Messages

Hey Bernie,

This looks like it will be a brilliant game!  The graphics look top-notch, and the central idea is very original - I love the idea of being anchored to an NPC whose behaviour, and therefore the progression of the entire game, is related directly to the actions you take!  That kind of thing can really help you immerse yourself in the world of the game.

Best of luck with finishing it!

Wow,

I hadn't seen this thread before but this looks like it will be an awesome game.  The graphics are of an extremely high quality (not surprising, given what I've seen of Mordalles' work in various sprite jams!) and capture a perfect mood of Warcraft-style menace and grunge.  The story sounds intriguing too.

I look forward to playing this game when it's finished!  Best of luck Mordalles.

Wow,

The graphics you've produced so far look gorgeous - you're clearly very at home with your pixel art in both backgrounds and animation, and I certainly don't think that upping the resolution would really add anything significant.  Besides which, trying for something in a higher resolution would probably only mean having to master a whole new set of artwork skills and set you back in the long run.

This will definitely be a project to watch out for.  Keep us posted!

Hey Lemmy, Captain Binky,

Great to hear that work is still progressing on "Forgotten Element"!  Of course it's entirely understandable how long it's taking, what with the enormous effort that everyone is clearly putting in, and from what we've seen so far, the wait is definitely going to be worth it!

Very much looking forward to a 2006 release date for the first act!  Hurrah!

Best of luck!

Has anybody been able to get a full score? I only could get 343/355. This was my second playthrough but I think I might've rushed it.

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I got all the gems (4), I looked at all the blue cups (4), I got the tickets, I did some side-quest (such as removing the octopus from the submarine parascope), and I got the ending where you arrive first and you and bess become a couple.

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I might've skipped some dialogue choices, but is there anything else I missed?

I dunno ... I actually got a lower score than you and received a worse ending!Ã,  Ã, 

However, a couple of things I might point out:

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The octopus / periscope thing isn't actually a side-quest ... you need to complete that task so the Captain will ultimately give you the permission form to retrieve the foot from the excavation site, so it's central to the game.Ã,  There was, however, a side-quest on the submarine involving a recipe for an illegal delicacy and rescuing someone from prison.Ã,  Did you solve that?

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It's very tricky ... there are so many actions to take in this game, it's nearly impossible to figure out what you missed!Ã,  But that's the challenge, of course ...

Hey Mordalles,

Congrats on a wicked - and somewhat epic! - game.Ã,  I didn't mind the "beyond old school" graphics at all - I actually thought they were quite charming (particularly with Piet's idle animation, tucking into the pizza ), and the layout was a novelty - reminded me of the old arcade puzzle adventures.


Pros:

The epic nature of the adventure taking you to different times and locations was hugely enjoyable, made me feel like I had a whole world to explore!Ã,  And, although I'm not usually a huge fan of point-scoring, the "secret" quests, i.e.

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trying to find all the hidden, coloured gems

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is a nice touch as it gives the game re-playability and encourages you to dig deeper into the game's world.Ã,  And, as I say, I thought the graphics were rather charming - and actually pretty cool-looking on occasion, for example:

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the dragon, and the man-eating plant!

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Cons:

The one down-side to the epic feel of the game was that the house, and the worlds you visited, sometimes became rather labyrinthine, with endless, slightly repetitive rooms / empty corridors stretching out.Ã,  The 'esc' feature was useful, but I often found myself getting stuck - not because I couldn't solve the puzzle, but because the place was so huge, I'd simply forgotten certain places / people existed!Ã,  Some condensing of locations might have helped there.

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I found this was particularly true of the desert temple in the final world, especially because it was essentially one long, forwards journey.

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Also, there were one or two pixel hunts in the third world (I did understand the in-game reason for them, but they were still a little vexing) which also suffered from slightly dodgy collision detection:

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It took me quite a while to pick up the third gem with the fishing net - I figured the puzzle out quickly enough but couldn't get the cursor to highlight the gem!

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Anyway, those are merely my thoughts on the game, and I should stress that I did enjoy the game immensely and look forward to playing it again sometime soon - this time to try and get a perfect score!

Thanks, Mordalles, for replying to my last post ...

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... I'd completely forgotten about the oyster!  My bad.

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But now I'm having real trouble in the medieval village ...

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... I've got the stone hand from the village chief, and slain the dragon to steal the red gem, but I can't find the last ingredient for my final spell.  That is, "a physical object that represents control" ... I can't think what on earth that might be!

