Messages

@DudleyDoRight:

Spoiler

Go back one screen on the Siren island. There will be a stick on the side. Pick up the stick, combine it with the mesh, and use the net catcher to get a scale.

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splat:

Spoiler

Talk to the open doorway on the top to summon the captain. He'll take you wherever you want to go.

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How do I get the Ouzo from the greek guys at the bar?

1:

Spoiler

Challenge them to the drinking contest and get Simon with you.

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2:

Spoiler

You need to find a way to see what they're doing

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3:

Spoiler

Use the mirror (found in the bungalow) on the nail and then try the drinking contest again.

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How do I get past the siren's song?  I've tried using some of the stuff in my inventory as earplugs but that didn't work.

Spoiler

Interact with the dough in your inventory and break it into two pieces. Then use it on yourself.

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Hooray, I finished it with 106/107. If anybody can tell me where that last point is...

Spoiler

By the way, is there any use for the other two flowers?

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The gameplay was quite smooth (loved the photography puzzle) and I was expecting myself to get stumped what to do next, but that never happened.

The future plot references were interesting, yet I forgot each character's signifigance and exactly what happened in the previous games.

Spoiler

1) Due to the larger emphasis on natural backgrounds, it's rather difficult to make out where the exits are - or rather which screen edges doesn't have exits. Perhaps a highlighting of exits similar to the highlighting of hotspots (for example labelled "To bungalow") would help a little.

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Definitely agreed.

2) A walk-skip function would be very welcome. After a while, traversing the beach does get a bit tedious, similar to the path to the village in BJ5.

Yes, this would've been very nice. It was a tad annoying to go between certain areas like the kitchen and getting back on the boat knowing it would take forever.

Spoiler

3) The drinking contest was a fun idea (and any illogical part is forgotten after Simon's comment on the silly rules). However it would be nice if you could "cancel" the game and place the mirror after the guy explains the rules. Of course you can place it beforehand, since the function of the nail is so obvious, but it would be nice to do things in the natural sequence instead of going through a drinking game that you know you will lose.

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Yes, I thought the same thing when I did it. That would be a nice feature.

All in all, another great Ben Jordan game, and I'm very interested to see where the plot goes from here.

Spoiler

I'm on the oracle island. I've tied the hook and chain to the boulder and tried putting the metal bar in the device to crank it up, but it doesn't work. I don't know what else to do.

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I'll check it out. I found WADF to be an awesome game (it's on my top-twelve list), although I found the original Knytt rather boring.

I played WADF and was confused by the completely unrelated intro, then I hopped around until I became frustrated with the control scheme and killed myself 10 times.
I played Knytt and enjoyed a vast and atmospheric world with tons of detail which proved to be a simple, yet relaxing experience.

As far as Knytt Stories:
I just finished all the levels and I liked the original Knytt better. It seemed like the two BIG levels were designed around dead ends and collecting up power ups to proceed past the dead ends. This kind of annoyed me because the first Knytt was rather non-linear, with the power ups being additional to get past dead ends (I can't remember, but it seemed like you could beat the game without the power ups, but it would be alot harder). And even if you did run into a dead-end, I recall there being many ways to get around them.
Also, in Knytt Stories, you have to collect keys (at least on one level) to complete the level. This was kind of tedious especially since you lost your "homing ray" from Knytt. That had me wandering around over and over, backtracking trying to look for random secret passages.

Anyway, it's still a good game with excellent, yet simple graphics and very nice music. My favorite level was probably the undersea water one.

[The Desolate Room]

Firstly, everyone should play this game - The Desolate Room: http://tigsource.com/articles/2007/08/24/the-desolate-room

Thanks for sharing. That was quite an interesting game (takes a little while to get the combat right) and the only thing I didn't like was that it was nearly impossible to beat the Bosses without collecting those dots in the maze room. I just thought the combat shouldn't depend so much on a collectable object in a maze, but it was still a good game.

This is a great topic. I'm surprised there aren't more entries.

Anyway, making this was the most fun I had in a long time.

(Tribute to Jetpack)


(26 Colors)
There are probably some stray colors in here, but even with those it's still under the limit.

Thanks again Loominous. I tried to incorporate your changes and the end result looked closer to yours than I would've expected.


(old=blue :: new=yellow)

I made most of your changes and I lowered the outlines a bit (most notably on the door). Also, this was my first time working with Curves, so I hope that came out right.

Sorry, I had an idea and I barely worked on it, but it didn't come out quite as I imagined it.

So I'm pretty sure I won't finish it.

[Going on from here:]

I especially like your design of the consoles in the foreground (quite a distant foreground, perhaps add a pipe or something closer to the camera to have multiple foreground layers.

