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If you're going for a minimalist gui approach (to sort of simulate a movie I guess) then perhaps you should consider a different aspect ratio.

A widescreen, letterbox look always seems to work very well with static camera adventure games.

It gives a cinematic look and gets around the problem that rooms are almost never cubes.

This is really good advice, thank you!
On a mildly related note, I just finished part I of the McCarthy Chronicles and it was awesome!  Make another one!

I was thinking the ceilings were disproportionately high.  The doors are that high because I wasn't sure if I would be able to make the character shrink ever so slightly the further they moved away from the camera to match the door height farther away or what.

Yeah, depends on the project for me too.  for the supernatural horror/mystery I'm working on now, it's the Necks "Hanging Gardens" which is a great song (and at an hour long, perfect for those long sessions of work if you hit the repeat button in iTunes!)

[STORY:]

First of all!

Apologies if this is the wrong place to put this.  I didn't have enough content to post in the "In Production" forum, and I'm not looking JUST for C&C (though by all means if you have some, go nuts, all is welcome), so I wasn't sure about the Critic's Lounge so...here we be.  Mods, if this is wrong or bad, please feel free to move or destroy at your discretion.

Now, with that out of the way...

I have never made an adventure game before, but love them dearly.  I've drawn casually for decades, but I'm nowhere near pro level, and I've only just recently gotten into using sprites and pixels as a medium (as is evident by my using a Phoenix Wright sprite as a guideline for my PC), and I've never animated anything in my life.  I've programmed flash and html websites before, and briefly fiddled with an RPG maker (but not THE RPG Maker) ages ago. 

What that all boils down to is, I'm completely green at this so ANY advice or insight or wisdom you have is welcome.

To the game itself:



STORY: Aloysius Lupone is a professional investigator working in San Francisco.  When he's contacted by Mira Voll, the wife of world-famous artist Eric Voll, to find her missing husband, he's all too eager to take the case.  however, upon arriving at the Voll's posh San Francisco Victorian style home, Lupone finds more than he bargained for: a handful of people looking to capitalize, investigate, or insure Mr. Voll's disappearance. 

Things take a turn for the strange when one of the house guests is found horrifically slaughtered, and everyone is a suspect.  Worse, the house itself becomes mysteriously sealed, with Lupone and the other guests unable to even touch the doors or windows, and the people on the street seem to take no notice of them through the windows. 

As night descends on the house, the bodies continue to pile up, and a feeling of unearthly dread begins to pervade every room and hall, Lupone is left with only his wits to save himself and the survivors from a preternatural terror that threatens them all.

PBBBTTTTT

Okay here's what I got so far (all on paper): dialogue, characters motivations, maps, story arc, and character designs.  I'm having a real problem coming up with puzzles.  I'm a writer (not professionally, baaaw T_T) so the story and dialogue aren't an issue, but coming up with puzzles to naturally insert into the narrative is a stumbling block.  the house is going to be reasonably large, and locked door puzzles are a no brainer, as well as finding clues to what is going on, but beyond that *shrug*

I've got a template room that can be adjusted to fit various needs (hence the weird light placing and sparseness, those are each on their own separate layer in PS so they can be duplicated and moved as needed) and the forward facing sprite for Lupone:


So I guess have at it.  Questions, comments, clever insults, crits, whatever.  Anything and everything is welcome except outright idiocy.  I've got that angle covered, thank you.

Sad that I have to wait, but I'm sure it's worth it!  Looking forward to whatever you have to show us!   

What happened to Wretcher?  I was really looking forward to the full version. Please come back, Wretch <:[

This looks pretty cool!  And you say it took you 9 days?  That's pretty slick dude.  I'll give it a shot.

Fair enough.
EDIT- on a side note, I love how the folk across the pond say "maths."  Unlike us grunting, savage yanks.

I know but I got to see how it looks. Also if I see this it might give me a reason to push my self to learn how to use maya.

Push yourself to do something small first.  You've yet to actually complete anything so throwing more things on your plate is a pretty bad idea.  But hey, whatever.  Can't wait for the next PMQ game that'll never take off.

On topic: that's pretty freaking sweet.  3D programming is beyond my limited ken of abilities, but I'm looking forward to the things other more tech-savvy people will produce with this!

That's McDonald's.
Also, game looks awesome and will likely kick a bunch of ass.  Keep up the awesome work!

All right I'm washing my hands of this rubbish. Gonna go peruse some real games.

I wonder how fleshed out any of those games are. It sounds like you have a lot of very shallow ideas (largely based around somebody else's, namely, Square's) instead of a few good, original ones.  And if you're telling me you can't create something, I'd say you have no business creating anything.  I mean, if it were something really specific, yeah i get that.  not everybody can write a good mystery, or wants to pen a fantasy, but if you ask me to write a long/short/epic horror story, or a horror story that has nothing at all to do with previous horror stories I've written, I can do that.  

Saying that you can't write anything self-contained, that you can only create on the grand or epic scale, is a serious shortcoming and weakness, and show the immaturity of your ability.  That, or your unwillingness to let go of what you have already cobbled together.

