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"It was a bad call Ripley, a bad call..."  "BAD CALL!?  THOSE PEOPLE ARE DEAD, BURKE!"

I love that movie to death too!  Like I didn't even need IMDB for that!  (Seriously, I rewatch Aliens probably 3 times a year.  It is near the pinnacle of cinematic experiences.)

Hm, ok thanks for the advice, Ghost. 

Yeah, that's good to know when it's generally not a good idea to try something in AGS if it's going to be more difficult, such as scaling characters.  I'm finding having to backtrack is a real time-sink taking up time I could've been designing!

Thanks!

So I'm trying to have a character be sitting at a desk.  The problem is, the room has character scales set to 120 (slightly larger than normal) and I can't figure out where the character will exactly be when he is sitting when I'm setting the room up.  The problem is the scale moves the character, and also I can't figure out how to set the character's animation state to "sitting" in the room editing view.  Right now I'm doing trial-and-error, just running the game, seeing where the character is, then adjusting a bit, running the game again... But there must be another faster way right?  Any help appreciated! 

Ok I'll do the export / reimport for now; thanks guys for the assistance!

I'm not sure when it happened but it seems my GUI Icon Bar (The walk, take, speak, look, etc.. buttons) at the top has gotten messed up, like the sprites are all garbled and a weird pink color.  Only thing I can think of is I recently changed to 32 bit true color and I tried changing from LucasArts speech style to Sierra.  Any idea what might've happened?

(Also had trouble screenshotting, when I try to paste the capture into Paint I just get a black box.)

[A Song of ICEbreakers and Firewalls (Neofeud Recap, E01S01)]

A Song of ICEbreakers and Firewalls (Neofeud Recap, E01S01)

Citizens of Coastlandia, Silverspook Games bannermen...  I hate to be the three-eyed raven bearer of terrible news, but... My trusty indie-dev steed, my Windows 7 Dell Lattitude e5510 and possibly-maybe work laptop just went utter AWOL.  All the King's safemodes and all the King's BIOS settings, can't put Humpty together again... 

Presently trying with my Flashdrived Win 7 image to salvage whatever silos of PNG, javascript, and binary data, unspoilt by the contagion of bad sectors in my mortally wounded workstation...  But prognosis remains uncertain.  The maggots of poorly rolled-out Windows Update installs continue to fester, tearing registry setting from kernel, like crows feasting upon flesh of a corpse.



(Artists' rendering of Silver Spook's black-death-afflicted laptop.)

I have, however, at Wired and Larry Page's behest, "migrated to Cloud Country", to some extent.   I've ventured "Beyond The Wall(ed Garden)" of my PC.  I have a Google Drive backup zip from a week ago of the Neofeud edifice, including game logic, level matrices, spritework etc.  I also have most of the art offlined in a Thumb-vault, canted between my Bitcoin Wallet prepper-egg and my scanned W2 tax forms for the past decade.  I keep my Van Goghs, Hirsts, and K. Bryants (our virtuoso concept artist), all those invaluable pocket-retirement funds sealed up tight against the data looters and bit-rot zombies.



"Backup your brainchildren, gird your System Restore images, for 'format c:' Winter is Coming!!!"

Neofeud hath suffered a blow, not unlike the Wildlings with the death of ***** ******* in S01E01 of Game of Thrones that my wife and I just finished watching as a cheer-me-up.  A most hit-point-decimating magic missile-to-the-laptop.



  (Artist's rendering of me after 8 straight Rockstar-powered hours of Dell driver-questing, hacking away at SATA configs, and generally being my own geek squad.  Also an in-game screenshot of Neofeud.)

But Silverspook Games' Library of Alexandria survives!  the Arthurian Quest For the point-n-click holy grail, the epitome of Retro-Adventure Game Perfection continues on!  Neofeudalism prevails! 



