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[Wadjet Eye Games announces publishing deal with Lively Ivy Studios]

Since things have been pretty good with my company lately, I've decided to take some of the money I've earned and reinvest it in another aspiring developer.  We've been doing the pre-production on the game for the last few months, and have reached a point where we can announce it.  Here is the press release:

Wadjet Eye Games announces publishing deal with Lively Ivy Studios

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(July 10, 2008/New York City) 

Wadjet Eye Games, the indie game studio focused solely on adventure games, today announced a publishing deal with Lively Ivy Studios, an independent game developer who won several awards in 2006 for its PC adventure, "Spooks" as well as for its more recent critically-acclaimed PC game "Nanobots." Under the terms of the agreement, Lively Ivy Studios will develop a new adventure title to be published by Wadjet Eye Games.

"When we first worked with Lively Ivy back in 2007, we knew that we found a unique and energetic talent," said David Gilbert, CEO and creative director of Wadjet Eye Games.  "It has always been a long-term goal for Wadjet Eye to become a publisher for other indie developers. Now that we are in a position to do that, we knew just who to call. We are very excited to work with Lively Ivy in creating a fun, challenging game that will appeal to both adventure and casual gamers alike."

Wadjet Eye Games will fund the game's development and will take over the sales and marketing of the game, allowing Lively Ivy to focus purely on development.

"I'm thrilled to be working with Wadjet Eye once again," said Erin Robinson, the creative force behind Lively Ivy Studios. "I hope to continue in the Wadjet Eye tradition of producing entertaining and thoughtful games, and I'm honored that Dave has granted me this opportunity."

About Wadjet Eye Games

Founded in 2006, Wadjet Eye Games has developed a reputation for producing award-winning and critically acclaimed adventure games for the PC.  Committed to creating unique character-driven game experiences around recognizable brands, Wadjet Eye Games has grown from a small homebrew operation to a company sought after by major publishers.  The company's portfolio includes the award-winning "The Shivah" and "Blackwell" series, both of which led to a Game Developers Choice nomination in 2007.  For more information, visit http://www.wadjeteyegames.com.

About Lively Ivy Studios

Lively Ivy Studios has been producing distinctive freeware adventure games since 2005. Notable for their original storylines, lovably quirky characters, and trademark humor, Lively Ivy's games have enjoyed considerable popularity in the independent games community. Erin Robinson, founder and creative director, recently won first place in Gamedev's competition for Aspiring Women Game Artists.  For more information, visit http://livelyivy.com.

"Frigging sweet" does not do this justice.  Congratulations Erin! 

Creed, Disco, Janet and I are planning on going to York that day.  Steve Ince might come too, since he lives nearby and we keep in touch.  Is it possible to meet in York instead?

Quote
Thanks CJ!  I'm uploading a one-room example of the problem.  You hit the tab button to switch between the characters.  You start off as Rosa and she can walk around the room.  If you switch over to Joey, he won't walk but he'll turn in the correct direction.

Thanks, I've investigated this and confirmed it as a bug in beta 1. I'll get it fixed for beta 2.

Great!  Cheers, CJ.

Thanks CJ!  I'm uploading a one-room example of the problem.  You hit the tab button to switch between the characters.  You start off as Rosa and she can walk around the room.  If you switch over to Joey, he won't walk but he'll turn in the correct direction.

Link:
http://www.davelgil.com/boe/conv/conv_switch_chars.zip

Hallo all!  I'm having a little issue with my switching characters code.  The last version of AGS I was using was 3.01, and this code worked fine.  Now that I've upgraded to the 3.03 beta, it's acting a little funny.

You start the game as the character "Rosa", and it works fine.  But when you switch to Joey, he doesn't move at all.  He turns and faces the correct direction, but he doesn't walk to the spot you clicked on.  If you switch back to Rosa she walks normally.

Does anyone know why such a thing would happen? I've posted the code below, which worked just fine in 3.01 if anyone really wants to take a look at it.

