Messages

Well, it usually is a zip file I can open. when I unzip it, it goes into and .exe file, which is a playable file. (most games on AGS- when unzipped- are .exe

But the file i downloaded of Infection, can't even be unzipped. Its just an "unknown" .rar file.

Download a program called "WinRar". It is a very effective general program, which can open most compressed files, such as zip, rar etc without problem. Having it on your computer pretty much guarantees you wont have this problem again.

I liked the main character, although sometimes it seemed he was trying too hard to be dramatic. It sounded like he learned it all from watching TV shows, the kind filled with debonair reading of serious lines, alternating with dramatic pauses. His voice was a ted too tenor for that effect, IMO, but nevertheless, it was colourful, very clear, and was the reason I'd asked for an option not to show text. Ellie, however, speaks much too slowly, flat, and always seems to go for over-acting. Over-acting in monotone is not something you want to listen to. And the captain... er, I'd rather not go into too much detail, suffice it to to say he certainly was not par with "Michael Owen".

It's quite funny to hear that people liked the main character, as I did the voice acting on Mike! ^__^ Thanks a lot for that! The reason most of the voice acting is weak-quality, is caused by the fact that the voice acters are all Finnish, and none of us speak english daily. In the sequel I will come to this forum to ask any and all english-speakin people willing to help to do their part and help me with the voice acting, to get a better quality.

You can always *****, right? What I think is more odd is that ***** Looking at your inventory, you still have 40 shells....?

Please people, stop these spoilers! The reason you dont seem to lose ammo here, is that I realized it too late myself and decided that I was too lazy to raise the starting amount of ammo to 50. Will be fixed in 1.1...

[> There will be a v1.1 next week! Just hang in there! <]

> There will be a v1.1 next week! Just hang in there! <
Version 1.1 will have fixes in:
> The dude's behavior and accidental appearances in places he is NOT supposed to appear.
> The player being able to skip most of the game by misusing inventory items


Also, as clarification, there are supposed to be NO dead ends in the game. The enly way to get yourself stuck is if you save and dont have any ammo. That could well be a death penalty for you.

The sequel will have a more interesting and forgiving combat system, but higher difficulty level altogehter. Basically, any and everything in Infection 1, that gets complained about exessively will be fixed in the sequel.

You can expect an attempt to fix to some problems in a new upload some time next week. I've found quite a few new issues thanks to Leon's help here, and will try to straighten them out as soon as possible!

Sorry about such a buggy first release, but please keep in mind that this is my first game...

Ok, I've played around a bit and here are my thoughts:

- The story is good. The environment is certainly big enough for more stories, even if they're not directly related. So it could well be transformed into a series (how many are planned at the moment?)
- It's a love/hate thing. The graphics aren't super but that's what also attractive about it. It reminds me of the space quest 2/3 times...
- The voices aren't bad but when sentences get longer, the end of the lines fade away making them unhearable so subtitles can't be missed.
- The controls are terrible! Even after playing three times, I still mix up left and right. Somehow it hasn't the natural feel.
- The door are horrible. When I click on a door, I expect them to open. Now I have to click just before, wait for it to open and click just after the door, which in some cases is very difficult with limited space.
- Why isn't everything usable from the start? A lot of elevators give me the message: not now, I should get moving. Only after a certain event, a certain elevator can be used... frustrating! (Also the panel to the control room. Why is it working all of a sudden?)
- I can't see which object I'm using. Taking it from the inventory doesn't give me any feedback at all. (It took me some time to open the footlocker...).

Some technical issues:
- animation of the elevator doesn't go smoothly.
- I can get behind the cargo bay door. Just step to it without pushing the switch.
- When I leave the control room,I heard an explosion. 'The Dude' is standing there, motionless.  I can't do anything with him, I only get the message: is he dead? Entering the control room again and leaving made him dissappear...
- Double clicking an item has a different effect. Where does the timer come from with the explosives? <figured this one out.... think it's a bug since I didn't even had the communication crate open until long after>
- Filling the gun with bullets again doesn't give any feedback. I look at the supplies and all of a sudden my gun has 40 bullets again...

