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Check the original post for some great news on the game development AND some idleness animations of the farmer (specially for you, Chicky!). They're so much fun that I'll probably make more of those.

EDIT: Also added the background of the location that goes with the song I posted earlier. Fully animated!

Good to hear - and see - things are progressing! The original version of that location looked great already - but now it looks even more awesome! Keep up the good work!

Looks really awesome! Brings back the memories of good ol' Indy. And the images for the 9 commands = nice! Same thing I'm doing with the interface for Gray And yeah, they are pretty self-explanatory, indeed - even if I had to think for a moment to remember what the 9 commands were. It's been a LONG since I last saw SCUMM in use.

As for help with music - I'll ask Swordofkings, who does music for my game.

I really like the character design! And that's one hot prehistoric mama. That sexy unibrow...  :

Looks beautiful! The graphics make me think of Chowder (the cartoon) - and the main character's walking animation really reminds me of Samorost for some reason. Great title, too. Very Square-Enix Though the original one might've been more... eye-catching?

I envy people who can make music Especially the piano. Oh and guitars! Me, I can compose something simple or play a few notes that end up sounding tollerable - but I lack the skill or the kind of musical imagination to create something beautiful. Lucky I found - or was found by, actually - someone who can and is willing to make music for my game

Also, the general mood reminded me of the early parts of The Whispered World. Lots of great music.

I've updated the original post with some great news - and a little bit of in-game goodies. Something for your ears to enjoy! So scroll up and... well... ENJOY!

Oh and thanks, Chicky Doing idleness animations for that guy was lots of fun, too.

[squeals like a chibi character]Kawaiiiii[/squeals like a chibi character] I love how simple and yet stylish the art is. It looks so much like a children's book with watercolor illustrations. And the game feels like one, too. It's great how everything can be conveyed without any words whatsoever, through actions and simple symbolics. And you just can't go wrong with melancholic piano music

As for Bob dialing the father's phone number, it doesn't have to seem so strange once you start to wonder if we are really sure how did obtain the scrap of paper in his inventory...

Hmmm...  I haven't thought of that :o As you go, you kind of accept the insanity of it all and have to really focus to think straight again. And what comes to mind is: "There is no spoon..." Brilliant!

304, the Number of the Ben might refer to:
- a Sri Lankan card game
- the most common type of stainless steel
- Peugot 304
- a fictional class battlecruiser in the Stargate universe
- 19 x 16

Whee! Finally I took some time off from my creative endeavors/duties and played the game One of the most - if not THE most - trippy game I ever played. I mean, seriously, Max Payne, eat your heart out :o I thought the personifications of good and bad conscience were the peak of insanity. Oh how wrong I was! :

The strange thing is, I could really relate to Jack's weird visions and distorted perception. They looked and functioned much like a dream does. False memories, confusion, objects appearing out of nowhere, darkness and obscurity - and most importantly, stimuli from the outside world (the conversation in the background) getting picked up by the subconscious and being immersed into the dream reality seamlessly. Oh and building the time machine! The way that one was done reminds me of how you can do things in lucid dreams. The mythological motif also struck a chord with me. And last but not least, the game with colors. Made me think of the good ol' Goblins 3.

Speaking of puzzles... They confused the hell out of me at first - probably more so because I started playing the game late into the night yesterday - but once I understood that logic is nothing more than a handful tool here and not the governing rule, it all got so much easier. Quite intuitive, really. I could even anticipate some solutions before I could make them work. I do wonder if there was any significance to the birds - other than what they replaced in the dream world. Same with the piano. Or the name of the doll. I thought it signified the piano keys - since both words are codewords for letters in military jargon.

I really REALLY liked the graphics. Made me think of old Polish cartoons. They weren't all cutesy and disneyish - but they had their STYLE. Especially the moose looked eerily familiar. And the blonde dude with the mullet looked kinda like an 80's version of Johnny Bravo Another great thing about the graphics were the smoke clouds - or whatever they were - obscuring the view as you go to different parts of the room. A rather simple effect - and yet it emulated the smoky atmosphere so well and added to the trippy mood.

...and so did the music. One of the many things that made the old Mafia game so amazing was the music. Took you back in time. Same here. I froze and frowned when the tune ended and faded out one time.

All in all, a GREAT game! Loved it!

