Messages

Uhm, I think you guys miss-understood the competition... you suppose to create sprites of the characters, not a movie poster.

Yeah... like you said, I guess it´s up to Misij´. The word Sprite is never mentioned in the rules, and...

There are no size-limits, colour-limits, etc.

This kinda opens up the game a lot to interpretation.

P.S: My entry is not a movie poster, is a game cover  (it says "adventure", not "movie" in the first line  )
P.S II: If there´s required to do sprites of the characters I will, no problem with that either

[Yes, this penguin can talk, although she is mute.]

EDIT: Because Rules 

I decided to ditch the pro/noob thing and go with the penguin as a partner instead (it´s an emperor penguin, they are huge!)



Yes, this penguin can talk, although she is mute.

PS: I realized that I should have used Does instead of Do, sorry, English is not my first language.

PSII: The wall, the sidewalk and the patrol are modifications I made from things I searched on the internet to put a background to the scene quickly, the sprites of the characters are mine.

-------- I leave the error for context to the post -------------

A quickie one!

The pro and the noob... what´s new? PENGUINS!!

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/YzID0Q8.png[/imgzoom]

[Well, let's get started with this!]

Well, let's get started with this!

From a costume store to a potion/used goods store, every good adventure game should have in its arsenal some instance where we are forced to deal with a salesman/saleswoman at their place of work (THE SHOP)
These places are usually cluttered with all sorts of artifacts or decorations according to their theme and are usually very interesting to the eye..




VOTING TIME!! Until 07. May 2021  //  VOTING TIME!! Until 07. May 2021  //  VOTING TIME!! Until 07. May 2021

The entries:



Stylez75
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/JKXRjqT.png[/imgzoom]

Hannah_Banana





You can vote for only one participant per category, a participant can be elected in more than one category.

Concept: your background should tell us something about the place you have depicted.
Playability: does it have clearly defined walkable areas, things to interact with, etc?
Artistic Execution: does the image convey the wanted atmosphere? What's the feeling of the place?
^{(shamelessly copied from Sinitrena who copied it from Creamy)}


Let´s vote!

Hey! I just saw this!

Thanks for the votes and the kind words 

I'll get to the new theme soon!

[About Deponia:]

About Deponia:

Four actually.

Wow

Personally I hated Deponia, I did not went past the first chapter of the first game. The main character was just way too much of an awful and despicable individual, on top of being designed after Guybrush. I remember everyone saying "if you loved Monkey Island you will love Deponia!" That's pretty much because, like 90% of people, "I grew up playing and loving Monkey Island" that I disliked a game that rips it off without its charm.

Completely agree, also it is not only a problem of the main character, I think it is something that extends to various aspects of the game, such as the npc's or the nature of the relationships between the different characters and the type of humor or logic that is handled in that world.

When I proposed Deponia as an example, it was that of a commercially successful game and nothing more  . Obviously there will be people who like it and people who don't.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure Telltale went under because they had one super successful game, assumed all of their games would be that successful and expanded their company in preparation for that, and then their sales went back to normal.
So uh... I guess that means I agree with you.

yes, telltale made a lot of bad business decisions and they cost them dearly. It was not only something related to the quality of their products (obviously if they had reaped success after success, this would be another story).

Regarding the creative state of the genre in the industry (my opinion):

* Lately I see that several indie-developed games are veering towards a more narrative side than something interactive, where the player can perform some actions between story chunks that give a sense of interactivity that sometimes may or may not impact the story development (they usually don't, at least not in general terms). Personally, I'm not so fond of narrative heavy games (where the story progresses rather on its own), but they seem to be successful with the general public.

* Since the means of production of a videogame have been so democratized and anyone with enough will (and minimum technological requirements) can make one (which, for me, will always be a good thing), you tend to see many more games half finished or made by designers who have not been interested in learning the basic tools to tell a story (in general) or at least the dynamics inherent to the genre (For example, I recently played a game that required to have knowledge of history outside what the game provided to solve a puzzle). The same problem can extend to other areas, such as the direction of voice actors, music selection etc. It's not just something related to the script (which in this genre is fundamental).

* Many capable developers (who do everything right: coding, scripting, graphics, music, etc) get lost trying to completely revolutionize the adventure game genre with new mechanics and sandbox worlds but never finish a game.

* I don't see many collaborative games, they are usually made by one person or at most two. Above that, unless they're a studio, it's rare.
I think the genre could gain a lot if we were more willing and committed to collaborate with each other on serious proposals.

* Many times developers set out to make a game of magnitude beyond the scope of what is achievable and end up burnt out. Which is not all bad, because you learn a lot in those projects, but it's a pity when it ends up being such a big frustration that they don't come back to the development of a game.

* Lovecraft is everywhere, it is already known that it sells and many people are taking advantage of it.
(I'm not saying that anyone who does something Lovecraftian is a fraud, I'm saying that there will be many who disguise their proposals as that and in reality have no knowledge or understanding of Lovecraft's work).

[I´m the last man on earth. You?]

I´m the last man on earth. You?

While my pc fights with a video render, I'm gonna put my two cents on the subject.