(Artist's rendering of Neofeud Masthead (Seriously).  Manifested as a Commodore-64 arcade box, played by young John Connor in Terminator 2 circa 1988)

Now I return to my regularly scheduled Westeros heroin-withdrawal, until next Sunday (or next io9 or Gawker reviewer with questionable conscience auctions leaked episodes 5-8 to the highest Pirate Proxy bidder.)



(Screencap of Neofeud prevailing through the fire and flames of computer FUBAR.)  Three parallel versions of Win 7, valiant slaying of Win Update, and resurrection of a WD hard drive later, and I've since completely restored the laptop.  Thus we continue our ascent to the annals of adventure gaming glory.


P.S.: Fun fact!  Neofeud was in fact originally inspired by spin-off roleplays of the Game of Thrones world that Mrs. Spook and I nursed our addictions on, between episodes of GoT.  The concept was "Feudal real politiks in a cyberpunk setting".  Things have evolved, but the core concept remains.



(Original Neofeud box art)

Haha thanks Manic.  I'm a recovering English-major, what can I say!  (Actually a computer science major but really loved Creative Writing 300 + classes.)

I overcompressed that statement possibly; by Adult World I mean, the dayjob-world, where you must keep your tie straight, speak clearly to your "clients" or "customers" or whatever in very rigid, "proper" speak.  Which also tends to get boring.  When you're filling out a tax form or writing a progress report for your boss, you're just communicating functional data, you're not trying to entertain or create art, evoke an emotional response, etc.  Generally the contrary -- legalese is all about *minimizing* emotion and keeping things absolutely neutral and non-biased.  Adult World as opposed to Children's World, where imagination, creativity reign.  It's been talked to death by a lot of self-help gurus specializing in motivational books/speeches. 

Solenoid - it's just a random car part that you need to start a car.  Point being, it's hard to be technical support and creative director simultaneously.  I'm like The Collector from the Marvel universe, but instead of collecting powerful superhero / villains /artifacts, I collect interesting words and display them in my novels / at parties / on niche internet forums!

Gave the whipcrackin asshat boss a Christopher Walken upgrade.  80's ultra-backlit hairplugs FTW!  Kind of like how it makes him look perpetually caught in some police helicopter's spotlight.  "You're bald, man!  Hahahahha!  Also you're a cheating slimeball!  Hah!"  Also swapped the suit out for something a bit more Lumberg-esque, except I forgot the screaming tie.

Neofeud character sneak peekz!



Proto-J "Ninja" Connor.   Father was an A-list Hypetech scientist with a God-Complex, feckless disregard for Turing Police regulations, and fatherhood issues.   Conceived of a million lines of LISP, a bleeding-edge neuronet and graphene sheets "Prototype J" was possibly the first fully-sentient AI, born in a top-secret, polarized-window laboratory.  His "dad", a pasty ubernerd, spent more time sticking him with electrodes, running him through IQ tests, and playing Minecraft, than actually parenting. 

He was later confiscated by Hypetech, his creator indicted with "intellectual property embezzlement", then put through a thousand hyperscans and stress-tests, taken apart byte from carbon-fiber from actuator, like a piece of billion-dollar Lego.  The corporation then discarded Prototype-J into Coastlandia's Section 8 housing when they could no longer squeeze any more R&D out of him, and the Robot Rights activists came knocking. 

Shuffled through the foster-bot system, in and out of Toaster gangs, he later shortened it to "Proto-J", which he signed on ATM machines and police droids after bricking them, and also served as his MC-name during his brief, failed career as a robo-rap artist.

Having perp-walked the kid through Coastlandia PD in electrostatic cuffs multiple times, protragonist-cop Karl Carbon attributes many of his grey hairs to the boy droid, having developed simultaneous annoyance and paternal responsibility for Proto-J.  He taps the boy as an ear to the alter-human street, and later takes him on as a reluctant Robin to his Batman, when The Conspiratorial Plot starts going sideways. 

