Messages

Once again, I'm in. This time, I look forward to making one-fourth of a game before I run out of time. 

I'm dropping out.    My game is only 1/3 done. It goes into the giant "failed MAGS" projects folder. Good luck to everyone else.

   The music from Outlaws is fantastic! And I wish more Star Wars games had used original music like Dark Forces instead of recycling John WIlliams score over and over.

Voted, and it wasn't easy to choose just one in each category.* 

Spoiler

Okay, it was easy in three categories   

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Voted! 

I'm in! 

Congrats to all the nominees and thanks to everyone who got my game on the list. 

Some tough choices to make when it comes time to vote, especially in non-adventure game. 

Nominated! 

There's an "8" on the console. That's the magic number. Each handle has a different value, so keep opening and closing until you get the pressure to 8.

Thanks for playing! 

Playing now... voting soon... 

Update: Voted! 

Good games this month. Very hard to choose.

Thanks for covering my new game. 

For your consideration...

Barn Runner - The Forever Friday, Chapter 5
My own personal vaporware albatross became a gaming reality just as 2023 drew to a close! This installment of the larger Barn Runner saga sees Dr. Noriko doing her part to prevent Arcology 19 from falling into the chaos and destruction that claimed her home years before. By far the biggest game I have ever made with AGS (and a modern version of the engine to boot! I'm finally getting with the times, young people!    ), I hope you see fit to show it a little love. 


A city in ruins! A player in disguise!


Old characters return. New characters are introduced!


Puzzles of all kinds!


And so very many flashbacks and cutaways!

This game is packed with dialog, puzzles, NPCs, and new details and lore about the old ancient classic world of Barn Runner, wrapped in lengthy, lovingly crafted cutscenes!

AGS Database
Announcement Thread 

Please consider it for the following categories:
* Best Freeware Game
* Best Visuals
* Best Writing
* Best Gameplay
* Best Character (Noriko)
* IRL RAM Ghost Special Achievement for Escaping Digital Purgatory 

Thanks, Lorenzo. I look forward to reading your feedback, and I hope you like it!*  Happy New Year! 

- P
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* p.s.

Spoiler

I hope you like the Bartolomeo cameo I put in the game.   

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Merry Christmas and so forth to one and all!

[OutRun]

Thanks, Creamy! (or "merci" if you prefer! ) I appreciate any and all feedback.

To address your points:

Did the built-in hint system make the game easier? Or were the puzzles just weaker? Noriko is supposed to be much smarter than Prick, so she's able to give herself hints, apparently. Would the puzzles have been more challenging without the hints? I ask because chapter 6 is in active development, so there's plenty of time to rethink my approach to puzzles (admittedly never a strong point of any of my games). 

Thanks for finding that bug, by the way. I'll get that squished and upload a new version soon.

I thought about doing a racing sequence through the transit tunnel from a perspective more like the old game OutRun. There are certainly enough resources available for modern AGS to make that possible. But my grumpy old heart loves top down stuff like Spy Hunter. 

Regarding the more adult moments in the game, well, we each deal with the apocalypse in our own way. Besides, Pucker Factor revealed that Noriko is secretly a dangerously horny woman. Also, putting this more mature stuff in the story wasn't something I decided to do lightly. I promise I'm going somewhere plot relevant with it. All will become clear as the Barn Runner story winds down with This Shameless Tomorrow and finally Recycle My Heart... assuming I live long enough to actually finish this series.

I'm happy to hear the story held up well enough to follow it, despite this new chapter being so very, very late.

As for the rilletes, you're right, of course. Blame my own nostalgia, I suppose. My French-Canadian grandmother made the best salmon rillettes (always served with tasty little shallots).

Thanks for playing! 

The little green bars on the edges of the rectangular tiles are the connection points too. Using the picture you provided and starting with the leftmost column...

The first column on the left is perfect.
The second column needs to go down 2 clicks.
The third column needs to do down 3 clicks.
The fourth column (the rightmost) needs to go up 4 clicks.

Lock all the circuits and then run the bypass.

That should get you through the door. Thanks for playing! 

UPDATE: Now with 100% more picture!

Spoiler

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Half Life: Alyx. Headcrabs went from annoying in every other Half Life game to a constant source of pants-fudging terror. 

Also, Duke Nukem 3D. Whatever became of Duke's legacy after, I don't know that I ever had as much pure fun with any other game as I did with that one. It was an absolute blast to play. An incredibly inventive shooter for its time, in my opinion. Also The Last of Us. I wish that thing had never had a sequel. What a tremendously great ending to roll credits on. A perfect example of an ambiguous ending that can only be diluted by revisiting that world and its characters.

[The most important thing is to schedule time to work on the game.]

Hi, Babar. I'm flattered you asked my opinion on this. 

First, I usually start from one of two places. Either I have an idea for a story (or sometimes just a character) that I really want to tell. The main appeal of adventure games for me has always been the character and the world of the game. The other starting place is when I have an idea for a puzzle or a particular sequence that I just want to explore. Maybe I just want to make a crude first person shooter, or a top-down scrolling game, or something like that. Both of those starting points require me to really WANT to make that game.

