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Hey guys,

I actually forgot about this thread, so thanks for bringing it up again!
In regards to the demo password, the reason I did it was to throttle the downloading of the demo before the release. This demo is going to essentially form the backbone of the campaign, which will heavily influence the future of the game. I needed to make sure that it all works perfectly before Monday!

While I did as much bug testing as possible, I'm sure you guys know that you only start to find those obscure game-breakers once a few hundred people have played the game. To release the demo fully, without having that sort of heavy feedback and stress testing could be disastrous. There was an even smaller 'closed' demo release on Wednesday that had me completely redo the save game systems, and a large chunk of the games interaction.

The demo is also pretty big (1.1 gigs), so to do changes and re upload is a mission for me in South Africa - where bandwidth is very pricey, and the internet is very slow!

I certainly didn't mean for it to come off as a PR stunt-mainly as a way to 'slowly' release the demo, and have the ability to control the spread of the demo into the world - stopping it if need be!

I hope that you guys to give the game a spin when the demo goes live tomorrow!

Ive been playing around (on paper) with some ideas for a multiplayer adventure game. In such a game, the setting is extreamly important. For my fictional game, Ive set it onboard a sinking submarine. Each player would start in a different part of the sub, and each character would have a different skill set. So a deep sea diver, engineer, and computer tech.
The idea would have each player needing to do things in their area, which would affect the others. So it would be co-op puzzle solving. The engineer would need to reconnect a computer system, allowing the computer tech to access the flood doors to allow the deep sea diver to get into the next room and turn the power on to the areas close to the engineer and computer tech.
In essence, it would be Day Of The Tentacle, which each player taking control of each character at the same time. This could open up some really cool timed puzzle areas, where you have to execute ‘something’ at the same time. I would also have an option where the players could ‘cycle’ from their chosen characters at any time. So if you are tired of playing as the diver, you could swap with any of the other characters.
I think its a cool idea, and its something that-if I had the programming ability-I would love to explore. Not now-but in the future.
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Teaser #2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ob6sBsxf2YE

Enjoy.

The game is still in deep development, but I have a gameplay video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61ILFgiYaRU

Not sure how helpful it is, but everything you see there is a one click thing. No cycling through options, etc.
You can also see how the cursor automatically changes and highlights your options. Watch in HD to get the detail.

Since that video, the game has gone through some slight changes (Dialogue portraits, etc), but the basic interaction is the same.

Stasis uses a simple pie cursor, with SCAN, MOVE, and INTERACT. It's a context sensitive interface, so when you can use something, the cursor will change to INTERACT. When the cursor moves into 'level space' (areas you can walk to), the cursor switches to MOVE. The entire game is controlled with only one click for an action. No cycling through cursors.

My idea was really to try and make the interface as invisible as possible. Even opening the inventory is 'click free' with just moving the mouse over the interface to open it up.

It works really well, and keeps you in the game, making you not really think about the interface at all.

I've also added invisible auto saves. My idea is that you can pick up the game, hit start, and play through the game without ever needing to go to a menu or really 'thinking' about the interface.

I think the ideas are a little too abstract to really make a convincing game. You would need a hell of a lot of exposition to explain the 'rules' of the world.

I would greatly simplify the idea, and turn what you currently have around. You play as the soul of a deceased man. You can inhabit the body of any creature you see by 'soul jumping' into it's body. The badges can come intomthe story in that Soul Jumping is a common occurrence in the world-the badges PREVENT a creatures body from being hijacked.

Your puzzles could involve things like tricking people to remove their badges and open themselves up. Hijack a security guards dry cleaner and sabotage his spare badge, allowing you to jump into him when he changes clothes. Follow a man home and jump his body when he takes a shower. Guard dogs would have badges on them, until you lure one into a swimming pool (inside the body of a wild cat) and short out the badge.

Just wanted to add in some things.

Something was mentioned earlier with The Journey Downs GOBBY engine:

"Sprites aren't imported into the editor with weird ID's. They are called upon with one single thing and that is their location and filename -there is no weird abstraction in between the original asset and the one used in the engine."

Thats pretty much exactly how Visioniare works. Its a VERY artist friendly workflow.

