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You're all FREAKING BRILLIANT!!!

I love these ideas! They've sparked all sorts of inspiration. Now I've almost got too much to work with...

I may just make multiple endings and include several of these.

@Kastchey I really like that idea, especially since [secret] already programmed in the game is a bottle of whiskey hidden away in Eric's office as an easter egg, but now can become part of this whole alternate ending.[/secret]

@AtelierGames Fantastic suggestions as well, although I'm not sure how to incorporate them at this point, but I would like to use some of these ideas as an alternate end.

@Krysis Yeah, that's kind of what I feared about those endings.

@Jim Reed Really clever idea... but what bum? o.O If you mean the business man, I plan to actually make that the business man, the guy in the shabby clothes. This is partly to show how distressed he is.

Okay, so my game that has been in production for quite a while has hit a bit of a halt. The problem lies in the story... I can't decide how it should end! I have a few ideas but I would like input as well.

So far the feel of the story is somewhat of a dark comedy, leaning a bit more towards comedy.

Here's the story thus far:

Massive Spoilers, by the way. Don't look if for some reason you really care that much about finding the story for yourself when I'm done with the game.

Spoiler

Okay, the story goes like this:

You are Eric Connors, an investigator who has apparently lost his touch after several years in the field. The game starts as Eric describes who he is and what he does (he's somewhat of a smart-ass and has a drinking problem too...). Apparently Eric has just been demoted quite a bit for falsely accusing someone of murder, obviously a huge mistake. Eric goes on to tell the player that his biggest rival (named Layne) has taken the latest biggest case, since none would be so foolish as to hand it to Eric with his new terrible PR.

Eric decides he needs to steal the case, (a triple homicide) but unfortunately all the info he managed to snag about the case is minimal at best, and so he takes some drastic measures to get more information on the case.

(I can't decide if I want to keep this following bit in the game or not...) As Eric is walking to the elevator at the end of his office building, there is a power surge and he hears one of the neighbors on his floor making quite a commotion. When Eric asks to see if she's alright from outside her office door, she very uncharacteristically yells at him to leave.

Puzzles ensue.

Eric finds that a wealthy business man who works at a building down the street is the owner of the shabby apartment building where the homicides took place. Eric manages to weasel his into this man's office and questions him. The man seems VERY unstable and keeps claiming it's because he's "tired". Funny enough, for being a man of such great stature, he's wearing street clothes and not a suit. After some arguing the man gives in to Eric and gives him the key to the apartment building, but not the keys to any individual apartments.

Eric begins to leave the office when he hears a loud crash. Eric turns around to see that the man has apparently jumped out of the window. However, when Eric looks out through the hole in the window, there is no body below.

In a bit of a cut-away sequence, Eric recalls a part of the story we didn't know: the man he falsely accused of murder was killed in prison, and Eric holds himself responsible for this. As Eric leaves the building, he hears yet another crash, and then finds that the man from earlier is present this time, his body laying lifeless on the ground. Eric rushes up in a desperate attempt to help, but things quickly (and literally) become nightmarish. The man comes to life in a sort of possessed manner frantically asking Eric to "Give him credit for what he's done..."

Eric sharply wakes up in his office, apparently passed out on the floor. The woman from earlier (Mrs.Saunders is her name, by the way) who yelled at him to go away is now calling for him outside of his office door. She wants to make sure that he is alright. Upon opening the door, Eric finds that Mrs.Saunders now possesses blood-red eyes as well as a bloody knife in one hand and a rope in the other. She begins to force him back into the corner of his office and lifts the knife high into the air....and Eric wakes up again, in his office.

At this point Eric is, of course, very startled. He begins to try to regain his composure and walks out of his office once more. At the end of the hallway stands Layne. Eric suspects that Layne knows what has been going on....and he's right. Layne confronts Eric about taking the case, but is actually quite nice. Layne let's Eric know that he won't give up the case either, and so they'll both just have to try to solve it first. Upon Eric's exit though, Layne's final words haunt him: "Oh, but if you DO happen to solve the case before me...just...give me....some credit. Okay?"