Storyline:
- I've disabled all controls, yet the elevator in C3 can still be used?
- What happened in the main corridor, in between C3's? I can't step beyond the yellow lines but get no feedback either...
- How did the power get restored? I can't remember doing anything yet I can use the main computer all of a sudden?


Typo's:
Talking to Ellie in Hypersleep Chamber - No, no, it's truly a pleaure --> pleasure
Looking at gun: All members of all shipt --> ships
Leaving C1 after finding Ellie & talking to the captain - There's certainly an intruded on board --> intruder
Taking the elevator outside the controlroom, downstairs it says SINGN --> SIGN.
Looking at the rust: It wont go away --> won't
Using the crate: I don't need a trasmitter --> transmitter
Looking at the sabotaged button: It wont work --> won't
Looking at the gap in the pod: I cant fix it --> can't
Looking at the logs of hypersleep chambers: It's a diagram.. hyperslepp --> hypersleep.
Looking at the manual control throttle: the ship's runningn --> running



I'm lost at the moment. Too little feedback of my actions and too little hints on what to do. I'm sure I have to open the container in C3 but so far I could only use dynamite (which didn't do much good..).
The Dude shows up now and then and can be taken care of, but I'm unsure about his status. Once shot, I don't get any feedback on him.... (Is he dead?)
At the moment I'm not sure if it's the buginess of the game that stops me from progressing or am I really missing something?

As a resume..... there are still some points to work at but it has a good potential for a series. Provided that the storyline stays unique and doesn't get too much influenced by other space-quest like games, it's a well done job! Congratulations and I can't wait to see the progression in #2.

To adress a few points here:

> The dude appearing in the first elevator room during the explosion is a known bug, which seems to manifest at random. Some players have the problem, some dont.
> Controls were made using the Beneath A Steel Sky -template, and frankly: being able to mix up which button on your mouse is on the left and which one is on the right... That's not really my bad, is it? o.0'
> The doors are horrible... COOL!... But horrible... They will not appear in the sequel in their current from. Clicking on the door does not do anything, as Mike does not USE the doors in any way, as the doors are automatic. You can simply click BEHIND the door and mike will walk straight through the door.
> Typo's are to be expected in such a large one-man project, but still unwanted... Sorry about those.
> Everything is not useable in the beginning, as the player has a clear objective and Mike has no time to be looking around. The limitations are removed fairly early in the game, though.
> Power is never DISABLED, only rebooted. Therefore it is restored only moments after you kill it. This could have used with a bit of clarification, though...

Thank's for going thorugh all this trouble with my game! I might be making a version 1.1 with fixes and updates, but I'm greatly tempted to just move on to Infection 2 soon. I'm also planning a smaller project in between, so... I'll see what I can do! ^___^

**** SPOILERS ****

> The cargo 3 does not need to be accessed at any time in the game. If you are lost, try looking through the ship's main computer. The idea was to have the player's curiosity drive them forward to explore their surroundings, but apparently this was a bad idea.

**** END OF SPOILERS ****

It sure would be nice if RapidShare didn't suck so much. I'll be playing this if/when I'm actually able to download it.

Rapidshare is hopefully just a temporary solution, as I am hoping to get myself some proper website-space and my own domain, so that I can host my games on my own. This will probably have to wait to some time around July/August due to funding problems.

[WHAM PROUDLY PRESENTS ITS FIRST-EVER CREATION: THE INFECTION - EPISODE 1 - THE SHIP!]

WHAM PROUDLY PRESENTS ITS FIRST-EVER CREATION: THE INFECTION - EPISODE 1 - THE SHIP!

If you've played, remember to give me some feedback or votes in http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=detail&id=1019

> > > German translation available NOW (At long last! Thanks neon!) < < <

> > > Check this link! This video just made my day! < < <
> > > http://www.youtube.com/user/theundeadmeat#p/c/96ACD080C7BF5A72/0/NH3xgcofr3s < < <

PRIMARY DOWNLOAD LINK (Updated with german translation on 12.1.2010)
Download link here  >>CLICK ME <<
The download now contains the german language translations as well, changing most of the game's text into german. This feature can be accessed by running the game's setup and selecting the german translation from the drop-down menu.


