Messages

If I download the new game, can I restore from my current save point or do I have to start over?

SHADOW

If I had to guess, I'd say the save files probably won't work with v1.1.  You could give it a go, but I'd probably say the file won't load because I created additional graphics sprites for v1.1.

Thanks for a really great game, looking forward to your next one.

Thanks a lot!

[Absent v1.1!]

Well, you all had suggestions, and all of the download links have expired so...

Absent v1.1!

Updates:
- It is now possible to enable and disable subtitles and voices.
- Added guidance on how to save and load game for new players.
- Rearranged the intro to play after the main menu. (So that intro can be played with subtitles.)
- Disabled the cursor spontaneously changing to "use" in some areas. Was causing some glitches.
- Added voicework in a few blank spaces.

I'm very sorry about the file hosting that was used for this release. Usually I'd rely on my site, but it chose that week to go down!
Still working on rebuilding the site, but for now the file itself can be grabbed from it!

Everything should be in order now so here's hoping those who haven't played the game yet enjoy it!

-Fenton

Thanks for the compliments on the game. Glad you're enjoying it.

Spoiler

Well, you've already done your bit with Crystal (you just needed to talk to her about bringing herself and Crys into Steve's cell). Your next step should be trying to do something about that key. Have you seen any more keys like that?

[close]

After having a tough time with the download, I thought I'd post a mirror to Absent.

- Cogliostro

And the irony is I can't access that link! :p  As long as it's the new version I put up the other day, I don't see the harm in giving this link a try for others!

I downloaded this game again after you posted the new link.

I'm really enjoying how the story unfolds. The puzzles are somewhat simple so far. The voice acting is excellent; I would consider it a feature of the game. I really like the background graphics. Murray looks a bit weird how his legs move when he walks.

My only real criticism of the game is that although the voice acting is done really well, subtitles are very important. It really drags things out if all dialogue in the game is read by the actors rather than allowing the player to read and skip the rest of the message. Furthermore, sometimes a few words here and there are missed because of the background music.

As well, there should be a standard menu where the user can save, load and quit the game, and possibly turn on or off the subtitles. Many of us happen to know about F5 and F9 and CTRL Q but I'm sure that many players will just have no idea how to save or restore a game.

Cheers

SHADOW

Thanks a lot for the feedback so far!
Okay, so the big things so far are work on walkcycles (or rather, don't use the walkcycle module (!)) , make turning on subtitles an option and improve the user interface.  Okay, thank you for your input! Thank you for your compliments on our voice actors. Hope you're still enjoying the game!

Well, this is a professional way to start the promotion for the game! :p  If you've already downloaded and have started playing, don't use any inventory items with the fully grown tree towards the end. It'll crash your game. Not sure why you'd want to do that anyway, but either way, just something that slipped past testing!

Here's the fixed version, and hopefully an easier download for those that couldn't access FileFactory.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1731/

It's here!
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1731/

[Special Features:]

Absent is a story which follows the character of young-adult and college student, Murray Schull. He and his two best friends, Eve and Steve, attend a college in which students are disappearing daily. It's up to them to find out how this is happening, why this is happening, protect their other friends, and to put a stop to it once and for all.

Steve's girlfriend, Crystal, has mysteriously disappeared on her way home from college. But further into the investigation, and through Murray's new-found paranormal visions, Murray realises that whatever caused Crystal's disappearence was not anything from this earth. Alongside his vision, Murray is confronted with puzzles, with friends turning against each other, and all for one reason. The Reaper.

Special Features:
-A point/click, easy to use interface.
-Approximately twenty NPC's to interact with.
-Around forty playable rooms in the whole game.
-A completely original story with original art and characters created by myself. 
-A game so varied, I flipped a three sided coin to choose it's genre!
-Full Voice Acting.
-Full MP3 Soundtrack.
-It's completely free!
-Six Steam Achievements.

Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW9yVpP_G4o

Promotional Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK0Ypg9aVuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJBCFVCEKO4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaQEjt-ZvCQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qmb5oh6tZM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcVApLnr1A

Originally intended as a three part series released monthly, Absent is now a full length adventure game. The game has been in the works on and off for three and a half years and considering that it's my first full length project, I am very proud of the final result. I've learnt a lot from working on this game and I believe that I know the steps to take and improvements to make in making my future adventure game projects.


