Messages

Sorry, I need some help on this. I'm not convinced I really understand what you want regarding the information that should be conveyed.

Is this an off-screen conversation with an unseen colleague? Where would this scene fit in the current game?

I think the Mad Scientist will just have to monologue it alone (they're good at that, anyway).  I think somewhere mid-game, like right before Merrick makes it to the exercise yard, for example, we'll just cutaway to the Mad Scientist talking out loud about what is happening.  Things to include:

1) News that Robot Monster is attacking the secret base (called a "Robot Destructor Unit" elsewhere in the game)
2) Supposition that it must be those vampire twins that he (the Mad Scientist) had stolen Merrick from
3) An announcement that all active guards are to remain at their posts, while all the rest are to report to muster point A (or whatever) to fight the robot.
4) Some deranged ranting to flesh out the Mad Scientists' character more and give the player a laugh at the same time.

Let me know if you want me to collaborate on the writing bit.

New Music

this is the Vamp Twins theme
and should be placed before the music at the end when Merrick has to fight the robot

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35944169/Draculator%20II%20-%20Vamp%20Twins.mp3 - MP3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35944169/Draculator%20II%20-%20Vamp%20Twins.mid - MIDI

Nice, it really suits the scene.  About that music at the end, though -you're composing that?  Or do you want your original theme music there?

I put together a few sounds. Here they are if anyone wants to use them.

Thanks for the sounds Ponch & Buckethead.  Keep them coming!

STATE OF THE PROJECT ADDRESS:  So we're obviously not releasing on schedule, but it's literally day-to-day.  I think the most optimistic scenario is that we'll be ready to go in a week: I'm still waiting on voice work, and Snarky's hand animation, more sounds, and I've got to implement the credits.  There also might possibly be more music and a short cutscene featuring the mad scientist to offer more narrative as events unfold (Hudders?).  Oh, and there should be one more test round when things are finalized just to be sure.  But none of that is very steep considering what we've done so far.  Remember, patience is a virtue.  Unless you owe me work -then it's a liability!

Feedback! Give it to us!

Yes, I think that will do nicely!

In other news, I've spent all of 10 minutes playing with this:


No one came through with a cockpit, so I just poached it from an old game of mine.  As I was attempting to change the palette to something compatible with this game I realized I'm no good at pixel backgrounds anyway and I've got better things to work on (New GUI at the moment).  So can somebody do a quick paintover of this (or something else) so that it fits into the game.  Remember, it will probably only be on screen for 15 seconds, mostly hidden by the vampire twin portraits, so don't expend a lot of effort here.  Thanks!

b) The mad scientist just seemed to disappear after the intro. Maybe there could be DOTT-style cutscenes showing what he's up to interspersed with Merrick's escape progress.

Hey Hudders, are you up for writing a bit of a cutscene for this and then voicing it?  It would be only the Mad scientist talking, probably about 5 lines max so it doesn't slow the pace down too much, explaining that the base is under attack by a robot monster commandeered by vampires bent on liberating Merrick?

There should really be a sound effect of a heartbeat for this action, and maybe some yipping from the dog as well. What's the current sound and voice acting status? I take it all roles are filled, but have the sound FX been claimed as well?

The Buckethead List shows what sounds we're in need of.  I haven't been crossing any off since it can never hurt to have other options to choose from.  If you have any of those sounds or ones you think would work well then please send them along!

Baron I have a gift for you : http://www.mediafire.com/?5thae4j4788847b

Nice!  Except there's a funny beep on track 270.    We are still waiting for ShiverMeSideways to finish up, but to be fair his part was pretty massive.  We still need sounds (above) and a GUI....

Don't forget to get lots of top notch references from AGSers!

And don't mention Stickmen in the Land of Terrorists.

Hey, this looks alot like "Invasion of the Floating Death Orbs", a demo I made back with version 2.6!



Unfortunately with the forum search function down I can't link to the GIP thread, but here is the demo.  This kind of arcade stuff just involves working a lot with AGS's repeatedly_execute function, and something as basic as Nemesis shouldn't be that hard to do.

Good luck, whatever tool you decide on.

Ponch+

Hey, you gotta license for that thing?  8)

You're a voiced labiodental fricative!

Back to serious mode: I've got Cat's lines.  It's strange how last night nothing would download for me from the ags.me server....  Anyway, I think the voice work sounds fine.  It will be interesting to see how you and Sinitrena sound conversing with each other since she interpreted her character differently.  I'm really looking forward to the completed voice version (hint, hint, nudge -get to work Studio3!).

