Messages

Your local laundrette?

Yes, I thought it was a bit strange at first. I can think of two laundrettes that sometimes have sun-bleached old books and tapes for sale in the window.

I never said death is the only risk. But in the vast majority of the well-liked Adventure games (mostly non-Sierra), there's no risk at all!

I didn't mean to suggest you thought death was the only risk. What I meant was that a sense of risk can add to a game in many ways, including the way it gave Sierra games their dynamic.

In the Secret of Monkey Island, Elaine is at risk of a forced marriage. Though the game is light-hearted this is still something the player doesn't want to see happen - so it adds to the drama of the narrative.

I don't think it's essentisl that the player can fail - as long as the consequences of failure are understood. In many linear artforms, particularly cinema, a sense of risk can be created without there being such a thing as an optional bad end.

In Gabriel Knight and Broken Sword, the fact that the player can fail really adds to the gritty character of the game world. I just don't believe that by abandoning bad-endings you necessarily abandon a sense of risk altogether.

As long as things are consistent and well written, animated, etc, I don't see a problem with any approach.

I think this is the crux of all the complaints in this thread. If a character is consistent then their refusals won't be frustrating to the player, they'll just feel like another challenge. If a character is well written then their responses will be rewarding even if they don't further the game's narrative.

Well spotted Steve!

The abolishment of risk in adventure games, I never understood.

I agree that risk is an important element, but it needn't always be the player character's health at risk. NPCs, objects, information and many other things can all be placed at risk in the interest of drama without the need for a kill-able hero.

[backing up your Uru saved game is something you should do from the outset]

I thought this worth mentioning:

Uru's automatic save games are a little dodgy - I just lost 3 days gaming and I've now heard of people losing much more. My player character simply disappeared without explanation. I've managed to recover about half of my progress, but it is disheartening in a game I was really enjoying.

I REALLY wouldn't want to put anyone off playing the game, I just want to say that backing up your Uru saved game is something you should do from the outset.

I'm not sure how much discussion can be had here. I made this topic because I wish I'd read something like this before I started playing Uru. I know the Myst games aren't hugely popular on these boards, but I thought I might just be able to save someone hassle.

I still don't understand why Sierra didn't release a new QFG collection like they did for SQ, KQ, PQ, and LSL. Goddammit.

I bought a Quest For Glory anthology (1-4) from my local laundrette. If you're looking for something like that, check YOUR local laundrette.

DON'T give me a walk pointer and then rob me of the ability to walk in toxic waste. DON'T give me a gun and then tell me 'I don't want to kill these innocent people!'. Bad design.

I disagree that this is necessarily bad design. The freedom to do those kind of things is a great boon to some games, but not all. Player character free will is not bad design in itself, it is a problem when it MASKS bad design, as in the example I mention above.

"I'm not going in there, it's too dark."

This would be an acceptable response if the main character was a small child, but not if they were a grizzled marine. It would be fun to find the child a nightlight, but irritating to find the marine a torch.

As long as the PC's refusals grow out of their character and not out narrative necessity they will be enjoyable rather than frustrating. If the character is to be anything other than a puppet or a suicidal sociopath then they ought to refuse to walk into toxic waste or shoot bystanders.

I suppose the problem is that games often fail to offer sufficient freedom to make a 'puppet' PC fun, and fail to make a 'conscious' PC rounded enough for their refusals to feel like anything other than artificial obstacles.

Thanks guys, I think I understand it now. I was a little mixed up about what 'Valid' was actually checking. Let the bells ring out (via a textual overlay)!

Thanks for the feedback! My girlfriend does have two eyes, the eyepatch is just for fun. At least, it was for fun until I realised that it meant I couldn't just flip the walking views. From that point onwards it was torture.

I'm sorry people are still having trouble downloading the demo. I'll have to find a better place to upload the final game! Sthomannch, you seem to have succeeded in downloading it recently. Which link worked for you?

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in beginners, but I'll ask anyway.

I define and export overlay pointer (bellOverlay) at the start of my main script and import it in the global header.
I've scripted an object interaction which creates the overlay and removes it, and that works fine. It's for a ringing bell. I then shifted the code to a dialog request, and that still worked.

The problem is that I need to have the overlay appear during a dialogue and stay on screen for a period of time after, so the bell stays ringing while control returns to the player.

I added a timer and shifted this line:

if (bellOverlay.Valid==1) bellOverlay.Remove ();

from the end of my dialog-request to repeatedly-execute like this:

if (bellTimer==0){
if (bellOverlay.Valid==1) bellOverlay.Remove ();
//stop the bell animation
}

This will compile but the game crashes because of a 'null pointer' reference when I enter the room. I feel I must have failed to import the pointer properly, but I can't see how. I'd be thankful for any help.

-Ali

[Journey to the Centre of the Earth]

First off, in my mind, that DOES work and secondly, YOU have no vote in this, I play the game, ok?!

I agree wholeheartedly. I've just given up on Journey to the Centre of the Earth because of awful responses/lack of response. At one point there's a map screen and the character responds "Do I really want to go there?" when you click on ANY of the locations. The answer is 'YES, of course you do!'

I've never seen a poorer or more frustrating reason for keeping a player from exploring a location. There are many more examples of dreadful interactions in that game, but that's the worst.

On my current project I'm working on this system to avoid the player just trying everything on everything without a clue. Every time s/he tries something like "talk to banana" s/he is awarded 1 idiot point. After 50 points s/he is kicked out of the game.