POLICE RECORD:
-3 counts petty theft
-1 count assaulting a human officer
-5 counts assaulting a mechanical humanoid officer
-1 count welfare fraud
-3 counts aggravated assault
-2 counts indecent disposal of sulfuric battery acid in a public space
-22 counts defacing public property

(Portrait is WIP!)

Ok thanks guys, that seems to have worked!

What's the best way to go about adding objects that cast shadows?  I have a monitor that sits on a desk for example, casting a to the side.  The shadow is painted in Photoshop with brush opacity set around 30-50 percent.  The file I saved as a PNG.  When I add it to the game, the shadow areas are just black.

Is there a way to have part of the object semi-opaque?

@Darth Mandarb:  Lumberg, ahahaha.  Yeah that guy is in the dictionary under dickhead middle-management.  Good call.

Thanks all for the input!  This really helps!

I have to echo ManicMatt's comment about being funnier on the spot rather than trying to force humor in the "planning" phase.  I'm all contextual and coming up with something funny / compelling is often just about letting all the shutter doors compartmentalizing your brain's knowledge for Adult World fly open, relax, and "flow" as they say in hip hop culture.  It's kind of hard to do that when your right brain is drawing up blue prints.

Trying to tell jokes into a Game Design Document is often like painting with chopsticks.  Also why I hate programming and doing creative art/design in the same day.  It's like trying to bring out your inner Picaso while you're replacing the starter solenoid.  The left and right brain headspaces start clashing and make me look and feel like sunken-eyed, frazzled schizo Keanu Reeves at the end of Scanner Darkly.

I find my best writing comes out when I'm in some random dialog with a friend on a message board or in an email, and I informally just start explaining my game by chance.  Having that social pressure, trying to "perform", to make them laugh or get interested in my project, or whatever, and having to "get in their head" often brings out my best suit.

I just wish I was better at consolidating and organizing all of the off-the-cuff paragraphs into coherent story.

@Mandle: I haven't actually seen that episode but from what you describe, that guy sounds similar!

@Lasca: Thanks for the sound boarding.  I think you're right about who they resemble, and I'm flattered you picked up on that much from the pictures!  Based on that input I'm thinking I'm going to go with the first guy, since I want more sniveling weasel for the character and less loud pig.

Good call!  Even I didn't recognize it until the artist explained the concept post-facto.

So, a bit torn between potential char visuals.  Basically this is the "asshole boss, but redeemable" type character.  The sniveling police commissioner, who rides the main char's butt all day.  I need to pick one of these two portraits and throw the other one in the idea compost bin, for now.  What you all think?





Here's some flash-fiction backstory stuff.  Apologies if it's a bit unintelligible, it's sci-fi setting with lots of coinage and crap explained in-game.

"Norton Shuffler.  Sentient Services program director.  Middle management type.  Professional administrivia pusher.  Doesn't particularly like Carbon cause of the bad media karma a high profile pariah like the ex-cop brings.  Likes his 100k/year salary, last-year-model Prius-analog, and goal in life is keeping status quo.  Which makes sense, cause he's got that non-micro-home mortgage to float, flying car insurance ain't cheap, and oldest son just came out as "trans-species" as well as transgender, and that ungulate genesplice op ain't cheap, never mind Ivy League college tuition. 

Comes home at 2 AM after sating his sexbot addiction at a cyberbrothel, tells wife he had a ton of paperwork to shuffle.  Still makes it to his youngest kids]'s VR robotics competitions, his gay-transexual-chimera son's rainbow parades, and daughter's ballet recitals, though.  Kind of a dick, but not straight-up Evil."

Bingo, Fitz!  Nice catch.

Looks great to me!

