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Lack o' Vision ... er ... Activision, doesn't have anything to do with King's Quest other than acquiring the company that acquired the company that was bought out by the company that made the game(s) 15-25 years ago.  They ("they" is used loosely here) haven't released a KQ game since 1995 (I don't count VIII).  If they were smart (which they appear not to be) they would bless this fan project that would/could/might rekindle some interest in products they have collecting dust.

While it's easy to discount this whole thing as corporate mentality/stupidity, Activision isn't stupid.  They've managed to surge ahead during a year where most of their contemporaries have gone out of business.  So give them some credit.  Let's play devil's advocate for a minute and see it from their point of view.

Sure, they haven't done anything with the King's Quest IP since they aquired it... but who's to say they won't do it some day?  And if they ever do, they will want to do everything in their marketing power to associate the name "King's Quest" with Activision (or Sierra) and not some freeware company.  By letting fan projects live now, it could potentially hurt them in the future.

I know that this is a verrry hypothetical (and unlikely) scenerio, but a company stays alive by thinking into the future and planning for every eventuality.  I'm sure they looked at this situation from every angle to determine if it can hurt them in any way, however small. 

I have nothing but sympathy for the TSL team and I can't imagine what they must be going through, but I can understand why Activision did it.

Honestly, the biggest surprise (for me at least) was that this project was even still around in the first place!  10 years is a long time for any project, even a freeware one, although it looks like they were getting somewhere with the episodic thing.

Here's a funny anecdote.  Back in 2003, the KQ9 team were holding voice over auditions for the game here in New York, so I figured I'd go.  In chatting with the people there,  it was obvious that most everyone there already knew each other from the KQ9 forums.  The auditions seemed to be merely an excuse for them all to meet.  They were a bit surprised that a complete stranger (me) had shown up.   Some of these guys had flown clear across the country to attend, and others even came from other countries.  I think I had traveled the shortest distance out of anybody there.

Anyway, that's the impression I got of the project as a whole.  That it became more of a community of people hanging out rather than a group dedicated to finishing a game.  Still, it's a crying shame that it was shut down so abruptly after being given the green light. What a bait and switch.  Hopefully they will move onto to bigger and better things.

I've made 3 games in AGS under source control, although it was much easier for me since I am usually the only one doing the programming.  There have been times during Puzzle Bots when my wife had to take over programming duties (she's much better at that stuff than me), and the only problem with that is that I am forced to stop working myself.  We've done our best to modularize everything so things don't overlap, but inevitably it's just easier if one person works at a time.

Typically, I use the SVN so all the artists/composers have an easy way to upload their work, with the bonus of being able to to check out a new build whenever they want.  It's much more convienient than everyone emailing assets to each other.

Hi!  This is a bit of an old thread, but I have encountered this exact same problem.  I tried doing the framerate speed thing, but I had the same problem as M0ds (i.e., it didn't work).  Was this ever resolved or did anyone ever find a workaround? 

Oh yes.  Pretty please, Chris?  This would be a major major boon.

I actually do the game thing full time.  I'm not limited by time so much as budget.   I'd love to do a full length game some day.  Probably not a Blackwell (and yes there will be more coming!) but something else more stand-alone. 

Hah. Yes.  I forgot to add it to the AGS database in time.

Bit of an old thread, but I just wanted to share the news that Blackwell Convergence was just awarded two Aggie awards from Adventure Gamers!.  It received both the Staff award and the Reader's Choice award in the category of "Best Dramatic Writing."

It wouldn't have won the Reader's Choice award without your votes, so thanks to all of you who chose it!

-Dave

This isn't the only case where the characters need to be scaled, and the characters have lots of individual animations.   I could rescale all the animations for all of the characters in each instance that they need to be scaled, but that would be a ton of work and could conceivably double the size of the sprite file (which is already huge as it is!).  As for the backgrounds, they've all have been created (and paid for!) so redoing them now is an impossibility. 

So... what I'll probably do is sell the direct3D version off of my website (where the players are usually more tech-savvy), and sell the DirectDraw version on the distribution portals (where the players are usually, well, not).  Fortunately, the situations where this problem occurs are only in cutscenes, and they take place toward the middle/end of the game.  So hopefully any potential "fallout" will be minimal.  Aside from CJ fixing this problem in the next two months, there's not much else I can do.

