Messages

[Really enjoyed the game]

Really enjoyed the game. Very immersive, very consistent and good-taste graphics (only the wizard looks a bit cartoony/manga).

<critics>
The dialogs would benefit or a higher level of language (they're supposed to be princes and princesses but they sometimes speak like "cool teenagers", and the dialogs are a bit simplistic).
Also, the music was not great compared to the rest. I've seen in the credits that it was a rip from a video game.
</critics>

<bug tracking>
I've noticed a little mistake in the dialogs : Somewhere in the first dialog tree of the Wizard, Duet says "what's you're name" instead of "what's your name"
</bug tracking>

Apart from those tiny details, great game. Players won't spend much time on it (super simple puzzles), but very original and very cool.

Nice little game.
The gameplay is a bit weird at first, but once you get used to it it's alright. I think it would deserve to have a visual indicator when you hit "a" or "s" to be absolutely sure that your character is trying to do what you ask. Otherwise you feel a bit like in Alone In The Dark when you were trying the right action but were not sure that you were standing at the right place for it to work.

I suffer performance issues on my sublaptop (Samsung NC 10), probably because of the paralaxes, but, eh, there's nothing you can do about it.

I have the same issue as other people : I can't finish the game. I've got all 3 guys standing in front of the castle (blacksmith arrived last), and I was there BEFORE him), and nothing's happening.

Those are only side comments : The bottom line is that the game is great and has a great finish.

Hey, I believe I've solved all the puzzles in the game and I've got the 3 guys standing in front of the castle. But what to do next???

Yes, you've come a looooong way!
In the end, it's kind-of the AGS community that has been really harsh - the kid actually *did* want to do something good! :-)

Look spromising. I'll try it.

thanks for your replies, guys :

I'd say a combination of b, c & missing option d: "Depending on the choices the player makes".

I implicitely included it in option C, because in my mind, if you do some actions first, they disbale other actions that would otherwise have been possible (the typical example being : you have to choose between dialog options 1 and 2. If you choose 2, 1 disappears forever).
However it was worth clarifying it.

Thanks for all you input, guys.
- I'd hate to create a giant "if" game, with (as Anian said) an exponential number of branches. I really want (almost) everything to be automated. => I had that idea that there would be randomly generated dialogs like "I saw <CHARACTER> kill <CHARACTER> with <WEAPON>". this makes it extremely simple.
- Anian disliked the "Blade Runner" example, because you could be an adroid. OK, forget about that possibility. Just focus on the several ends where you're not the android, but the android might still be any of the secondary characters. In my memory, the scenario's branches were determined by your dialog choices and the order you collected the clues? => Enormous scripting, writing and art work needed...
- Blueskirt: no, I hadn't seen that... THANK YOU SO MUCH.

How would you design a murder party system in a game?
By that, I mean :
- There should be elements in the game that change randomly every time you play the game
- You never know in advance who's guilty. It changes every time.

So how would you proceed? How would you decide when the scenario "changes" and takes you to a different end?
a- Depending on the time the player performs an action? (that means you must also introduce some sort of real-time system where you measure the time that elapses - the most popular system being a clock)
b- By writing in advance n different stories and randomly picking one at game initializaiton?
c- Depending on the order the player performs the actions (e.g. if he takes object A before object B, then something different will happen later) ?


I can't remember how it is in Blade Runner. I think it's more something like choice "c". However if I remember correctly, all paths are written in advance.
I'd like to automate as much as possible. For example, the boardgame "Cluedo" is 100% random - all answers are determined when the game starts, and it doesn't need a game master. How would you make it more immersive (e.g. computer-generated dialogs) and merge its gameplay with a point-n-click gameplay?

Oh, by the way, I'm being carried away. My initial post was more about the funny video that DN:F itself ;-)

The length of developement has nothing to do with it : Half Life took forever, and Half Life 2 even longer...
Moreover, we can consider that all the work done by £DRealms has been thrown to the bin (even though they don't say it) and it's a professional studio that's making a new game.

It indeed plays like serious Sam : It's supposed to be violent, random and fun. Balls of steel, man!

The game won't be very pretty, but if it's made for PC, it will still be prettier than any console game (haha, big provocation, but it's true ). I think their main problem will be taste...

Who knows? Maybe all the fans will buy it and it will be an artificial success, or all the fans will download it and it will be a flop. Everybody, remember that Chicky said he'd buy it ;-)

[Yahtzee]

Most of you probably already know that Duke Nukem is going to be released. Soon. And it's not even a joke. There are in-game videos of it all over the web.

So I thought it was an occasion to dig this hilarious video from Yahtzee, that was made during times of skepticism : http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/748-Duke-Nukem-Forever

Oh, and the actual game footage : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxKL1By-6j4&feature=related or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TR_Vzu6MSY

up (curious about the answer)

A different approach could be to use a shuffle algorithm to make the dissolve speed consistent.

+1.

Thanks!
The most famous one is the one from "William Tell".

Hey, I'm very ashame to ask, but I can't put a name or a composer on that tune.

You know, it's that tune that plays in the very furst few seconds of the intro scene of Day Of The Tentacle, when you see that bird flying and then die because of the toxic fumes?

It genuinely feels like made by LucasArts around the time they published The Dig or Full Throttle, immediately before the switch to highres.

Yep.
- Gorgeous graphics
- Clever "directing" (close-ups, angles, etc.)
- Cool story telling (just enough to hook up the player)

Now I must PLAY the game to see if the puzzles are up to the rest ;-)

Why pay when it would be such an honor for any musician to make music for that remake!

ProgZmax found the good compromise between the "shiny" material and the cracks.

In your original drawing, the skull was shiny, but the cracks looked like they were in a non-shiny stone type.
Here, the skull is still shiny, but the cracks also look like they are in a shiny stone type.

I must say that it does, but I prefer number 4 above.

Stone or not stone,  shiny or not shiny, I'll be happy as long as the material is consistent with the reflections.

Pick. up. the. KEY!

[choose]

I think there's a major issue with the original drawing and most of the paint overs. It's been bothering me from the beginning.

You've got to choose what kind of surface to "apply" to the skull.
It seems like you can't decide whether you want it to be shiny or not.

- If it's shiny, then you must also draw the cracks as if they were cracks made ina  shiny material.
- It it's not shiny, then you must stop drawing reflection effects that are inside of the skull's outline but don't reach the outline.

A picture is better than 1000 words :



EDIT: I think that's what Khris was trying to address when he made shading suggestions, only in a more arty and diplomatic way than I did.

What do you guys think?

The tune is nice but I find the title offensive

I thought that Technocrat had avoided using real factions names, a bit like in C&C (GDI & NOD) -- hence my comment, but after double-checking the "S" in SPUUD stands for "Socialist", so you tune's title makes sense.