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Hey everybody,

IndieGames.com has some very nice things to say about Boryokudan Rue in their "10 Indie Games to Watch Out For in 2010."

In particular, the author says:

This is just insanely brilliant adventure gaming. The story contains some of the best plot and dialogue I've seen in a good while, and the hand-painting scenes look gorgeous. In addition to the traditional point-and-clicking, there are also action scenes which require timing and precision. There's a 'kick' verb too! Adventure gaming fans need to keep this one in their radar.

The entire Prince of Persia pack (all 4 games, from Sands of Time to generically titled "Prince of Persia") are available for only about $22.

Gosh, this was a hard topic to click on. 

Great job again, particularly with the puzzle design. I thought all of them were pretty ingenious and well-designed, except that the solutions were basically a series of lateral guesses until you get the correct solution (which was fine, except I often needed a hint as I was making incorrect guesses  ). For instance,

Spoiler

On the phone puzzle, I thought the pattern was with the numbers [9, 5 (-4), 1 (-4), 4 (+3), 1, (-3), 3 (+2)] so I spent ages with that before discovering it was a different pattern I needed to manipulate. Also, on the ordering of sequences puzzle I totally missed the 'picnic' hotspot, but that was probably just me, so that made me mess the sequence up a bit.

[close]

In particular, I really enjoyed the 'Emotional state' puzzle. I thought that was really clever.

I was going to comment about how the font during the intro covered up the characters faces a lot (mostly just on the top left frame) but the issue never seemed to come up again during the the rest of the game. Regardless, an alternative method would be to have the text displayed in the empty space down below so it wouldn't obscure the characters as much.

Great job, I really enjoyed it!

I loved this game! Thanks for making it! 

Try copying the character sprite into each background's foreground (the lower 120 pixels?) so that all the heights of the objects (doorways, posts, desks, etc) match the character's height.

That's how I do it, anyway.

In case you missed it over here, there is an article up on a Hardy Dev's blog about Boryokudan Rue with exclusive(!) screenshots: http://hardydev.com/2009/11/18/visually-directing-the-player/

Edit: Also updated the first post with more information as the game nears completion.

Thanks for my hint. Sorry I had to make you break leet posts in order to do so.

Cool game.  

I liked the set up, I think a lot more than some of your previous games. I was interested to see the conflict play out between the robots and the featherweights, and intrigued by how the kidnap would take place. However, I think it was a little confusing how the game broke from the relation of the narrators after the introduction. I think I just expected those two characters to play more of a central role in the story.

I liked the gameplay premise in how you could keep failing, but never actually die on the way to your goal. The puzzles were nice and logical, except sometimes I would solve them through recurrent guessing and laziness rather than stopping and trying to figure out what was happening.

What I think I would've really liked from the story is if it expanded or revealed itself more during the rescue of the featherweight. Maybe get into some more insights about the robots, the war, the recon on what the robots are doing--just some information to add more weight to the rescue than just restoring the status quo.

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot as another great game from you. Good job!

How do I get past the forcefield and the guard when the alarm sounds? I've got the wrench, tube + axle, and cartridge + wire. I've been captured multiple times and it seems like I've clicked on everything.

Happy birthday! (Keep up the pickiness!) 

Sorry to dig this up but does anyone have a mirror of version 2.02? The original link is broken.

Idea: Ben304
Atmosphere: Ben304
Composition: Xenophon
Functionality: Loominous

Nice game! As always, backgrounds and animations are excellent. I actually laughed out loud when he stuck that spear down his pants (although I'm not a fan of 4th wall humor, sadly ).

My only real gripe is the font you chose; it's a bit cumbersome to read at times (IMO) when compared to something like the traditional Lucasarts font.

Overall, nicely done! Good job!

The Mummy 3 was so 'so bad it's good' that I had plenty of fun watching it. Honestly, if you expect anything out of it then don't watch it at all.

Now, watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull--that was just painful. I could not help but cringe the whole time through while waiting for any non-existent redeeming qualities in it.

Try to experiment a lot with the composition by using thumbnails. That way you can get down a proven design before you start painting.

Here is one idea that only took 5-10 minutes to do:


Not perfect by any means, but it may give you some ideas in the future.

I keep a single notebook next to my computer and fill out it with queries of bugs and suggestions every time I play test my game.

It's fun to see it get longer, and longer, and longer each play session. 

I know this is going to sound horrible, but sometimes it's better to let a sinking ship die than try dozens of times to salvage it--the sinking ship being your AGS love child.

I'm not suggesting you stop working on your game, but in one of my cases, it turned out to be the best thing for me. In the period before 2006, I was enslaved to finishing my then 3-4 year long project (sad, I know) until I finally realized I had been revamping it so many times that it was never going to reach the standard of quality I wanted. This could have been prevented by not being so ambitious, but I think most people are overambitious on their first tries anyway.

So, after working for so many years on my old game project, I dropped it and decided to concentrate my energy on finishing a small and hopefully different adventure game. About 4-6 months later, the result was "La Croix Pan" and I was pretty happy with it.

Also, side-projects do help, as long as they don't get out of hand. OROW is an excellent way to get your mind off your current troubles and get some creative juices flowing in an alternative way.

High-Five.

[Be Quiet]

I'm voting for Be Quiet and Shpritz 2000.

"Be Quiet," although somewhat speedy at times, I think overall contains better storytelling, pacing, and structure than "The Mission." I also thought "The Mission" was at times a bit too much caught in the moment and didn't hold as well together as a larger story.

I liked "Shpritz 2000" better than "A Hero's Tale" partly because it set up what it was trying to do in the very first sequence (have a normal guy as a protagonist, unable to counter-act the unconscious whims of the player controlling him), and then continued that thread throughout the rest of the story. "A Hero's Tale" had a similar concept, but I feel that it wasn't as humorous in its execution, although it was a lot easier to follow.

I'll sign up at joshuan908 at msn.com but I might be unavailable August 13-18 (MIGHT as in I may or may not have internet connection). Feel free to exclude me from the festivities if appropriate!