Eric then heads over to his only lead, the apartment building...


That's all I really have!

I was thinking some possible endings are these, but to me they all seem too cliche'...

Ending choice 1.)A ghost of an artist from long ago is the culprit. The artist had one day painted a beautiful portrait which his superiors refused to believe he had painted. In fact, one of the superiors actually stole the painting and took credit for it, and became world famous for "painting" it. This drove the artist mad, running all through his village that HE had been the true artist. Of course in his position, nobody believes him. The artist demands credit from everyone. He finally breaks, he kills his artist superiors and demands credit for killing them, he starts to have a psychological need for recognition, no matter positive or negative.

He runs to the authorities to tell them that he has murdered the other artists, but the authorities think that he is a madman, since no logical thinking person would so happily turn themselves in for murder. He must not have done it, but he still seems a hazard to society. The crazy artist was then locked up in a mental hospital until his death, and now haunts the living, killing mercilessly still demanding credit for his actions.

Ending Choice 2.)Eric is a crazy, drunken idiot. The whole game up till now has been his messed-up drunken vision inspired by a newspaper headline he had read earlier in the day. In reality, nobody has died, really nothing has happened. Eric is arrested for being drunk in public. (Obviously the more humorous ending...)

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Sorry this post is gigantic, but I would love crits or help!

I think it's fantastic. Maybe the legs are just the author's style of drawing? I mean, look at all kinds of cartoon characters, such as Arnold from "Hey Arnold" His head is...well...ridiculous! Having a head like that in real life would be absurd as well, but it's a cartoon, so the creator should be able to make things in a style he/she pleases. If the style were trying to be realistic, I would of course say otherwise, but unless I'm wrong it looks like it is trying to be cartoon-esque.

I haven't used AGS in ages (forgive me), but I was just wondering if the editor has a 'pan' setting for voice acting. This could probably be pretty useful if there isn't one

Don't believe it does, but it might do it automatically, like a lot of game engines do these days.  (3D sound and whatnot...) I haven't actually put the minimal voice-work that has been done in the game yet, but I'll be sure to update.

Spoiler

"...but I'm not exactly sure what that was supposed to be cause nothing really scary happened down there? 
Some blood writing on the wall but I'd assumed that body was going to jump up and attack me or something so a bit of blood was, to be honest, a welcome relief!" 

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That was me, who

Spoiler

had nightmares heh.

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This should explain things for you:

Spoiler

I actually had a nightmare about being in the same cellar, I never said anything happens in the game, but I could see why you would think something would...
Anyways, The only reason I found it so disturbing was, taking a harder look at the scene and seeing the sheets looked as if they had people underneath them, I experienced a huge level of fear in that dream, a level which I have not experienced years before or since in a dream! I'm not sure why, but the art had a huge effect on me right there. I'm not upset about it, I actually think it's brilliant

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Snarky:  Thanks for the tips!  I'll update them this weekend...now if someone could just sketch out the up-walk-cycle for me, I'd be all set.   It's freakin' killing me!

Just another screenshot, of Hardboiled's office (last screen until the In Production thread, I promise )

That looks incredibly similar to the art-style of the original Mr.Men, fantastic.

Played through it, really neat for a first!

I liked the story, there were times when the text was a little too fast and I had to play again to understand just what was going on, but then again, that fast-paced style kinda made my head spin, as far as with what was going on, so that was also kinda neat.

In any case, nice job, keep learning ags, I bet you have a lot of potential.

I dont think he was referencing telephone style speech.

Wav files have several settings from yeeeears ago and the lowest one is 'telephone'

For the interested the reason the lower bitrates give you a lower frequency range is due to the sampling rate.
To store a wave of a specific frequency you need a sampling rate of at least double that frequency, Since digital sound is just a series of samples.. you can have a wave inside of a single sample, you need at the very least 2.

So the telephone setting has about an 8khz sample rate so therefore it can only reproduce frequencies up to 4khz.. so it sounds like a telephone.