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Help!Ã,  I'm stuck on the penultimate part of the submarine section:

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I need to give something shiny to the mermaid so she'll go and shoo the squid away for me.Ã,  I've tried giving her the trophy, the coin and the huge pile of money, but the game keeps saying "I don't see the logic in that", which is most irritating ...Ã, 

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Hey The Ivy,

Great stuff!Ã,  The new art style is working out nicely - it'll be great to see it in action.

As far as animation critique goes, there isn't much wrong with your work, and I can't really top ProgZmax's comments and edit (he is somewhat the animation king) so I'll just draw closer attention to two things he worked on:

1)Ã,  The torso-and-waist sway / bob (which I think you caught nicely with the original Mortia animation) - important because people's whole bodies tend to move when they're walking, and if they're not animated in walk cycles (which I can understand, because it's a pain in the artichoke to do) it risks making the sprite look a bit puppet-like.

2)Ã,  The closing up of the legs and arms, particularly because there are parts in your original anim where the front / back arms / legs cross over each other's position, and it becomes temporarily disorientating because it looks like they've swapped places.Ã,  (In particular there are two frames in a row where the near hand and the far hand are in exactly the same place, which looks odd.)

The only thing I'm not fond of in ProgZmax's edit is the ribbon - I quite like theeph's edit on that one, it has a more regular dynamic to it.

Oh, also also - I like Darth's idea about the hair sheen staying in place as her head bobs up and down (as it would if she was moving through light).

Anyway, I realise these are somewhat nitpicky things, which is precisely what you didn't want, but really the animation is of good quality already, so nitpicking is all that's left

Hi Grundeis,

Wow, I don't know what to tell you ... perhaps there is a bug in the game, since only certain people seem to encounter this problem.Ã,  As I said in my previous post ...

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... all I had to do was talk to the actor about the coffee, spike it with the sleeping pills, then let him leave and give it to the doctor.Ã,  A short while later, after doing nothing in particular, a cut-scene appeared telling me the doctor was asleep.

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Although I say "nothing in particular", perhaps there was something specific I did without realising it.Ã,  I don't know - this game is full of rather dubious gameplay design choices like that.

If the author of this game is reading this thread, perhaps he could enlighten us?

No contest.

For me, it was the 'hush puppies' puzzle in "Simon the Sorceror 2: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe".

That's where, in order to sneak past a giant spherical demon thingie without being heard, you had to use your wizard's hat on a small dog in order to transform it into a pair of hush puppies.

I hated that puzzle because I spent weeks trying out several increasingly arbitrary and illogical solutions to it before I finally caved in and consulted the readthrough.Ã,  And every single arbitrary and illogical solution I came up with made more sense than the actual solution.

I mean, seriously.Ã,  Using a magic hat on a dog?Ã,  Anything could happen!Ã,  Anything!Ã,  Why would I ever assume it would turn him into a pair of slippers?!Ã,  As I recall, there was one extremely tenuous and obscure clue offered when you examined the dog and Simon remarked that he was "rather quiet", or something, but unless you knew the solution, you wouldn't notice it.Ã,  And what if you'd never heard of hush puppies?Ã,  Hadn't the designers ever heard of beta-testing?

Phew.Ã,  Okay.Ã,  I'm done.Ã,  As you can see, this puzzle made me very angry, which is why it's my most hated puzzle in an adventure game ever.Ã,  Frankly, I hate any puzzle where I have to look up the solution and it still doesn't make sense, or I'd never have guessed it unless I was the guy who designed it in the first place.

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For anyone who needs it, I wrote a complete walkthrough for "Spooks" which is up on Peder Johnson's walkthrough site:

http://arnjeir.borgarholt.info/walkthrough_wizard/

Plenty of other good walkthroughs for other games up there as well.

Whn I played he didn't pop up on the Foolkiller's screen, it was outside the big mansion in town. It seems he gets around...

Good lord, then perhaps I didn't imagine it.

I don't suppose one of the game's creators would care to put us out of our misery?

Hey Oz,

Some very nice work!  Really, I can only agree with what everyone else has said - the "flat-on" perspective gives you a very unique graphic style, and you execute it with such finesse that the lack of ordinary perspective really doesn't matter, it looks fab.

I would agree with Darth Mandarb that it wouldn't hurt to make the backdrop levels a bit fainter, just to create some depth, and that some colour variation (perhaps when you do an inside scene?) would be welcome.

Other than that - excellent work, and I look forward to seeing the finished product!  It's an excellent idea to hit upon a style that you can maintain easily and quickly.

 :o  Seriously, Raimo, that's impressive - my jaw literally dropped open when I first saw it!