I know all about team Ivalice, how Vagrant Story, FF12, FF Tactics, Tactics Advance, and a few other bits all take place on the same planet.  You using that as some excuse is just that:  you're making an excuse.  If you're honestly telling me that you cannot create anything outside of the one world you've made, then I'm telling you that you're never going to grow as a creator.  You're never going to improve, or expand your creative horizons.  you'll be in your forties wondering why nobody wants to play in the one world you've made.

Stephen King once wrote that sometimes you need to "Murder you darlings."  What that means is that you may love an idea, adore it, weep over the thought of losing it, but sometimes it just isn't good.  You need to let it go, let it die, and move on.  Let's be honest, you're world, no matter what you call it, is not original.  you've thrown in other intellectual properties like moogles and Gil, and called it your own setting.  If you keep clinging to that, your "darling" then you're screwed.  

But, if you can manage to let it go, even just for a little while, say a year or two, and do something totally unrelated, then maybe you've got half a chance.

EDIT- Icey, I may be (what I think is) brutally honest and harsh with you, but at least I will be honest.  The third of you that thinks that is somebody from Square is wrong.  If you really want to be the butt of an obvious forum troll, then go for it, but it's just somebody messing with you. 

Yeah but maybe your book was really good and it could have gotten published.Your just listing to people who telling you its good but not what they want I guess.Maybe there could have been that one person who would have really liked your book and would have published it.But you gave up and told yourself you failed but that is because you thought you wasn't getting any were but really you was getting a bit closer to getting your book published.

I may make game then give up on them but some day in my life I always go back in look over them and sometimes I get this jolt to remake it so it will work.PMQ.2 started right after the first pmq but both were bad.But on day I took my USB with me to micro center and plug in my usb and saved the game on one of the computers.I acted as I was looking at ps3 game to buy when a guy came out to the pc.He looked at it and started to play but seemed confused so I went over to help him out.As I showed him how to play we talk(I cant remember what but it was about the game)and he told me he thought it was good but we both agreed it needed some serious work.And now I have a clear view of how the game will work and look.

There's a difference between giving up after not trying hard, and realizing that a project needs to be shelved and moving onto another one to improve your skills.  I've written four complete manuscripts (this includes taking them through the editing process, writing a synopsis, query letter, etc) with the smallest being something like 200 some odd pages, and the longest being over 400.  I submitted each manuscript to 30+ agents.  If I wasn't getting any letters of interest by then, I shelved it.  I still have them lying around, but there's no doubt that what I'm doing now is of higher quality.  and if I'm honest with myself (and I am), what I was writing in high school really wasn't professional material.  At it's best, I'd say it was on par with extremely well written fanfiction (which is to say it was still pretty bad, but it had a coherent plot, legible spelling and grammar, and other basic components).  In retrospect, I'm really quite happy I didn't get those things published because looking back, they're rather embarassing.

The mentality that you should just "keep trying no matter what" is a horrible one to have.  Because yes, there is the chance somebody will show interest.  That still doesn't mean it's good.  Unlike you, I do not simply throw up my hands and say "This is hard, i don't get it," and then begin a new project.  I learn from my screw ups and carry them over into something new, instead of beating my head against the same pile of stale ideas over and over again.  That's how people improve.  You screw up, you fail, you fall short, you take what you learned and apply it to another project.  You don't just stay put and keep tinkering with the same thing endlessly.  that's crazy.

Several people in here have told you to try something new.  You've replied "Well I have other stories in the same world."

No.  Fuck that world.  Try something NEW.  something that has nothing to do with Square, or PMQ, or the world PMQ takes place in, or anything related to the characters you've made.  NEW.  Unrelated and original.  force your brain to work on its own instead of piggybacking on the works of other, more talented people. 

And as an aside, I find it really, really dumb that you went and took your game to a store or computer cafe and pretended it was just something you "found."  That's incredibly lame.  If it's yours, own up to it.  I have written some supershitty piles of waste in my time, but they are MY piles of waste.  I'm not going to go to Barnes & Noble with a copy of my book I printed off at Kinko's and read it in a chair and try to show it off to somebody.  "Oh my I found this new book just lying here Mr. Stranger.  what do you think of it?"

Own it dude. 

Exactly.  You gave up.  You've never completed anything.  And going as you have, you never will.

I understand the inclination of youth and big dreams.  Shit, when I was in high school, I wanted my stories to get picked up by Random House and sell Harry Potter numbers of books.  But before i even let myself dream that huge, I actually finished a book.  I did research on literary agents, the submission process, writing query letters, and so on, and got used to the idea that I was going to fail.  And fail I did.  Over, and over, and over again.  But at some point, I think I was in my early college years, the bland rejection letters started to have personal feedback.  Like "Good concept, but the narrative seems disjointed" and so on. 

Now, twelve years later, I still haven't published a book.  But I've had some big names give me some very gratifying compliments, invitations to submit future work, and I've won several contests, and had a handful of short stories published here and across the pond, and online. 