Thanks!

function CharSwitch()
{
  Character *otherchar;
  Character *curchar; 

  int newvp=1;
  int oldvp;
  if (player.ID == ROSA)
  {
    curchar = cRosa;
    otherchar = cJoey;
   }
   else
   {
     curchar = cJoey;
     otherchar = cRosa;
   }
     curchar.StopMoving();
      otherchar.StopMoving();
   
    if (otherchar.x > curchar.x)
    {
   
      while (GetViewportX() < otherchar.x-160  && newvp != oldvp)
         {
           oldvp = GetViewportX();
            SetViewport(GetViewportX() +6,  GetViewportY() );
            newvp = GetViewportX();
            Wait(1);
            ReleaseViewport();
            
         }
    }

    if (otherchar.x < curchar.x)
    {

      while (GetViewportX() > otherchar.x-160  && newvp != oldvp)
         {
           oldvp = GetViewportX();
            SetViewport(GetViewportX() -6,  GetViewportY() );
            newvp = GetViewportX();
            Wait(1);
            ReleaseViewport();

         }
    }

   
   
if (GetGlobalInt(25)==0)
{
  if (player.ID==ROSA)
  {
    Mouse.ChangeModeView(eModeWait, 49);
         mouse.ChangeModeGraphic(mouse.Mode, 619);   
      cJoey.SetAsPlayer();
    cRosa.StopMoving();
    cJoey.StopMoving();
      cJoey.FollowCharacter(null);
      cJoey.Clickable = false;
      cRosa.Clickable=true;
      btn_notes.Enabled=false;
      btn_change_joey.NormalGraphic=26;
      btn_change_rosa.NormalGraphic=49;

      if (GetGlobalInt(70)==0)
      {
        Wait(10);
         Multi.SRespond("turswitch>>>>");
         int x=Multi.response; 
         if (x==1)
            MyDisplay("TUTORIAL: [[Excellent! We're now controlling Joey.[[(You can also switch characters by pressing the \"TAB\" key on your keyboard))[[Let's see if Joey has better luck with the door.  LEFT-CLICK on the door to make Joey interact with it.");
            SetGlobalInt(73, 1);
      }
      
   }
   else
   {
      Mouse.ChangeModeView(eModeWait, 48);
         mouse.ChangeModeGraphic(mouse.Mode, 259);      
       cRosa.SetAsPlayer();
      cRosa.StopMoving();
     cJoey.StopMoving();
      cRosa.Clickable=false;
      cJoey.Clickable=true;
      gMaingui.Transparency=0;
      btn_notes.Enabled=true;
      btn_change_joey.NormalGraphic=25;
      btn_change_rosa.NormalGraphic=50;
      
      if (cRosa.InventoryQuantity[ipaperclip.ID] >0 && GetGlobalInt(70)==0)
      {
         Multi.SRespond("tutrosainv1>>>>");
         int x=Multi.response; 
         if (x==1)
            {
               Wait(10);             
               MyDisplay("TUTORIAL[[You're now controlling Rosangela again, even if you can't see her.");
              MyDisplay("TUTORIAL[[Since the main interface is open, we can see her inventory, and look! There's the paperclip!  Now let's try using it on that door.");
              MyDisplay("TUTORIAL[[To open the door, LEFT-CLICK the paperclip.  Then, move the cursor to the door and LEFT-CLICK again.");

            }
            
      }
      
   }
}   
}

Hell, if you brought out Blackwell Galoshes I'd have to get them.

Now there's an interesting merchandise idea!

Hey Ed.  Thanks.  

There's a good reason for the price hike, and not just because of the production values or a simple desire to make more money.  A year after I released the first Blackwell game, I started selling them on the casual portals and they became very popular there.  Unfortunately, the portals always $20 for each game, so the fact that it was offered for $15 on the Wadjet Eye Games website looked kind of sketchy and inconsistent (and pissed people off when they bought the game on a portal and then saw it offered for less on my site).   The portals weren't going to lower their price and I couldn't justify raising mine,  so I decided that all future titles would match the price of the portals to avoid this kinda thing.