I like it -it's got atmosphere.    My only real issue is the legibility of the font.  Either it's gotta be less scrawling, or it needs an outline or to be offset with a darker colour for contrast.  Also we should probably put who the game is made by somewhere: by SWARMAGS.  I can put the buttons on -do you think down the lower right hand corner would look best?

Here is the fair vampire twin:

click

I can't seem to get this -can someone mirror it please?

When did I write, sorry? 

Doesn't this count?

Heh, roboporn ftw!

As for.... 

Corby: surgery background
Grim: robot lab background

.... I believe you're right.  I've fixed it now (above).

Oh, can I still do the menu screen?

YES! DO IT!

That voice!  It's perfect for a project I'm working on!

If you find anyone who has good GUI ideas please forward me his/her contact info.

As for the tile-based level editor, it really looks as if it has potential.  I'm not sure about the logic of having one sided walls (you wouldn't be able to walk through them from the other side, would you?), and I would definitely leave a pixel between terrain options to make them easier to differentiate.  Up and down arrows instead of D & U would definitely be more intuitive as well.  Finally, I can see the 5x5 grid being a bit small if you were working with a complex structure.  If it plays as 5x5 too I think that will make it hard to strategically play: do you fight a villain and gamble that he doesn't have a lot of backup nearby?

That is the end of me being nitpicky.  I think the idea of building your own dungeon crawler editor is awesome, and you're clearly off to a good start.  Good luck!

[EDIT:]

Good progress on the Voice Acting so far.  I'm loving Hudder's sound, and SpacePirateCaine has sent me some top notch material for the Ginger scientist.   Sinitrena's Vampire sounds a bit flat in places, but it might work in-game.  Otherwise I'll put my voice-coach hat on and get her to do a few rerecords.  The rest of the roles are cast and work seems to be moving forward.

I almost forgot about the swarm. So how long to the big release? is it still sep 15?

Well, this won't quite be in the cards.  Realistically it will be another week before I have all the voices.  In the mean time there is still the default GUI to tend to, sounds to be found, credits and read me to be written, cursor text to be nudged over slightly when it is close to the right edge of the screen....  And then there's the title screen.  Someone had volunteered to do it, but hasn't followed through, so if anyone has any special vision and the initiative to do that it'd be great.  Otherwise I guess we'll just go with what's there.  So mid-September is still possible, but the actual date will probably be September 20-25 or so.  But, the faster we get all this stuff together the faster we can get this game out the door.

EDIT: I've got all the credits compiled.  Have a look through to see if I've missed anything/anyone:

DRACULATOR CREDITS

Abstauber: guard designs, Merrick design, mad scientist portrait designs
Ali: art direction, guard design & animation, background edits, gay frankenstein
anian: objects & not interfering.
Armageddon: exploding poodle animation, Merrick sprite design, title screen
Baron: animation, scripting, writing, directing
Big CG: massive animations
Bogdan: beta testing
Buckethead: explosion background, orange Merrick, sound list
CaptianD: writing
Cat: Main character design, cursor design, voice acting (FAIR twin)
Cleanic: Ginger Scientist portrait, beta testing
Corby: robot lab background
Crimson Wizard: guard room backgrounds
Cuiki: beta testing
ddq: voice acting (robot monster)
dhk: beta testing
Ghost: objects, credits background, Merrick biting animation
Grim: surgery background
Hudders: writing, voice acting (MAD), main character design (legs)
JackPumpkinHead: music, vampire twin sprite design
Jared: guard sprite design
kconan: voice acting (robot monster)
Knoodn: beta testing
Paul Franzen: copy editing
Pinback: robot monster design
Ponch: sound seeker
ProgZmax: musical composition (NU)
Prozail: beta testing
Scarab: programming, Merrick side walk-cycle, front walk-cycle
Secret Fawful: vampire twin portraits & animation, night sky background, crash background
Selmiak: Intro Cutscene background
Sephiroth: Merrick sprite design
ShiverMeSideways: voice acting (MERRICK, in progress)
Sinitrena: Dark voice acting
Snarky: writing, main character name
SpacePirateCaine: voice acting (GINGER scientist)
Studio3: probe, blond scientist design, voice acting (BLOND scientist), GUI design (NU)
Tabata: ginger scientist sprite, cockroach design & animation, Merrick sprite design, scientist animation, cursors
TomatoesInTheHead: title guy, guards shooting animations
Wonkyth: definitely NOT writing
Wyz: writing
Yarooze: exercise yard background, scientist sprite design

Alright, we've got all the voice lines cast except for the one scientist.  I'm not sure which one, but we'll know in a couple days.  Any volunteers?