So there's nothing wrong with dreaming big, and having pie-in-the-sky aspirations, so long as you are willing to work towards them.  You don't, or can't, appear to be able to do that work.  you're rebooting a project that was never finished, blathering about DLCs and alternate stories in the same world and blah blah blah, and you haven't done anything.  You're dreaming instead of working and it shows in the pisspoor quality of the meager scraps you do manage to produce. 

All that still boils down to is "I've started many projects and completed none."  Maybe you should actually, y'know, FINISH something before you start bragging about how it's going to be better than the other AGS games, or how it's going to get you in good with Square.

You don't need to start over with your games, you need to try an entirely new direction. Try making a game that has nothing to do with Final Fantasy or PMQ, or even JRPGs. Instead, make a game about something completely different, like the quest of a guy to get ready for a big date. A small game in which you can practice puzzle design and structure instead of trying to make an empty epic. If you can make an actual short, but complete, game that has nothing to do with your previous games or Square, then I won't think you are a total abomination and worthless parasite that has latched onto this community.

This.  What little I know of PMQ is that it's a laughable, unoriginal steal from something better (Square's body of work).  It shows no imagination or skill.  Don't reboot it (especially since you've yet to actually make anything worth rebooting), trash it.  It's junk.  Start small.  See if you can actually complete a small project before you try to take on some unwieldy faux-epic that has it's foundation built on ripped-off ideas and tropes.  As ddq said, if you can do that, maybe you aren't a useless hack.

So what you're saying is "No, I've never had the ability or endurance to complete a single one of my projects."
Man, if you can't even stick with it, why should anybody else?

EDIT- and I don't know how I missed this, but are you actually trying to draw some comparison between your work and Yoshitaka Amano's on the first page?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Your style compares as much to his as a pile of runny dog shit compares to a five course meal at a renowned restaurant.  Get over yourself dude.

Common sense doesn't have a damn thing to do with the future because things change.

And unless your level of skill, intelligence, talent, and maturity change drastically (by several orders of magnitude), your future with PMQ is painfully obvious.  And common sense has plenty to do with the future.  Yes it's maleable, but if I show up to an NFL recruiter's office with a broken leg, zero experience, and start shooting my mouth off like I'm the next God's Gift, common sense tells me they're going to throw me out on my ass.  You're talking about the future like it's a lottery machine, and if you just keep hoping, you'll get lucky.  That isn't how it works.  What you want takes amazing talent, skill, connections, an understanding of the industry, and YEARS of hard work and yes, some luck.  Currently, you have none of those, so common sense is all I need to see PMQ's future in the professional sector.

Dream all you like, but with what you've shown us here, all PMQ will ever be is just that: a dream.  

EDIT- I mean, I know you've posted production threads for at least three or four of these games.  Have you ever completed ONE?  A full game, start to finish, edited it, distributed it, gotten any reviews from indie game review sites?  anything?  If yes, link to them, and I'll back off a bit.  Otherwise you're just hot air and bullshit.

EDIT2- also, go back and read your quote.  "Common sense doesn't have a damn thing to do with future because things change."  How stupid are you?  You think common sense, rational thought, and logical thinking doesn't affect the future?  Like you just don't need those things?  That they aren't important?  The reason why Squeenix will never in a million years even acknowledge your abortion of a game's existence is BECAUSE of common sense.  Any fool could look at what you've produced and see it's going to flop based on common sense.  The fact that you can't proves you don't have any.  Have fun failing over and over and over again and not learning anything from it.

Common sense will also tell.  It's like I can see the future.

You won't win.  I mean, there are few certainties in life besides death and taxes, but I can now safely add "Icey getting his PMQ game adopted by Square-Enix as it currently exists and with his current level of skill and ability" to the list.

And as for those people content to just use AGS, the vast majority of the people on these boards making games, who do not have psychotic misguided notions of greatness, are about a thousand times more talented than you'll ever be kiddo.  Browse this section of the forums.  I did.  On the first page of this one section of these forums, pretty much every single thread displayed a game that was better made than yours.  Often, by incredible margins.  

And let's say the seventh sign of the apocalypse appears and the execs at Square go batshit loco, and decide to commit professional suicide and agree to buy, and promote your game.  That's no guarantee it will be popular.  Look at this board!  This is a tiny, insignificant portion of the video game enthusiast market, and your games are almost universally reviled and mocked.  And you're letting people have it for free!  You really think anybody's gonna wanna spend money on your shit?  Really?  Based on what?  Your friends in the cafeteria telling you it's so awesome?  Sure thing buddy.  I'm sure it'll be a big seller on the playground if everybody can manage to pull themselves away from the swing set and the monkey bars.

And no, while it won't hurt to pursue your ridiculous and moronic fantasy about an enormous company purchasing distribution rights to your sad little game that rips off aesthetic (do you even know what aesthetic means without having to look it up) styles, themes, music, and even their own logo, it does hurt to watch you brag about it, because the rest of us aren't stupid, and we're sick of seeing you post this crap.