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[Cutscene art]

Merry Christmas to all!



See, even the Gnrblexian mind maggot is wearing a festive little Santa hat to celebrate!

This one's a bit of a progress (or lack thereof) update and also a personal update this time around.

Cutscene art: The artist I had been working with on plans for cutscene art has, due to more pressing engagements, had to back down from the project. As such I will be looking out for a potential new (paid) artist, with a backup option of using my own pixel art in lieu of the finer slideshow art envisioned for the cutscenes in order to ensure project completion.

Music: The artist working on the music is having major issues as well and it is looking like they will not be able to provide a full soundtrack for the game. A new musician is already in the works of taking over and, if necessary, may be up to overhauling all the music in the game so that, thanks to a single artist, the musical style can be more of a complete whole.

Personal: For my own part, a lot about this project has been set back and downed in priority due to some fairly major health issues. I have been on sick leave from work for the past 7 weeks now (I think) and will remain out of action until the end of January. Between late November and early December I had to spend 3 weeks in the hospital and had some fairly major surgery, of which I am currently recovering at home. Stress, lack of sleep and other health related issues have me basically unable to get anything done right now, and I fear this state may well go on for weeks from now. Hopefully no longer than that, though.

At this time I would slate Gnrblex Redux as potentially release-worthy during late Q1 of 2018, or at the latest, end of Q2 2018.

Will we manage it, or is it all just wistful thinking? Only one way to find out!

Be well, you fine AGS forum folk, and I hope to have this, and maybe some other projects, out next year for you all to enjoy!


- Tomi "WHAM" Kähkönen

First entry all year and I made second place! I'll chalk that up as a win in my books!

[Baron]

Best Character: Ghost of the Pleistocene by Baron
Best Plot: Ghost of the Pleistocene by Baron
Best World: Wikitravel Entry: The Nemesis  by JudasFm
Best Style: Ghost of the Pleistocene by Baron
Best Use of the Original Topic: Ghost of the Pleistocene by Baron

Spoiler

Oh, and I think the broad did it. Never trust a pretty lady, especially when they play dumb.

[close]

The only one I second-guessed myself on was the best use of original theme, where JudasFm had a solid shot with the travel diary thingie, but in the end it was the hard-broiled detectivey type that won my heart in there, too.

And so: Baron impressed me the most out of these stories, so a hefty load of votes goes his way! Congrats!

Sweet.... A second, second chance!

I see what you did there...

[Wafts of mist]

Wafts of mist

Heinrich peered through the wooden slants of the window, out into the street. He couldn't make out the shape of the building across, but only saw the faint yellow flicker of candlelight from the windows of the nearest few houses.

“Seven hells...” -he rumbled to himself, and rubbed his beard. He was itching, and badly in need of a bath, but he, nor any of the three men accompanying him in the guard barracks, had dared venture outside for two days now.

The mist had rolled in four days ago now. At first it had been light, curling about people's ankles, causing dropped coins to be lost forever. The children had laughed and played in it, using leaves and sticks to draw up the thick gray vapors to create swirls and shapes. Then on the night of the second day, it had begun to grow thicker, until people began to bump into one another in the streets. Well, more so than usual, considering it was the drunkards of the night, stumbling home from the tavern. On the third day the mist had become so thick that none dared go outside and brave the streets for fear of never finding their way back home again.

“Any change?” -came a disgruntled, restless voice from the back of the room. Heinrich turned from the window and faced his friends, then simply shrugged and shook his head.

“None.” -he stated in a hushed tone. A scraping noise came from the outside, along with a sound like a bear roaring through water; a wet growl that bubbled and echoed in the night.

“A bird...” -suggested one of the men, Wilhelm, a man with a broad nose and a thick red beard. A pair of small glasses sat atop his nose, magnifying his beady little eyes.

“No bird made tha' sound. Not e'en one o' th' exxs- ekssot- the weird ones. From afar.” -commented Johann, a tall, young man with a keen wit and a fast sword hand. He held the blade, even now, and at times he'd cut a hair off of his arm, as if to confirm that it was still sharp.