UPDATE: Grab it from Steam!


I really hope you all enjoy!

-James from FNGames

BUMP! See the first post for updates!

-Fenton

Hello there!
I am currently working on Absent: The Game. A contemporary horror/mystery game based around a group of college students.
For more details, here's a trailer!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFV8vfTD1S4
And here's the game's production thread: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=41976.msg628057#msg628057

Anyways, while production is going rather well, there is one area that's holding the whole thing back, and that's the animation.
Aside from most of the voicework and the orchestrations of the music, everything on the project is completely done by myself, which means that some areas of production (such as the animation) remain unfinished, or not looking as polished as they might be able to otherwise, and I'd like to get the game out within the next few months (and I could certainly do so with some help from an animator!)

So yeah, the game is 320x240 resolution, and it's mostly walkcycles that I think I'm having the most trouble with, and they sort of bring the visuals of the game down. (Though there may be other little animation bits that I could use some help with too.)
If anybody is skilled with walkcycles (generally 150-200 pixels high) and wouldn't mind animating some walkcycles for the characters for me for free, that'd be awesome!

Here are some of the characters that would greatly benefit from a more realistic walkcycle:

                               


Drop me a private message if you might be interested. I'll be sure to credit you, of course!

-Fenton

Bump!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFV8vfTD1S4
Hello loyal fans! I've made a trailer for the game!
Particularly revealing many of the voice actors that I was able to cast! Hope you all enjoy watching it!

The project is going great, by the way! Not too long, and I'll be able to play through the whole thing start to finish! Then it's just filling in the blanks from there! Really excited about having this done!

Talk later!

-Fenton

Whoo! It's been a while! Hey everybody!
If you still remember this game, I'm just letting you guys know that it's not dead! However, production was moving slowly a while back. I spent the majority of Summer 2010 working on the game...then Uni began and production stopped. THEN I continued production throughout Summer 2011...then Uni began production stopped. Now, it's started again! And it's closer to being finished than ever before!

Don't get excited yet, it's still quite a few months away, but just know that it's still coming!

The most important update is that not only will the first episode (which to be honest, can now be classified as the demo) be given this deluxe treatment, but you'll also be getting the entire game all at once! However, I will need some assistance with the voice acting soon, given that I can't voice every character by myself! Especially when the main character currently has 4,000 lines of dialogue and counting!
Anybody care to help with voice acting? If so, check out this page, see if any of these characters suit you and drop me an email!
http://www.fentonfilms.co.uk/voiceactors.htm

Soon, I'll hopefully have a trailer put together too! Anybody know of a good free screen capture software?

I'll keep you guys updated! Talk to you later!

-Fenton

one question though:

Spoiler

Why did Murray have to send his friend into the elevator, even though he knew he would die there?

[close]

Thanks for the feedback, hope you stick around for the rest of the series! 

And in answer to the question...

Spoiler

Murray locked Lloyd to hide him from the reaper, he realised Lloyd was marked for death so he shielded him off from any contact with the reaper. Murray was also influenced to put him in the lift because of the future vision he saw of him in the mirror (vision, not ghost). If that doesn't answer your question, you may or may not get the answer you're looking in in Episode 2. 

[close]

Hope you all enjoy the rest of the series, guys!

[Absent: The Game]

Absent: The Game

Click here for the trailer!!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/zFV8vfTD1S4

Absent is a story which follows the character of young-adult and college student, Murray Schull. He and his two best friends, Eve and Steve, attend a college in which students are disappearing daily. It's up to them to find out how this is happening, why this is happening, protect their other friends, and to put a stop to it once and for all.

Steve's girlfriend, Crystal, has mysteriously disappeared on her way home from college. But further into the investigation, and through Murray's new-found paranormal visions, Murray realises that whatever caused Crystal's disappearence was not anything from this earth. Alongside his vision, Murray is confronted with puzzles, with friends turning against each other, and all for one reason. The Reaper.


