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I could never expect less class and art from you. This is really going to be great. I can't wait. Just a little question since I'm super careful about spoilers: Is the game going to get spoiled if I read the short story?

Thank you! And yes, it will be horribly, horribly spoiled.

Something Seeps is a psychological/body/monster horror game that will feature shocking, graphic death scenes and adult storytelling. It is based on the short story I wrote years back called Knee Deep: https://www.wattpad.com/40205418-knee-deep-short-story. As much as I love AGS and it treated me very well for The Knobbly Crook, I've decided to rework Something Seeps in Unity. It's an engine I want to learn, so I am going to use Something Seeps as my learning project.

A father and son must come to terms with their tumultuous history, devastating family loss, and a past that will not stay buried. Memories are slippery, violent things and lying to one's self can be deadly.



I don't have an estimate yet for the length of the game or the release plans, but I'll update as I progress. I do have a full story to tell, expanded significantly from the short story. I also have enough content in mind to do a full horror series, depending on how fast I can create.

This rightfully lead to heated argument and debate within the company.
About whether it was better to use them on Captain Marvel or Shazam.

Shouldn't they just go see the movie that interests them the most? It is their day, after all. With that said, I don't know why anyone would pick Shazam over Captain Marvel based on the trailers.

To add another positive post to a thread that's been pretty negative, I can share the changes I've observed in the AAA industry:

When I started working for the big companies (15ish years ago?), it was mostly guys. On my last big project released, my writing team was split right down the middle and my boss was a woman. My current boss at Eidos is also a woman. Here in Montreal, they have "incubators" (like Pixelles) that help provide mentoring and advice to women interesting in gamedev, which results in some really great people joining our teams. I've always taken issue with people posting on social media about how our industry is a horrible place for women, because it's really not true. Maybe it's just the companies I've chosen. Whatever the case, I think getting more women in there, and in positions of leadership, is the best way to counter this problem.

Every workplace has creep potential and I've only met one of them... years back. I shared what I saw with HR . Our industry is very progressive, especially in Montreal, and they do tend to take these things seriously.

Some people outside the industry assume there's some quota being filled, that we hire any women who apply just to check a box. No. I've always worked with extremely qualified people and they're almost always hardcore gamers. In fact, I've been playing catch-up to two women on my team because they've already played Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 and I am just now getting to them. It's so common now, it amazes me that people still question "girl gamers." I just assume most people under a certain age are gamers these days. My 12 year old is already talking about making games for a living and we have a hard time prying her away from the computer.

When you see diversity in game characters, it's due to the team wanting to tell stories from different perspectives and not some company mandate. It's not a marketing decision. It wouldn't surprise me if "white scruffy dude" is automatically the easier sales route, but you go with what's best for your story. I haven't worked on big multiplayer-focused games, but it seems obvious to me that giving players more options to customize is always going to be a positive thing that will impact sales. 

Social media tends to make everything look like an all-out culture war,  but in reality I've never seen that drama make its way into any of my workplaces. Obviously I can't speak for other studios and certainly can't speak for women devs, but I can say I've seen a huge improvement. So my answer, as an observer, is yes, it seems to be going in the right direction.

I do like the trick of blacking out the rest of the screen, it actually does make sense for this specific problem! However, there's enough of a warning flag here to switch the code to something more stable, Thanks for the advice, folks!

I've got everything set up and looking how I want it, and it all seems to work beautifully until I try to use the verb coin on something *outside* the inventory box while it is loaded (then I get a Null Pointer error). Am I missing something obvious here? I have never had a brain that processes code very well, so I get a bit lost in there trying to figure out what's causing it to break.

Here's a video demonstrating the crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XS5Tg-h_yY&feature=youtu.be

Here's the error: 

I can take pictures of any other section of code, I'm just not sure of what would be useful here.

As for Rogan: he talked about watching Planet of the Apes in a black neighborhood, saying "we walked into Planet of the Apes." Do I care what else he has to say about anything? Not really. He's a Dunning-Kruger victim anyway.
Source: https://twitter.com/cultofdusty1/status/1095960021064654849 (watch to the very end )

It's amazing that he thought that "joke" would be funny.

The thing to keep in mind with Alex Jones is that he's admitted to the courts that he's just playing a character and he's not like that in reality. My problem with him is that his "character" is about as vile as it gets, inspiring his followers to go after the parents of the victims of school shootings, calling them a conspiracy/hoax. He calls people he doesn't like satanic forces, evil, etc., and a lot of his ignorant fan base takes him seriously. I really like Joe Rogan, but I don't like that he gives time to people like this without setting the stage properly. I suppose it's like inviting "Borat" onto your show as a character, but in a world where most people think Borat is a real person.

