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Do you mean "Sci Fi Monster" as a blanket term for monsters from Sci Fi, Fantasy, and other paranormal horror or do you mean it to refer specifically to monsters boasting scientific or pseudo-scientific explanations as opposed to more mystical specimens?

Haha, woah... ah... yes? No, I'm not too fussed. A 'blanket term for monsters from Sci Fi, Fantasy, and other paranormal horror' sounds fine by me! Just gimme some monsters, dammit!

Also great entries so far!

Yes, a little cliched I know, but I'm interested in seeing some original creations! Of course you can do a sprite of an existing monster if you really have to, but points go to originality here. Can be of any size and use of colour, so long as it's playable in an AGS game. Comp goes from 24th of March to 7th of April, so put your Giger caps on and get to work!

Woo! 

Thanks OneDollar! Nice entries all round indeed. And yes, I wouldn't be putting up my hand in a hurry to animate him 

New sprite jam up soon...

Sam Bell from 'Moon'. Haha, looks nothing like Sam Rockwell... but I don't care! Got a bit lazy with the shading too. I think this story would've been great in adventure form...

Does this by any chance mean a 2.5D JDHD? Because that makes me a little bit sad :'( (but that's just my personal opinion of course, I know many disagree with me).

Looks really nice! Think you could treat us to an animation gif...? 

The only solution I can see is changing AGS' engine to support 5:4 resolutions, until then you're stuck with a squished picture.

I see... I was more or less questioning the feasibility of somehow adding borders to the top and bottom to preserve the aspect ratio the same way it does with side borders on widescreen monitors. But it seems as far as I can tell it's not

Yeah Iceboty is right. I've spent some time looking into display drivers and fixed-aspect ratios but it doesn't seem to make any difference. These settings seem to help the obvious problem of 4:3 on widescreen, but 1024x768 on 1280x1024 still comes out stretched vertically. At a bit of a loss as how to fix this one, and it isn't something I want to overlook since monitors with 1280x1024 as their native res are quite widely used. Surely other people have developed 1024x768 and come across this problem before... but did anyone find a solution?

EDIT: Actually come to think of it, it's not a problem isolated to 1024x768... it applies to all the 4:3 resolutions (derrr). So I did a quick peek at a couple of games... Gemini Rue seems to add borders on the top and bottom to preserve aspect ratio on full screen, while Blackwell Legacy doesn't and (from what I can tell) does seem to stretch the image vertically in full screen. Again, these are tested on a monitor with native res 1280x1024. Maybe JBurger can answer me!

EDIT 2: Ok, so JBurger informs me he had an option for letterboxing that seems to only be available for certain resolutions. Well, this is the extract:

'The "Force alternate letterbox resolution" option is only available for 320x200 and 640x400 modes, and tells AGS to actually run at 320x240 or 640x480 instead, with black 'letterbox' borders at the top and bottom of the screen. This is useful because some computers no longer support the 320x200 or 640x400 resolutions, but do support the letterboxed versions.'

So it doesn't help for my problem with a 1024x768 project. Sorry for the long post but I'm just trying to detail all I can in the hope someone has something to suggest.

I suppose this is potentially a beginner's type query, but has anyone else had experience with 1024x768 projects on 4:3 monitors? I have both a 4:3 and a widescreen, and the game runs fine on the widescreen but becomes stretched vertically on the 4:3 since it's native resolution is 1280x1024, which is a slightly different aspect ratio to the game's 1024x768. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how I might go about fixing this issue...

Just finished it as well. Really, really great job, very impressive! Anything I'd say has been said before, so I'll just leave it at that 8). With that said though, the music really gave the game something special - it could easily make or break a game, and it really helped make this one. Well done! Glad I got the CD version so I'll be able to proudly display it on my shelf and replay it in years to come.

Haha, so good loominous. When are you gonna make a damn game already.