The game tells you the first part of the story of Michael Owen, a spaceship mechanic aboard the small cargo transporter called "Pelican" by its young captain. The crew rest peacefully in hypersleep, until something goes very wrong onboard the ship and the crew is awoken to investigate the events.

The game features:

>> Over 600 lines of voice acting
>> Creepy retro music composed by Tony - Ferrara - Caven
>> 30 rooms to investigate
>> A pequliar storyline, that acts as the beginning of a much greater chain of events in the sequels
>> Beneath A Steel Sky user interface and inventory

Screenshot:

This thread is ready to be locked, as INFECTION IS NOW READY!!! See the Completed Game Announcements later today for download link and more information!

...from downloading a torrent.

Why would someone download a torrent, when the game will also be distributed for free on my website? o.0

I'd love to try the donation button thing, but I have no credit card nor a paypal account (which requires a credit card, or a UK-registered Visa electron, which is hard to comy by as I'm Finnish!)

I'm having a pretty big problem here, and was hoping that someone might have an idea on how to solve it:

I have about 700 character.Say commands throughtout my game. Three different characters, all character.Say commands have a line of voice acting(mp3) attached to them.

The problem is this: Some lines of voice acting are halted right at the end, so that the timer never kicks in and automatically ends the say command. The voice just stops at the end and the text floating above the character's head stay's there until the player klicks on presses a key.

Could this be because of overusing repeatedly execute? It's the only thing that came to my mind...

The problem only presents itself with certain character.Say commands and always in the same way. The mp3 files seem to be ok and run normally in all other programs (winamp, windows media player, audacity).

Maybe it will be better to save the whole idea for the next (higher quality) game and not do it a joke. Make it free for download and sell it in neat cases with cool covers featuring the soundtrack, extra art, making-of and things like these.
If I were releasing a game and wanted to do something like you, I would do it this way. I am sure people are interested to see how you made those backgrounds or what, so they can see from the in-production images you can provide them! They can see the funny concepts of the story that are humorously stupid, or whatever you can provide.

I see exactly what you are saying, and agree... mostly!

I'm planning on doing precisely what you said there of the sequel, but as this is my first game, I'd like to have some physical proof of it. That's why I'm making the ten piece limited premium edition thingamabob! ^__^

In the sequel it will all be done quite a bit better, and in a more professional way, unlike my first game here.

First of all you need to rethink your "promo" idea.

Calling your future clients "silly", or your game "short and fairly low quality" doesn't really bring positive attention, does it? I'm sure not going to buy it exactly because I don't want to pay for something of low quality!

Plus, I assume that your game will be freeware, so why buy something?

The "premium" version of my game is mostly just a joke and only one of them will be put onto Ebay with the idea that those who like the free game can buy themselves the pack for as high price as they want, and therefore support the creationf of the sequel, which will be an attempt at a much higher quality game. The "premium" version will also have some extra art from the making of the game and a sneak peek at what I'm hoping / planning to accomplish in the sequel!

Seeing that this idea is a small joke in itself, the point is to have people able to "buy" the game in support! ^^

Ho!

I'm about to relese my first AGS game (The Infection) in about a week and am planning to do a bit of a promo about it. Here's my plan:

I'll make ten or twenty copies, with DVD jewelcases, instruction manuals and all the goodies and special materials and cool covers, and sell them to those willing to buy. I'll call it the "Limited Special Edition"! This is mostly a joke as the game is faily low quality and short, but It'll make a nice memory for me and my friends (and those silly few who will buy it for 10 â,¬).

And now it struck me that there may be copyright problems. I read the AGS legal information page and realizd that some things (the space quest font etc) may present small problems.

Now I'd like to ask YOU (whoever you are): What do you think? Should I proceed with this idea or should I scrap it in fear of legal problems? Correcting these problems is out of question, as ither projects need my attention and I dont have time to start fixing everything.

Also: have I missed anything? Is there something else I need to know/do before I proceed with the idea?

So I thought. Thanks! I hereby promise that I wont be bothering you again in a long time, as my first game is finelly about to be released within two weeks from now!

You guys have been a great help! Thank you all.