The robot monster is shaping up to be particularly fun.  It is actually going to be voiced by two separate people and then stitched together with all kinds of crazy robotic effects..... or so I'm told.  It should be fun -stand by.

Other outstanding items:

1) Big CG -this guy is the most outstanding, so I'm putting him at the top.
2) The BUCKETHEAD LIST still needs some massive attention.  Am I the only AGSer who keeps hundreds of random sounds on my computer "just in case?"
3) We still need a GUI designer.  Not a scripter -I can probably handle that.  Just someone to do a sketch of what it would look like with all the buttons, inventory items and walk-speed slider.

[Characters]

Characters
John (João), James (José), Maria, Rosa, Carlos, Fernando and others.
Mor informations soon.

Why not Mary, Rose, Charles, and Ferdinand?

Best of luck with the game.  The backgrounds look very nice and the sprites look relaxed and natural.  It's a little funny looking combining the 2D sprites with the 3D backgrounds, but I'm sure people will forgive you if it's a fun game. 

Well, the writing group never really materialized after I had hacked out the dialog/messages

OK. I obviously didn't realise that was up for discussion at the time. 

As for finalizing the writing (messages, dialogs), I was wondering if anyone would be interested in forming a working group to haggle over the wording and content of the textual part of the game.  It is probably unrealistic to do everything as a group, but everything of substance shouldn't be that time consuming.  I envisage the group spending roughly an hour or two spread out over the week debating the merits of different approaches and offering suggestions for improvements.  I can compile a text script of exactly what's in-game to speed things up, so it will just require a bit of reading and correspondence.  Please post in the thread if you are interested (PMing makes you anonymous to the group and this is more of a high-profile role).

Sorry if that wasn't clear.  I just assumed that no interest meant that people were generally content with the script.

Well my problem is, that I didn't take my mic for holiday
(and If you will follow the „deadline“, I won't be home before releasing)

Well, I'm sure we could be flexible.... .  In all honesty we don't yet have sounds, finalized music, credits, read me, GUI, or voice acting yet (indeed some roles have yet to be cast....).  So we'll probably be another couple weeks in post-production before we can finally release the game.

grmbl ... I will never start my carrier, if I am not present at the right time

There are a couple of parts left to voice, Tabata......

I wonder whether it might be funnier if the Mad Scientist was called away by somebody offscreen, (his mother or his wife), rather than have an alarm?

Otherwise, if there's an alarm going off, why do the guards look so calm? Why are the scientists blithely going about their business? 

Well, the writing group never really materialized after I had hacked out the dialog/messages, and since we've already had beta testers, proofreaders and voice actors working with the script I think it's a little late now to make changes.  I agree the game is a little illogical superficially, but recall that the alarm did indeed indicate that the base was under attack.  Since this is no doubt a commonplace at such a facility then the lower-down grunt scientists and guards would simply go about their business as usual.  The rest of the guards are very intently girding themselves for battle as they watch the gunfire flashes of their comrades through the window of the guardroom door, while the mad-scientist is in some position of authority and therefore must tend to administrative tasks pertaining to the attack.

Nice music, JackPumpkinhead.  Can we expect more tracks, or is that it?  I've got the splash midi for the title screen, the original track for the more action scenes (Surgery, guardroom), and the explore track for the rest.  How do people feel about this?  I'm wondering if we don't need at least one more track, a sillier one, for the robot lab?  And what about boss music for the final climactic showdown?

The voice actors have finally been given their scripts.  Merrick came in at just under 200 lines -a huge thanks to ShiverMeSideways for undertaking all that work.  Hudders has volunteered to be our Mad Scientist.  Other bit parts still open are:

Ginger Scientist (14 lines)
Blond Scientist (10 lines)
Robot Monster (9 lines, needs to have mechanical effect)
Fair Vampire Twin (11 lines)
Dark Vampire Twin (9 lines)

Basically if you're interested you'll probably get the part..... unless you are horrifically terrible!  Just kidding.  You'll probably get the part even then. 

Let me know via PM if you are interested.

Bloody good!

Electrifying too!