I think that the guys in the video are very wrong about the whole thing, in fact, the idea that the genre is dead -in my opinion- is wrong. Although it might have passed through some sort of coma haha.

What is happening with the genre is the same thing that Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer have been saying for a long time. The adventure game market back in the day was already hovering around 200,000 sales for a successful game (like MI); today, it's about the same size.  In other words, the problem with the adventure genre is that it is no longer a good business for the big developers. It is, as they say, a niche market.

This being so, it is not surprising that it is a genre that is still alive thanks to indie developers, who do not need to have overwhelming successes with their games to be profitable because there are few people working on them (on more than one occasion, only one) and they are usually self-employed without so many fixed costs for the company.

As for the death of the genre, nowadays it is surprising how many new adventure games are out there (some of very good quality, others not so much). Without going any further, Deponia is a franchise that has three entries, that doesn't happen with a game that doesn't perform favorably. Then there are games like the ones from Wadjet Eye or Kathy Rain that seem to do well.

I think the real challenge of the genre is getting attention in the hyper-competitive market that video games are and getting people to buy them.

Edit: Typo

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/ac05dKl.png[/imgzoom]

Hi!

Maybe if you use hard shadows for the lockers instead of soft shadows, it will give you more separation from the background, which is already blurred.

Your game looks like it would have a lot of ancient temples and stuff

I don't know if there will be a lot of them, but yes, there will be plenty!

Perhaps you could make the Options button a book, which when you click on, opens a menu that looks like a journal.

Yes! I just wanted to add a book (more precisely a captain's log) to the menu. I tried with the loading and saving sections but I didn't like it, this way maybe it can work (If I can pull it off).

[*]

Hi isatche!

I have just finished the demo and I hope you can make the time to see it finished as soon as possible! 

I really liked the graphics, it has a very strong visual imprint (the sprites of the characters reminded me of fire emblem for gameboy advance, ahhh, nostalgia). I like that the cursor changes when it's over something you can interact with and over passages to other places, I didn't get used to using only one click to look and interact, but I don't think it's a gameplay problem but something of mine haha.
The portraits of the characters and their expressions are georgeous, as also the backgrounds are! Congratulations! This game have so much potential!

Here are some sugestions that, IN MY OPINION, could be reviewed to improve the experience.
WATCH OUT! SPOILERS!

Spoiler

* The contact point of the mouse to display the object menu is too high (at the top of the screen) and as soon as you move a pixel away it disappears:
I found it a bit uncomfortable the distance that you had to travel between where most of the interaction points were (Which is at the bottom of the screen) and the menu. It could be that the inventory is displayed when the mouse is lower and not at the top of the screen.

* The hotspots to go to the temple could be bigger. Right now they are placed on the path that goes to the temple (when the first impulse is to click on the building to go to it) and on the entrance stairs (when the impulse is to click on the door and/or stairs). I think that expanding that would improve the gameplay a little bit.

* In some places the signaling is somewhat strange. Like for example, you can click on a bottle that is near some characters and it refers to them instead of the bottle, which is what one would expect.

* The texts also seemed to me very high, as well as the menu, the route from the place where the actions happen to the end of the screen to read the dialogues was a little uncomfortable. Lowering them a little I think they would be fine (the portraits too, not just the text). The only place where it seems to me to work perfectly is in the tent, where the background is much higher than any other in the demo.


Screenshots to illustrate my point - SPOILER

Spoiler

Distance between focal points
    *In the tent
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/lg7Ey2h.png[/imgzoom]
    *In other places
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/WNapsCi.png[/imgzoom]

According to the rule of thirds
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/QJqXKEu.png[/imgzoom]

My sugestion (Move it a little bit closer to a strong point on the frame)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/5g3sIXS.png[/imgzoom]

[close]

[close]

Hi!
Here is my contribution! A wizard doing a power up or something like that, I didn't go into detail because otherwise I wouldn't finish it in one sitting in front of the PC.

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/Abgboev.gif[/imgzoom]


I made it for this specific proposal, I hope you like it

Alright first off, this is a biased opinion since I love dithering.
As such, I think number 3 looks the best. But, I know that some people absolutely detest dithering, so... take that with a pinch of salt.

hahahah, yeah, I get it. I get the same thing, but it has to be well done to be appreciated. The thing is, I'm not sure if I'm handling it right, I've never used dithering before.

As for the GUI. All I can suggest is looking at other games for inspiration.
You need to know many actions you are planning to have available to the player at any one time, before you can make a decision though.

it's a two click system and I'm not trying to revolutionize the genre or anything like that haha, so pretty much it would be to see types of text boxes, colors, shapes and all that. I've been looking at other games but I'm having a hard time locking down the aesthetics:

For now I have is for items/save game/load game/exit game (Which now, having a little more knowledge on how to make a basic gui, I could reduce to an Options button and from there call the save, load and exit menu.

Thank you DeadSuperHero!

These are very good tips to keep in mind when I do the close ups again (as I was testing, I made a mess with the layers and there are things I can't recover enough to work well. So redoing them is going to be inevitable).