Bumping to notify that release date has been narrowed down, music is completed (no sneak-peeks of that, although there is over 40 minutes of music in the game), voice acting is nearly completed (and about 60 minutes worth of that), intro and outro will be released in time with the rest of the game...

All in all: Infection will be released in two weeks time!

Is there a way to SILENCE music in AGS games without stopping it and having it restart again when you restore it. I need to have a moment of silence in my game, but my music track is almost 30 minutes long and I dont want to have to restart it...

Also: can you play another music on top of the first, or do I have to have the second music simply as a SOUND file instead?

[Infection 1 has now gone into beta! The game, after having been in production for over a year, has today been played through for the first time and is now being tested for bugs (which there have been MANY!). Final release can be expected within the month!]

Announcement:

Infection 1 has now gone into beta!
The game, after having been in production for over a year, has today been played through for the first time and is now being tested for bugs (which there have been MANY!). Final release can be expected within the month!

I though I'd add the background story's updated version so anyone can have a look. The same story will also be available in the game's README/manual file.

Some background for the game:

CHARACTERS:

Michael Owen
21 Years

Michael is the ships technician and the protagonist of Infection series.
He is quite a careless person, often neglecting his duties until he has no way to avoid them. This leaves the pelican in a constant state of disrepair. Mike is also a bit of a ladies man, although the ladies often disagree. He has been on the Pelican's crew from the very start and plans to stay in the job for ten more years, to make a good deal of money to retire young on some nice colony.


Jacob Pliskin
20 Years

Jacob is the young captain in command of the Pelican. He bought it together with Michael and started the business together a few years ago. Jacob joined the military when he was 16, but as his unit disbanded he took interest in the unit's cargo transporter, which he later bought and renamed the Pelican. The ship has then become more that a job for Jacob, who knows the ships systems bit by bit and has himsef reprogrammed most of the ships computer.


Ellie Adams
25 Years

Ellie is the medical officer in charge of keeping the Pelicans crew healthy. She was hired to work on the ship after a radioation leak had nearly killed the original two crew members. Ellie, although she looks young, is the oldest of the crewmembers and under constant bombardment of flirting from Michael. This bombardment has not yet been very successful, only awarding Michael with icy retorts and stingy comments about his appearances and behavior.


STORY:

It is 3118.

After humankind succesfully invented hypersleep and hyperstravel, man began rapidly colonizing their home galaxy. Mankinds first steps into space were lead by massive corporations with nearly endless funding. As the colonies expanded, several feuds were born between these corporations, which now began to hire personal armies and arm spaceships with new ranges of weapon systems. Not long afterwards the colonies were torn apart by wars, which cost millions and millions ofl ives and demolished entire colonies.

As the situation became dangerous enough, that it began to threaten mans survival in space, several of the largest corporations and governments united and formed a coalition, that is today known as the UEF - United Earth Federation. As the parties that formed UEF united their military organisations, they were easily able to push the smaller factions out of the main colonies and into the small border colonies at the outermost reaches of human space.

At some time in the 3080's the UEF had succesfully ridden 98% of used space of any resistance and piracy and a peace was finally declared, after over a century of raging war. In the decade that followed the peace declaration, UEF began to realise that it had massive amounts of funding being drained by military organisations that were now nearly entirely out of use. UEF began to retrain soldiers into police units to safeguard the colonies, while maintaining a certain level of military presence in the border colonies. UEF also began disbanding facilities that were established during the war to support the military machine: military research outposts, resupply centers and barrack worlds were abandoned and in some cases dismantled and disposed of. The massive transportation fleets of the UEF were also mostly disbanded, their mostly overused, damaged or simply outdated ships being sold to the highest bidders, who proceeded to create a thriving business of transportation companies.

One such one ship transportation company is the Pelican: a single ship with three crew members taking the transportation jobs of the highest bidders.

July 14.3118 (Earth time)
LR-05 Research colony (Disbanded a month earlier and now being dismantled and shipped to be disposed of)

"Welcome to LR-05 orbital station"
Michael stepped through the airlock and gazed at the gleaming steel corridors greeting him, nodding to the computer which had greeted him as he entered the station. He had been ordered by his Captain to enter the station and keep an eye on the personnel loading cargo onto the Pelican. Michael shrugged as he thought of the things he had heard of this place from his older brother who served in the military nearby. The stories of how soldiers had gone mad and killed... and worse...

