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Hmm... time for a hint. It's a Windows 3.1 game, in the style of Myst. Made in Australia. Having a hard time finding good screenshots of it. It was a really terrible game. Just imagine rooms and rooms of ray-traced scenery like this:

Yeah, sure. You might be thinking of the tactical view. In conversation views, e.g. at mission briefings, all of the portraits were airbrushed to oblivion: http://www.nowgamer.com/siteimage/scale/0/0/189317.jpg

Okay. Presenting... an obscure adventure game!

The other game it looks like is Jagged Alliance.

Miaow or is it meow?

Correct! It's aged horribly too. Your go next.

Guess!

Donnie Darko

Very nice graphics. The title screen evokes feelings of a classic fantasy RPG. Looking forward to playing it twice to see the differences between characters!

Played the demo. I really like the work so far. Great stuff. Very smooth graphics and lots of work on the transitions. I love Clod's roars. Looking forward to playing the whole thing.

It's such a shame we can't like this game now because Rock, Paper, Shotgun et al have given it bad reviews. I really enjoyed it.

Terrible game. 1/10.

Probably Destruction Derby, but if we're talking more recent stuff then Blackwell 2, I guess.

Views are actually fine by me. Views and Loops is same terminology that SCI uses.

It would be nice if each loop could have X frames that play at the start, Y frames that loop and Z frames that play when the animation is stopped. That would let people do better transitions from standing to walking.

One thing I would like to see is the ability to group sprites as flexible boxes. Basically, I'm talking about what we currently do for text windows but not associated with any particular GUI. I want to be able to define 9 sprites that act as the top, sides, bottom, corners and centre of a stretchable box. Then, I want to be able to use that box anywhere I could use a sprite, where specifying width and height will stretch the box accordingly.

Something that could be improved is the system for deciding which loop is shown when the player is walking in a particular direction. When I was developing a Node JS-based engine (long ago), I had a system where you would specify which direction *in degrees* that a particular loop was associated with. For instance, 90, 180, 270 and 0. This would give far greater flexibility. The engine would simply look at the current gradient of movement and do arctan2 (I think) to get the angle... then find the closest angle in the available loops for that view.

Don't know about a named texture atlas. If you're suggesting something like "Kylie's north facing frame where her leg is slightly lifted" and "Chest of drawers with open drawer", then I think that's preposterous. Optional naming if anything. Maybe if you just named groups, where "groups" would include any array of sprites you like, that might be a good solution. Still don't understand the intricacies of how it might work though. Maybe elaborate on what you mean by a named texture atlas.

Huhhhhhh!!! It's the moving thread!!

1: b
2: b
3: b
4: b
5: Yes
6: d or f, as these are unusual settings
7: My favourite part of adventure games? The slow but adequate pacing... I guess? I mean I enjoy making steady progress. If I can solve a puzzle a night, that's really a nice pace for me. If I can't, I'll get turned off after a few nights.

But I agree, don't design by committee. Do what you want to do and don't try to make the puzzles hard. Set out to make them easy instead. It's basically almost impossible to design a bunch of puzzles everybody will find easy.

This looks quite excellent!
Great artwork both in the background (lovely colours!) and the portrait (that hat ^_^) departments, and the premise sounds fun!

Best of luck getting this thing done!

Thank you! It's amazing to get feedback like this!

Looks interesting, and the artwork is lovely!

Thanks!

Holy heck! Graphically and in terms of setting, that looks eerily like a game I was working on, only quite a bit better. Actually, it's probably more accurate to say it looks a lot like the way I intended my game to look. Very nice-looking graphics, for sure (though the curved perspective distortion in the first screen, presumably intended for use in a "camera tilt"-type pan down, looks pretty odd). Reminds me a bit of Nightshade's art: slightly lilac/pastel color scheme, similar "smooth" brushwork creating texture with very little noise.

The story sounds fun. Love games with multiple playable characters, and I've always thought a university is a good setting for an adventure game. The retro fashions are neat as well; is it set in a particular era (80s, I guess â€" I could have sworn the bowler hat outfit is from a movie, but can't quite place it) or is it just stylistic?

Good luck with this!

The hat and all of the outfits are kind of pseudo 80s/90s fashion. I'm not locking it down to a specific decade, but it's pre- mobile phones.

I haven't seen this game you were working on, Snarky. Was it ever announced?

[Kate and Shelly Stick Together (Working Title)]

Kate and Shelly Stick Together (Working Title)

Blurb:

Kate and Shelly are best friends who share everything from toothbrushes to
totally embarrassing gossip. It's no surprise that on their first day at
university, they should both fall for the same boy. He's a dark and charming
stranger, but his mysterious past threatens to divide them. While one girl
can't keep her hands off him, the other begins to suspect there's something
very wrong. Are their lives in danger or is she just paranoid? It's times
like these you need a best friend who doesn't think you're going crazy!