Maybe you are right about the textures in the backgrounds (1), it could be something to keep an eye on (and this is the one that I did the best in that sense hahaha).

[1 - General style Screenshot]

Hi, I'm polishing what I have of my game so far. It's a comic adventure (kind of like Indy meets MI), and I'm having trouble deciding the final style of the close-ups that will appear from time to time (they have facial animations and such).

On one side I have the dithering style (2,3) and on the other side the more "classic" style (4). (And there's a screenshot in game so you can see the general style, it has some more dithering in other rooms, but nothing exaggerated).

1 - General style Screenshot

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/9gZVat5.png[/imgzoom]

2 - Heavy Ditherign

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/g0J3JcZ.png[/imgzoom]

3 - Dithering

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/OEMPLkb.png[/imgzoom]

4 - The "classic" style

[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/pdC5WKp.png[/imgzoom]


¿What do you think about it?

PS: I know I went overboard with the dithering of the capture of the characters tied up in the boat.
PS2: I know that the look of the character is not consistent in the different screenshots, they are placeholders that I plan to do better in this instance.
PS3: the main character had some changes since these captures were taken

PS4: Also, if you can think of any particular style that I can use as inspiration for the GUI of a game like this, any suggestions will be welcome.

It might be easier to write it as a switch statement:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/ScriptKeywords.html#switch-case-statements
...it would also allow you to remove duplication of dialogue within the script because you can specify more than one case for the same result.

Intresting... that would be useful to avoid so many monotonous answers or for special cases... I will try it in the future! Thank you!

["else if"]

Thanks Crimson Wizard!

I had tried that solution, but I was typing the command backwards.
instead of putting:

"else if"

I put:

"if else"

and I was getting an error! I wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for you.

Hello again!

I am having a problem with the handling of some commands referring to Items in my game.

The problem happens when I want to call the unhandled_event on an item with several interactions that are already defined (with other inventory items).

Maybe it will be better understood when you see the code.
My intention is that if I have not defined any reaction with another inventory item, apart from those specified, I use the unhandled_event.

Code: ags

function iMachete_UseInv()
{
if (player.ActiveInventory == iPistola) {
player.Say("Mejor no, podría arruinar la pistola");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iCraneo) {
player.Say("No quiero cortar la flecha");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iLiana) {
player.Say("No me interesa atar eso");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iFlecha) {
player.Say("No quiero recortar la flecha");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iIdolo) {
player.Say("La doctora lo prefiere en una sola pieza");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iPistolaDeArponCargada) {
player.Say("Mejor no, podría arruinar la pistola");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iLanzadorDeLianas) {
player.Say("Mejor no, podría arruinar la pistola");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iFlechaAtada) {
player.Say("No quiero acortar ni la flecha, ni la soga");
}
if (player.ActiveInventory == iPiedra) {
player.Say("Prefiero mantenerlo en buenas condiciones");
}
else {unhandled_event(2, 3);
}
}

What happens is that:

* If the object I try to use (this time with iMachete) had no dialog established, I have no problem.

* If the object I try to use with iMachete already had some dialogue established, the character says that dialogue and then also some of the ones assigned to the unhandled_event.
EXCEPT WITH iPiedra, with which it works as it should and only says the specified dialog.

I know the solution should be to find some way to encapsulate all the "if" above and apply the "else" as an alternative to any of them. And that the problem is that the program interpretation (or rather, that what I am telling the program) is that the "else" should be applied to the last "if" only ... but I can' t figure out how to do it and could not find something I can understand in the manual or in other topics.

room_repExec is also an event function and needs to be linked in the room's event pane. Just press the [...] button next to "Repeatedly_execute".

Oh shoot! that was it! I feel like an idiot. I just typed it in the script without doing the link...

You also don't need a boolean to indicate that object got picked up. Just call  oObject.Visible = false;

You are totally right, I was overthinking how to handle that part!


I applied everything you said and it worked just fine!

Thanks Khris! I owe you a lot!

[This is the problem:]

Hello again,

I'm having a problem that I can't find a way to solve.
In theory I know how it should be, but I can't put it into practice and I can't find precise information or information that I can understand to solve it.

This is the problem:

I want to put a glowing point (I already have the animation) that blinks from time to time to point out to the player that there is something of interest in that specific place, until he interacts with it and then the character picks up an object, so the glow should stop appearing from there on.

My idea was to put an object, animate it using the View of the bright point and using a boolean make it disappear when the object is picked up. But for some reason I can't make it glow even once.

I'm using a code something like this for the animation:

Code: ags

function room_Load()
{
 oObject.SetView(X);
 oObjet.Animate(0, 3, eRepeat, eNoBlock);
}

Also, I don´t know how to make a certain time go by without pausing the game, since the use of Wait, as I understand it, pauses everything until the counting finsishes.
Anyway, that code is not working for me...

In the room already, there is a cutscene when the game starts (it's the first room), and where I have an action to perform each time it enters the room again (it's the animation of when it enters from the other side, it's just two rooms)

I know it shouldn't be complicated, but I can't solve it