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Oldies:


The ones you guys imroved:


I took a bunch of stuff from most of the versions posted here. (The gun and backpack as the biggest improvements)
Ended up removing the wrinkles Xellie added to the shirt sleeve. Though they were cool, I broke in cold sweat just thinking about making them still look good when I animated the character to reach out to interact with an object.

Ahhh! The "grey pouch" is actually supposed to be the magazine of the gun, that... for... some strange reason does NOT show in the side views...

I may want to fix that!

EDIT: and as I started to look at it better, I spotted that the magazine is way too near the front of the gun!

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARDS!!!

I tried the search, but found stuff that referenced AGS 2.55 etc, so I fear those might just be a bit outdated.

Is there a surefire way to alter the character's footstep sounds depending on the surface (region? walkable area?) they are currently on?

Does any such way work even when the character walks due to a blocking script, or is that still impossible? (Probably, but I want to be sure)

Cool man, hope it helps.

Oh, it will help! All I have to do now is to fix another small issue with the original sprites I just noticed: compare the height of the right hand in the front and the side views. I'll have to lower the right hand by a pixel or two in the side views.

Otherwise: Let the animating begin!

Xellie: AWESOME!!!

That is all, nothing more to add. 

Ryan: The question becomes: which one of the side view arms looks better? Should I make the left view arm thicker? Or the right view arm thinner.

Hueih: The left foot resting at an angle was intentional. I thought it looked boring if they both looked symmetrical.

Decided to do a redraw on this:


Using this sprite (which I was fairly pleased with) as a reference:


Ended up with this:


(All images are in 2x)

What say you? I'm not too worried about the front and back views, but the side views are a small concern. I want to keep the pose a bit stiff and not too dynamic, to keep it simple to animate, so even though I admit it might be good advice, please dont say I should have him in a more hunched posture. =)

All other critique is extremely welcome!

EDIT (added in the dead of night): Just spotted that the pants sleeves are different length in the side views than in the front and back views. Will fix this tomorrow.

nice, those are much better than the in-screen sprites

Great to hear you like 'em! I'm still struggling with the side views, but I think they'll look quite nice when I'm finished. 

Now all I need are different character sprites for the 20-or-so NPC's plus the 6-9 different hostile NPC's sprites.

Time to add new pics to tease you all!
Here are two near-final character models I'm currently adding to the game:

Gosh! I've missed the good old games that used real live actors as graphics in 2D adventure games!

If you happen to need any voice actors, throw a PM at me and I will see what I can do, though I think you will probably be using the true voices of the people you have as actors in the game.

Nevertheless: great to see this sort of project is up and running! I'll definitely be playing it when it is released! Keep up the good work!

[(Click on it to get the BIG version!)]

Its been pretty quiet in this thread for a while again... 

Here's a pretty picture to keep it alive! (Click on it to get the BIG version!)
The picture you will get is the actual map of the Infection 2 game area, which will be nearly completely navigable by the player. Please note, that some of the doors are still misplaced. I was just so excited to finally have finished and implemented this that I had to post it.

Looks very nice, especially the command bridge.
The character sprites have a nice cartoony feel to them and will really make the game visually pleasing if the animation is on-par with what the screenshots leave me to believe.

Looking forward to this!

The current beta phase is nearing completion and is now 85 % complete. I'll be adding a few features in the next couple of weeks and have them tested properly. Sadly I only have ONE active beta tester at the moment, so that limits the speed of the process quite a bit. If you are interested, its not too late to send me a PM!

Another delay is also ahead, as I'm going to have to reinstall my windows this weekend and get everything up and running again, due to one of my HDD's asploding on me.

I'm also hoping to have some new screenshots and info available in the next few weeks, so look forward to those.

And yes, we're kinda returning on topic after wandering the adventure desert for a while.  

I think this is gonna end in "no right or universal answer" and "careful designing."  

