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I'd have thought that if you're capable of writing a novelette, you'd be able to write some item descriptions!

I guess you are right. But last time, I left that stuff to the last minute, and it didn't quite work out as I hoped it would.

...But my script is sad and somber, with lots of tension. Should I lighten up the mood a bit, or continue the story as is? What is your opinion?

What you must do is not necessarily make an adventure game funny, but make it ADVENTUROUS. Or at least make the player feel like he's DOING something. Combining stuff. Finding clues. Make the story progress by the sheer force of his intellect.
Whimsical games achieve that by making the badly-designed puzzles feel less frustrating (precisely because of the overall silliness), and by putting gags here and there to keep the player's interest up, at an almost scientific pace (the pace of gags).
You must also keep that pace up. If your story is sad, then DON'T fall into the trap of most "sad" adventure games : no real progression, no real player interaction, no "pace", only a slow sliding down until the sad finale. Building the universe and mood around the player is not enough. Discovering a piece of paper or a personal journal revealing a new part of the backstory is NOT a "puzzle". He must PLAY. All the time. He must be entertained. All the time. He must be surprised. All the time.

This was a very helpful reply. Thanks. I think I know which game you are talking about. I haven't played that many sad adventure games. Even the serious ones that I have played were slightly upbeat.

I agree discovering a journal is not a puzzle in itself. I guess I am a bit guilty of this at the moment. Although my plot is solid, my puzzles are not as strong at the moment. I guess I'll have to fix that in time. There is no guide to good puzzles.

Luckily I guess I don't fall into the earlier pitfall you have mentioned. "Sliding into the sad finale" bit.

I love the darker games with serious stories.  PLEASE continue as is. 
Don't lighten it just for the sake of it - stay true to the story in your head. 

I am glad to hear that there is still market for serious games.


I also agree with the argument about fun. Horror stories can be fun, even though they are quite tense and morbid. As long as I move the audience there is no problem I guess.

Make the game you want to make without giving a rat's ass what's "popular" (even though I think that your assumption there may be flawed to begin with)...

I am also scared that if I go serious people might compare it to other games. For example every major adventure game had its own kind own tone, and theme. But the tone of my game is a cross between Erica Reed, Broken Sword and the Gabriel Knight. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Hi everyone,

I am writing the script of a new adventure game, and I am hoping to create this game one day. But I am a bit concerned. Most adventure lovers love fun and whimsical games. But my script is sad and somber, with lots of tension. Should I lighten up the mood a bit, or continue the story as is? What is your opinion?

If I tell my great ideas online someone might steal it!

Thanks for the advise. AGS seems to have more tutorials it seems. But I want to create a higher resolution game. I am not that good with pixel art. It will be a tough choice it seems.

Hi everyone,

I love making adventure games, but I am stuck with a simple question. Which program is easier to use? I love AGS but the exe file had problems with a projector at my uni. On the other hand the visionaire studio had problems with my graphics card. This year I might create a small adventure game as my final project but first I need to ask for your help. Which program is better or more useful?

Plot and the main character sprites are ready. Please help.

I think that you are right. Not every item requires a poetic description. Maybe they will simply comment on how the items are related to the suspects personality.

The main characters are serious, and the tone is serious. The genre will be strange mix of mystery supernatural thriller. Locations will include: the morgue, crime scene, etc. I am fine with the monologues, and the dialogs, but I am having trouble with item descriptions and the descriptions of the hotspots.
  I haven't even started thinking about the item combinations.

  I guess I have to think harder about my characters personality, as you mentioned.

 Hey everyone,

I will start creating my very own adventure game soon, isn't that exciting?  I am thinking about adapting a novelette of mine. The story is halfway through. But I am running into several issues. I didn't think about item descriptions and such. As a result they feel a bit bland. It will be a serious game, which makes it harder to write these descriptions. Do you have any advice on this? How can I improve my writing for adventure games? There doesn't seem to be any resources online on this.

Hi everyone,

I quite recently started learning AGS, and I have a simple question. I didn't understand how to use the "@OVERHOTSPOT@", code.


This my example code, and I want to change it because it freezes the screen. I checked the old topics, but I didn't fully understand how to implement the "@OVERHOTSPOT@". Any help would be appreciated.

Code: ags

function hBookcase_MouseMove()
{

  Display ("Bookcase" );

}

Also I am having trouble implementing this similar code:

Hotspot *h = Hotspot.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
    if (h != null)
       lHover.Text = h.Name;
    else
       lHover.Text = "";

Where do I exactly put this, and why my program is keep saying me that I can't assing a value to a global variable when I try to implement it?

Thanks.

Hi everyone,

I have started writing the plot of my adventure game, and I noticed the lack of plot related dramatic structure diagrams, about adventure games.

I found this diagram online, I though it might be helpful to people:



Most adventure games have fantasy elements near the climax of the story.Is this still relevant in modern games in your opinion?

Also do you think that they should have a big topic? Knights Templar, Voodoo murders...

Currently my game is a crime fiction, and there is a central theme and a big question. I am trying to decide between a short and a sweet game with a French style ending, or an epic climax with magical elements.  Which one works better for an adventure game in your opinion?

  I understand that I am a bit vague, but it is always quite difficult to write an ending.

I searched with every term thinkable, yet I can't seem to find any program capable of creating a FMV game. Someone advised me to use Visual Studio or Adobe Encore. But I am not too hopeful about them either. Maybe I am underestimating the task at hand here. Even Unity seems to be not designed for these types of games.

So I am back adventure game studio it seems. Since there is no cutscene option in AGS, I am assuming that, the video will be a background room, am I right? The rest of the project should simple enough.

Thanks everyone for their kind replies. The screen resolution of my game is quite big, so I am assuming that I will be using a different program.  The programming part should be simple enough. I am actually more worried about the program that I should use. the other websites seems to be quite unhelpful. I am not even quite sure what I should be searching. Is the video programming, the right term for this?

I will start quite simple. there will be dialog three and different videos for each answer. It will be similar to a DVD menu.

Hi,

Although, this is my first post here, I know quite a bit about programming and the adventure games, so I am hoping that this is not a silly question. Here's the question:

I want to create an adventure game using videos, and photographs. Actually it will more like an interactive movie than an adventure game. My question is, is the Adventure Studio, best program to do this? What are the limitations, pros and cons? Are there any limitations with the filesize of the mp4 files?

I will be more like the dialog trees of the Walking Dead, meaning there will be a limited amount of time before the user can select the right option. And in some scenes the video will loop until the right choice has been selected.

And furthermore, has anyone ever tried something like this?