To me one of the key paragraphs is this one:

Since those days, our expectations have changed. We expect more of a flow these days, and for our stories to have pace. Your character standing gormlessly on the screen, while you scan a mouse cursor over every pixel in the attempt to find a single nail that can be used to pick a lock, is the equivalent of a roleplaying game expecting you to map a dungeon with a pen and paper. There’s a certain old-school charm in that, perhaps, but we all know our time could be better spent having actual fun.

It's not really about pixel-hunting - it's about getting stuck in adventure games in general. It means that today's mainstream audience is too impatient to play traditional (real?) adventure games, something you could argue with to a point, but it's probably true. Other genres have a more consistent rewarding systems.

So I guess the obvious solution is to speed up the reward system in adventure games.  Eliminating dead-ends is unambitious: let's cut out getting stuck!  Who's going to be the first to set an optional variable at the beginning of their game (easy, medium, hard) that is really just a timer; each puzzle restarts the timer and when it times out, you get a clue, then a hint, and then finally a "this is how you do it, stupid" that advances the game?  Let's idiot-proof this genre, mainstream-style!  Who's with me?

[EDIT THE NEXT DAY:]

I wasn't doing anything crazy this evening, just some new room objects (room 56) and some scripting in the interactions.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I F5ed and all the room scripts resaved because they had changed, which was weird (like for a compile or a script header change, but I hadn't done any of that), and then the game crashed with a simple error report:
 

Error: LoadRoom: unknown block type 0 encountered in 'room199.crm'

I thought I'd investigate Room 199 and sure enough there were only two things in room_load: SetBackgroundFrame (0); and gMain.Visible =true; (I hadn't edited this room for ages and have run the game just fine hundreds of time since then).  Well, silly me, I thought I'd try changing the offending "0" to "1" and F5ed again -AGS reeeeeally didn't like that.  I got a massive error this time:

Error: LoadRoom: unknown block type 0 encountered in 'room199.crm'
Version: AGS 3.2.1.111

AGS.Types.AGSEditorException: LoadRoom: unknown block type 0 encountered in 'room199.crm'
  at ThrowManagedException(SByte* message)
  at load_room_file(SByte* )
  at load_crm_file(UnloadedRoom roomToLoad)
  at AGS.Native.NativeMethods.LoadRoomFile(UnloadedRoom roomToLoad)
  at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.LoadNewRoomIntoMemory(UnloadedRoom newRoom, CompileMessages errors)
  at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.RecompileAnyRoomsWhereTheScriptHasChanged(CompileMessages errors, Boolean rebuildAll)
  at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.AGSEditor_PreCompileGame(PreCompileGameEventArgs evArgs)
  at AGS.Editor.AGSEditor.PreCompileGameHandler.Invoke(PreCompileGameEventArgs evArgs)
  at AGS.Editor.AGSEditor.CompileGame(Boolean forceRebuild, Boolean createMiniExeForDebug)
  at AGS.Editor.Components.BuildCommandsComponent.TestGame(Boolean withDebugger)
  at AGS.Editor.Components.BuildCommandsComponent.CommandClick(String controlID)
  at AGS.Editor.ToolBarManager.ToolbarEventHandler(Object sender, EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripButton.OnClick(EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

 Apparently I am strongly recommended to back-up without saving as AGS is unstable and might blow up at anytime (...or my game files are corrupt, something like that).  I restarted the editor and tried to open room 199 and got the same message without even being able to see the contents of the script this time.  Clearly something is rotten in Denmark....
 The good news is I have a backup from last night, and I would only be out four hours of work if my files were corrupt.  The bad news is that I am reluctant to continue my project until I figure out exactly what has gone wrong and whether or not any of my recent work can be salvaged.  I have done nothing non-routine this evening.  Yesterday (before back-up) the game ran fine.  I think I did some work on a dialog without testing afterwards, since today I got errors when I tried to save (but before I F5ed).  I think I had called a function without a critical parameter and I had some code outside the final return/stop -just a comment because I was interrupted.  That's all of the circumstances I can think of that might somehow be relevant.
  Does anyone know what's going on here?  Thanks!

EDIT THE NEXT DAY:  Well, I've examined Room 199 in my backup files and noticed that it was about twice the size of the "corrupt" Room199 file in my working version.  So I replaced that one room file in my working version folder from my backup and ran the game smoothly with all my latest work intact.  So.... I know if it ain't broke I'm not supposed to want to mess around further, but I'm wondering how a room file I haven't worked on in a month suddenly became corrupt.  I guess this isn't a critical issue anymore, but if someone has any helpful advice about avoiding this in future please feel free to communicate it.