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I'd say Derek is still in space.

Is this going to be a pure adventure game or partially a shooter?

[Classified Ads - Personal - Men Looking For Women]

Brides of
DRACULA

This Dracula is in serious trouble. Being a vampire lord just ain't what it used to be back in 1599. No more desolate castles, no more terrified peasants, hell, you can't even kidnap yourself a maiden anymore! Without getting police involved, that is.
But police or no police, a self-respecting Dracula just can't go without brides. Left with no better options, he contacted the local newspaper...

Classified Ads - Personal - Men Looking For Women
Vampire lord (35, apparent age) is looking
for a bride    (or preferably: three brides).
Good looking, honest, respected, wealthy.
Will meet females  (20-30) with affinity for
stone castles and unusual pets (eg bats).
Pictures required!       Serious offers only.

Did he get any answers? Provide the pictures of the potential candidates for brides, keeping in mind that:
1. They usually come in set of three: blonde, dark-haired and ginger. That's the latest fashion.
2. Any theme is fine - serious or parody, modern or historical (it's not that hard to rent a costume, right?). The sprite doesn't have to follow the style of the original (above) picture.
3. Dracula has a reputation to uphold (no brides, no vampire lord), so he's desperate enough to accept just anyone, not necessarily luscious vixens. Overweight? Plain? Dull? Fine, if nothing better comes along...
4. You can name your bride candidates and give them a short description.
5. You can be creative within the limits of the above story. Hint:

Spoiler

Why can't Professor Van Helsing use the opportunity to disguise himself and track the vampire down? Sure he can. He and his two accomplices.

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Trophies:

It's a shame there were only two entries, such a cool idea for a competition deserved more. Anyway, I'll try to think of something and start a new competition in the next few days.

I know, and it was all planned I kinda owed you one since if it wasn't for your post I would never know about the series myself, so this entry is also sort of a small token of gratitude.

And I wish I could actually turn it into a game, but this fake screenshot here is about all I'm capable of, hehe. I'm ready to hand over the graphics though if anyone feels up to the task.

Dual and NsMn, thanks!

I hope early 90s DOS games aren't ruled out

Phantasm V in Jagged Alliance 1 style (Okay, I know most of those characters are supposed to be dead or at least older but hey, I had unit windows to fill...):

PHANTASM 1999

Year 1999. Somewhere in the middle of the wasteland between New York and California known as the Plague Zone, the evil Tall Man is building his army of undead with the sole goal of gaining control over the planet and turning all the living into cross-dimensional slaves. Your task is to lead a small unit of mercenaries into the Plague Zone, find the entrance to the Red Dimension hidden deep within the Tall Man's headquarters, the Mormon Mausoleum, and destroy the source of his immortality and power.

Battle thousands of the Tall Man's minions: the Dwarves, the Baggers, the Spheres and many more.
Train your troops and research new weapons while traveling through the land controlled by the Tall Man.
Choose your way to victory: control either a military unit, well-equipped and trained in combat who have yet to see a real undead, or a group of veteran civilians who know the Tall Man's weaknesses better than anyone else.

x1
x2

I couldn't find JA1 palette anywhere, so I used an 8bit 256 color table with error diffusion to simulate the effect.
Original image (without error diffusion)

And my somewhat pathetic (and full of googled photos) attempt at box art:

Spoiler

I did use the Konami code, but all it did for me was to make the 0/800 points screen pop. With HP bars still visible by the way. Am I missing something or is it the ultimate top secret way to lose the game?

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Here it goes:

People of Earth!

Spoiler

playaskrusty

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That's so kind of you, L.P.Ray. Here, have the fan letter, just cross out the parts where it says 'Jessica'.

You could try adding some of the following if the treasury feels too empty for you:
* A decorative tapestry or two
* More statues of various types and size
* Heaps of gold coins on the floor
* Cracks and dirt in the floor tiles
* Cracks and dirt in the walls
* Paintings
* Another carpet, perhaps bigger and more decorative than the one you already have in the picture
* An overgrown carnivorous man eating plant on the wall - somebody has to guard the place, no?
* A collection of some sort. The Rosella doll is a good start.
* Sources of light - candles, chandeliers, torch stands, anything.
* A relief
* A staircase (the one you had in the original version was cool indeed)
* Shields, weapons and armor
* Antlers of an exotic, mysterious animal
* A chest filled with jewelry
* More columns
* Perhaps a balcony for the owner to admire his treasures
* Stone gargoyles
* Since it's KQ inspired, some sort of a magical treasure would fit the background maybe
* More treasures that can be exhibited in the center or on the sides of the room.

Also sometimes when you need to fill the empty space and just can't get the right idea, you can make it a multi purpose room, eg. a treasury and an underground library for example.

You're not gonna fool me. As sweet and feminine as Jessica's voice may sound, here's the proof.
!!!Spoiler!!!
I hereby publish this photo as an act of revenge for my destroyed fatnasies.

...and clwon is still bugged.

Edit: I corrected my spelling as I was suggested, but

Spoiler

pleyassclwon still doesn't work.

