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will this be commercial?

I just love games that looks like commersial ones (I do hope this won't be one of those )

I'm not going down the route of charging money for the game, although the finished article will hopefully feel like a commercial product!

If I was going to do a commerical game I'd want to do it for the Wii as well... it seems like the perfect platform for the adventure genre. Hopefully someone with a knack for good design will take advantage of the Wiiware thing in the future, it could be a great way to make a bit of profit

The darker tone of Monkey Island 2 is certainly something of an influence (and anything set on an island is pretty much inescapable of comparison), but don't expect any "drink up me-harties yo ho ho yawn" pirates-of-the-carribean antics going on in this game. We're much to cynical for that!

Many thanks for the words of encouragement!

[Episode 1]

Episode 1

It is a turbulent time within the Solician Cluster, with trade routes between Solstice and Capricorn becoming increasingly dangerous. Piracy is rife throughout the labyrinthine collection of islands that lie between the two countries, not to mention the smuggling operations and black market trade of relics from an ancient civilisation. But all that is about to change...

Rumours of conspiracy and regicide have been whispered throughout the Kingdom of Solstice since King Constantine came to power. The Church of the Unseen Gods fear upheaval, the various Guilds face government control, and the new King's pledge to stamp out organised crime and piracy has left the Thieves Guild (including the nautical branch) sweating under the collar. For the most part nothing has changed, but a general sense that something nasty is about to happen lingers in the atmosphere.

Somewhere in the middle of this all is Oswyn, a self appointed art thief and obtainer of rare antiquities who has turned his back on an aristocratic life. He's relatively unconcerned about the surrounding events, because he is on a mission. A year ago one of his many exclusive clientèle approached him with an old manuscript hinting at the location of a magnificent and potentially lucrative idol, carved by a mysterious and extinct race and hidden away on an uncharted island.

Now Oswyn is nearing the end of his journey, having finally located the island where the artefact lies. But as all casual observers of the universe will know, things aren't going to go quite according to plan...



(Work-in-progress)

What funky features do you have lined up?

* Context-sensitive verb menu. Inspired by Lure Of The Temptress, interactivity takes place in the game through a pop-up menu that will contain verbs relative to what you can do with an object, person or inventory item. It takes away the staleness of only being able to "look", "interact" and "speak", but also doesn't clutter things up with useless methods of interaction.

* A dynamic soundtrack that works not unlike Lucasarts' fabled iMuse system. It's not as elegant as iMuse of course due to not having any sequencer built into AGS, but all the important functionality is there to bring the fully orchestrated score to life!

* All the other standard gubbins you'd expect from an adventure game!

Oh no, not another Episodic game!

Yes yes, I know, but the decision to do a series of games rather than a huge one means that I can happily beaver away at nice and easy-to-handle self contained episodes at my own leisure, and you'll occasionally get to play them! Quality over quantity is what I'm shooting for, I've had to learn the lesson of planning overly ambitious games the hard way!

So how long will episode one be?

I'm hoping for somewhere in the region of 4-6 hours, but it'll probably turn out much shorter. I'm more interested in creating an immersive world that you want to spend time exploring and mucking about around in, rather than make a long-winded chore of a game. 

Who is helping you to achieve this grand vision?

I've managed to rope various friends into lending me their talents, and the quality of the final game will be in no short part due to their awesomeness. Scotch is the brain behind the gorgeous backgrounds, and keeps me motivated when I see the random scrawlings and notes I send him turned into art that captures the atmosphere I'm going for perfectly. Constantly peering over my shoulder offering suggestions, better dialogue and generally keeping things in check is the ever-lovely Becky, and Helm has supplied the initial character sketches and prototype art. Much love goes to them!

When do you plan to have this finished?

Summer 2008 so as not to make any unrealistic promises, but due to real life commitments of the people assisting me in making this (not to mention my own) it could turn up at any point next year. Even though we're now quite far in there's still a lot left to do, and it won't be released until it's polished up nicely!

The game takes place in 1960, not an alternative future by the way
It's a shame you're skipping all the audio diaries because they add so much to the game and really help make sense of it all - I think you're missing a lot by ignoring them. It's easy to fall into the trap of rampantly defending a game you adore when it's criticised on the internet by someone who you feel perhaps hasn't appreciated it's depth and width, but if you didn't like it then you didn't like it. I got more out of it than I did Half-Life 2, which was enjoyable but perhaps not as cerebral or as memorable as a *Shock game. But hey, different strokes!

I don't think it was intended to be full on horror, just a disturbing atmosphere. Unlike System Shock 2 where I felt mortal danger with every encounter (peering around corners as I went in case something nasty was there), after I took down my first Big Daddy in Bioshock I felt there was nothing that the game could throw at me that I couldn't handle. This is certainly not a bad thing, but it takes away any sense of dread you might have while playing and eliminates the horror aspect for me. It's still a harrowing experience however!

Are you a fan of previous Irrational/Looking Glass games such as System Shock 1/2 and Thief? I think perhaps if you didn't enjoy those then Bioshock will be less to your taste than something with more classically defined gameplay such as Half Life 2.

I do quite often open google and doing my own research.

You wouldn't have thought so with the amount of threads similar to this you've started over the last few months. If you had used google for five minutes you would have come across countless website, forums and articles that are completely dedicated to this sort of thing, and you probably would have gotten loads more information than you could gleam from here.

Only trying to help!

Have you ever considered opening google and doing your own research before making yet another 'Yufster's vague question of the day' thread?

