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Sort of. I'm still a bit shocked that the guys I based this game on have broken up. I've had a string of bad luck lately, and managed to injure my right wrist which has badly affected my workflow, so I was thinking of halving the size of the game anyway. Continuing my pattern of great decisions if I hadn't been spending so much time on my next game it would have been released before this all happened.

As of right now I'm going to finish up one last room, add the sounds + music and release it in the new year as a tribute and thanks for all the years of entertainment. It all works story wise with a bit of tweaking.

I'm a little embarrassed at how small this game will be considering the time spent on it, but I was always viewing it mostly as a way to learn pixel art and game development, and just have to hope it pays off with the next game.


Thanks for asking, and thanks to everyone for the nice compliments! I'm quite introverted so it's pretty much all the feedback I get .

Thanks for the replies! I've spent so long toiling away and not showing it to anyone, it's really nice getting some feedback! Thank you

Hi guys, I wanted to give another update on the game.

Part of the reason it's taking so long is that I keep redoing everything. The other reason is I'm working on another game as well! I was always viewing this as a learning experience with the end goal of being good enough to make something to sell for actual money. I'd love to do this as a job someday.

So anyway, the intro has been completely changed after I watched an interview with Dave Gilbert and he mentioned common mistakes newbies make, and one was exactly what I was doing.

All the backgrounds have been redone or replaced, and same with the animations. And writing.

I'm almost at a point where half the game is done.

Slow going but there is no way it's being redone again. This is it. I promise.

(Spoliers considering the small size of the game, but I wanted to show another room)






(The making of the Diner room)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/m628Ao2.gif[/imgzoom]

(this animation uses the older Matt sprite)

Spoiler

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/ltvRlRe.png[/imgzoom]
(I had to change the puzzle so this animation is no longer in game)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/JhMwwFX.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/6Fk7zrd.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/BGqAfxF.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/2F2Nfbj.png[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/YI5VG6E.gif[/imgzoom]
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/TYQzRDs.gif[/imgzoom]

[close]

Thank you Monsieur! If you insist
It will get done eventually. It's just taking ages because there's a LOT of animation. Characters are fun to animate but effects....

Also your game looks fantastic. Indiana Jones desperately needs another game and the stuff you've put in the critics lounge looks great!

Thank you for saying that. I'm very critical of what I make and it's a hard habit to break!

Thanks Matt! I've spent a huge amount of time on the backgrounds trying to make them nice. I keep looking at DoTT and Sam & Max backgrounds for inspiration and discouragement. The Lucasarts guys were so talented it drives me nuts.

And thank you JSH! Development is progressing slooowly. I've been making a lot of stuff but it's been improving/fixing so I haven't gotten any closer to release

These are the new character sprites.

I've learnt a lot since starting this game. And gotten way more comfortable with animating in 2D.

I just came across this tool here which may be useful.

Pixelator

I've only used it a tiny bit but the colour reduction seems pretty good.

Moving house sucks. Not just all the cleaning involved but I've been 3 weeks without internet and it's gonna be another 2 before it gets installed. I'm going a bit crazy.

At least it means plenty of time to work on the game. These are updated screenshots with the final backgrounds.

I'm sorry that they are similar to what's been shown before, but they are finally all visually consistent.

Also I'm sorry about not responding better to some of the replies. I'm kinda an eternal lurker and I find it hard writing this stuff.

Thanks for the replies!

I love scrolling backgrounds too, they make up half the rooms in the game. None quite as long as the street though thankfully.

I don't have a misspent youth doing pixel art, just lots of cartoon drawing (it was misspent in general though). I did study 3D animation for a few years which is actually why the game exists.

After spending ages working on a really fancy rig (In an attempt to become a 3D generalist) I encountered a scripting problem I was too dumb to fix. After the third week banging my head against the wall I started making some fan art of some great letsplayers I like. It was supposed to be just an image, a what-if kinda thing.

Now it keeps getting bigger and bigger.

And I will definitely need testers when it's a bit further along if you're offering

(Hopefully the formatting of this post is ok, I have no Internet access right now so had to post from a phone, which is awkward) 

This looks so good.

