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Here's the rough diagonal walk cycle for my cowboy hero character. Is it as wonky as I think it is? Suggestions please!

Hey gang,

Here are some roughs of a sprite for Jake, the cowboy lead character in my upcoming Wild West adventure-comedy. I stress the word rough, by the way. These are just to get the ball rolling, and (among other things) lack a lot of detail that will be added later.

He's also looking a wee bit bowlegged and angry (especially on the walk from behind). Also they all need one hookup frame to smooth it out.

Anyway, enough of the preliminary comments. I'd be grateful if you could take a look and offer comments on how to improve. Anything from "his head really ought to move a little when he walks" (and I agree, it should) to anything else you can think of.

Whoa.... this is SO cool!!

And I now have the theme for QfG stuck in my head. Sweet.

So in addition to my secret life as a wannabe adventure game designer, I write for a travel website in my day job. Specifically, I write a semi-monthly column on adventure travel. And, I'd love for it to get some exposure and have some people see and read my work. So please, if you're at all interested, take a gander over here: Secrets of the Grand Canyon.

Oh, and to make this kinda relevant to adventure gamers out there, look for a new Adventure Architect column later this month at AdventureGamers.com.

Thanks!
Josh

Hooray can't wait for the rioting and arrests! Nothing says go team like setting someone car on fire.....

No kidding. Fortunately, there was none of that nonsense last night, from what I've heard on the news.

Hey, we had a team from Canada play in it a couple times back in the '90s! (And yes, I realize this is why most of the world just shakes its head at the U.S. sometimes...) ;-)

I live in Boston and have been a Sox fan my whole life. This is the best sports moment I've ever experienced. I love this team, and I'm still numb from joy. And this city is going absolutely NUTS tonight!!

In my mind, this is all the more reason to be grateful for the underground gaming community. AGS really is keeping the genre alive.

Just a bit of news that I think you all might be interested in:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/underground/newsitem.php?id=777

Al Emmo... Alamo... I get it! Himalaya folks, really nice work here and very exciting stuff to see. I'm psyched about the Lost Dutchmen's Mine idea, as that's a legend I considered using for my game, too! (Before I settled on using a different "treasure.")

Can't wait to see this one come together. Although I agree with SSH... "Nearly single handedly?" Um, I think not so much.  :o

When comparing it to other pieces of art i've seen from the game, it looks 'wrong'. The bridge style and colouring etc looks absolutely spot on, however the rocks look different.

Interesting you should notice. We're actually touching that up today. Also should point out that a lot of the screenshots up on chapter11studios.com are older and have been changed a bit. I should probably put the revised ones up, eh?

Since I'm not writing an Adventure Architect for adventuregamers.com this month (it's baseball season and the Sox are in the playoffs, so my brain is numb), I thought I'd post this snazzy new screen shot from Rise of the Hidden Sun to keep you all interested.



It's a scrolling shot, two screens wide at 800x600 each. If you look at the rope that's holding the bridge together on the front side of the bridge, I think you'll see what the obstacle here is for Jake.

NICE. Cool to see two wild west games on the way now! (The other, of course, being mine. ).

I like the fact that Rattlesnake's now left-handed (or he wears his gun in a very original but weird way). Although this might be a design-mock-up rather than character-development...I really like it.

Yeah, this happened quite by accident, but I think we'll keep him that way. I kinda like it.

Darth, thanks for your help--you're on to something there!

-Josh

If you can post up some Gif versions of these characters (on solid backgrounds) I'd be happy to show what I mean, but as a jpeg it's so compressed I can't really play with it (successfully).

Darth, here you go:

#2 Goes best with the backgrounds and looks much better.Ã,  8)

Keep in mind that what you probably like about # 2 (the lack of dark outlines, which makes him blend better) is likely going to be the approach we take with any sprite. I'm looking more for the design itself. Thanks!

We're smack dab in the middle of designing (or I should say redesigning) the main character in RotHS, Rattlesnake Jake Dawson. Below is a screenshot with five sprites on it which represent various takes we've had on the character over the course of the project. The sprites, as you will see, are numbered 1 through 5.

Sprite 1 is a "frankenstein" version I made combining elements that I liked from a bunch of the sprites separately. Sprite 2 is an old sample of him walking with softer lines than the harsh black outlines in the other versions, sprite 3 is a gunslinger/han solo version (which is cool but a little too modern and composed for what he's supposed to be like), sprite 4 is a recent take, and sprite 5 is an old old version that I kinda like. None of these were optimized too look great--this is for mockup purposes only, and the final version will obviously cleaner/better sized/etc.