Spoiler

Is it just me, or did the electronic style of the music in the bungalow remind anyone else of Blackwell Legacy?

[close]

Spoiler

That'll be because the majority of the soundtrack was written by the same person as Blackwell, and was much quicker at doing so than a certain lazy composer who only supplied a few quick sketches before being kidnapped by a full time job!

[close]

Just finished the game myself, easily on par with System Shock 2. The plot has a lot of subtleties too beyond the surface storyline. I don't think I harbour any disappointments, although a couple of bits struck me as odd...

*DON'T READ THESE IF YOU'VE NOT FINISHED THE GAME!*

Spoiler

The bit in Arcadia with the trees for oxygen... perhaps the designers forgot that with all that water around them they wouldn't be running short of H2 or O anytime soon Also, the final boss was a bit anti-climatic, but then these things always are.

[close]

Spoiler

Otherwise, I did enjoy that you get to romp around as a fake Big Daddy at the end... I went back scavenging some audio diaries that I'd missed which explained a bit more backstory. There are some great moments when things you weren't sure about click in to place... such as the little sister training ground with the drawing of the dead puppy on the wall and the audio diary of Suchong asking a little boy to kindly snap the neck of a dog, the audio diary and ghost of the stripper in Sander Cohen's playground, and the diaries about genetic code lockdowns on the metro system and recovery chambers being tuned to Ryan's genetic code only (and any close relatives). All the plot holes find themselves being filled in if you're attentive enough!

[close]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Start_Your_Own_Country

Looks like you've got yourself an awesome gig there, Mark! Sounds like a great oppertunity for some of the folks around here too... I'd love to contribute, but I'm snowed under at work and probably wouldn't be able to commit to anything, boo

Make sure to learn to play single notes by covering the correct holes with your tongue. Also learning how to bend notes is essential for playing almost chromatically on a non-chromatic harmonica (you can't play sharps/flats on one tuned to C for example) - it's also probably the most difficult skill to learn as it takes a lot of practise to get your mouth and tongue to make the right shapes to get the reeds to vibrate in different ways.

Should be able to play 'Love Me Do' in no time at all though!

This will be the first Mittens since it's inception that I won't be able to attend. It fills me with sadness

Look what I saw in the news today: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

Those with high levels or arrogance can carry on dismissing it as liberal European hippy bullshit I guess.

I didn't say it was unreasonable. I totally accept what you say and understand it. I was saying that what would be unreasonable is if you then took that experience and said "There should be a law."

As far as smoking is concerned, there are laws, the socially [if arbitrary] number of 21 [in the US at least] years of age was chosen as a start date for a human to be able to make decisions, good or bad, for their body in regards to smoking. If someone decides to smoke and does not feel they have to or does not care to take into consideration the people around them that may be affected by that decision, that's their fault.

You might not be talking about the ban on smoking when you posted but I was equating your post to the topic. There in the confusion lies?

Even if you take out the emotional attachment, smoking in a public place is still a nusiance and a health risk to me. If someone decides to smoke and does not feel they have to or does not care to take into consideration the people around them that may be affected by that decision, saying to myself "oh well, it's their fault they're doing this to themselves!" does not make the fact that I'm going to cop a lung-full of nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, cyanide, arsenic, radium, polonium, yadayada go away in a puff of, er, smoke. So yes, I do think a ban on smoking in public places is a good thing.

And that's fine Adam, as long as you don't expect other people to share [or support forcing them to share] those feelings.

I'm not sure what you mean. Is it unreasonable of me to suggest that self destruction hurts the people around you in varying degrees of severity?

[will]

Yes, but that means nothing in regards to what other human beings do with their bodies.

I used to hold the opinion that hey, it's fine with me that people ingest whatever they want into their bodies no matter how damaging it might be - it's their choice after all. After watching a close family member being suffocated to death by cancerous tumours, whose last written words (being unable to talk for about a year due to a tracheotomy) were 'morphine' in agonised handwriting, my stanced changed. When I see people I know or care about putting addictive yet 'socially acceptable' poisons into their bodies without the slightest of concerns as to the health risks it really does upset and fustrate me, because I am terrified that I will have to witness someone else experience such an agonising and futile end to their life.

Bill Hicks once said "what buisness is it of yours what chemicals I put into my body if I do not harm another living being" (or something to that effect). Sorry Bill, but it's a complete fallacy to think that you can perform an act that will harm only yourself, because the effects of anything you do will be felt by the people who care about you.

Cancelled? No. Just completely downsized.

We're turning ourselves inside out for E3 so no one's even mentioned Develop at work. Besides, I'll be on holiday then. Whee!

Sorry to be boring but it's just your brain naturally picking out facial features in random patterns wherever it can. It's not much different to anthropomorphising clouds, just in this case you've been told 'ooh ghosts abound!' and you know all the urban folklore and tales and whatnot so you'll naturally see the creepy reflection in the window mist. Notice how the nose, mouth and chin are made up out of the lines made by the brick pattern?

I bet we could go through years of Mittens photos finding 'ghosts' in the pictures

The TV series has a lot of early-BBC-sci-fi series charm, and the animations for the Guide itself are great.  I have a special fondness for the TV series, I saw it when I was very young before I'd got round to reading the books.  It's based on the radio series, and follows it pretty closely, with many of the same cast.

Edit: Sigh, I am going to have to log out of this forum and sign back in as Becky so I stop posting accidentally.