Thats why the magic number for cds is 44.1khz.. Humans can hear up to about 20khz.. and then they added a bit for ultrasonic info.

That's really pretty interesting... but yeah I'll have to keep this in mind for my next lil project!

@Calin - Ah okay. Mono it is. I didn't realize stereo wasn't necessary. Also thanks for the numbering tip!

@Mods- Hah, that sounds awesome, I might try that on the next game I work on, which I plan on making much, much more retro than the one I'm working on now. The only problem there is other than recording wav's, I have no idea how to convert to telephone.

Hiya all!
I know it has been forever since I've posted... (early summer was my last post :x) And you may or may not be wondering about that game I was working on. I'm still truckin' along on it, but a job in the summer immediately followed by some hard-core college classes this year have held me back like you couldn't believe!

In any event:

I want voice acting to be in the game, however, I'm having issues:

1.) I can't seem to get the script-making function to work, it always comes out as a blank document.
2.) What's the best format to use? Mp3 is my guess, but I'm no expert. I want to use the smallest, as the game itself already pushes 40 megs WITHOUT voice acting (yuck, I know, and I am sorry for that size...)


Also, since I decided I want voice acting, is anyone willing to give it a go? I'll be the voice of the main character, but I need some other voices.
2-3 Female Voices, 4 or so Male Voices.

The game's production thread is currently on page 5 (I think) of the WIP section. Thank you for any and all help!

Hahaha, that's a hilarious one!! Unless not intended as so.

Not intended...I'm not sure I get why it's funny
Can you explain? I'm not at all offended, just very curious.

It's like well, it reminds me of people that beg for a credit in one's game, and well, probably it's just me.

Hah!
I see where you're coming from, and in that respect, yes, I suppose it is funny.
I'd also like to thank you for something, Dualnames.
This project is turning out WAY darker than I had originally intended. Sure I love playing through dark games and watch dark movies (ONCE IN A WHILE, I scare easily, I'm a wuss ) but I just don't think I'm the one to be making them. And so, with that, I'm going to introduce a LOT more comic relief into the dialogue. Thanks for provoking the realization

Hahaha, that's a hilarious one!! Unless not intended as so.

Not intended...I'm not sure I get why it's funny
Can you explain? I'm not at all offended, just very curious.

wah!
Sorry for such a horrible lack of updates!
Here's a pic from ingame for ya'll

Ahhhh. Okay. Thanks. Only right and left by the way. Adding another "standing still" frame solved it. Thank you!

Well this is just lovely. I'm pretty darn far into my project and having the strangest issue. I'm using a very, very basic walking animation where I have:
Stand still sprite -->left leg out sprite --> stand still sprite ---> right leg out sprite--->repeat

For some reason, the third sprite (standing still) doesn't want to happen in game, and yet it happens in the editor when looking over the views. Does anybody know what's up with that?
Any help is greatly appreciated, as always.

Had to comment on this:

Last night I had a nightmare that:

Spoiler

I was In the cellar and surrounded by the mysterious, very human-like, covered figures under the sheets. Believe it or not, this was what scared me most out of the entire game. My mind kept making up faces for each of them. For some reason, not knowing for sure what was under the sheets made me LITERALLY panic while played the game, and again in my nightmare.

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Kudos for being able to give me a nightmare, they don't stop by very often.

What do you mean hate to be that guy?

I mean I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

Hate to be "that guy" but I'm pretty sure this is the wrong place to post something like this.

Also, as some of you have probably found out already, there are alternative solutions to some puzzles in the game. There are times when you can totally avoid bloodshed. You mentioned little Sophie- she's just a memory anyway. And she doesn't have to die in pain....

I'm giving it my second run right now. I'll be a total bastard this time to see what happens, I was a nice guy the first time around

Spoiler

I waited, turned down the receptionist, and turned myself in the first time. I also noticed when I used the blue chemical he said that he thought he had used the 'wrong' one. So I'll do red this time. I hope that's what you meant.

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This game looks really neat, hoping to see it out soon