The four men nodded to one another as a strained silence followed that unnatural sound. The scraping had stopped. Not even a bird squawked outside. Heinrich could hear his own heart thumping in his chest. Two long days now, and it was fast nearing midnight. They could see the lights in windows, and in the day they shouted across the streets. The occupants of those houses that had a second story to them reported that, by standing on their rooftops, they could see above the mist, that it stretched far and wide, further than they could see even in daylight. High above, they said, the sun shone in the day, and full moon lit the top of the silvery mist at night.

A scream startled Heinrich and sent him to the window with such haste that he bumped his forehead on the frame. Johann nearly cut his arm, and cursed. There were no new sights outside, apart from the nearest light of a candle having disappeared from beyond the mist. One less flickering flame. Heinrich hunched low as the sound of shattering wood and another scream pierced the night. Shouts of alarm echoed from afar, muffled by the oppressive mist, and yet there were no sounds of footfalls, no rush to help.

“Something foul. Beast of the woods, I think. Emboldened by the cover of dark.” Heinrich whispered, staring intently into the mist. The glass pane before him misted over with his breath, further reducing visibility. “We have to go.” -he grunted, sounding none too happy of the fact himself. The other three men in the barracks shuddered at the thought. Both Johann and Wilhelm opened their mouths to speak, then exchanged troubled looks and fell silent. The last man, Frederik, a bearded veteran of six wars now, had risen from his bench and stepped up to the door, where he wrenched up the heavy wooden bar that kept it shut and set it on the floor without a word. He'd always been the quiet one. Some said he was mute, but Heinrich knew better. Heinrich nodded with approval, glanced to the other two, then gestured to the door. Frederik had already begun to pull the door open, and slivers of mist were creeping in across the floorboards. As one tendril of vapor neared his leg, Johann stomped his foot down on it restlessly. The loud thumping sound drawing antagonistic looks from his companions.

The air outside was heavy and thick as the four men stepped outside, with Heinrich leading his squad just like in the olden days. He carried his sword in one hand and a lantern in the other, though the light barely even allowed him to see the ground at his feet. He couldn't see them, but the others were behind him by the sounds of their boots. One sword and two short spears. They'd put down a rabid bear last autumn. They'd put down whatever stalked the foggy street tonight.

“On me!” -hissed Heinrich over his shoulder, grimacing as he heard his own voice echoing from the walls that lined the street. He counted the steps and made his way, as best he could, to where the light had gone out. He wondered if others had gone, before, but he'd simply not heard them then, or noticed the snuffing out of the small, flickering flames in windows.

A fragment of wood, one of the scattered pieces of what had just moments ago been a sturdy door, crunched underfoot. Heinrich ducked low to inspect it as his men marched past him. “Th' whole blasted door's gone! Careful now!” -came a hiss that could only be Johann. Heinrich could hear the footsteps on floorboards as his men entered a house through the doorway. The mist surrounding Heinrich felt like a great hand, pressing down on his neck, pushing him down. He could feel moisture beading on his spine, beneath his uniform. Whatever had broken the door had done so with the force of a great bear, or some other beast, shattering wood and pulling what remained right off its frame. The oaken boards had been torn off metal bars that connected them, and shattered. From inside a sound of something wooden falling over could be heard, clattering against the floorboards, along with whispered curses.

Heinrich stood up and let the piece of wood fall. Silence had fallen again, the alarmed voices that had echoed down the street, the shouted questions and exclamations, had all died out. There were no footsteps. “Wilhelm?” -Heinrich called out in a hushed voice, but there was no reply. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and raised the lantern up once more, as he stepped in through the doorway. The mist had already entered the house and inside it was as thick as on the outside. Water beaded on the narrow mirror on the wall, rolling down the smooth surface. The veteran could just barely make out the walls, and the coatrack. He recognized that red coat. The Bremmer house. “Johann?” -he called out, well aware that calling out for Frederik would be useless, as the man was effectively mute unless deeply drunk. Silence remained his only answer.

A few more steps and Heinrich passed through another doorway, into the main room of the low house. He could smell smoke, even through the dampness, and something rancid, like rotting fish. He gasped in surprise as he realized a figure was standing beside him, a spear in hand. Several seconds passed in silence, no greeting came. Heinrich nodded, recognizing the mute veteran and his spear.

There was a glint of light on the figures face, a reflection of the lantern. Heinrich turned to the room and raised the lantern to better see.

