Messages

1. Misj'
2. Arj0n
3. Gurok

Awesome! I really enjoyed the three Technobabylon episodes and this looks to be a big step forwards in overall quality. I foresee great success and lots of up-the-spine chills for this one.

what it means to be human

Also, this is my favorite part of science fiction.

Another very professional looking and promising title, looks to be a good year for AGS. Those screenshots are beautiful and the high-color backgrounds actually blend surprisingly well with the low-colorish character sprites. As I understand, the game uses the power of the mighty Lua, will this mean any noticeable features/differences in comparison to regular AGS games?

Have any of you guys played Quack or Unreel? I also recommend Dumb Rider.

[Update 4 (29.05.2014) â€" Take a Look or Use the Talk?]

Update 4 (29.05.2014) â€" Take a Look or Use the Talk?

Man, that Leofrick sure drives a hard bargain, nothing is ever easy with him. Oh yeah, have I mentioned that Leofrick's an ogre? Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against ogres, they're friendly folk and make good and trustworthy companions, but there's just something about Leofrick...

He's actually one of the most well-spoken and intelligent ogres I've ever met and I guess that might be the very thing that bothers me. He's probably a bit too smart for his own good, because doing business with an ogre, who can easily beat you in a game of wishwhacks, is somewhat unsettling. Nevertheless, after a hard days work (and believe me, it was hard) I managed to get most of the necessary stuff for a fairly reasonable price and now we should have all the basic equipment we need to complete our journey.

And you know what? I think that we're finally ready to leave Ystnaf behind and start following the yellow brick road towards Mount Modnar.

I would like Kingdom of Ehcilc to have as much basic settings and keyboard/mouse options as AGS allows, which means that you can expect stuff like speed and audio sliders, gamma adjustment and other similar options that should offer at least some variety and customization.

Current versions (they need a bit more polish and few more settings):

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/KOE/guis.png[/imgzoom]

Keyboard shortcuts for verbs are a must and I'm also thinking of making the keys rebindable and using mouse wheel to scroll through them. Speaking of verbs, you don't really see many multi-verb adventure games these days and I doubt that I'll use this system in any of my future games, but it should work well with Echilc and I sort of like it. Besides the nostalgia and cliche factor, the additional verbs should give us some extra options when it comes to designing puzzles and interactions. In an ideal game, all the hotspots, objects and characters would respond differently to each verb, but that's probably a bit too much for this one. Still, the idea is to actually utilize these verbs and use them as well as we can.

Most recent UI version:

[imgzoom]http://tulevik.eu/ags/KOE/UI.png[/imgzoom]
The game will have a permanently visible on-screen user interface, which means that you don't have to make any extra clicks to open the inventory window or mess around with different top/bottom sliding menus. Although it might make the game feel a bit less immersive, I figured it would be easier for the players to make associations when they can always visually see all the tools (verbs, inventory) that they need to solve the puzzles or interact with things. Also, it means smaller backgrounds, which in turn means less drawing for me.

Thank you for reading and please don't be shy to post comments, argue or ask questions.

Yes, how dare you rip off Hobo and have a blue person looking in!

The more blue people, the merrier!

Also, a lot of awesome entries so far, voting is going to be tough.

Peek-a-boo, I see you...

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/bXAk8VT.png[/imgzoom]

Sci-fi adventures are the best and this one looks very promising! Love the idea of randomizing events and puzzles and emphazis on player choice. Good luck with the production.

[miguel]

Thanks miguel, Monsieur OUXX and AnasAbdin. I'm not actually too worried or frustrated about the graphics, it's just that the more I draw, the more I start seeing things that could be improved, stuff that I didn't even think about before. And I'll be sure to post in the Critics' Lounge in the future.

[Update 3 (15.05.2014) â€" Small pixels, big picture]

Update 3 (15.05.2014) â€" Small pixels, big picture

Over three weeks have passed and we're still in Ystnaf, still preparing, still not ready. To be honest, we're both very eager to leave, but at the same time we keep reminding ourselves that there's no hurry, few weeks or months here or there don't actually matter, there's plenty of time. It's not like Mount Modnar's going anywhere, at least I hope it's not, because there's actually one recorded instance in history of Ehcilc, when a mountain suddenly just stood up one day and ventured away. Might have been a behemoth or something...

Anyway, preparation is an important part of every journey and I'd like to be well prepared for this one. Last week I went over our equipment list to make sure that we're packing everything we need and it turned out that few important items are completely missing from our inventory and some need to be either repaired or replaced. I guess I'll have to pay one last visit to old Leofrick.

Since there are going to be multiple updates concerning the graphical aspects of the game, I'm going to start with a short introduction to give you some insight about how this game is being created.

First of all, I have a rather uncommon method of drawing â€" I use a Lenovo T61 laptop touchpad. Obviously I'm not capable of creating hi-res digital paintings with it, but it suits just fine for the style that I'm going for and actually feels quite natural. I have two programs: Paint.NET 4.0.5. for drawing and GraphicsGale 2.03.20 for animating sprites. Only tools I regularly use within these programs are brush, eraser, fill, line tool and color replacer.

All that is more than enough, considering my current level of experience. I have no background in art and have been actively pixeling less than a year, which means that everything I do is done by trial and error and pixel by pixel. Here's an example to illustrate character progression:



There are still a lot of things (shading, colors, perspective etc.) that I'm not satisfied with, but hopefully my skills will improve enough to fix some of the more obvious problems before the release.

Also, I'd like to encourage everyone who enjoy creating games not to let the lack of skills (in graphics, programming or whatever) stand in your way. Take your time, be patient, use whatever tools you feel comfortable with and just go for it!

Thank you for reading and please don't be shy to post comments, argue or ask questions.