Kind of tangential but possibly relevant: try bumping up the contrast a bit, or just pretend a fifty watt bulb materialized somewhere, unless you're going for the shadowy look.  I like to think about the "drama chakras" (eye corners, uni-brow area, lip corners), and in terms of where light is hitting, and try to convey the character first through these key points.  If you get that flippant smirk or the smoky bemused eyes right, I find the rest of the face just kind of paints itself, it just clicks like Lego.  And really, if you get the character across, the mid-highlight on the zygomatic bone or the exact position/size of the upper lip matter not so much.  If I get stuck, I go Google-fu Bruce Willis and get the three-quarter smile, or Michelle Rodriguez' tuff-chick glower for reference.  They'll also help with the proportion problems.

But again, I find when my paintings start feeling like the visual equivalent of stale oatmeal and I want to fly the Wacom out the window, just jazzing up the spectral width, or even running a "sharpen" filter over it tends to spice things up and make details pop. 

Thanks for the advice, Snarky.  What did you think of Primordia?  They do use fictional curses there, but I thought it didn't really break the immersion of the game, which was pretty thick. 

I am aiming for an eventual commercial release, so expanding the potential demographic while not alienating the "hard core" end of the spectrum is a thing, for Neofeud.

I get the difficulty of writing swearing well, but for the kind of characters and overall "millieu" of the game, I feel it would almost be more noticable and unbelievable to leave the swearing out.  Have you seen Chappie?  I've got pro/antogonists that are basically Die-Antwoord "zef" gangers but without the Afrikaans and more cyberswag.  Gold-plated prosthetic arms, Six Billion Dollar Ballers, basically.  I have a hard time trying to imagine Ninja or Yolandi *not* dropping a "bitch" or a "fuck" on a regular basis.  It would just feel sterilized, castrated, to me. 

I have a hard time imagining Kara Thrace saying, "Shoot!" or "Damn you!" every two seconds between slugging Saul or whoever pissed her off last.  Can you imagine the SyFy channel and the culture Thought Police getting their collective panties in a bunch with the litany of F-bombs if she said, "Fuck" instead?  Her damaged-goods, razor-clawed, acidic persona would fall flat without the cussing.  I can see why the BSG folks made the choice. 

I'd be interested to hear from Wadjet-Dave, though I'm certain he's swamped to death by fanmail and requests for Technobabylon sneak-peeks.

Apologies for failing to post here for several months.  Production took a long work/child rearing-related hiatus, but now:  Progress, progress, capital-p Progress on all fronts!

Silver Spook Games now has its own Facebook page! Welcome to the post-noughties, or the "teenies", or whatnot! Please Like! us, we need friends! Our therapists said so!

Apart from several cyberpunk-tastic new grimescapes, character designs, assorted gadgetophile gizmos (like Zippo-lighter flamethrowers and Nintendo Powerglove-style cyborg arms), we've added an illustrious mind-frakkingly talented new team member to the fight against the Illuminati game development.

Please welcome, Kiel Bryant! Our new, "resident pencilist", AKA concept designer. An award winning illustrator, designer, and writer who has worked with such august names as Dark Horse comics and the Aliens franchise. We're going full-fangirl here; it's like a birthday, Christmas, and a Neil Blomkamp premiere, all rolled into one!






Here we have Coastlandia Public Housing. Used to be mixed-income, mixed-species, gentrified real estate. Now it's a mixed-travesty. The Laissez Faire Market did its thing, Section 8 overflowed, now we have Section 9. A Third-World-quality ghetto for the millions of half-animal genespliced deadbeats and the battery-acid junkie robots who qualify for foodstamps and welfare. Welcome to Paradise.



CONTEST: Name all of the sci-fi / cyberpunk pop-cultural references in this pic and win a free shout out in the next news post + insider access to some of the latest top-secret Neofeud material! Just post in the comments

The smattering of the junked flying cars and decommissioned DoD mechs will serve as a major motif in Neofeud. A metaphor for the inevitable "luster-loss", the hype fading of the new hot tech, the "bohemia", becoming yesterday's canned PR presentation, and then appropriated as a pretense to Gentrify, and to Develop.