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[almost]

A new background has been almost completed but it needs finetuning. To see it and give comments about it, check out the Critic's Lounge, please.

Another background done for Caribbean Mysteries. This time it's in an alley in the small town of Pueblo Pequeño (for those who don't understand Spanish it means "small village"). I know there's not much here but I'm not exactly sure what details I should add to this one. I'm not entirley sure of the shading and the shadows either. What do you think? Some suggestion of improvments? Paint overs, maybe? Don't hesitate to tell me!



In case you wonder, the stump is there for cutting wood (in the game there will be an axe as a object) and the trash can, without covering, is a place where you will find some importaint stuff (the covering will be added as an object). If you look closley on the trash you can see two injoke items from existing adventure games. Try to figure out where those come from. A clue: These have been iventory items.

[suppoused]

For Caribbean Mysteries I'm using the MI2 SCUMM Template and I've encountered a strange problem:

At one point you'll need to steal a pendlum from an old man when he doesn't see that. You can trick him by putting a coin on the ground, calling the man's attention to the coin and meanwhile you take the pendlum. About ten sceonds later he will pick up the coin and return to his place.
The thing does work but there's something wrong too:

When I use the coin with the old man, the main character goes to him, the old man turns to him, then he goes to the spot where he drops the coin, stay at that spot and gets the guy's attention.

What the main character is suppoused to do is: 1) Go to the spot to drop a coin 2) Go to next to where the old man is. 3) Calling the old guy's attention toward the coin 4) Therefore the old guy turns toward the coin and walk to it. 5) The rest of the coin thing.

Code: ags

Ã,  // script for character14: Use inventory on character
MoveCharacter(EGO,600,265);
FaceLocation(EGO,600,265);
ObjectOn(3);
Wait(100);
MoveCharacter(EGO,815,265);
FaceLocation(EGO,600,265);
Wait(80);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Say, isn't that a coin lying on the ground?");
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"A coin? Where?");
FaceLocation(HYP,798,265);
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Ah, there!");
MoveCharacter(HYP,798,260);
FaceLocation(HYP,600,260);
Wait(40);
int timer=0;
distract = 1;
SetTimer(1,400);

Ã,  // script for room: Repeatedly execute

if (IsTimerExpired(1)==1){
distract = 0;
ObjectOff(3);
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Must be my lucky day.");Ã,  
MoveCharacter(HYP,900,280);

if (GetGlobalInt(11) ==1){
MoveCharacter(HYP,930,280);
Wait(40);
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Hey, where did my pendlum go?");
}
}

Does someone know what's the problem? How do I solve this? Please help!

EDIT: Never mind, I've found the answer.

I think that you should have the skin pink rather than gray-green and you should add lines to the hands so you can see that he got fingers (sure it's hard but at least try). Same goes to the feet.

In my opinion the nose is too close to his mouth (unless that's the point). He could smell his own breath! 

I see what you mean with the Inventory thing. Funny that nobody complained with it on the Frank the Farmhand games but I will fix that in time for the demo release.

Ildu: Thanks for cleaning up the story for me.

Magintz: I will fix the shading for the last two backgrounds soon. It's just that making backgrounds are time consuming even if draw by hand, scan and clean and color them in Paint and Photoshop (plus steadily switch between the two programs since both have pros and cons against each other) so often I wait with the shading until I'm done with the other things.

Hmmm... maybe I could give it a try.

[Suggestion]

Actually I was asking for opinions on the idea rather than asking for help (but it does say Suggestion in the subject's title). Well, I'm still using 2.62 since Prosikto's SCUMM templates doesn't work on 2.7 and therefore not used to how 2.7 works.

[The Story:]

I'm working on a pirate comedy game in Monkey Island style humor. I've been working on the story from Fall 2000 or 2001 (I don't remember so well), about a year or two before discovered AGS but I wanted to wait with this project until my skills with the programmed had improved. But enough talk about the backstory already!

The Story:

From Torleif Shufflefoot's diary:

It has been three days since my pet monkey Crispy and I were marooned on this deserted island after the incident with the kitchenfire. The day after we landed on the beach, we were able to build a raft out of timbers and some old shipwreck parts. Three days we spent floating on the big ocean without seeing anyÃ,  trace of land. And we didn't have much food with us either, just a couple of fruits from the island, some half-eaten Butterfingers and just two bottles of water. It seemed like we were done for until Crispy spotted the island. It turned out when we got on land that we were on Touché Island, a small island in the middle of the Caribbean.

