Messages

I agree with the general consensus, I know you're still practicing with the Wacom, and your backgrounds are nice, but they don't seem as tight or coherent as you're amazing Pixel art ones.

Also, I hate you Jens, you must teach me how to do quick sketches that look that good lol.

Probably involves an art degree or something.

The way you have the real world looking noir and the afterlife colorful reminds me of The Corpse Bride. If you watch the special features on that movie Tim Burton talks about that stuff. I of course always watch them because I'm studying to become a director..

I've not seen Corpse Bride, but I love Nightmare Before Christmas's style, and it's heavily influenced the way I draw the dead characters. I'll upload some sketches tonight if anyone's curious.

I'm currently working on the Police Station reception (40%) and the Death Ferry (80%), then I'm going to move onto getting a few more characters done so I can think about assembling a demo.

It's good that you've found a good artist for you project (just don't lose the retro AGS feel), and there need to be more horror mystery/thriller games to outweigh all the farce.

Angel Dust, you should try to keep conversation pertaining to the development to PM, otherwise this thread could get very long with just two people talking lol.

How do I make it so that each frame shows without the rest  showing in the background?

I think you right click on the frames in Imageready and then click once. Though that's just a guess.

Ooh! Nice! You've got great lighting effects in your scenes...

Thanks, it's only the living world backgrounds that will have the "stage set" look, the afterlife ones will be a bit more bright.

Also, these backgrounds look much better on a TFT, if you think they look too dark, tweak your gamma a bit.

Japan was awesome. I'd talk about it more but this isn't a blog site.

I will however bump this thread back to the top, with a new background:






Streetlamp needs work, other than that, it's the outside of the ship I poster earlier.

Right, you're art style is really good, but you really need to put some screenshots on this thread of the actual game.

Don't be deterred, just make some mock up ones quickly, s'what everyone does.

Wow, the first thing I thought when I saw this was that it looked very professional. Good luck with the project! Very interested.

I come back from Japan to find this?

Christ on a bike, this is rather uncomfortable news. I'm not so sure about Microsoft, I respect CJ for making good on his excellent Engine, and Valve are a good company. But Microsoft are a bit of a snake in the grass...

Can we still release commercial games with the old versions of AGS?

Will this forum die?

I'm scared mummy...

Ok, this is just an update post to say that with the planned downtime tomorrow-sunday and my two week holiday to Japan on Monday means I won't be updating after today until April 1st. Just incase you think the project's died. Best to have this one post than any number of potential posts asking me where I am.

TL;DR:- BRB

So yeah, I spent a few days working on this shizzle, it's an afterlife background, hopefully should give you an idea of the style.




Could use anti aliasing maybe...

I'm aware that there is a way to get effective anti aliasing quicky, drawing the image twice as big and then shrinking it, but I always forget lol. Something to remember for Part II....


Anyway, the place will look busier with some NPC's bustling around.

EDIT:- In response to Stavaas, I use GraphicsGale for the main part, and then I tweak the colours and certain things in PS (I'd do it in GraphicsGale, but the lack of adjustment layers is a bit of a bummer)

http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/

It's in my opinion the Photoshop of the pixelart world. Really good (and free).

When are you going to post the Afterlife screenshots?

Later this week when I'm happy with them. Expect Friday-Saturday.

Will this version of it get released Cluey?

Hah, I know what you mean, I wouldn't want to get your hopes up.

Anyway, I've got alot more drive to finish things now. I also have alot of free time, well, at least until I go to university, but hopefully by then the majority will be done so it won't take so much time. As most will know it's the graphics that take the longest, and I've got a pretty steady production rate on those.

I'm going to reply to my thread sooner than I'd planned to at least ensure it doesn't fall off the first page because of a certain troll.

Anyway, thanks for all the compliments on the game, I've been working on the Grim Reaper sprite when a grand idea hit me for it.

The Afterlife parts of the game are much more cartoony and twisted than the real life parts, I drew the Grim Reaper like this for the real world parts of the game:

(x3)
Terrifying no? I'll draw the scyth in later. This sprite is only going to be on screen for a few seconds, I'm going to animate the purple haze and make him float a bit, some dripping blood wouldn't go amiss as well.