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I won. 800/800 n00bz.

But, this is bugged.

Spoiler

I type playasclwon and nothing happens. Meh!

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Also,

Spoiler

Jessica is a guy (!!!!!1!!), though you can only tell after you have seen the lower part of his body. I have a photo to prove that.
I'm so disappointed, I had a fanboy love letter prepared and all. Guess I'll just have it sent to Life Partner Ray instead, for the overall smexiness of his soothing voice.

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I tried it four times from the same saved game and the crash kept occurring.
Then I replayed the game from the very beginning without any crashes and I think I have a rough idea what happened.

Spoiler

The first time I *somehow* got two endings mixed up, ie I got into the room with Ben's (un)dead body and the normal bad ending cutscene started playing. I got the Tall Man emerging from the wall, and the brother waking up and speaking about mother and father. Then I got the easter egg ending immediately after that.. it seems that by something I had done before entering the morgue, I managed to trigger both endings at the same time and they overlapped each other.
I can upload my save game for you if that helps anything.

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I found it and I also managed to crash the game. Room 8 line 109, Cannot run this command since there is a NewRoom command already queued to run - the error message says. It popped after

Spoiler

the Hamburglar ran in and Mike yelled "NOOOOOOOO".

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And by the way, you (and ProgZ) made me watch the movie. I guess I'm a fan now.

Careful, you're losing important details in the process.

Here, I fixed it for you:

Actually, I'm pretty sure he simply copied a Final Fantasy background including perspective and details in a huge part, not only colors or general style. With some minor tweaks like that strange humanoid figure in the back or shadows on the wall near the ceiling. But anyway.

Icey, if you want your background to match a certain style, pay closer attention to how the original is drawn.
In this particular case: do not use brush tool, use pencil. Brush tool leaves those blurry stains and smudges around whatever you're trying to draw. The same goes for the carpet. If you want to add a texture to it, you should avoid using brush tool.
Or alternatively, you could use the brush tool to apply the blurry shadows and texture to the whole background, not just the parts you alter. The way it is now, some parts of the background do not match others, making your work look like... well, a copied background with some minor tweaks.

It's not a bad attempt though. Looks much better than your previous works, so it's definitely a progress. Keep it up?

Well, I'm still happy you liked the theme guys, even if most of you were too busy to finish your projects.

At discordance, congratulations on getting it finished. I'm yet to try your entry, but it's definitely looking good! I can tell I love the atmosphere by merely looking at the screenie.

[Vukul]

Idea: Vukul - The idea is too funny not to get a vote.
Atmosphere: Jim Reed - Jakerpot also did fairly nice in this field, but I have a feeling that his background doesn't exactly match the idea. This cave looks more like a place where the local kids would play rather than an evil monster's hideout, and the twisted tree and the moonlight don't help against it.
Design: Jim Reed - This was a close call between Jim and Vukul, but I couldn't resist voting for that skull, rock and cactus plant. And shadows. And the mountains on the horizon.
Composition: Jim Reed - This could as well be titled "A pleasing whole"
Functionality: Jakerpot - His background simply asks for walking areas and hotspots.
Technique: Jim Reed - Simple, yeah, but flawless.

I badly wanted to enter this one, the theme was awesome! Didn't have enough time though. Still it was great fun to watch the entries coming.
Congrats to the winners, congrats to Victor6 for finally earning a well-deserved golden trophy (totally agree with Crimson Wizard here), and specifically at Jakerpot: if you were able to whip up something like this in one day, then you've made an amazing spriting progress since the last time you were here, kudos.

A common mistake, it is not Frankenstein, it is Frankenstein's monster. Frankenstein himself was a doctor.

I was referring to both of them: 1) the image of a frankenstein-type monster known from popular culture (the theme mainly focuses on popular culture after all) - a humanoid with greenish skin, short black hair, arms thrown forward, and only able to utter unintelligible animal-like sounds, or 2) the deranged sciencist stitching body parts together - hence the general term "Frankenstein" in my list of examples
You are free to your own interpretation and could choose any of the two, or even something closer to the original Frankenstein and his eloquent and sophisticated creation if you want - just stay more or less on the subject.

I'm happy you like the theme guys, good luck to all of you who decide to enter

Thanks for awesome feesback abstauber

Exactly like you said, there is plenty of unfinished puzzles and missing descriptions in the game, but that's mostly because I started late (around 12th Dec) and had to learn the basics, which left me with little time to polish the game. So it's faar from how I'd want it to be.

Spoiler

The game was initially meant to have multi-solution puzzles, but I didn't manage to script it all, hence all the unused items or objects like fountain water or feather. But I decided to leave them for extra difficulty  I'm a fan of waves of hotspots and unneccessary inventory items, think Kyrandia 2: Hand of Fate.
I might throw an extended version though, with all those issues fixed and all the puzzles/interactions completed. The side characters were also meant to have more impact on the action, so perhaps they will
Open ending>>part two/extended version. Probably the latter since as of now, the game is a bit short.

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