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Wow the artwork is absolutely gorgeous! It looks like the type of game you'd have to pay for.

Whoa I'm sure you're being far too kind.  Actually everything is taken from photo reference, and then various things are reworked there to match whatever I want and to come up with a suitable scene.  I'd give a for-instance and point things out, but maybe that would rob some of the "magic"...if there is any :p  It's really a very basic technique though, and mostly I'll just work on something until it feels correct enough to me, but I'm no expert at all - and I bet some of the experienced artists here will see plenty of flaws (but please don't tell me about them, I know where the critics lounge is )...

Anyway thanks though, I'm glad people have received this so well, I was truly worried it would be despised by many of you. :/

I think I'll put up a piece of music here.  It'll be in the original post.

Considering the sheer amount of changes you're already making, I'd suggest you go all the way and sever all ties with the Sierra series, call it "Cop Quest" or something, and use your own story.

Just my $.2, of course. But if the work is that much your own, why not make it fully your own?

I already have such a game in mind, it's called Mesa LE, which will be all my own ideas and I'll start work on that game when this game is finished.   But really, only the graphics are my own, everything else will be the same with the exception of the new scenes and the maybe, two new characters (if I even decide to make more than one).  I realize the driving engine update is a big thing, but they did just that with PQ1 VGA, and it's not really all that much work to be honest (I've already successfully cloned PQ3's driving engine once in AGS). 

Another reason I wanted to redo this game is because 1, it's my favorite game...like of all time (that may be hard to believe, but it's true!), and this way I get to add the things I felt it always needed to make it as great as it could have been.  Maybe that last statement applies only to me, but if that's the case, oh well.  And 2, because I need the experience of making a game, and it's a lot easier to start with a remake than to set out on a huge undertaking with no idea of direction or resources.  At least to me it would seem that way, depending on the size or style of the game you intend to make.

But you're right, I could make it fully my own, and I had thought of that but since I already have a different game in mind for afterwards, I will just do that one when the time comes.

Thanks for the comments everyone...things are going good on backgrounds, I managed three more yesterday, but I ran into a massive snag when I attempted to animate a car door being opened.  I have plenty of reference photos, I even watched some video, but for some reason I can not understand what happens to a door when it foreshortens in an angle I've never seen before.

Anyway, so I am definitely looking for someone who can animate anything at all, or maybe even make the sprites look a tidbit better in detail.  I'm still going to work on it until someone comes along, however, but please if you're able and willing, contact me.  Thanks!

It looks great, it's a bit of a surprise... but I *have* to say, I simple *have* to, that guy is not, can't possibly be, Sonny Bonds. Not the hair, not the face, not the pose - and not the boobs he appears to have. Sorry if it ISN't Sonny, in which case I missed the paragraph saying "You won't be controlling Sonny".

You're planning quite a project, but I wouldn't call it an extended PQ2, or, at a glance, PQ2 at all - changing the mall's name isn't a big difference, but changing the game's timeline is. It no longer fits with PQ1 and PQ3. Matter of taste, but this looks like a, say, "alternative PQ2". Which is great, especially with the level of quality you're putting into it, I just thought I'd share my thoughts.

Again - great project, looking nothing short of extraordinary. Whatever you end up doing, I wish you the best of luck.

Definitely, I suppose I do see it as a Police Quest alternative reality mayhaps...that's a fine assessment. 

I should have indicated that the character in the screenshots is NOT Sonny Bonds, but rather a new character.  You will play the game as Bonds, but you'll be controlling Tabitha in the demo.  The only reason for this is because I'm saving the decision on introducing a “Sonny” sprite for another day, or I'll try and get some fans involved and let them shape the direction of the character.

Thank you for the comments, Trovatore, I appreciate you taking the time to share them! =]

[Updated on March 13th, 2011]

Updated on March 13th, 2011

.::| about Mesa LE
This project has had an interesting life.  What started out as a remake of Police Quest 2, evolved into an original game.  But I became jaded, and went back to the remake, only to get bored again.  Something wasn't clicking...but then I figured out a way to make it work....only, I had to go back to the beginning.

So here I am, starting over.  So what is the game then? It's like a remake that slept with a beautiful, original game, and their child was a fantastic reboot that had its own great qualities, but didn't detract from either parent.  It's a new world, with familiarity that you can relate to, a nostalgia bolstered with a fresh fulfillment.  All in all it's an experiment that will be fun for me, and hopefully as fun for you to play.

I'll keep you posted as always.

dont know if it should be in here or in general. these are some friends of mine performing some covers and originals. they are currently doing the sound track for my animated film. let me know what you think

http://www.youtube.com/DaElfer

Awesome man.  I especially enjoyed the Vaseline song.

This is funny, I just played the game through several times in the last week.

You need to:

Spoiler

Get your ear protector's from Ken Mills (the officer at the shooting range desk), walk into a booth.  Load your weapon, remove it from your holster and fire at the target a few times.   Push the View Button, to bring the target forward.  Examine the target...it will tell you now, whether your gun is shooting high, low, to the left or to the right.

Now you need to adjust your sights.  A little screen will appear that allows you to (with the arrow keys) adjust the sights.  If you're shooting low, I believe you adjust with the up arrow, and if you were shooting right, you'd click left.  I'm not sure, but try it and if your shots go the wrong way, just reverse it.  Once you've done that, you need to fire at a new target, and look at the results again until it awards you points for properly adjusting your sights.

The only thing left to tell you, is that you need to replace the target, and Push the Back button to get ready to fire some more shots.  If you run out of ammo, see Ken Mills for more clips.