As he walked, he thought of his next mission, of how the Pelican would have to travel across half of the galaxy, all the way to the core, just to drop the cargo off at the BH-01 Black Hole disposal facility. The massive metal colossus that was tethered to four planets so that it would not be drawn into the small black hole at the middle of the galaxy. Any ship going by the disposal facility would instantly get sucked into the black hole and there was no return. The facility was used to dispose of any materials that were never to be seen again. Why didn't they just leave it down there and bomb the place to vapor?

The corridor took a sharp turn and as Michael took the turn, his eyes were greeted by another pair of eyes. A pair of very deep, green, beautiful woman's eyes. A sight he had not expected on the station.
"Are you mr. Owen?" The woman asked, as Michael slowly digested her image in his head. She was a sleek woman, clad in a white jumpsuit that had been issued to all the low level workers on the orbital station.
"Yeah... that's me..." Michael said, his eyes still wandering on the beautiful figure of the woman.
"I have been instructed to take you to the viewing deck and to assist you if you need it. This way!" As the woman finished, she turned on her heels and walked down the corridor, with a small wiggle in her walk that just seemed to hypnotize Michael, who has suddenly forgotten all about his job here.


Outside the station, where the Pelican was docked and waiting for its cargo, two men clad in cumbersome spacesuits floated watching the moon below.
"Are the packages ready for transport?" One of the two men asked the other, while glancing at the massive green surface of the below moon, where the massive white domes of the research facility were barely visible.
"They are ready, and the captain has been advised not to take any other cargo that ours."
"Good..."
As they spoke, two large metal blocks were floating from the reaches of the moon's low-gravity atmosphere and towards the station, guided by small rocket engines. They were automatically guided so that they found their places underneath the Pelican and slid neatly into the open cargo slots of the ship. Michael never noticed how one of the spacesuit-clad men entered the empty space between the cargo compartments and exited after a few minutes...

The pelican was ready to start its journey...

Here's a codemonster that is giving me a headache. The problem is that of the following piece of code, only certain bits and pieces are run, while the rest is not, and I cannot find a reason why! Further explanation in comments of the code:

Code: ags

function room_AfterFadeIn()
{
if (GetGlobalInt(1) == 10) {
  // Player ends his move on region 1 so we disable that for the time being
  DisableRegion(1);
  cDude.FollowCharacter(null);
  // Move the player to the region
  cEgo.Walk(273, 143, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);
  // The walkable area is not removed!
  RemoveWalkableArea(2);
  //From here on out, the script plays out correctly, until...
  SetObjectView(0, 5);
  AnimateObject(0, 0, 5, false);
  Wait(20);
  cEgo.Walk(296, 139, eBlock, eWalkableAreas);
  cEgo.ChangeView(15);
  Wait(20);
  AnimateObject(0, 1, 5, false); 
  Wait(40);
  ObjectOn(3);
  Wait(10);
  ObjectOn(4);
  Wait(30);
  ObjectOff(2);
  Wait(20);
  ObjectOn(5);
  // ... here! The object 5 won't move!
  MoveObject(5, 166, 72, 6);
  cDude.ChangeRoom(0);
  Wait(40);
  cEgo.ChangeView(1);
  SetGlobalInt(1, 12);
  // Restore region 1 so it works again the next time player enters the room
  EnableRegion(1);
  // In the end, the player ends in room 666
  cEgo.ChangeRoom(666, 105, 142);
  }
}

EDIT: BAH! I've been using old and non working commands in my script again! This problem solved itself after a good night's sleep and some newer commands (oObject5.Move(138, 98, 6, eBlock, eAnywhere)). Sorry for wasting your time.

NOTICE:

I said that the game was to be released in May, but this will change slightly.

The game itself will be finished in May, this meaning a full storyline, readme/manual, all items, voice acting, music, nearly everything.

The thing is: I might not have time to finish the game's intro/outro in that time, so those will be missing from that version for a while, hopefully to be added in a later version within the month.

At the moment the project is moving on smoothly and I have high hopes of finishing it in time!