That sounds like a good idea, as long as you print this on the screen after:

*** You have died ***

Idiot points: 50/50

You have reached the rank of Bananamage

See the first post for a full update or, if you can't be bothered, click below to hear some of the latest tunes m0ds has worked up:

Main Theme
General Exploration
Uh-oh!

Here is the wiki about the Sphinx collaboration:

http://www.americangirlscouts.org/snarkywiki/index.php/Main_Page

It's a very good idea, and in need of contributors!

I think the most important thing is for puzzles to grow out of the environment and the narrative.

If the hush puppies puzzle was in 'Nord Or Bert Couldn't Make Head Or Tail Of It' it woulds be a great puzzle and it would fit in with the feel of the game. In the context of Simon the Sorcerer it's ludicrously bad.

Without regard to Conspiracy and Monkey Island, I think the important thing to note is that both games have puzzles that fit with their characters and their stories. For that reason the player rarely feels cheated. The puzzles feel natural, and not like obstacles contrived by villainous designers.

I couldn't decide between the Syberia and Myst games. I've just begun Syberia 2 and it's reminded me of how wonderful it is. They are computer games as art. I can understand why people wouldn't like them, though, if they don't enjoy the feeling of being lonely and whistful.

I think Dave Gilbert's objections are fair with regard to modern adventure games, but less fair when levelled against Syberia.

I do find it very frustrating when a character refuses to offer their opinions on any objects part from those pertinent to the story. Syberia could have offered more Look-ats, but the depth of the conversations filled the interactivity gap for me.

I also agree that people play games for stories, and I feel that Myst and Syberia offer stories that vasty exceed a great many adventures in terms of depth and character. And whistfullness.

I think widescreen would look nice, though all the films noir I can think of were 4:3. Nevertheless, widescreen does say 'film' to most people, so I think you should try it.

Again, shallow depth of field increases the 'film' look but is actually incongruous with noir style, which used deep focus. I'd say, go with what looks nicest. Also, there are a number of ways of tricking depth of field in the newest version of blender, but it's easy enough to blur in photoshop.

The Ambient Occlusion made the scene a bit grainy (which I like) and brighter (which isn't as nice). You can set AO to 'add', 'subtract' or 'both' in Blender. if you set it to 'both' then it will brighten and darken areas. You'll have to increase the sampling or decrease the power of the AO, or the grain will probably look nasty.

If you want to get rid of excess floor space, just don't light it (or add a negative lamp) so it looks black - very simple, very noir.

This is a great module, thanks Akumayo!

Like tiagocorreia, I changed the module to repeatedly_execute_always. I also added an 'IsGamePaused' so that the particle engine pauses at the same time as object and character animations.

I found that skipping cutscenes and skipping-UntilCharacterStops was significantly slower with the repeatedly_execute_always change, even in rooms with no particle effects so I added a boolean variable to switch the whole thing off and on, so now skipping is only slow while particle effects are happening.

It thought I'd mention this in case it was in some way foolish, or in case you might consider adding similar features to the module.

I really enjoyed this game, it's atmosphere was absorbing and appealing. I normally hate sierra-like deaths, but the game was just short enough for the deaths to be amusing, and just long enough for the story to be enjoyable. There are a few small areas that I felt could be improved.

A brief epilogue, perhaps in the style of the intro, would really have made the narrative more satisfying.

The writing was usually enjoyable but occasionally awkward. I think there were a few malapropisms too, the word 'recede' may have been misused at some point.

Spoiler

I was also stumped by the beat-the-goblin-at-his-own-game puzzle. The main reason I didn't think to use anything with the catapult tree was that its look-at/interact response remained the same after it had been sprung. That suggested to me that I wasn't going to use it again, as is often the case in games when responses fail to keep up with the story.

[close]

I hope these observations are helpful, and I hope to see more games like this!

The first thing you should think about is composition. What's important in the shot and what isn't. You give a lot of space over to empty horizon and sky, and bare ground, which aren't interesting to look at. Also, you don't always need to put a focal object in the centre of the screen, check out the Rule of Thirds. You can use objects or foliage in the foreground to frame the interesting parts of the image, and to cover up any area you don't want to show, like the horizon, in this case.

This roughly shows a composition that I think might work better. It's not terrifically striking, but it would be more functional for an adventure game:


There are a few technical things you should consider. The trees seem to have been pasted in or billboarded, and you haven't masked them too well so they have a distracting white halo. Try using 3D trees, you can use free software like arbaro to generate realistic results.

The shadows seem to be painted on, I would recommend creating shadows within your 3d package, they'd look a lot more convincing.

Make sure that objects you add to the scene appear from the same angle as the rest of the background. The bottom of the plantpots and watering can are all flatter than they should be.

Finally, the football should be darker at the bottom rather than the top, think about light-sources when you add in things like that.

For me one of the worst things is to walk and see everywhere signs:

Watch! low ceiling!

As a tall person in a city established by vikings, this is a constant problem for me. What baffles me is that the warnings signs always seem to be put on the ceilings or on the low doorways. If I'm looking at the ceiling, I know it's there. They should put the warnings on the floor, then they might be of some use.

Postmortem is just plain badÃ, 

While I agree with almost everything you've said I think this is unfair. Postmortem has a very absorbing atmosphere and good mis en scene. The designers' weak attempt at making the game multi-path obscures its mediocre story, but it's not an altogether unrewarding experience. Plus, Canadian voice acting is always fun.