Can you give me an example? The only way I could see of doing that would be to obstruct the picture by putting a big pipe in front of the machinery (closer to the camera).

It could use some cropping though, as the upper region seems very redundant, unless it's included for a reason. I'd crop it at the lower end of the big pipe I think.

No, it's not included for a reason. However, I'd like to keep the picture at 320x200. I tried adding a solid black area to the top above the pipe, but I don't think it looks very good.

Wow, this looks awesome. Great transformation.

One thing I would do though is switch around the levels; I think it would be more realistic if the pods were on a raised platform rather than a sunken one, (particularly as regards the location of the door - if it opens onto a raised platform, is there a step on the other side?).

Thank you, and yeah, I'd probably agree about the raised platform. If I thought about it earlier I probably would've changed it, but I got to a point in the drawing where it seemed it would do more harm than good by making such an alteration.

The second one looks best!

One question though. Are you going to scale the character sprite as it moves across the room? If not, you may want to consider changing your viewpoint again and giving the place very minimal walk area..

If this was to be used in a game, yes, I'd probably scale the character.

Latest version:



Generally speaking, I cleaned up the picture to make it more presentable and I lowered the opacity of the outlines a bit. I added several objects (debris, more wires, tiny stuff) and made some subtle changes, such as half of the door now being stuck.
I changed the lighting a little, so now the main light source is a hole in the roof.

Going on from here:

Outlines: When I first started drawing out on the PC, I treated outlines as the evil of the world. I only used them for a sketch layer, and drew every object from scratch using the sketch as reference. As I got better at drawing, I relied on the sketch more and more, until it became so detailed I worked on it for the final product.
So what I'm saying is, I don't know if I should keep the outlines, get rid of them, or slowly work them out.
I kind of used the sketch method (that I'm using for the space picture) for La Croix Pan, except I used a color base before I started refining things. I would detail the sketch and lower the opacity more and more, while also painting over it. My picture went from a completely 100% opacity sketch, to this:
(animated)


Colors: I didn't really have an idea of what kind of color scheme I wanted for the space room. All I had in my head was a kind of blue wash out look to it, so I filled the base with that color. I tried adding in colors of what I thought the different objects would have, and it came out like a bad, rainbow, ugly palette. So, I don't really know how to color it at this stage.

From the games page:

Short:

Short adventure games, good for a quick play when you've got some spare time.

Also, they are defined as being able to complete in under 30 minutes on the voting page.

Medium:

Most AGS games fit this category - should take up to a couple of hours to play through.

On the voting page they are defined as taking at least 30 minutes to complete.

Full:

The elite of the amateur adventures These games should keep you playing for a while, and are mostly very high quality.

I really don't know if I'd agree with that statement. 

But still, using those definitions, you may get weird results. Linus Bruckman is a one room game, yet it definitely takes longer than 30 minutes to complete, and it is in the medium game section.

Full games just appear to take at least 2 or 3 hours to complete, rivalling an old Lucas Arts or Sierra game in length (most of them anyway).

[EDIT: Broken link. See same picture further down.]

I probably spent more time on this than I should've:

EDIT: Broken link. See same picture further down.

I moved the pods over to the right, and I squished them together so they would fit behind the right wall. I also moved the console over there so the player could interact with it. I added a railing because I thought it might help with "overlapping" objects. I tried putting the machinery in the foreground but I don't know how it worked out. And lastly, the back ceiling kind of tripped me up with the varying heights, so I cheated on it or something by raising it.

Loominous: If I may ask a question, what method do you use to darken/lighten areas for lighting? Currently, for darkening, I'm using a seperate layer with a plain black brush on different opacities. For brightening, I previously used a white brush (on different opacities), but they appeared to wash out things. On this picture I'm using a color/lighting layer (with a mask) set to overlay mode.

What do you think of the new design?

I really want to try the demo for this, but I don't have an Xbox 360. Any word when/if a PC demo is coming out?

[Perspective]

First off:  Very nice for an early stage.

As far as composition goes there's a little perspective tweaking on the left hand units that could be done, and another console, table, or somesuch wouldn't hurt in the middle of the room.  It's quite a large space to be so empty on a space ship.

Using a graphics app. that allows layering would help keep you from needing to change your editing approach so often, if at all.  By placing your pencil sketch on the bottom layer, then using a different layer for each room component (ie: walls, pipes, lighting, computers, individual cryo units, etc...) you can edit each without having to redraw entire areas.

Thanks, and yes, I do use photoshop and I am experienced in layers.

Loominous: Thank you for your advice. It's exactly what I'm looking for.

I think it looks nice, and when refined it would probably work well.