What I'd love to get from you guys here is some thoughts on the designs themselves, and of course any tips you can provide. Also, how about a color scheme for him? Nothing is set in stone right now, so all options are on the table.

OK, here is the image:

Hey gang-

AdventureGamers.com has posted the latest installment of my game design journal here: http://www.adventuregamers.com/underground/article/id,423 This month's topic is project management/design documents. I hope some of you will find it interesting.

No offense taken. Me, I very much like the composition of the shot, and the interesting use of the cliff on the right as the player character enters the screen. I also like what it accomplishes in revealing that rocky pinnacle in the distance, because it gives a nice preview of what the character will be exploring in a screen or two. This is important because the screens walking up the pinnacle are close-up shots, so this establishing shot is important and means we don't have to do as much work to set the scene on the next few screens.

If you look closely at the abbey in the distance as well, you can see how it's been configured at an angle so that when up close, the player will see the bell tower on the first screen but not on the next when he walks down to the entrance. I guess I'm seeing not just the screen itself, but the work that went into it to make the rest of the scene easier to create--none of which would necessarily be immediately obvious to the casual observer.

[Fan-made sequels: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2]

Actually, I wrote the article FOUR years ago! Since it's no longer on adventuregamers.com (which is a great site and you should go there right now), I'll repost the article here for you guys:

Fan-made sequels: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2

It happens to everyone at some point. You reach the end of your favorite computer game and immediately start thinking about a sequel. But while games like Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy seem to churn out new episodes on a yearly basis, adventure game sequels have been few and far between since the genre's heyday in the early '90s.

That's why some ambitious fans are taking matters into their own hands, developing follow-ups to classic games all but forgotten by the original publishers. In the first of a new series of articles focusing on fan-made sequels, we take a look at Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2, currently in development by a group called The Indy Project.

"Something was wrong..."

The idea of making a sequel to LucasArts' second Indiana Jones adventure game, Fate of Atlantis, first occurred to Alexander and Michael Zoller of Germany early in the summer of 1998. In the original game, Atlantis is described as a giant metropolis connected to the sea by a large canal, but it seemed to the Zoller brothers that the city in FOA was far too small. According to their website, "It appeared as if 'Atlantis' was a highly developed research facility [rather than] the city itself."

And if that's the case, then Indiana Jones really didn't discover the "true" fate of Atlantis at all. So after a successful attempt to duplicate FOA's graphics style on their own computer, the two brothers were convinced that a fan-made sequel could be made, and the Indy Project was born.

Nearly two years have passed, and the project has grown to include more than 20 people across the globe. Although it's hard to give an exact arrival time on a completely fan-made game, FOA2's public relations manger James Sawa tells Adventure Gamer that "the project has reached a state where the staff boasts people for all possible tasks. Graphics artists are designing the first backgrounds and sprite animations, and our programmers are working on the engine" (using Visual C++ 5.0, OpenPTC and some Assembler code). Sawa also says that a first draft of the story line has been distributed privately to the team members, and the final draft is on its way soon.

"It's not the years, it's the mileage…"

"The original idea was to let Indy somehow return to Atlantis, find some new Nur-Ab-Sal and … well, the rest was a little bit vague," says Alexander Zoller. But now, according to Sawa, "It may run longer than the original."
Although the complete story is being kept secret, we've learned that Indy will be wearing out his passport again in Fate of Atlantis 2. From a medieval castle in Germany to the top of the Himalayas, he'll have his hands full travelling to five completely new countries, as well as several locations from the original game. Dr. Jones will also be accompanied by familiar characters like Sallah, Henry Jones Sr. and Sophia Hapgood, although how they figure in the plot is being kept strictly under wraps.

What is known, however, is that the game's atmosphere will be almost identical to that of the original. Like its predecessor, FOA2 will feature three separate paths -- "fists," "wits" and "team" -- as well as the familiar LucasArts'-style verb menu and inventory. The screenshots released so far also look like they could have come straight from LucasArts, albeit with a few features (like translucency and optimized palette shifting) not available at the time of the previous FOA's release.

"It's done when it's done…"

So when will the game be finished? "The release date is really up in the air," says Sawa. "We are not under any deadlines. When we have a quality game, it will be released." In the meantime, a playable demo will soon be available for download.

For more information on Fate of Atlantis 2 -- including additional screen shots, voice samples, an interactive forum and regular progress updates -- visit the Indy Project website.

Written by Josh Roberts - Posted on April 25, 2000