I suppose this is what I get for not testing DirectDraw sooner!  For future games I'll definitely remember this problem and make sure to design everything so we won't require much scaling. 

Being able to change the game's settings from with the game file - without making your savegame files obsolete! - would be the best thing ever.  You wouldn't believe the amount of confusing I get from users when I try to explain how to change the settings.  As strange as it seems, a lot of users don't even know how to navigate to a folder on their computer! 

Hi everyone!  I'm having a little issue regarding scaling in a hi-res game.  Normally this would be solved by choosing the "Direct3D" option in the settings file, but I learned when I released Blackwell Convergence that at least 10% of my users have computers that aren't compatible with Direct3D, so they were unable to run the game and had no clue how to fix it (which caused a lot of problems and lots of lost sales!).  So, I'm sticking with DirectDraw.  However, I am noticing a problem with scaling in that mode, even when the "smooth scaled sprites" option is enabled.

The following screenshot was taken with Direct3D enabled:



This was was taken with DirectDraw enabled:



This background required the characters be scaled down a bit, and as you can see, the quality gets downgraded significantly with DirectDraw.  In low-res games this was never an issue, but it's much more noticeable at higher resolutions (especially in full-screen mode!).  I am using AGS version 3.1.2.  I've resisted upgrading up till now, but I'd do it in a heartbeat if this was fixed in the most recent version of AGS.  Otherwise, is there a way around this?  Is there a way to detect if a computer is Direct3D compatible at runtime and change it on-the-fly?  

Ghostlady!  Welcome to the AGS forum.  Those backgrounds sort of remind me of the images from your Mystery Manor website.  Is that where the game is supposed to take place?

Hah!  I have to admit, this concept was awesome enough for me to download the demo.  Although I can't seem to play it at all.  I get to an image of "Sam Spade's" office (?), and all I can do is click on the window and get a message about the office belonging to my dad.  How do you progress from here?

I would have nominated Blackwell Convergence for every award due to the time effort and love put into that game. But alas, I cannot.

Well, to be fair I totally forgot to add Blackwell Convergence to the AGS games database, so that probably disqualified it.

Holy crap, dude.  That's awful news.  I hope it won't stop you from making games in general.  I know how tough it can get. 

Hah!  Brilliant, Ben.  The solution to the last puzzle was stupidly simple and yet extremely subtle. I really liked the style and look of the thing.  The movement between the various scenes was quite slick indeed.  Very well made!

-Dave

Yeah, there shouldn't be a problem with this as long as the pics are listed as public domain and not just nabbed off of Google Image search.  Or just get some friends and photograph them.

Did the competition really got so tough during the last two years?

Yes an no.  On the distribution networks where I used to make most of my money, things have certainly changed!  As I said in the article, they are lowering their prices to the point where I get very little by the time royalties get to me.  It's forcing lots of developers to make smaller, cheaper games. 

Interesting read, especially the analysis of production values vs. profitability.  Do you keep track of all your inputs for each aspect of each project (money spent obviously, but also your time/effort)?  I also wonder how feasible it is to survey your customers, so that you could get more of a sense of what they like and don't like.  I'm always intrigued by the crude stats produced on the AGS Games page, but more detailed information would be helpful to the decision making process.

I try to!  You can't think in terms of "how many copies has the game sold" but rather, "are the earnings worth what what I paid to make it"?  I knew the higher cost of making Convergence was going to be an issue so I kept very careful track of how much I was spending to see if the higher production values would be worth it once it was released.  As I wrote in the article, they were, but since i spent more money to make the game it made very little difference on the balance sheet.  

I wrote this article several weeks ago and it's finally been published.  It's a longish postmortem about the ups and downs of the production process of Blackwell Convergence and what I learned from the process.  Fun times!

Anyways, here it is!

Notable news links!

Here's a sweet demonstration video, where Erin and I chat about the game and show some exclusive game footage.

In addition, Puzzle Bots has been named by DIYgames as one of the top 10 break out indie games of 2010!

The game's been submitted to the IGF.  Cross your fingers.