Vampire: Bloodlines is my favourite game ever, and I love the Dresden Files. Unavowed is like a perfect mashup of things I like the most and I can't wait to play it! It's my most anticipated point and click by far.

Also I can't believe there are 122 rooms in your game. You are crazy.

Busted! I think you're the first person to notice that.

The street room was originally just going to be a quick intro you would spend 20 seconds in so I used Sam & Max as a reference. I love that game, and the guys at Lucasarts were such great artists it's almost depressing.

But the intro was no good, it didn't do enough to introduce the plot so I scrapped it and made something different. I couldn't bring myself to just throw out all that work though, and I kept changing things and adding new characters and rooms and puzzles... Eventually tripling the size of the game.

Which is why it's taking so long. I'm 99% 80% certain it won't grow any larger though.

The Sam and Max room it's based on.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/D00Mf.png[/imgzoom]
My "homage".
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/Z6VyJQw.png[/imgzoom]
The current version.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/kXXHfU6.png[/imgzoom]

Hopefully it's changed enough that it's more of a homage than a rip-off now.

That worked, thank you!

I'm getting this bug now myself. I'm trying to change my avatar to this image here:

When I paste it in (as https://i.imgur.com/VpqaneA.png ) and press enter the page refreshes and goes back to no avatar selected.

When I don't press enter and click on change profile it does the same. I've tried it in Firefox, Chrome and Brave.

This looks incredible! I love the colour and style, it's so beautiful.

I can't wait to play!

Thanks guys! It means a lot to me that you like it. Hopefully it's actually fun to play

I thought I'd post some comparisons to show how I've been redoing the game over time. Every room has been redone at least once, some a lot more.

The street room has been the worst culprit by far, needing to be changed again and again. Thankfully it's finally done. It's up to save 53 in Photoshop!

Thanks for the replies!

They mean a lot as I've spent so much time on this game and there's always a little voice in the back of my head saying that no one will be interested.

Thank you!

Time for another weekly update! (heh)

I've been re-doing large parts of the game lately. It's not entirely on purpose, more that I had no idea what the heck I was doing when I started all this. The first room is such a mess I'm afraid to touch it in case it explodes, but it all works somehow?

The hallway room is now gone and replaced with 2 others, with most parts of it rearranged elsewhere.

I changed Matt (the main character) also, as he was the first piece of pixel art I ever drew, and it was looking out of place next to some of the newer characters. I would say it was a dumb decision thanks to all the animations that need to be fixed now, but I wanted to do it anyway.

I really want to show another room, but as there are only 7 it seems a bit insane to spoil any more.

The good news is that I'm getting faster and faster at making stuff. A lot of animations are finished and ready to place into the game, and the backgrounds are all done.

There's no concrete release date, but I wanted to let people know it's still being worked on and I hope it won't take too much longer.

I really appreciate the comparison to LucasArts. I've spent a lot of time studying their artwork and they were amazingly talented. And I'll definitely be looking here for beta testers when the game is ready.

There were a lot of times I wanted to ask for help, but I don't like asking dumb questions (most of them were) and was able to figure things out eventually thanks to the wiki and years of responses on these forums.

Thanks for the replies

So it's been a while since the last update...

I got really discouraged with the street view and stopped working on the game entirely for about 6 months.

The street was originally intended to be a quick cutscene, but after adding Woolie and Liam (the other members) I made a new intro and then tried fitting the street into gameplay and it just wasn't working. Then life got in the way and I moved on to other things...

But I'm back! I've redone the street and am really happy with the puzzle, have added 2 more rooms and I'm whizzing through my to-do list.

I'm really determined to finish this. There's no release date as it's always 2 months from being finished (I don't understand time) but I'm working on it every day now, and I have a lot more hours available than I did previously.

I hope you like the new screenshots, and it WILL be done. Eventually.

I love the new sprites. When I was showing my sister your game (she never plays games) the low res sprites were the first thing she noticed.

It's a huge amount of work but I definitely think it's worth it!