Features:

• Engrossing mystery/thriller with a huge glob of Sweet Valley High romance
• Friendships will be put to the test
• I don't want to spoil anything, but there might be some betrayal
• Two distinct endings
• Two playable characters
• State-of-the-art 320x200 graphics
• Hand-painted backgrounds
• Pixel art sprites and portraits
• Clear progress system that punctuates your adventure
• Simplified two button user interface with a radial menu for extra actions

Planned:

• Animated cutscenes
• Voice acting of some sort

Projected release:

• Not before June, 2015 2016

Progress:

20% -- Art and scripting are well on their way. Story is finalised. Introduction is blocked out. First third of the game is completable. First few cutscenes are complete.

Team:

• Writing and programming: Benjamin Penney (that's me!)
• Background art, storyboarding and animation planning: K. Williams
• Sprites, portraits and general animation: Richard Mallory / Andrei / Various

Screenshots:

Outside the library.


Colour-coded inventories.


A spooky corner of the campus.


Near the gate.


Radial menu for extra actions.


More dialogue and... suitcases! OOoh

Also, 16-bit games run fine for me.
The error like that usually happen if you build both Editor and Engine, then start engine having output folder as a working dir: the engine then accepts generated default "acsprset.spr" as a resource for your game, and fails to load sprites.

Right you are. Ignore me and my flawed testing process then. :/ I've now tested it outside of the build folder and everything appears to be working well.

Okay, I did a re-merge. Now I get a crash trying to initialise a high (16-bit) colour game. Let me know if you need more info.

Spoiler

>   acwin.exe!AGS::Common::Bitmap::GetColorDepth()  Line 101 + 0x3 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!prepare_characters_for_drawing()  Line 1858 + 0x15 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!draw_screen_background(AGS::Common::Bitmap * ds=0x034867a8)  Line 2123   C++
   acwin.exe!construct_virtual_screen(bool fullRedraw=false)  Line 2543 + 0x9 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!render_graphics(AGS::Engine::IDriverDependantBitmap * extraBitmap=0x00000000, int extraX=0, int extraY=0)  Line 2575 + 0x7 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!game_loop_do_render_and_check_mouse(AGS::Engine::IDriverDependantBitmap * extraBitmap=0x00000000, int extraX=0, int extraY=0)  Line 566 + 0x11 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!mainloop(bool checkControls=true, AGS::Engine::IDriverDependantBitmap * extraBitmap=0x00000000, int extraX=0, int extraY=0)  Line 717 + 0x11 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!main_game_loop()  Line 840 + 0xd bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!do_play_game()  Line 143   C++
   acwin.exe!initialize_start_and_play_game(int override_start_room=0, const char * loadSaveGameOnStartup=0x00000000)  Line 182 + 0x5 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!initialize_engine(int argc=1, char * * argv=0x00970490)  Line 1467 + 0x12 bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!_mangled_main(int argc=1, char * * argv=0x00970490)  Line 488 + 0xd bytes   C++
   acwin.exe!__WinMain()  + 0x216 bytes   C

[close]

Spoiler

AGS: Created graphics driver: Direct3D 9
AGS: Initializing screen settings
AGS: Game native resolution: 320 x 200 (16 bit), letterbox optional, side borders enabled
AGS: Initializing gfx filters
AGS: Requested gfx filter: max
AGS: Chosen gfx resolution: 1600 x 1000 (16 bit), game frame: 320 x 200
The thread 'Win32 Thread' (0x146c) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
AGS: Applying scaling filter: StdScale5
AGS: Switching to graphics mode
AGS: Attempt to switch gfx mode to 1600 x 1000 (16-bit) windowed, game frame 320 x 200, gfx filter: StdScale5
'acwin.exe': Loaded 'C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\3D Vision\nvSCPAPI.dll'
AGS -- InitializeD3DState()AGS: Succeeded. Using gfx mode 1600 x 1000 (16-bit) windowed, game frame 320 x 200, gfx filter: StdScale5
AGS: Preparing graphics mode screen
AGS: Initializing colour conversion
AGS: Check for preload image
AGS: Initialize sprites
AGS: Set up screen
AGS: Initialize game settings
AGS: Prepare to start game
AGS: Audio is processed on the main thread
AGS: Cursor mode set to 0 ()
AGS: Checking replay status
AGS: Engine initialization complete
AGS: Starting game
AGS: Cursor mode set to 0 ()
AGS: Playing music 0 ()
AGS: Game speed set to 40 (G 32)
AGS: Loading room 1
AGS: Mouse bounds constrained to (0,0)-(319,199) ()
AGS: Now in room 1 ()
First-chance exception at 0x00bdc836 in acwin.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000000.
Unhandled exception at 0x00bdc836 in acwin.exe: 0xC0000005: Access violation reading location 0x00000000.

[close]

It is better though! I managed to run a windowed/full-screen 32-bit colour game!