If you're really lacking in creativity, here are the commands:
GET Protectors
F6 - Load Gun
F8 - Draw Gun
F10 - Fire Gun
PUT on Protectors
PUSH Back
PUSH View
LOOK target
ADJUST sights
REPLACE target
LEAVE (to leave the booth)

[close]

I'm thinking of downgrading back to cs2. I can't remember if there was a reason why I upgraded but whatever it is it's not worth the annoying.

No PSD thumbnails in windows is really one of the biggest deal breakers there is.

Wow dude, I didn't even notice that there weren't any thumbnails for them...that sucks gratuitous amounts of cheese.  :/ I'm definitely sad now...yes, I feel sad.

I saw an old lady struggling to reach her cabinet in this upstairs apartment building off main street.  So, I pulled the car over, ran up the stairs, broke down the door and lifted the little old lady to victory!

And then I woke up.  Weird that I dream about helping little old ladies?

I should add, other than that bit of fantasy, I moved from California to South Dakota to help a friend from college deal with her mother's losing battle with cancer.  There ya go...so, about six-seven years back.  That's the last big deal deed of mine.

I have been experiencing something similar with CS3 ... though I'm on Vista Pro.  It just locks up periodically.  Usually lasts about 45 seconds to 2 minutes (longest was 2 minutes).  It's extremely annoying.  I spent a long time on different forums trying to figure out why it happens and the best I could find was that pirated copies of CS3 do this.

Now I'm not saying my copy is pirated ... but that's the only excuse I could find for the weird behavior.  It's never frozen permanently or crashed for me.  It always comes back ... I just have to wait a bit.  No less annoying though.

Mhm, well it hasn't reappeared just yet, and ran fine for the last year or so, maybe it's related to something else on my system.  I'm crossing my fingers...

I worked on the mesh some more and here's what I came up with. no subsurf.  What do you think?

I don't know what it is but I want one.  =]  The upper torso area looks better now, as it connects with the neck and head.  Heh, green lips.

So hey, my PS crashed on me a few times today in XP.  It kept happening as I was selecting and deleting pixels on a particular layer.  Anyway, first time, it just quit responding...memory usage shot up to 400mb.  I couldn't close the program, or even log off or reboot.  Second time it crashed, I got a bluescreen ala IRQ conflict, which is weirdness.  Third time it just went black and sat there forever.  After all that I finally managed to finish my pixel selecting (you know, highlight something, go to Select and pick a color range to highlight and remove) and deleting process, and finally it was done crashing.

Anyone ever experience this in CS3 or another PS version?  I googled but found nothing.  Also as I reloaded my project it told me it had been damaged.  I checked my drives as well, everything is in tip top shape according to surface scan.  Anyway the "damaged" document looks fine, so I just resaved it as a backup project.   There really needs to be some sort of recovery or autosave feature for PS.

[would]

Yes, it would be awesome!

Whoa awesomex2!

[DS]

You could "tweak" the way you create your game inside AGS easy enough.  However, this wouldn't take advantage of the DS part of the DS!  I'd want to use both screens.  There's so much opportunity of cool things to do with that.

Ah good point, I forgot it had two screens.  God...I really need to get one of these before it's replaced by a new system :/ Stupid money, why can't you make more of yourself?! *kicks wallet*

Anyway yah, two screen adventure games...that'd be awesome.  My widescreen resolution on the PC is definitely enough to accommodate some kind of dual screen adventure game, 1280x960 resolution or so would work for that.  =] Don't think that's going to happen though

AGS on a portable is a different kettle of fish, though, as past threads have shown us.

I would have no desire to use AGS on my DS ... I'd just like it if we could use AGS (or something like it) to make games in the resolutions needed for the DS.  That's all.  Then there'd be no need for resizing, etc.

Just make your backgrounds from the top left until you hit the specified resolution...it's smaller yeah?  Then make your game according to that size.  I think you can do that, can't you? I'm not sure but it would seem that might work - I have never played a DS actually, so I'm just kind of talking out of the air here, but maybe that would work for you.

Keanu Reeves, obviously..

dude, we're surfers!  ....  heh.

It'd be cool, if they're both heading in the same direction and both have the same goals etc, if every now and then the coders would assist each other on various problems they might run into.  Maybe they do that already?  I don't know, something to bring us all together, build one big happy, adventure gaming family.  ;]

It's yeast, bitches

Is that good with ham?  Heh nice crown you got there, your royal scientist... ^^

The granddad is rumored to be gay himself, which wouldn't be a surprise. One fun occurance was the near-member of the family who actually started out as a documentarian doing a piece on the church, but apparently saw the light or something and actually joined the church and is now one of the most active members .

You mean the documentary with the guy who was extremely skeptical throughout the entire process, basically showing the world how screwed up they were? THAT guy? Don't tell me he joined the church, because there must be some mistake...

Good thing is, some of the family (referring to the f'd up church now) have forsaken the insanity and left.  They're basically completely disowned, I don't think they're even allowed in the home or acknowledged in any way.  But the whole thing stems from their father or whatever he is, who is just one of the most unsavory freakin' people you could ever hope not to meet.  If you're a man in touch with his feelings, you're a sissy f**king queer (oh yeah, that's what he'd call you, I'm not exaggerating at all - very christian of him). 

Seriously, people get in horrible car accidents everyday on their way to picket funerals, but it's always the wrong car.

Ugh, I hope that's just a local Best Buy having a sale like that.

And the WBC disgusts and scares me at the same time.  Those people have a lot of nerve calling themselves Christian.

Those people are known everywhere at this point, and they're 100% insane and ignorant of their own religious literature.  They don't even have an ounce of a clue, so I wouldn't listen to anything they say and do your best to ignore it.  They probably won't get within a thousand feet of the funeral, but if they keep up the way they're going, it wouldn't shock me if somebody decided to put an end to their freedom of speech...and that somebody would be my new hero.