E-zine, The Arcana. It is a PDF magazine for people who make Independant games and the people who play them.
This includes games made in AGS.
Inside you'll find reviews of indie games, Tutorials, Previews, Short stories and gaming humour.
To take a look at our first issue, get it at http://www.freehostz.com/darctyde/arcana.htm

Hope to hear from you guys soon,
Vassago

Hi all.
I just wanted to post some of my wallpapers I made using Photoshop and ask your opinion on them. Take note that I am a 3D artist, not 2D, so some of these might be quite horrible.

Well, let the torture begin.


This is the first PhotoShop wallpaper I made. The picture in the back is a scan from the Dungeon Hack Manual which I coloured (It was originally just a line drawing in black and white). The swords were also made in Photoshop.




This one is a wallpaper I created for our software group, Darctyde. Everything in it was done with Photoshop, no external imports.




This is Magus Mundi. I was playing around a lot with Photoshop's texture and extrude functions, as you can see.




This one is one of my favorites. This is Serefea Mistborne, one of the characters from my fantasy novels I wrote. The scene was rendered in Bryce 5. The sword, Lensflare, bracer, shoulder armor, magic glow and text was done in Photoshop.




Finally, this is Spirits, a photo composition I made (I'm the ghostly figure on the right).



Well, that's it for now. I might post some more at a later date.

Regards,
Vassago.

This is the main theme (For the time being) for my new AGS game "Ravensmere". It's not one of my best, but I'd like to hear what you guys think.


Ravensmere Main Theme

You are Alex Connor, a 25 year old guy, who along with his friend Aldon Roberts and the psychic Sarah Saunders have formed a paranormal studies group.
After going on a solo case in England, Alex returns home to find a distressing message from Sarah on his answering machine.
Alex tries to contact Sarah and Aldon without any luck. Soon he learns that while he was abroad, the other part of the team went to go investigate strange happenings in a town called Coven Falls.
He soon discovers that there's more to the sleepy town of Coven Falss then meets the eye, and uncovers dark secrets of the past, and the sinister history of Ravensmere Manor, an old 19th century mansion on the outskirts of town.

This game is the Adventure sequel to my 1999 RPG "Ravensmere: The first Terror".

Status Report:
- graphics 70%
- puzzles 40%
- scripting 75%
- music/sound 50%









Just some character previews for the game.



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(UPDATE)
Hey all.

Just wanted to let you know that the game will be on hold for a while, since I upgraded my computer and my current version of 3D Studio Max doesn't seem to like AMD processors.

So, yeah. I'll have to pause the game production until I can get 3DS working on the new system. (I can't afford to buy a newer version of 3DS).

Will keep you all posted on when the project will continue.

Hey guys.
I'm currently working on a game that implements a journal. The main idea is a Journal GUI which pops up after you click the Journal button on the main GUI.
What I can't seem to figure out is a way for the Journal GUI to only show the relevant information after you have gotten the information from a source in the game.
I have all my variables set up, but can't figure out how to display only the relevant messages on the GUI. Do I use labels?
Please, if someone could help me with this, I would appreciate it very much.