A guy from the island's tourist information booth told us the story of the Legenday Pirate Hero John Lance LeDrake.
A pirate who posessed an enormous treasure.
The most valuable treasure on Earth some dared to claim, it was even rumored to have magical powers. Pirates have seeked this treasure for generations ever since the 17th century, but is still remained unfound.
I figured out that finding the treasure would help me to become a much better pirate and correct all the mistakes I've done.

I was told that there is an evil pirate captain called Pepperoni, who also wants to find the treasure. Could it be that he wants the treasure in order to use it's powers to take over the planet? I guess only time will tell. Oh, and I must remember to buy some new socks, my old ones are starting to stink.

The Progress (Demo version)

Story and Puzzles: 100 %
Backgrounds: 97 %
Scripting: 89 %
Sounds and voices: 15 %
Music (original): 0 % (Going to get some background music from BerserkerTails soon)
Music (temp, from various Monkey Island games. Will be replaced once I've got new pieces): 100 %
Animations: 45 % (Mostly talking animations and some other actions)

The progress (Full version)

Story and Puzzles: 100 %
Backgrounds: 20 %
Scripting: To be comfirmed...
Sounds and voices: TBC.
Music (original): 0 %
Music: (temp): TBC.
Animations: TBC.


Demo Release date: August 2005.
Full Game release: Before the end of 2005 (hopefully).
Game lenght category: Full Game

Screenshots:







Background, character art and concept
by Mats Berglinn
Story by Mats Berglinn
Ideas by Mats Berglinn and Fredrik Engwall (a friend of mine, not an AGS-member)
Scripting by Mats Berglinn
Sound Effects from Different Sources
Music by BerserkerTails

The MI2 SCUMM Template by Prosikito

Voice Cast so far

Starring: Marius 'Jaws' Finnstun, James 'eVOLVE' Hammer-Morton, Dave Gilbert, Mark 'm0ds' Lovegrove, Andrew "LGM" Edmark, Greg 'Geoffkhan' Schlaepfer, Marcus 'Largo' S, Alex "Krazy" Scobell, 'Fat' Jack Rafferty, Rebecca "Azure" McCarthy...

And Mats Berglinn as Crispy the Monkey and The Gorilla.

Edit: By the way, I'm still missing two voice actors. The main villan Captain Pepe Roni (he's the guy in the last screenshot). For more info check out the ACR - Need Help With A Adventure Game thread.

11: 50 July 9:th, 2005: Corrected the story structure and added credit to Proskito.
12: 34 July 10:th: Corrected some mistakes in the story.
19: 21 July 12:th: New background added. To be ready soon.
19:59 July 13:th: Request for two character voices.
08:42 July 16:th: Updated process.
09:49 July 18:th: Comfirmed that BerserkerTails is now the musician for the game.
22:04 July 20:th: Updated process.
19:16 July 23:d: Updated process on both demo and full version. Gave credit to my friend Fredrik Engwall for some game ideas.
21:19 July 27:th: Delaying the release for the Demo version.
09:18 August 5:th: Added a new voice actor a updated the cast. Still searching for a voice for Pepe Roni.

For those who have played games like Sam & Max: Hit the Road or The Curse of Monkey Island you may notice that if you for example give a random item to some character the main character says "I don't think he would like that" or "I don't think she would like that" or that you try to pick up a character and the response is "He's not my type" or "She's not my type" depending on the characters are male or female. I was thinking of that you could use a marker for wherever a character is a male or female (or maybe even genderless for animals, ghosts and unnatural beings) so that in the "unhandled_event" you can script that the character says "I don't think he would like that" or "I don't think she would like that" instead of filling in every characters give iventory interaction or picking up character (especially in games with lots and lots of characters, like in my upcoming game Caribbean Mysteries where there will be about fifty characters). It's also easier to make voices for games like that since you can't split up lines in voice dialog, like "I don't want to give that to (name here)" (if you have played SuperScottishHero's Pixelhunt you will understand what I mean).

Don't you agree that would be great?