Looks gorgeous! Kind of Giger-esque here and there, both in character design and locations. Hi-res would have looked even more lovely - but I don't mind the lo-res all that much And I really liked the little sample of dialogue, makes the characters likeable.

Keep up the good work!

Alun: You've got one hell of a hawk-eye! :o My bad! The black flower is so obvious, right there in the front that I'm kicking myself for not noticing - but the the farmer's hand I'd have never noticed. It's part of a talking animation and this is him scratching his side. And since I did most of the graphics with nothing more than Paint, there are still some stray pixels here and there. Will have to check and re-upload. Thanks for pointing it out!

Ben: Thanks! It's not nearly as crazy as the one you used in ! and I did try to make it easy on the eyes - but with the intense red it's a tad difficult.

Swordofkings: Sexy? Hmm... Oh well, whatever floats your boat, my friend Seriously though... I've always been fascinated in aliens and UFO's, too - even if this particular story doesn't represent very deep thoughts on the matter. I just wanted to do something humorous I'm a huge fan of the old LucasArts classics (with Day of the Tentacle being my all-time favorite).

Ascovel: I love the graphics in that game! For some reason it makes me think of Atari games (the computer, not the Infogrames aka Atari Interactive). And of a comic/children's book about a humanoid goat I read as a kid. Hmm...
As for the graphics in "Gray", I wanted to keep it simple, without the DotT-style twisted perspective or crooked houses. Ok, so that tree looks a bit weird - but I like to think it's "artsy" rather than bizarre The "technology" I'm using is similarly old-school. I'm doing all of it in good ol' MS Paint, with a mouse (lent the tablet to my sis). Yesterday I worked on the background for one of the cutscenes which I knew would be the most difficult: the cornfield. The whole problem was how to keep it clean and simple. But it turned out even nicer than I thought it would

The screenshots look GORGEOUS. They do have that Curse of the Monkey Island feel to them - but that's GOOD in my books. It's such a shame that huge studios that DO make adventure games have to make them 3D. I liked Sam & Max all lo-res and pixelated so much more!

Aaanyway, fingers crossed for this one! Arrr!

Cianty: D'oh! That's right! : Never had a handheld, anyway - except a bunch of these way back in the commie days No SNES, either. And my NES was actually a Pegassus - BUT it had all the NES innards and ran all NES games.
And I AM cracking! Doing a backround for one of the cutscenes as we speak

Babar: Thank you! The colors do wonderful - and sometimes crazy - things to the atmosphere. You'll be able to visit most locations at various times of the day, and some look so much different every time.
And which Monkey Island project do you mean? I see a MI-inspired game being made - and looking truly GORGEOUS - in this very section of the forum!

Thanks, everyone! The positive response so far REALLY helped me in motivating me to work harder - because I've been getting kinda lazy lately. Luckily, the work's progressing nicely so far, with the most crucial animations and all backgrounds for chief locations being complete.

CaptainD: There will be some intense color combos in further locations, especially towards the end of the game So I suggest getting eye-drops! As for the colors, they make me think of my very first attempts at computer graphics, waaay back in the Commodore 64 days. 16 colors to pick from - as opposed to 16 gazillion colors these days. Funnily enough, this particular set was not accidental - I picked dark blue, red, orange and beige after the 4 rubber stamps I use at work.

Cianty: I never had a gameboy! I feel so deprived! The colors make me think of Mario, though. Good old NES days! As a homage to the classic arcade games, I made the game a side-scroller of a kind. The walkable area is just one pixel thick and the character walks in a straight like only, left and right. As for the logo - glad you like it! I got the idea just today as I sat down to draw it.

[THE INVASION STARTS HERE]

The Game is Released!!
>>> THE INVASION STARTS HERE <<<

THE ALIEN INVASTION STARTS ON NOVEMBER 30!!!

After two years and three months in development, and some recent, unexpected hurdles, the game is finally allllmost there. The final round of beta testing is almost over and I'm adding some final touches here and there. So unless we get invaded by aliens, the game will premiere on Friday, November 30! Check for more news at the bottom of this post.