It was only when hands grabbed him from behind that Heinrich realized something was wrong.

Frederik didn't have glasses. Nothing to reflect the light.

Before he could turn, a hand pressed over Heinrich's mouth, muffling his alarmed yell. He bit into it and tasted hot, coppery blood as it lazily oozed into his mouth and stained his teeth. The hand did not let go. Another pair joined it and wrenched his arm off to his side, until he could feel the joint of his shoulder popping out of its socket. His sword fell to the floor with a loud clatter, as he screamed into the relentless hand. His voice was little more than a whimper.

He felt cold. Cold around his numbing arm. Cold in his boots. Cold in his gut. Before his eyes the mist coalesced into tangible form, a thick tendril that slid over his face and into his nostrils. He puffed air out of his nose to thwart the invasion, but soon ran out of breath. He felt cold in his lungs as he inhaled the mist, which thickened like briny soup inside his body. He could sense the cold travel up to his skull. It took him a long, agonizing moment to drown. The lantern dropped from Heinrich's spasming hand, it's glass cracked, and the mist snuffed out the light. When he no longer groaned, gurgled and struggled, the hands all let go.

Six men, a woman and a young child stood in the darkened room now, dead-eyed and silent as the mist swirled lazily around their bodies. An ember cracked in the fireplace, and was quickly doused by the air itself. Johann lay face down on the floor, a pool of his own blood spreading about him, dripping down between the floorboards. His own sword had cut his throat open in the struggle. His face was a mask of sheer horror, eyes wide, mouth gaping open in a silent scream of terror. The other faces, expressionless and uncaring, looked down at the body, and not one of them drew so much as a breath.

Heinrich opened his mouth and emitted a low guttural sound, water bubbling on his lips, as he crouched down and picked up his sword once more.

Another house waited, in the mist.

Hope you enjoyed that little storylet! Heck, it's almost Halloween, so it's only appropriate to write something a bit spooky. Story based on the old theme of "Wafts of Mist". I did not have an actual written start to a story, just loose concepts written down in a text file as I'd begun sketching out an idea for a story, so this is almost entirely a new story. The concepts I'd written down, and ran with, was basically: How to make mist spooky. As in: the mist itself, not what's inside of it.

I've begun work on the theme of "Wafts of Mist", which I completely missed way back in the day. I had a few lines of concept text written for it, but never actually began writing a proper story.
Time to give a solid try.

I'll do a dig around my pile of unfinished / unstarted MAGS concepts, as well as some of the old themes I've missed. Would be good to get back into writing for a change.

Please check the image links (in the first post) they aren't showing up for me! (I checked them manually and got 404s)

Thanks for pointing that out! Dropbox dropped (Ha! A pun!) support for direct links a while back, so most of my stuff stopped working there. Moved the images over and re-linked.

[Idea]

Below is my take on the game design workflow.

Step 1: Idea
I really want to make a game about X with a twist in that Y is the villain and...

Step 2: Planning
Jot down every single idea, concept and plot thread I have in a document. Go through it, refine, reorganize. Most of my projects stop at this stage, for one reason or another. Most commonly I get too ambitious, overdesign a project, then realize it will be impossible to complete in a reasonable amount of time.

Step 3: Planning STORY
Take your story segment from the initial document and ensure that it has a clear BEGINNING and END, as well as a clear sequence of events that lead from the first to the latter.

Step 4: Planning MIMINUM gameplay
Take your document again and plan out what gameplay elements your game absolutely needs to fulfill the story you have. Minimum number of rooms, characters, objects and features. Design these, how they are used, when, how often. Check to see if any can be removed and if so, do it now.

Step 5: Framework
Start your AGS project, set up your first rooms, room layout and characters etc, based on the documents you have. Use crude placeholder graphics, though I also add first drafts of things like rooms and characters at this stage to better drive motivation and mood. Point here is: don't get stuck on the graphics here.

Step 6: Gameplay
Add all the puzzles, GUI's and gameplay elements of your game, so that the game can be played from start to finish. No real need to worry about dialogue and such yet, as those can be added in later.

Step 7: Visuals and story and polish
Your game is working and can be played from start to finish. You probably have some artwork and dialogue already in the game, but at this stage you can start really doing stuff like animating cutscenes, characters and backgrounds. Add in dialogue. Since your game is essentially feature complete now, you are pretty much free to add all the little item descriptions, idle chat dialogues and whatnot freely, as it won't hinder any future work you'll be doing.