I think you're lucky that you find that level of accuracy and detail "not too difficult" ... or perhaps you're just naturally very meticulous!

Anyway, I can't fault the overall very high quality of the artwork, so a few specific comments:

1)  I agree with Steve McCrea and Tuomos - the layout looks a little hurried.  In particular, the foreground is mostly nicely realised but the background looks ill-planned, and there's a *very* strange jar in perspective.  At this angle, we appear to be looking down on the atoll from the above, so we shouldn't even be able to see the horizon (Like Steve, I thought it was the edge of a waterfall) so it would probably look better to leave it as water.

2)  Yes, the obvious zig-zags look very unnatural.  At this angle, ripples in water tend to look more like a series of interacting, wavery diamond shapes - the operative word being 'wavery' as opposed to strict zig-zags.  Perhaps you could create a tile pattern to clone and then add detail to.  Failing that, and if you don't mind using templates, some versions of PSP have a 'wave' spray-paint option.

3)  The tiles on the left-hand path look out of perspective - they should be more regular and in line with one another.

That's it, really.  The only other thing I can say is that I wish I could draw bgs as luscious and detailed as that!  But perhaps I just don't have the patience ...

Hey The Ivy,

Hurrah - the return of Daylily!Ã,  I can hardly wait.Ã,  Although it's very intriguing to hear that she won't be the player character in this game.Ã,  Does this mean ... ?Ã,  - No, I'll keep a lid on my curiosity for the time being!

And the sprite does look great - you've clearly made a choice to go for higher resolution this time and the new, vibrant look suits the character.

I think you were definitely right about her overall stature and proportions, making her look more like a little girl than a young woman.Ã,  Also, I kind of like the big feet.Ã,  The more relaxed hair gradient is a definite improvement.Ã,  Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about adding extra gradients to her face or skin - I think they look good as is.

I think the hands and the left arm (Daylily's left arm, that is - the one hanging by her side) still need tweaking.Ã,  The bottom edge of the right hand is a little lower than the bottom edge of the right arm - aesthetically, it tends to look better when the two are aligned.

Same goes for the left hand - at the moment it's bent out at the wrist, whereas naturally it would just hang down limply.Ã,  Also, to play devil's advocate, I kind of preferred the 29th May version you drew of the left arm.

I think my only other comment would be to darken the pupils of her eyes - at the moment, they blend too seamlessly into her irises.Ã,  (Although her irises do look lovely!)

KhrisMUC and Drawken both did good edits on all the above.Ã,  My pixel art is still rather rudimentary and ham-fisted, so I won't attempt anything myself.

Anyway, that's my two cents, and since I can't really do anything except nitpick, I'll simply sign off by congratulating you on some gorgeous art and encourage you to keep up the good work!Ã,  Let us know in the near or far future when you're on the look out for beta-testers ...

Hey guys,

I've just been reading the "Tools and Plug-ins" thread on your website, and I have to say that, on top of your obvious efforts with the graphics, it's exciting to hear about the advancements you've been making in other areas.  In particular, I'm referring to the "aMuse" music system, which sounds like it will be a revolutionary tool for musical story-telling in AGS.  I know that Nickolas (sp?) is signed up to be your composer - I've heard his stuff and it's good, and I can't wait to see what he'll do with a system like aMuse.

I'm also impressed that you'll be offering downloads of sprites and so forth - after all the effort that must have gone into the animations, that's a very generous gesture to the amateur community!

Keep up the great work and I look forward to hearing more updates soon!

Um ... if you look at the icons in his signature, you'll see that he's the one who actually *made* the game.

You might try this place:

www.walkthrough-wizard.tk

It's a website devoted solely to walkthroughs of games created with AGS.

Failing that, try posting your specific problem to this thread and somebody might be able to help you.

Little blonde guy? What little blonde guy?

Oh dear ... I thought *you'd* be able to tell me that!  First time I ever played, some little guy - who looked an awful lot like Pib - poked his head up from behind a bush on the Foolkiller's screen, then vanished, never to return.  And Pib said "I wonder who that was?"  At least, I'm pretty sure that all happened ... I'm beginning to worry that I just imagined it all ...

How do I find the secret bonus puzzle?Ã,  I've played through the whole game three times and now been able to find it.

Thank you!

Okay!  In brief:

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Once the Lady Pirate Whose Name I've Temporarily Forgotten has let you test-run the diving suit and discover the Book Wyrm, go back to the tower.  You'll find that you are now able to pick up the rose, that you might offer it to her in thanks.

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I'll let you take it from there ...