I was going to wait until I finished the game but since I suck at it and haven't had the time to get past where I am, I thought I'd duck in and pass on my congratulations on another fine game. It really is a great setting and atmosphere, as always. Loving the whole radio concept! I'll add something a little more insightful when I'm done  8)

I'd just like to add to this that me and my brother have had similar experiences recently with AGS games, though I'm not too sure which ones they were any more... I know my brother had an ongoing problem with it on my game when he was testing it, but in that case at least it turned out to be something to do with his custom mouse settings that he had to disable (he's got one of those ones you tweak sensitivty and weight and whatnot). Don't know if that helps your situation at all though...

Thanks so much for the love everyone, means a lot! 

@ Tamanegi - it's a Masters of Creative Industries with a major in interactive and visual design. Bit of a mouthful, but yeah it's half animation and half in programming and such. I've just decided to tackle both areas at once 8)

Yay! Thanks for the love everyone!  

also wait to see what they say at your University so maybe you can improve something.

Actually it completely slipped my mind, but there was kind of a reason I started the page in the first place... I finished a playable demo of the first part and was hoping to just get just a few people trialling it for me so I can get some early feedback on the direction so far. It's still got plenty of things in there that need updating, particularly in sound department as well as a few GUI things, but the feedback would be invaluable. So if you're keen please PM me and I'll give you a link! And also sorry in advance if this is the wrong place to make this sort of request... if it is wrong I can repost it somewhere more appropriate.

I really love the new direction here guys. I think it looks really clean and full of character. Ducking back and forth between screens for comparison, I think they've just gone from strength to strength. Well done! Apart from Deponia, this is my most anticipated game 

[Screenshots:]

Krams Design presents...

Anna's Quest is a short form, black comedy adventure game that's a dark fairy-tale like story inspired by The Brothers Grimm with a sci-fi twist.

The story follows Anna, a young girl kept under lock and key in a deep, dark wood by an evil old woman who runs Anna through a series of tests and experiments. What she doesn't count on, however, are the powerful telekinetic forces brought up within Anna that opens up her first window of escape...

Screenshots:
(please click image for full resolution)


(screens feature graphics that are works in progress)

Features include:

    * 'Telekinesis' icon giving new depths to puzzle design and player interaction
    * 'Ted' – an oversized teddy bear (also a victim of the old woman's wicked schemes) who walks & talks and will assist in Anna's escape
    * A range of hand drawn, frame-by-frame 2D animations, including short intro and ending cutscenes

An example of some of the animation work can be seen here in a 'behind the scenes' promo video.

Notes on Development

5th September 2012 - BETA TESTERS NEEDED: The first volume, chapters 1 and 2, are officially complete with full voice acting and original soundtrack! Now we just need some sucke- ahhh... kind persons to test the beta out. If you're keen, private message me with your email, or email me directly (dbe.krams(at)gmail.com) so I can send you a link!

I'll be posting more info up as production continues.
For more info and details please check out my website, Krams Design.

Agreed, I think you should be able to just specify any resolution for the game, and then the engine letterboxes/stretches it to fit the screen.

For AGS 3.3 maybe!

Such, such, such good news! To have this in the next version would not be coming at a better time for me, since I've just completed a demo of my game which a potential distributor is interested in on the grounds I can up the res. I was even considering jumping ship to another engine, feeling very reluctant to do so...

To add to that, I would LOVE to buy a hi res copy of the first Journey Down episode. Consider my pennies reserved for it  

Just thought I'd pop my head in for moral support...

Mordalles - that looks awesome! Looking at it evokes fears of scaling sprites since I suck at pulling it off well, but in more capable hands it would look great.
Misj' - looking good, looking good. Hopefully we'll see something soon...ish? I'm keen to see it in its finished glory

[The Road]

Alrighty, here's mine - the father from Cormac McCarthy's The Road.



"What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay."

There's better written passages obviously, but this one captured the moment of the pic a bit better. Got a bit impatient towards the end and rushed the fire glow