In the afterlife parts of the game, he'll appear a lot less terrifying, kind of like his appearance depends on the reality that he is in at the time. Originally I was planning to use just the cartoony sprite for his appearance to the deceased. But I think using a more serious sprite just for the apparition will add a bit of depth.

Gaz, get the +1 boots of stomping, we're being trolled!

Wpowell, I do believe you're purposely trying to annoy!

If you're not, as a general rule, four year old threads are not "fair game" for posting.

Wow, things that go "bump" in the night.

I remember this thread from way back when.

I don't know much about Music, but I quite like this. It does sound like Mew meets Muse. I'd definately have this on my MP3 player.

[DO NOT REPLY TO THAT THREAD FOR THE LOVE OF GOD]

Only issue is the theatre background. The other screens are mostly cut off. The theatre is full screen. Is there a reason? Theoretically, you could incorporate the gui in the black spaces. I prefer 16:10 resolutions anyway cause i have a widescreen. It just seems really odd to me...

Well that background is used in the opening cut-scene, so it's ok to have it take up the whole screen. Thanks for the compliments.

As far as the main character goes, the one you see in the first screen is him in his living state, the afterlife parts are going to be a bit more twisted and baroque, and the character will reflect that.

I'm going to whip up some sprites this afternoon, as soon as I'm done resurrecting Yog-Sothoth (ok, I lie, I'm going to town to buy No More Heroes).

Also, if out of curiousity you want to see the original game, you can see the old thread here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=11743.0

I shouldn't have to say this but DO NOT REPLY TO THAT THREAD FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

[The Darksiders - Part I - The Curious Case of Mark Idalo]

After a four year hiatus from really doing anything, I decided to restart one of my long dead games, The Darksiders. Before I begin I shall explain that the new thread is mostly down to the fact that after talking extensively with various people (RickJ and my Brother in particular) the game is pretty much completely different than it was 4 years ago. The story is similar, but ultimately less farce and more wit.

Anyway, without further ado, I (and hopefully when I get my graphics all done, my team) shall present to you:

The Darksiders - Part I - The Curious Case of Mark Idalo

Story

Detective Inspector Mark Idalo is brilliant, well, that is to say he WAS brilliant. For Idalo, life has taken a bit of a plummet. World War II is kicking up a storm, all the good London bars are closed, rationing means he can't get a decent Full English breakfast anymore and to top it all off, through a series of unlucky co-incidences, he's found himself deceased.

Undettered by this he sets out on his spectral way in an attempt to solve his murder, and uncovers something that could send both the afterlife, and the living world, to hell.

Figuratively speaking of course.

EARLY Screenshots
These screens represent what the graphics of the game will be like, only one of them is really "ingame", the rest are backgrounds, use your imagination to impose Idalo and a cursor on them for now 


I tried to capture the bleak feeling of run down London



Noir films and Jazz are one of my key inspirations



Life is a stage, or rather it was...



Inconspicuous murders await!

Gameplay info
As my attention is currently focused on graphics production, this is all subject to change later on due to mood swings and the ebbing of the tides.

-Medium length game
-Verb coin GUI
-A system that measures your reputation with certain people, making them more likely to give you clues or hints on what to do, non essential, more of a fun help system.
-320x200 resolution, though may up it for a constant inventory on screen (think R-09 style)
-Explore the Underworld! (screens of that coming later)
-Meet a diverse cast of spooks and mobsters
-I'm going to locate a jazz musician if it kills me, and have some awesome music to boot.

Progress
Ah my least favourite part of the pitch:

Story: 80% - Working out certain characters and dialogue, other than that I've got the story down

Graphics: 35% - Done a good number of backgrounds, about 7 in all, only 2 characters done and fully animated so far though. Hoping to get all of it done by mid July, I can (if I put effort into it) do a background in a day, characters take longer. If I put that much effort into it I could have it all done by the mid June. But I can't because of other commitments at the moment.

Scripting: 0% - Seeing as I'm not counting my mock up as scripting, it's not going to get started until most of the graphics are done.

Sound/Music: 0% - Again, going to wait until the end to get this bit done, the musician I find will have a better idea about what's needed.

ETA- 2009 - Slipped due to work and uni


Feb 29th - March 7th: I will be working on at least 2 new backgrounds, one of which will be an Afterlife scene. I'll also work on my Grim Reaper character and get an animation done for you lovely folks. Until that time, adieu.