I was expecting that. What I most wanted was a bunch of opinions and viewpoints, so I can then make a good compromise between my own evil plans and what the potential players would want to see. At the moment I KNOW I will not be able to avoid situations where the player will see the solution way before the main character will, and I think I might use a resident evilish backtracking gameplay mechanic to create challenge and contexct to some of the puzzles in question.

Good ideas and opinions so far.

Lets try this: In the demo of my next game I have a puzzle where this is relevant. (SPOILRES AHEAD!)

When you try to open a door, the door says that it requires a DNA identification of the person who locked it, or a password. As the main character has no idea what the passcode might be, the DNA is his best bet. The body of the person in question can be found in a morgue nearby. The puzzle: how to get a small piece of him for the DNA reader.

> The player must get a cutting tool and cut off a finger from the body.

There is a pair of sidecutters in a box in the very same morgue, and their presence is hinted at in an autopsy report that can be read on a computer in the adjacent room.

HOWEVER: if the player has not tried to interact with the door, and therefore does not know he needs the DNA, he will only say "There are small tools and junk in the box", when interacting with the box containing the sidecutters. After he knows that he needs the DNA, the character will say "A pair of sidecutters, I'll probably need these!" and get the item.

Is this a good way to proceed, and if you think not, how would you do the same puzzle? Would it be better to just allow the player to run around with the sidecutters as soon as he wants?

Metagaming is definitely a bad thing, but so is your solution to it in my eyes.

A player should always be able to pick up something useful - particularly a tool which the character could realistically choose to take with them without a specific purpose in mind. I think the challenge is to design your game so that players come across obstacles before they come across solutions. Ron Gilbert wrote an article about that, and the challenges it presents, I'd suggest you have a look at it.

So I should allow the player to carry around the crowbar, a "monkey" wrench, sidecutters, duct-tape, sixteen keycards and a fine leather jacket just because he MIGHT need them later on? Of course, there are potential solutions to be found to this issue by setting up the puzzles and items so that the player comes across the challenges and solutions in a certain order to reduce inventory clutter, but what about free-roaming games, where the player can solve puzzles in whatever order he sees fit?

Metagaming: player using knowlegde he/she posesses to succeed in a game, even when the player character has no way of having the necessary information yet.

Is this good or bad? Should metagaming be encouraged, or weeded out?

In my game design I have been keeping to a theme, where the main character cannot do something without a reason. For example, he will not pick up a tool he needs later in the game before he has SEEN the obstacle he needs the tool to overcome.

However, some of my testers have reported that this is annoying, especially when having to load an older save for any reason, as they would like to pick up the tool and proceed to the obstacle, without having to backtrack for 30-60 seconds to the previous room to get the item they need.

Opinions and discussion extremely welcome!

EDIT:

CRAP! Sorry for making a useless thread! It took me ages to spot my error (too much script in too little time = errorblindness), but I was sending the NPC to an entirely WRONG ROOM and the followcharacter script then later brought the NPC to the correct room. God I am stupid!

> END OF EDIT <

I use a similiar script in several rooms, but only in some rooms I have problems. The script is:

Code: ags

if (timer10 == 80) {
      if (Z01chasing == true && cZombie1.Room != cEgo.Room) {
      cZombie1.ChangeRoom(20, 54, 278);
      cZombie1.FollowCharacter(cEgo, 0, 0);
      }
      oDoorLeft.Animate(1, 3, eOnce, eNoBlock);
}

In most rooms the character appears and then immediately begins to follow the player and all works and animates nicely. However, in one room the very same script results in the character appearing several seconds LATE. The door animates ok and on time, but the enemy appears and starts moving only about a second or two AFTER that.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this behavior?

Shamelessly bumping to notify that the Combat System beta has now started and the participants have been sent their beta files! I expect the beta testing to take a few weeks (including fixing all the problems) after which I can finally start adding some flesh onto the skeleton of a game I now have.

If you still want to join the beta, e-mail me at wham@whamgames.com!

Not sure if that compiles, too, but exports usually only need the name:

Code: ags

export array;

Realized that when AGS complained, but was too lazy to post a correction. =)
I've got this part working now, and my game is back on track!