It doesn't pull me in though, and if I was to see it pass by, it would go unnoticed. That's fine if you're content with functional backgrounds, but if you want to go beyond that, then I think some of these things might be worth considering:

Perspective
- It's uses pretty much a one point perspective, which has this theater/sit com feel. It has a friendly look, but it's not very interesting.

One reason I use one point perspective is because I'm afraid of how sprites interacting with the background will look on a 2P perspective.

Values
-The values are more or less the same over the whole background, which doesn't give any subdivisions or pull the focus to any area, which gives a static impression.

That's true, but I haven't really assigned all the values I've wanted to in my sketch.

Design
-The room is a large box, which is probably the most boring room design you can pick.

Guilty here  . All of my rooms come out as boxes whether I like it or not. I'll try to redesign it based off your advice.

-Most of the space is empty floor or room, which is also uninteresting.

Composition
-The lack of overlapping elements makes it look flat.

-The lack of foreground objects further reduces the depth. Foreground objects aren't just used to frame the environment, but to also give the illusion of depth. This isn't because it's a painting, but because we're dealing with a flat surface that is supposed to trick us into thinking it's a 3d space, so this is stuff that cinematographers and photographers also have to deal with, as their medium is as flat as ours.

Thank you for clarifying. Foreground objects to me, at least, seem to be added in there just for the sake of "this is a picture. It has foreground objects." Whenever I add them they usually just feel tacked on to me, so I haven't fully utilized them.

Ideas
The pods look cool, and I'd probably focus the whole composition on them. I'd do this by rotating the camera so we'd see more of the wall they're attached to, push closer to it (decrease the room size as well probably), and perhaps use the console thing on the left as a foreground. I'd make the light predominant around the pod area, or possibly by making them have some bright leds or lights or whatnot to pull focus, and keep the other areas dark, save for a console perhaps.

Those are some excellent ideas. I'll try to see what I can come up with.

For this room (if to be used in game) I had two concerns in mind regarding the composition:

1) It has to be functional with a sprite, so that makes me scared of 2 point perspective (I know, I shouldn't be).
2) The objects of interest (which the player will interact with) would be the back door, a computer console, and the pods. If I was to change the composition, especially with 2 point perspective, I'm worried about odd scaling and alignment with the objects that the player must use.

I'd also make the room more interesting by breaking the box design. An easy way is to simply add another box, though offset, like so:



In this design, I used the inner box outlines to form a vertical division (so the room would have two different levels, though with a small vertical difference). This is another easy way to add interest, and I try to use it as much as possible. It's easy to miss the option to include vertical divisions, but they can really enhance the layout.

Planning out the room like this when you have several things to include is a nice quick way to solve issues, and it will also make you less prone to make the space around the camera clear of objects, which happens easily. By first decorating the room roughly like this, you can then look for a good place to put the camera, and use whatever is there as foreground, which can make it much more spontaneous than if you start empty and simply place objects after you've determined the position.

Anyway, this camera placement is more interesting, but it's also more movie like, and lacks the feel of classic adventure game one point perspective. So whether it enhances the style or not is up to your taste.

Hope it helps.

Thanks for all your advice. I'll try to post a revamped background soon. 

So I'm going to take Loominous' advice about posting backgrounds in an early stage. Here's one I just started:



The setting is a laboratory on a space cruiser that has been in a heavy battle and is damaged. The pods on the right are for cryo-stasis and then there are some computers on the left and more junk everywhere.

I guess I mainly want crits on the design/composition right now. This is just a preliminary stage, and I'll probably add some more junk and change stuff later.

After the sketch stage, I don't really know where I'll go with this. I'm changing my technique from sketch-->final product constantly; I used to just draw a line art sketch and paint under it every individual object from scratch, but on my more recent works, I've been using the sketch, and just refining it and tuning it until it reaches a clean version that is final.

Speaking of voting, any chance of an update on the new ratings panel's progress?

How strict you are going to be on the guidelines?

I have an idea, but I don't know if it would adhere to the "under construction" part.

[Idea]

Idea - Jose Luiz

Atmosphere - Cobra. I really like the forest mood you've managed to capture.

Design - Tiki. I love the setting you've created.

Composition - Tiki. Nice angle.

Functionality - Creed Malay.

Technique - Tiki. Love the new style.

Most games that run in real time or that are competitive require you to use both the keyboard and the mouse. It's just easier to multi task with two hands, ten fingers, and twenty buttons on a complicated game.

The only times I prefer to use keyboard only or mouse only is if it's intuitive for that type of game (see Tiltor or Anna or Trilby's Notes). Also, sometimes it's just nice to use mouse only on certain adventure games when I feel lazy.