Thanks for the quick help everyone! I'll try these tricks to get my text in order.

It's a beginner question because I have not worked with text windows before and I have a little hiccup I can't solve. I've searched for an answer and found a couple that seemed close, but didn't address my problem. As you can see in the screenshot, the text is a little too close to the left side and slightly favoring the bottom. In theory, if the two vertical line borders are the same size (both square) and the corner pins are all the same size (square), what would be throwing it off? The only thing that seems to move the text for me is to add padding, but it's still off-center. The background image is 250x80, as mentioned in the AGS resources.

Congrats everyone! Lots of great titles in there.

This link that was posted on the Discord seems related: https://medium.com/@perplamps/game-design-is-marketing-6028be90158b

Great article, thanks!

My conclusion after finishing a full game, a 5-year project, and releasing it for free with zero impact is that it's more about luck, having some advertising money, or hitting a trend than anything. I suppose if you build it up as a Kickstarter first, that's going to get you some attention.

On my $0 budget, I've done quite a bit to get the word out. I've contacted many game news sites, youtubers, made sure to post frequently on social media and using game specific hashtags, but I get maybe 1 click on my page per day. I've uploaded youtube videos with trailers and in-progress footage. Ultimately... I've accepted this game wasn't *the one* and I am moving onto the next one with the hopes that if THAT one finds an audience, people will be curious and go play the first. I'm even targeting the new one at a more modern streamer audience than old adventure game farts like myself with the hope that I'll hook more fish.

I feel your pain, though. I would settle for bad reviews/reception than no audience. I didn't even make it on the Aggies reader choice pull-down list, which has over 100 adventure games released last year. I would never expect to win with the competition out there (some of it from this very forum), but it's sad when your game doesn't even ping the radar!

Best of luck to you! I hope you manage to crack the code on this. Be sure to share insight if you do.

You are expert nostalgia weavers. This looks incredible.

Abundantly clear police brutality here. Disgusting. Yes, I'm sure protesters have attacked cops as well, but what's shown in these videos is a horrendous response from government peacekeepers.

It's too late for this game but lots of indie developers share their progress on Twitter while working on the game. Similar to updating a WIP thread on the forums. Even though the game is finished, posting about it on social media wouldn't hurt.

Yeah, I've been posting on twitter about it since the beginning under my personal account. I probably should have set one up for just the Knobbly Crook.

[FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION]

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

The Knobbly Crook - The Complete Misadventure
A ridiculous journey into a fantasy world where Rock, Paper, and Scissors are forces of nature.




As we join our woefully inept hero, O'Sirus, he finds himself on trial for all the crimes you have not yet committed together. Retell his absurd story as his journey begins, finding himself a stowaway on a ship that is half horse, half boat, and half whale. Every moment that passes takes you further from your goal--the Knobbly Crook. It's up to you to torment the Drafthorse's unsuspecting crew in an attempt to alter their course. Once you reach moist land, the real adventure begins... and continues for rather a long while... and concludes after quite a bit of shameful nonsense.

DOWNLOAD
AGS Database - https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2310/
GameJolt - https://gamejolt.com/games/TheKnobblyCrook/59177
Itch - https://gnarledscar.itch.io/the-knobbly-crook
Steam - https://store.steampowered.com/app/378300/The_Knobbly_Crook/

POSSIBLE AWARDS
Best Game Created with AGS
Best Freeware Game Created with AGS
Best Puzzles
Best Writing
Best Character
Best Background Art
Best Character Art

SCREENSHOTS

Ahh, right! That's a great idea. Thanks, both of you

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to contact these people.

On the GoG thing - It seemed to me they didn't like that it was a free game. I suppose it could also be the weirdo style feels more "garage" than "professional"

As an old(ish) fart trying to keep up with the rapidly-expanding indie scene - does anybody have advice on how to get more people to try this game? I get a few players trickling in per day, but given that it's a full game and 100% free, I was expecting a bit more traffic. It doesn't impact me financially at all since it's freeware, but it did take 5 years to make and I'd like people to see it. I think my biggest mistake was updating the old version on Steam rather than launching it as a new game since it still shows the old release date.

I am terrible at self-promotion--any words of wisdom? I have it up on Steam, IndieDB, GameJolt, and Itch. GoG said it's not the type of game they host.

I'm still wondering if I should have sold it for $1.99 just to get more buzz as a "real" game. Learning for the next AGS game (announcement coming once I have a second room done).