Step 8: Sound design
While I add bits of sound to the game earlier than this, I take time to go over all sound assets towards the end of the project. Make sure all sound effects, music and dialogue are recorded, work well and sound good.

With these steps completed, you should have a game that works, can be played from start to finish and has all that it needs.
As you worked your way through, it is more than likely that, during the latter stages, you added a cool feature here or a room there etc. That's perfectly fine, as long as you keep in mind that if some new addition doesn't work, you can fall back to the original, minimalist plan at any time.

NOW there is a final step before release: testing. Have as many people as you can test your game, play it, and document bugs, issues, typos, glitches and opinions. Read all of it, fix what you can fix, and repeat. You may well have to go back and redesign some sections of your game here, but that's what happens. Once you have all your bugs squashed and polish finalized, you should have a game ready for release!

Hope that helps you design your own workflow!

Oh, and a lot of what I use is based on ideas that are put forward by the folks at Extra Credits on Youtube.
Check out their playlist on game design here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z06QR-tz1_o&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5BkTruCmaBBZ8z6cP9KzPiX

It's well worth the watch!

[Top people]

Bumping up to post a status update:

The game remains feature complete, but is missing additional cutscene art and music, as well as the final round of playtesting once I have the release candidate in my hands.
I have, however, top people working on resolving both of those two issues. Top people, I tell you! Assure you, even!

The game also now has full voice acting, with four talented actors having recorded their lines for the project. Gnrblex will be the first game I've produced where I won't be doing my own voice acting, which I consider a bit of a milestone for my projects here.

What I'm saying is: project is NOT dead! In fact I am trying really hard to finalize everything and release this thing before the end of 2017, though due to issues beyond my control this may not be possible.
If you'd like to test this game prior to release, more testers are always welcome. Drop me a PM if you're interested!

I've been meaning to participate again for ages, but none of the themes have really struck a chord with me for a while (or maybe I've just been lazy).

Now I come in and looked over the list. THERE ARE TOO MANY OPTIONS! I CAN'T CHOOSE! SEND HELP!

Well, I did notice one theme that caught my interest and when I explored the link in more detail, I discovered that it was a theme I set myself, so... Heck!

A project has been initiated by yours truly and Creamy.

Still in the early stages, but I feel we've hit off well and look forward to us both working ourselves to death towards the end of the month (as is customary with MAGS projects).

We hope to bring you all the finest of leather jackets this month!

Good show from all participants! I look forward to trying harder this year. Still hunting that first AGS award.

[A Night in Berry!]

After a couple of weeks sick and hospitalized, I'm back and finally have a new video recorded and up for this series! Woo!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: A Night in Berry!

LINK TO VIDEO

WHAM just jumped in while I was posting this and broke the 5pt tie between Sinitrena and Blondbraid.... WHAAAAAMMY!!!

Hope I didn't mess up your flow, man!
I was feeling writey, realized I was too late for this comp, so I read the entries to inspire myself as I wait for the next fortnightly. Thought I'd drop in my votes while I was at it.

"Best Writing" - Sinitrena
"Best Use Of The Theme" - Blondbraid
"Favorite Story" - Blondbraid

BTW, you never heard of a fake drawer before?

I have not heard of a fake drawer before, no. Is that a thing somewhere in the world? WHY!?

And yeah, I can see a kid loving to play this sort of thing with a parent. For me, though, I don't think I'll ever get the sound of that dog out of my nightmares again.

Just uploaded the second video in the series as I try to get this show on the road.
That was... that was an experience.

LINK TO VIDEO

Thanks man! I'll check out the ending over the weekend. I've got to say I really appreciate it when devs put in the effort to flesh out their game overs and bad ends and you've gone above and beyond when it comes to that. I'll have to try and take some inspiration from you!

..though that quiz alone would take them about an hour..

I tried! By the Gods I tried! I have two full pages of notepad paper on my desk with superhero names and colours and I still couldn't make it!

It was a fun game and I had quite a few good laughs with it, so cheers for that! My only regret is that my recording quality and audio quality were pretty poor, but I'll try to work on those as I go on again.