Doing some kind of collection is something I plan on doing.  The series isn't going to be over by any means, but there'll definitely be something.

-Dave

Judging by Tri-Synergy's catalogue, they probably don't follow mainstream games like Oblivion or Thief very closely.  

Most publishers prepare for this kind of thing.  A contract will usually stipulate that the work you're giving them is your own and not stolen.  So that way if you do steal art/assets the it's you who gets sued by the copyright holder and not them.  In addition, the publisher can sue your butt for breach of contract if they are really feeling vindictive.  I doubt any publisher could have prepared for THIS, though.  It's totally unprecedented. 

I can't believe someone made a wiki about this.  This is the biggest thing to happen to adventure gaming since... well, anything.

Graphics are looking sweet, can't wait for it to be released

Me too!

From Blackwell Unbound

Mockup used to code the dialog/action:


Final background:


As Ghost said (er, the AGS ghost.  Not the ghost in the image) , it helps to use placeholder art in order to code the very basic  stuff.  You can draw some basic line art like the image above to put your interactive messages in place, or to code dialog between characters, etc.  A lot of things will change once you put the final art in (walkable areas, walkbehinds, hotspots, etc) but at least a healthy chunk of the grunt work will be done already.

Thanks everyone.   I'm very excited about the new art direction.  Hopefully I'll have an ETA update soon.

...

Wow.

That totally fixes the problem, SSH.  Thanks!

Neat, SSH.  Will that work with animated portraits that use seperate blinking and talking animations?

A screenshot won't really help, since the protrait is totally obscured by the GUI.  But I could be wrong, here you go:



The portrait is supposed to be on the upper left, but it's hidden behind the computer screen GUI, and the browser GUI.

Hi Garage.  Nope, the GUI's not interactable while the portraits are shown.  The portraits just appear behind the GUI, instead of in front.

And to clarify, I'm not asking HOW to make a new gui that will do this.  I'm just wondering if it's possible to bring the dialog portraits to the front and, if not, can CJ put this in the next release.  Is there anything resembling a Z-order for the talking portrait?  Having the dialog portraits appear in front of in-game GUIs is something others would want to have too, I'm sure.  My game will take long enough to make that I can easily wait, but if it's not possible at all I'll bite the bullet and make the GUI.

Thanks!

Looks great, Dave. That restaurant has an almost Gabriel Knight feel to it. But didn't you say in your video that you wouldn't be releasing screenshots for this game, or were you just talking about work in progress?

Yep.

Hi all.  I have an area of my game which uses a large GUI that takes up a lot of screen real estate.  The only problem with it is that it blocks all the character dialog portraits.  I spoke to some AGS techies about it and it seems the only way to fix this is to create another GUI entirely for the talking portraits and push that to the front. 

It seems like a lot of work for something that appears relatively simple to fix.  Is such a thing possible for the next release of AGS?  Or is there a way to fix this using the existing system?  As a last resort I'll bite the bullet and build another GUI, but I'd prefer not to if there's an easier way.

Hi all.  Just a little bump to let you know that this project isn't dead.  As I've mentioned before, I've gone with a studio here in NYC to do the background art, and Shane Stevens has been working on the new sprites.  There will be more to show, soon.  But in the meantime, here are some screenshots showing the new style:


Remember this room from Legacy?  It looks different now.


Rosa walks around an empty office.  Joey peeks through the door in a ghostly fashion.


Rosa's apartment has also gotten a facelift.


Visit authentic NYC locations, like the old Minetta Tavern.


A locked door.  Most adventure game characters would be frustrated by this, but not Joey.

As always, you can learn more by checking out the Wadjet Eye Games site.

Thanks Ivy, Kinoks, Dualnames, et all!