Messages

Congrats to all participants, and thanks to SSH for the original presentation of the award show.

As an avid Thief player (and FM author as well), I found this game to be very much to my taste. It manages to strike the right balance between being challenging and frustrating.

I just finished the last scenario with the Lazy Sunday suit (manageable thanks to "Forgetfulness" & "Into Shadow"), and the bonus game made all the hassle totally worth it.

For those interested in how I made the backgrounds of this game, I uploaded the photoshop file of the bedroom with all the layers intact: http://www.mediafire.com/?43tzmylyjjm

I drew all the backgrounds at double their final resolution, but to make the upload not too big, I scaled it down to the game's resolution.

Maybe this is of help for some.

Thank you all for your comments. They're much appreciated and give me some food for thought for my next project.

* LEC gui, if it has no meaningful use in game. Push? Pull? Give? Pick up? Use? Lots of verbs, but they aren't used much actually. Simple look-interact-talk could do the whole thing. I don't remember pushing or pulling anything, neither closing, and the complicated verb gui was there more to confuse me than make anything more interesting or complex

Although I prefer the LEC GUI to the Sierra one, I agree the puzzles in this game would've worked with a simpler GUI, too.

Characters look too real for this cartoony style and their animations feel really rushed and low on frames. Atleast main character could have a bit more fluid and cartoony animation.

That's mostly because I had to make all the character sprites and their animations within a very short time. Deadlines are fun!

Did you draw the sprite of mr. Blackwin first? Somehow the fact it had less colors than other sprites bothered me thoughout the game

That's right, well observed! I made his standing pose long before everyone else, and when I came back to animate him, I didn't add any more colors.

* WARNING! WORST SPOILER EVER! IF YOU READ IT YOU'LL KNOW THE WHOLE GAME! *

Spoiler

Before doing the last puzzle (the one where you answer the questions), there is no real evidence that the doctor is actually involved : the wife could have done that on her own : she wants to take the money AND get rid of the cat AND not to be accused, so she kills a hamster on her own, swaps the hamsters, and then lets evidence so that the doctor is accused... Or did I miss something?

[close]

Spoiler

If she had done the murder on her own, Dr. Hadley wouldn't have come up with a lie as to why there is dried blood on his hanky (nosebleed). He simply would have said he didn't know where the blood had come from. At least, that's how I'd explain it.

[close]

Thanks for playing!

The game crashed at this point. I tried doing the above again, but the game worked OK the second time round.

Do you know if anyone else has had the same problem?

I remember one person reporting a crash while playing the German version, but it happened at a different spot and couldn't be repeated either. I blame Windows.

When I try to get back in again, it doesnt come up with any saves, but if I press saves, they are there, but they dont download.

Help please

I'm not sure what is causing this. Normally, old saves can't be loaded if the game's resolution was changed in the setup.

It sounded like a train wreck because all the instruments began to stack on top of each other.

Haha, the joy of midi files sounding different on every soundcard.
Regarding the music, it was really a compromise as the project had to be finished within a rather tight schedule. For the next game I'll try to find someone who can create a few original tracks.

"Push"'s shortcut is "S". That's correct - it's a synonim of "Shove".
"Pull"'s shortcut is "X". That's incorrect, in comparison with LEC games, plus it makes no sense. The correct key would be "Y" - "Yank".

Ah, that is good to know, thanks. I chose the X it because it's next to the Y on my keyboard (I've got a QWERTZ one). The German version uses the QWE/ASD/YXC key block where the key position corresponds to the verb's position in the GUI.

Thank you all for your kind comments! I'm glad you like the game.
If things go as planned (which they seldomly do) there'll be more sometime next year.

[The story:]

Hello everyone,

If you're in the mood for a little murder mystery, look no further:

Murder in a Wheel is a small adventure reminiscent of old LucasArts titles. You'll recognize the SCUMMy interface.

The graphics were drawn by me whereas I borrowed the midi music from several old games. I already released the German-only version of the game earlier this year, but it took me a long time to translate everything (about 1000 lines of text - phew!).


The story:

Roderick, Lady Blackwin's beloved Hamster, was murdered. It is up to you to solve the crime and find the killer.


Some screenshots:






Download:

Murder in a Wheel v2.0 English & German


Enjoy!