For a "common" AGS user who builds smaller games, this wouldn't really be an issue. But for a larger production with literally thousands and thousands of frames of animation, being able to simply re-render our frames into the same folder as the originals and then just hit run and see the changes... is absolutely invaluable. Also, since we don't have to rebuild the sprite file every time we start up after adding assets, we save tons of time every time we start up the game. Again, not an issue for a smaller project, but JDHD in AGS took several minutes to start every time I made the teeensiest change in any of the sprites. That was a MAJOR disruption in my work-flow."

Building the entire game for STASIS (which is pretty damned big) takes about 30 seconds.

I havent used AGS, so my view is pretty biased, but I can give you my opinion on Visioniare.
With regards to your points, LUA is fully intergrated into the engine. If you look at Daedelic's games, you can get a pretty good idea of the more advanced scripting potential.

Resolution wise, you may be correct in Visioniare not handling lower resolutions properly. All of the games I have seen with it have been higher res-but thats really a place where it excells. STASIS runs at 720p, wide screen. At any one time I can have a few hundred frames of animation, particle effects, or video playing with no slowdown. As this discussion isnt an 'AGS vs Visioniare' one, but rather one focused on a modern engine, I think that handling high resolutions is a must.

I'm not sure how AGS handles scripting and in game events, but I can give you a quick rundown of how Visioniare does it. To quote: "that's a perfect opportunity to point out a big flaw: say I was to put a door in my game and I want to set it up so that a right-click open/closes it. All I do is name the door "door>v" and add a couple of lines of code, linking the door to a global variable.
That's all I ever need to do; even if the door starts out as locked, a right-click, which here produces "open door", will automatically fail since the door is locked."

In Visioniare, If I was to create a door, I would create an Object, and give it a Condition or True of False. True is OPEN, False is CLOSED. Then your command would be RIGHT CLICK -> If Condition = T, Close Door. RIGHT CLICK -> If Condition = F, Open Door. Visioniare treats each object as unique. There is no such thing as a 'Door' in the engine. There is just a defined area where you set up the commands for what happens when you interact in that area.
I used to keep a BASE LEVEL with all my different actions that I used often, but when you get into it it becomes really quick to set up interaction.

The templates and examples on the website really do let the engine down. Like I said, you really have to just muck around with it to figure it out. To set up something like a door proably takes about a minute, including linking any animations, etc.

I have had to use some workarounds for things that I'm sure AGS would probably be much easier for. For example, Visionaire doesn't support character dialogue portraits that dont 'pause' the game while you talk. As most of the conversations in STASIS take place over radio, I want you to still be able to walk around and talk - so I've had to come up with a way around that. But what it does have is very easily modified. For example, I have set up the dialogue engine to act as an in-game computer interface.

That said, Im sure that AGS does things really well that Visioniare doesnt, and visa versa. This really isnt a software debate, as those can never be won! When it comes to the things that a modern adventure engine should have however, I think that Visioniare is very progressive. Having the same built in codecs that VLC uses (so you can pretty much use any format for sound/video compression) opens up many doors. Having support for high resoution graphics, and being able to handle them is also something that a modern engine needs. But its the stuff on the horizon that really sets the engine apart. Multi platform support being a big one. If you were looking to create a commercial game, I think that that alone is a big enough deciding factor.

Quite a bit of what you guys are talking about in an engine is already available in Visionaire. Now while I haven't used AGS, I can seriously vouch for Visionaire.

From where it stands, I think it’s the most progressive Adventure Game engine. In the near future the engine will have 3D character support, porting to Mac, aswell as iPad and android support. There is also some really nice features, like the ability have MKV’s as your movie format, supporting ANY resolution, and the ability to create game patches. 

The actual engine is a pleasure to use. It really is skewed in the favor of the artist…adding in animations, special events, new sprites etc, is super easy. The sound tools are also fantastic, with subtle features like changing the footstep sound depending on where the character walks. Things like using PNG's / Sprites straight from the file structure makes making alterations super easy. Honestly I sometimes render straight from MAX/After Effects into the engine.

Where it does fall short is in community support and documentation. Most of what I know is just from playing around with the engine-but once you have an understanding of how it all works, you can produce things very quickly.

It’s also one of the more actively developed engines, because it is being used by professional studios. The advances they are making are at the request of companies that are actually making full, successful, adventure games, so you are getting a 2D adventure engine that really is constantly evolving and improving to keep up with the demand of commercial games. 
Many advances now are in the handling of memory, getting the games to run smoother, and faster-allowing for even more complex animations and interactions. 