Special Features:
-A point/click, easy to use interface.
-Approximately twenty NPC's to interact with.
-Around forty playable rooms in the whole game.
-A completely original story with original art and characters created by myself. 
-A game so varied, I flipped a three sided coin to choose it's genre!
-Full Voice Acting.
-Full MP3 Soundtrack.
-It's completely free!







UPDATE (25/08/2012):
So, there's a trailer out now! Hope you all enjoy it! I'm aiming for a release this year for the (now) full length adventure game, and the casting is almost complete!


UPDATE (29/09/2013):
Hi all! Hope you're all doing well!
And finally, after all this time, "Absent" will be released within the week! It's been in the works for a very long time and I'm very proud of the final result!
Here's a series of promo videos for the game giving you a new series of samples of the voice actors and newly composed soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raDsUQ7sEto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Teelt_OF14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yItvAqt_9aY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4LVApR8sMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFLqQ82mW1I

The game will launch very soon.
Stay tuned!

-Fenton


EDIT: It's here.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/1731/

Yep, that's the one.   It used to be triggered by trying to reach into Lloyd's pocket (there was originally not going to be a puzzle there, Murray would've just reached in and grabbed the phone) and I just forgot to take out the line that turns the phone on at the other screen. I just never noticed it because I stopped trying to reach into Lloyd's pocked on beta testing after I got the idea of what it'd do. As I said, it's been fixed in the new download.

Good to see this is the only bug people have found so far, and good to see it's doing well amongst those that have played it.

Thanks for the graphics comment by the way, I'm hoping the rest of the episodes improve as they go on.

The bug I fixed in this update actually doesn't stop you from progressing, it just...solves you a puzzle too early.

Ok guys, just bumping this thread because I've fixed a bug found by Quincy (and which others may have spotted since it's fairly easy to discover), and I've also removed the installer (cuts down a megabyte and a half). So if you haven't finished (or started) the game yet, delete your last copy and download this one instead!

http://shutupload.com/dl/642d4441e884/

And stay tuned to the forum, I'll be posting a development thread of future episodes soon!

-James

Hey, thanks!
I've added the download link onto the game's main page.
If for any reason I need to patch the game, I'll only upload to that site from now on.

[Absent: Part I - Innocent Until Proven Guilty]

Ok...drumroll please...
...
...no?

Ok, then.

Absent: Part I - Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Absent is a story which follows the character of young-adult and college student, Murray Schull. He and his two best friends, Eve and Steve, attend a college in which students are disappearing daily. It's up to them to find out how this is happening, why this is happening, protect their other friends, and to put a stop to it once and for all.

These series of events began when Crystal, a three month girlfriend of Murray's friend, Steve, disappeared on her way home from college via mysterious means. Over the course of the investigation, however, Murray realises that what stole Steve's girlfriend was not anything of this earth. Murray is haunted by visions, confronted with puzzles, with friends turning against each other, and all for one reason. The Reaper.

Features
-A three part epic-story released in parts over three months.
-A point/click, easy to use interface.
-Approximately ten NPC's to interact with in this first episode alone.
-A completely original story with original art, music and characters created by...yours truly!  
-A game so varied, I flipped a three sided coin to choose it's genre!
-It's completely free!

Here's a couple of screencaps:



And a few notes...
I've been on this forum before under a different username, and I've been trying to create an adventure game since approximately late 2005. After a while, I realised I'd set myself too high, so I took a break for a little while. And I must say...returning to your old work really makes you realise your previous problems.
This series is scheduled for a monthly release for each part, but expect this to vary slightly at times given the potential upcoming busy-ness of my schecule!  

Download Absent 101: Innocent Until Proven Guilty for FREE:
http://shutupload.com/dl/642d4441e884/

Visit the game's page HERE:
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1358

Not convinced yet? Watch a short video documenting the individual aspects of the game HERE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7TbeLGg6Ho

Have fun guys! I've been working on this episode, and bits and pieces of the other two, for the majority of the summer, so it feels good to finally have a game out there that I can call mine.

Enjoy!

-James