The game tells a story of Gray - an alien living on the moon. One day he decides to (drumroll!) go visit Earth. And as he speeds through the atmosphere - surprise, surprise! - something goes wrong with the ship and - SURPRISE! - Gray crash-lands in a corn-field. What he has to do now is... Yes, you guessed it: find the ship and go home. How original indeed!  :

Gray is your good ol' point'n'click adventure game - with a smart and somewhat sarcastic protagonist. Expect him to say something about everything he sees, do crazy things and have a snide comment for every one of your failed efforts.

Gray quickly makes new friends - both humans...


...and little critters of nature...


The game runs in 320x240 and utilizes only four colors: dark blue, red, orange and beige. I love experimenting with limited palettes, my webcomic also makes heavy use of three-four color sets. This time, however, it's more than just my whim - in Gray the four colors play a vital role. So I really hope the above screenshots didn't make your eyes bleed!

Here's a little walking cycle of Gray:

and for those who liked the farmer, here are two idleness animations of the hygiene-aware redneck:


UPDATE: October 1, 2010

The game's got a musician on the team now Swordofkings128 contacted me last week and offered help - which I was more than happy to accept! The guy's a real pro! His creativity and versatilty never cease to amaze me. Here's a sample of a beautiful in-game music track he did. Click to play!


And here's the location that the song is for:


UPDATE: November 10, 2010

Swordofkings128, who's supplying the music for the game, made a whole bunch of wonderful background themes for different locations and different times of the day. Added a whole dimension to an otherwise humble project. Which, in turn, made me want to expand the whole game! There will be more interactive characters and MANY more puzzles.

Current progress stats (as of November 10):

   Story: 100%
   Backgrounds: 90%
   Animation: 75 %
   Coding: 10%
   Music: 50 %

UPDATE: May 1, 2011

The game had to be put on hold for a while due to work, work, work/college, college, college, some weird health issues plaguing the team etc. But work was finally resumed last month and continues at a nice pace - with yours truly dividing time between graphics, animation and coding. It's hard to estimate the progress in all those areas percentage-wise, because the game grew expotentially, but it's much, much, MUCH farther than the last time I posted an update and it's coming along nicely.
ALSO, a new member joined the team - Sephiroth, who's a great artist and an amazing coder. He's helped me out with some CRAZY pieces of coding (and believe me, I have CRAZY ideas) and a couple of nasty bugs that were driving me even crazier than I usually am.
Be sure to check out new screenshots above (replaced the ones that I originally posted).

UPDATE: January 14, 2012

Check out the newest posts for news and sneak peeks!


UPDATE: April 30, 2012

We have close to all in-game songs and the game's basically playable from start to finish -- but most conversations, Look At's and interaction responses are still in the works. There's still a FEW things to do that I haven't even started, like sound fx, the outro and the Polish translation. I'm hoping it'll be ready for beta-testing in a month or so, so we could then release by the end of June.

In other news: the dev team grew! By 100%! So now there's four of us:

- SwordOfKings128, who's stuck with me from almost the very beginning, does the music -- and blows my mind on a daily basis.

- Sephiroth is back and assists me with some serious coding. I just think of something crazy I'd want in the game -- and thirty seconds later he sends me the code.

- Paul Franzen, the newest member on the team, offered to proofread and edit dialogues (and monologues) in the game. Ah, poor, unsuspecting soul, didn't know what he was gettting himself into

Speaking of which, here's a sample of Gray's rhetorical talent - the all-time adventure game classic:



And this one of the game's milestones -- the game's own Quit GUI:



Because, obviously, a game with only four colors couldn't have a GUI that is GRAY

UPDATE: September 6, 2012

After two years in production, the game is allllmost ready!

Dialogues: done
Graphics and animation: pretty much!
Music: last song in progress

I plan/hope/play for the game to be out within a month. I'm currently in the process of adding sound effects. Once that and the outro song are complete, we'll run the final round of beta testing.

Oh, and here's the new logo:



UPDATE: November 25, 2012

THE ALIEN INVASTION STARTS ON NOVEMBER 30!!!

After two years and three months in development, and some recent, unexpected hurdles, the game is finally allllmost there. The final round of beta testing is almost over and I'm adding some final touches here and there. So unless we get invaded by aliens, the game will premiere on Friday, November 30!

Also, my long-time friend, Ellana Dayligaun of the incredibly talented band Invisible Animals, let me use one of their otherwoldly songs in the game's outro sequence. The result was MIND-BLOWING!