After that, I build a crude version of the game as quickly as I can, just to see if the idea is going to work as well as I want it to. I typically make a list of the rooms I am going to need. I scribble them down on a sheet of paper along with the room number for each. I group them by the "scene" they will be used in. "Bar 1" "Bar 2" etc. Then assign numbers to be used when I actually put them in the game. I try to leave a few room numbers unused just in case the area takes a few more rooms to realize than I thought it would. For example, all the rooms in the bar will use the room numbers 30-35. The next area, say "Office 1" "Office 2" etc, will start their room numbers with room 40. That leaves me a few spots to plug extra rooms in where needed as the idea matures. Other people may plug the rooms in in whatever order they made them, but this makes the game harder to "see" as I'm working on it. And if I'm going to stay focused during the unpleasant "grind" phase of indie game development, I need to make this as easy for my brain as possible.

I develop each area of the game at a time. First the character's home, all in crappy MS Paint art. No walkcycles, not proper sprites yet. Just enough to have the guy slide around the room, interacting with lots of crudely drawn places and things. Much, much later, I'll go back and draw everything properly. Once the home is done in this rough way, then I'll move on to an equally rough (but playable!) build of his office. Then the bar. And so on.

In fairly short order, the game is playable, start to finish, even if it may look very bad. Most of the dialog isn't there, the jokes aren't there, nothing is present except the necessary framework to hang everything on. I develop it the rest of it later.

Once all that is done, then I go back and start coloring in the world. Depending on what kind of mood I'm in that day, I might do backgrounds. Or maybe I'll do sprites. When I'm at my most awake and focused, I write dialog and narration. If I find that I have suddenly thought of a good joke involving the broom closet the office, I have the extra space in the room numbers to add another room at his job to allow for that without disrupting the flow of the ordering system that my subconscious demands, for some reason.

If the game has a lot of puzzles (like my most recent Barn Runner game, for example), then I try to work on those only when I'm sure I'll have lots of time to code and debug them. I HATE having to close a game with buggy code. After a few days away, I feel like I'm starting from scratch trying to chase the problem down again.

Once all the rooms, items, characters, and words are done and ready to be seen by the public (i.e. play testers), then I do the cutscenes last. Those things add a nice layer of polish to a game, but they're the most expendable part of my design philosophy. It's great to have them but it's easy to work around them if they have to be edited out for time (for MAGS, usually).

The most important thing is to schedule time to work on the game. I know sometimes this just isn't possible, but if you plan to devote a little time on a regular schedule, the game will eventually come together (assuming you're not racing a MAGS deadline).

Don't wait for inspiration to work on a game you have already started! That wonderful rush you get in the beginning of any project will be there at the end too, if you can manage to complete the game. If you're not feeling inspired when your daily appointment with AGS arrives, then do the grunt work instead. Polish the background. Smooth out that animation. Edit the dialog a bit. Do something, just so something gets done and you're one step closer to the finish line. On those days that you're really excited to work on your project, make the most of that energy. But don't let time get away from you just because you're not feeling it that day. No one will finish your game but you! Don't let that little dream die!

This is how I approach actually making my games, in a nutshell.

None of the above guarantees I will actually complete the game, of course. I have lots and lots of half-finished games in my wake. But it usually gets me to the finish line (MAGS notwithstanding, of course ).

Anyhoo, I hope this was helpful. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. 

Voted! Really great roster of games this month.

Sweet biscuits! So many replies! 

Congrats!  Forever Friday comes to an end!  Downloading now

Thanks, kbro. But in the interest of full disclosure, this is only the first half of the last part of the Forever Friday. The next final installment, tentatively though probably not titled Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday - Chapter Five (part b) will be along in a couple of years. 

I hope it will be worth the additional wait.

Honestly, Ponch, I've been around here since 2005-ish and your games are what I think of when I think of AGS games.  You make good stuff, and when I make mine my brain occasionally background-thinks about wanting to get on your level.  Congrats on the release, I can't wait to play it!

And update: My spouse brought this home today, it's a sign!!!

It is indeed a sign!    Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it. I'm glad old timers like you are still around. Chicken vs Road II when? 

Big congrats for releasing Chapter 5, Ponch.  This is a huge milestone and you should be proud! 

And for your golden years, you need a limo  to take you to the slot machines. 

Thanks, Frodo. I wouldn't have made it across the finish line without your help. I'll start pestering you with beta builds of Forever Friday chapter 6 in about six months. 

No! A wave of nostalgia! Stay back! STAY BA-...

...

Congratulations on the new release, Ponch!

And congratulations on one hell of an oeuvre!

Oeuvre! So unspeakably fancy. Merci! Give in to the nostalgia! Resistance is futile!


Thanks to everybody who has commented and played so far. It warms this cranky old heart of mine to see the people still remember this ancient game series of mine.