You know, the stripey part of the pants remind me of boxer shorts. Unless it's a parody or a clumsy superhero (which he doesn't look that much to me) I suggest you would either change color and/or  pattern or make them less "boxer-shorts"-y. Other than that, he's cool. You should draw superhero comics!

Well, the style seem quite DOTT-esque but there are things that looks strange.

The roofs of the two parts of the house isn't at the same height and they don't even meet so it looks very strange. Also, the tree seems like it's made of paper or carton (it looks like a flat theatre-prop).

Oh, sorry I forgot to tell that I haven't added the move back yet because character HYP isn't placed on the right height but even if I wait he doesn't say the line when the time is up.

For my Caribbean Mysteries there will be a puzzle where you have to trick an old man by tossing a coin to the ground, the old man will walk over to the coin, stand still for 10 seconds then come back to the place he was. While he is going for the coin you have to snatch a pendlum from his desk or you have to redo it. Now the problem is that the man does go to the coin to pick it up and which means you can take the pendlum but he doesn't return back to his place which means you've got all time in the world to get it (which is needlessly to say is not the point).

Here's the script for the puzzle:

Code: ags

MoveCharacter(EGO,798,265);
FaceLocation(EGO,600,265);
ObjectOn(3);
MoveCharacter(EGO,815,265);
DisplaySpeech(EGO,"Say, isn't that a coin lying on the ground?");
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"A coin? Where?");
FaceLocation(HYP,798,265);
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Ah, there!");
MoveCharacter(HYP,798,265);
int timer=0;
distract = 1;
SetTimer(1,400);
if (IsTimerExpired(1)==1){
distract = 0;
ObjectOff(3);
DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Must be my lucky day.");Ã,  

if (GetGlobalInt(11) ==1){

DisplaySpeech(HYP,"Hey, where did my pendlum go?");
}
}

What have I missed? Please help!

Hmmm... intressting rules. Maybe I'll be in this contest this time.

Thanks Thomas and khrismuc for the critics. Yeah, khrismuc, making walk cycles from the front is very hard. Good thing that mine was a good start. Here's a newer version:



I changed the feet in the second and the fifth frame and also in the first and fourth to make them match the legs. I also changed the legs so they don't change size too much (at least I hope so, haven't tried out in AGS yet so I don't know it looks). I changed the arms so they less stiff and also added the hands. I'm not totally sure about the hands. What do you think about it? Does it look right now or is something still wrong? Spill the beans guys!

I'm working on the front walkcycle for Torleif Shufflefoot, the main character of Caribbean Mysteries. Remember the topic with him walking to the right? It's the same guy.



This is a work in progress. I have little problem with the hands so that's why there's only one hand in two frames. I have also not made the vest swing because I've wait with it until I know the arms and the legs are working.

Do you think that the arms sways right and that the legs walk right? Let me hear what you think.

By the way, I used the MI2 Guybrush frames as references for the armsway and the movement of the legs.

I'm stuck at the beginning.

Spoiler

I've talked to Simon about the door, talked to Otto about a pick lock, found the scissors, found the note and called up Mr. Meiss (or whatever he was called). The key could be in the main hall, the stairwell or the backroom behind the travel room. I've tried everything but can't find the key anywhere. Noticed that the book in the shelf in the mainroom is somehow stuck. I've tried to use the scissors with the books but nothing happened.

[close]

What should I do?

It was a very funny joke alright but it seems a bit too little to be a demo (felt more like a super-short teaser to me). Maybe I could get you the english verb sprites if you want to. Also I've would like that like in the LucasArts games that you click up a menu on the F1 (or F5 if you want to) and there choice to save, load or quit (not the Sierra/Default AGS Ctrl + q or such commands to open these seperately, just to get the same style for the good old Lucas Arts games.

On your site: It's very hard to fill your poll when you don't understand german. Can't you have a language selector on your site?

Please, make a english translation because not every AGS member knows germany. I don't understand a word what they say.

A new version of the throne:



Changes:

- Changed the cushion from limegreen to another type of lightgreen.
- Added some carvings on the arms of the chair and at the step of the throne.
- Used Darth's shading.
- Added some gems at arms of the chair.

So, do you think it needs more improvements or is it good enough as it is?

EDIT: Now that it have gone several hours without any further comments or critques then I will say thank you for the help. It will be added to my background for CM.