[anian]

anian, you're absolutely right, the story isn't the most original one. After all, it's basically Futurama, with a twist of Farscape. To be honest, I tried to be more original in the earlier iterations of the game, but I tried too hard and ended up with a story that was contrived, and convoluted. In the end I stuck with something easier, that I enjoyed working with and building characters around

I think that's a really good way of looking at things. Starting off with a really complicated backstory and setting only serves to throw a spanner in the works from the outset. Having a 'basic' framework in place allows you to introduce more complex plot points at your own pace.

There is this tendency with games to try and emulate films-but films dedicate at least half of the first act to setting up the story. In a 8 hour game, that would be a 1,5 hour long intro. Characters in games need goals from the outset...the first minutes. Setting up goals that make sense in a complex world without understanding what is going on is extremely difficult!

Thanks guys,

There is much more to come.

TRAILER LINK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdSeRM8vs24&list=UUwL6cZzErxErn2Wmmw1887Q&index=1&feature=plcp

Hey guys, Wanted to show you the latest Trailer for STASIS. I'm still hard at work, and have moved onto some of the Cinematics for the game as well. There is also some new in-game footage, and a bit of back story. 

Happy for comment and crit!

I'm a really big fan of Visceral (Deadspace series) and Irrational Games (Bioshock series). But my older all-time favorite dev was Black Isle.

As mentioned, I am using Visionaire.

The interface is context sensitive. If you move the mouse over something that can be scanned, the icon will change to scan, move it off it, and it changes to walk.
Left click scans, and where applicable, right click interacts. The idea is that it's very easy to explore the environment, where playing the game almost becomes like an interactive story.

Inventory wise, you just move the mouse over the inventory to open it. It appears quite sensitive in the video because the lag from the screen recorder buffered with the mouse! Since the video however, I have added a second of 'lag' to the closing of the inventory, to avoid the 'open close open close open close' thing!

I am really trying to make the interface as 'unobtrusive' as possible, allowing the player to be immersed in the game world without having to deal with separate inventory screens, menu's and such. I'm even trying to do away with save games, using an autosave function that will quickly save the game on not only a time based system, but also when certain important events are triggered, like items are picked up or major story points are revealed. You will of course be able to save and load manually, but I want to have the player really just enjoy the game, and not stress about saving games.

I see what you mean with the scanner. Initially there was a console at the back of the scanner that you had to interact with, so the hotspot is set to there-but I agree, changing it to the center will flow much better. 

Hey man...link fixed.

Yeah-I thought about the general AG stuff, but figured as this was in-development this would be a more appropriate thread. Of course, the mods know best!

Hey guys,

I have been a lurker on these forums for a very long time now, and have learned a great deal through the discussions here. While I am not using AGS (Shock! Horror!), I really wanted to share the development of my game with like-minded people-and these forums are definitely the most active of the AG Developer communities.

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www.stasisgame.com
“Daddy, please help us…”
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Disoriented, drowsy, and in pain, John Maracheck opens his eyes. Nothing greets him, but the static of a nearby monitor, and a cold steel floor. Thick green liquid covers the floor and his body, leading to a nearby, steaming stasis-pod. He slowly gets to his feet, trying to take in his surroundings. Where is his wife? His daughter? What the hell is going on….?
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What is STASIS?
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Stasis is an adventure game, that puts you in control of John Maracheck. a man searching for his family, in a seemingly abandoned research facility. Going back to classic adventure game mechanics, you have to solve puzzles, and use objects around you to progress, and to find Marachecks family.
Graphically, Stasis is fairly unique in the adventure game genre, opting for highly detailed isometric graphics, as opposed to the more classic ‘side on’ views of other adventure games. Richly detailed rooms and fluid animations create an immersive environment for the player to explore, with danger lurking in every shadow.
The stasis-plug suit gives you direct access to an Emergency Medical Kit. A piece of equipment that has the ability to break down any object of a certain weight and size into its base elements, and store it for future use. While normally it is used to store small medical supplies, Maracheck uses it as an easy way to keep and transport found objects. Objects can be stored, accessed, combined, and brought back into the ‘real’ world at any moment.
At its core, Stasis is a story about an ordinary man, in an extraordinary situation.
Trapped in a place where humanities horrors come out to play, how far would you go to protect your family?
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Welcome to The Groomlake. We know you will enjoy your stay.

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The website has a few screenshots on it, as well and here is the first 5 minutes of game play:





I would love to hear your guys thoughts and comments on the game!

-Chris