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Hey forum peeps. For my reboot of Dark Lake, I've implemented a completely custom interface based around the Broken Sword model (ie intelligent cursors). This is all well and good, with liberal use of the rep_ex function, but now I've run into problems with a custom inventory.

When I select an inventory object, the cursor doesn't change to the object in question. Handle Inventory Clicks in Script it set to False, which was the first thing I checked. I looked through the basic game template to see how Inventories are handled, but couldn't find anything useful. I also figured it was something to do with my rep_ex, which repeatedly checks what the cursor is over, and changes to the appropriate mode. I tried (player.ActiveInventory == null) before checking whether to change cursor mode, but no joy.

Can anyone help?

I've been working on the interface for my reboot of Dark Lake, and I've got a fairly basic system up and running already. It's based on Revolution's interface (BASS, Broken Sword 1 & 2, etc...).

At the moment each different type of interaction changes the cursor to a default action: Pick up objects, interact with hotspots and talk to people, whilst the right mouse button looks at whatever. However, I'd like to make it slightly more advanced so the default interaction can be changed at runtime like the theodolite in BS 2, where only after distracting the surveyor guy can you pick it up rather than interact with it. I looked into custom properties but they can't be changed at runtime currently, if ever.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Hey community!

Those of you who were around in '07 may remember my project Welcome to Dark Lake. I thought it was a promising project and there was plenty of interest in the forums, but due to more important things like college getting in the way it slipped into the realms of development hell.

Well, summer is coming and with my months off Uni (the college work paid off it seems) I want to restart the project. I had a look at it a few days ago and was deeply shocked at how terrible my programming was, so I'm starting from scratch.

Also I went on a classic adventure game bender and read a book on Lucasarts which in no way helped matters x)

I've had a browse through a forums, and couldn't find anything on this.
I was wondering if it would be possible to change the colour of the black outline around fonts. I know you can do something like the credits of Cirque de Zale and have an outline font used as a standard font and change the colour noramlly, but that leaves transparency where the regular, un-outlined font would be.

What got me thinking about this was looking at ghost sprites, like LeChuck from SoMI and such, and how the effect was created by having blue outlines and black/dark fills. It would be cool to extend that effect to the character's speech.

For my current A2 Graphics project I persuaded my teacher to let me make an adventure game. The theme of the game is "treasure", and I was going to try and go for an MI style humour-adventure. But anyways, I digress.

I decided to use hand-drawn backgrounds - coloured in Photoshop - for this project, and I thought I'd post a test room up here, for all of you to ponder over.



basically, I started off with a pencil sketch, and because all my inking pens ran out, inked it in Photoshop and then coloured it. The white space is where the Lucasarts style GUI goes (thanks to Proskito, of course )

Note the portrait. It's become kind of a thing with my projects.

[Welcome to Dark Lake]

Welcome to Dark Lake
- A psychological mystery adventure game -
By Rob "Milo87" Westbrook

STORY
After the suspicious death of our mother, I, Ethan Scott, and my sister Rachel, launched seperate investigations into the cause of our mother's demise.
Disappointed by constant dead ends, I eventually stopped looking for answers, whilst my sister, angered by my giving-up, continued to search for answers.

That was one year ago.

Since then, I've started looking for resolutions to other people's problems with my own PI agency. That is, until my sister turned up with news of a mysterious trip our mother made two weeks before she died. A trip to the small town of Dark Lake.

Despite this new revelation, I refused to get caught up in it again, fearing further disappointment. My sister went to Dark Lake alone.

Two days later, I got a phone call. It was Rachel, desperately afraid for her life.

Now Dark Lake is my destination. I may have lost my mother, but I wasn't going to lose my sister too.

SCREENSHOTS

Your journal updates constantly with clues and pieces of useful information


A scene from the introduction sequence

GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS
-An involving storyline featuring investigation, puzzle solving and plenty of mystery.
-Journal system keeps track of progress through the plot.
-Diverse and colourful characters.
-High quality true-colour graphics are 320x240 resolution.

DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS
Story: 98%
Graphics: 90%
Scripting: 80%
Sound/Music: 50%

PRODUCTION DIARY
   19/01/07: First post. Three rooms completed. Fully implimented custom menu system.
   Main character graphics completed aside from some quick animations.

   11/02/07: Production on hold whilst I'm out of the country for a week. Almost all of the puzzles finished, and all of the spriting/backgrounding is done up to the finished bits. Current room count (including menu and intro): 19

   19/02/07: I'm back in the country, so production continues. Just the final push now before testing can begin.

   21/04/07: Added a dream sequence to flesh out the story a bit, and finished all but two or three backgrounds. General bug fixes through alpha-testing.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Please be aware that the production team for this game totals 1: me. Because of this, announcing a final release date would not be appropriate at this time. However, I do fully intend to complete this game. I have plans to split up the story into about three episodes, which will speed up the production time as well as put less pressure on me to create a full-length and enjoyable adventure game in one go. I hope you look forward to future updates.

DEMO NOW AVAILABLE:
 Download