In before Armageddon posts : Watch out for the mixed resolutions (low-res drawings, hi-res font).

If you mean the image from the 2nd update then that's not an actual in-game shot, just a mockup to illustrate the progress of the story. I was just lazy and used a default paintshop font there, no such shenanigans will appear in the game.

Miguel... no plans for a Barbarian, but perhaps we could fit in a Goblin who sells onions?

Don't worry, Miguel, we'll just have to mod the game after its release:
http://i.imgur.com/DCkG1oV.png
This is what you guys had in mind, right? Barbarians and gobliiins?


Good to hear that things are progressing well. The demo was awesome and I can't wait to play some more.
Also, Jesse Lowther sounds pretty nice.

[Update 2 (03.05.2014) - Story and setting]

Update 2 (03.05.2014) - Story and setting

I've been studying various old maps and ancient manuscripts during this past week in order to plot the best possible route for our journey and I think it's finally starting to take shape. There are some winding side paths and few dangerous crossings that I'm not that sure of, but in overall it's looking good. Still, I have this uneasy feeling in the back of my head that I'm going to have to keep checking and double-checking these plans over and over again, because, as all things in Ehcilc, the slippery slopes of Mount Modnar are not always what they seem.

Although Kingdom of Ehcilc revolves around cliches, it's not intended to be an all-out parody or a game stuffed with every little cliche known to mankind. As Ghost (+10 perception, X-ray vision unlocked) already pointed out, Ehcilc is cliche spelled backwards and that's kind of the direction I would like it to go, meaning that there will be different tropes and cliches in the game, but many of them are going to be turned upside down, tainted by weird sense of humour and offered multiple and/or alternative solutions.

The game itself will be set in a very typical fantasy setting, filled with your usual races and creatures, but we'll try to sneak in some less popular and underused elements and concepts of the genre. As for the plot... well, there's an idea (head) and a strong backbone, but rest of it is just a pile of bones that need to be picked up and fleshed out:



Just like the setting, the premise of the story is also simple and familiar to all who have had at least some experience in the realm of adventuring: Your home gets destroyed/ransacked, you're left behind hurt and dying and venture forth to seek a glorious revenge, but not really. The player will actually have a large say in the motivation and behaviour of the main character and if you don't want to follow the path of revenge, you can go pick flowers instead or whatever... or can you?

I hope all this sheds at least some light on our plans and I'll be sure to share more plot related details in the future, but until then, thank you for reading and please don't be shy to post comments, argue or ask questions.

[Update 1 (23.04.2014) - Current state of things and the beginning of our journey]

Update 1 (23.04.2014) - Current state of things and the beginning of our journey

I've never quite understood how some people define their progress in exact percentages. Have they written complete design documents and thoroughly planned everything out or are they just throwing around random numbers? Well... I must say that I haven't really done much planning at all, but I do have a clear vision, a strong starting point and a vague idea about the ending, I'll just have to wait and see how the rest of it fills up.

Right now, the tech demo is more or less in working condition and most of the buttons do a thing when you click on them. We're currently polishing the GUI and doing some other functionality related scripting. Also, we've got some backgrounds, several character sprites, few items and couple of puzzle ideas.

All this unplanned and chaotic development means that I can't really share any specific and easily comprehensible information about the actual progress of the game, but I'll try to keep you guys informed in my own way.

Let us all close our eyes (not while reading this) and imagine that completing the development of this game is actually a long and dangerous journey to the top of Mount Modnar (the highest mountain in all of Ehcilc). If that were the case, our little team of adventurers would still be in the great plains of Nerrab, in the village of Ystnaf, haggling over food and equipment prices with Leofrick the shopkeeper.

To be honest, Ystnaf is not a bad place to start a journey from. We can easily rest here for couple of more weeks, gather our strength and replenish our supplies, before taking the first bold step towards the distant and mysterious peak of Modnar. Everything looks more than promising and the sleep is sweet under the blanket of our dream.

Since this post turned out a bit longer than I expected, I'll write about the story and setting in the next update.
Thank you for reading and please don't be shy to post comments, argue or ask questions.

ìâ€"ì·¨

Thanks for the fun competition and cheers to other trophy winners!

and if Hobo wants to run the next one, it is okay by me. My competitions tend to crash and burn, badly!

I'm absolutely fine with second place and have the uttermost faith in you to host a wonderful coloring ball.

Yeah, making games harder by limiting save slots is bad design in my opinion, back in the days it was mainly done because of technical limitations. If you really want to use it, add an optional "ironman mode" that has such limitations. Besides, these one-save-systems in PC games can be cheated anyway, because you can always copy/replace that one save game manually.

Finally got around to playing the demo and I must say, it was extremely enjoyable! I really love the look of the game (although some parts are a tad bit too antialiased for my taste), the puzzles were well done, music was great and the story certainly has a lot of potential.

Some things that might need fixing:

Spoiler

1) A little bug and how to recreate it:
      - Delete/remove save games
      - Load game from title screen
      - There are no saves, but click load game again despite that
      - Now close the menu from X and you're left with a background picture only

2) I managed to maneuver myself inside the prison bars:


3) I don't know if it's intentional, but the correct stone wheel code doesn't seem to work before the guy has shown it to you (also, maybe a randomized code would add an extra touch to it)

[close]

Congrats to Krazy and well done everyone else too!
These are exactly the kind of moustachy games I was hoping to see when I set the guidelines.

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words everyone! I'll post the first introductory update in few days, which will cover the current state of things and reveal a bit more about the overall style and story of the game.

It's so AMIGA-fashioned!! (especially the last screenshot)!

Good to hear that, old amiga/dos games are certainly a big source of inspiraton for this one.