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I have a few crits, but as this isn't the CL, I'll keep 'em to myself!

Feel free to PM me or email me with your crits... always looking to improve, if not this screen then at least not to make the same mistake for future screens.

I like the name of the town 'Old Sierra' ... is this a tribute to company Sierra?Ã,  If so, nice touch.Ã,  And the name fits perfectly in the context of the game's setting (either way).

It is a tip of the cap to Sierra On-line. There are a bunch of these scattered throughout the game, actually. I think I might set up a little contest when the game is released to see who can find all of the easter eggs.

It will be 800x600, 32-bit color. We ran a lot of tests to see how this would do, and it seems to run OK. Plus, by the time thing is released, we should be onto the next generation of machines. I think everyone will have caught up to those tech specs by then.

Thanks for the kind words. We are thinking of doing some tutorials for the website at some point, but right now all our work is concentrated on the game itself.

But just to confirm, this wont be for sale?

That's right. 100% free, 'cuz we love adventure games that much. And we want everyone to play.

In comparison to the vivid and gorgeous graphics, the music sounds very flat and computerized. This is one title that would benefit from live music. Too much to ask, I know, but one can always dream.

Thanks for the feedback. By live music I assume you mean recording real people playing real instruments? I wish I could assemble John Williams and the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra for it, but short of that I really like what Vlad is putting together synthetically. Wait till you hear some of the background musical tracks for in-game sequences. My favorite is for a haunted underground gold mine area.... very creepy and atmospheric. I'll post that in the news and updates section of the chapter11 website when it's finally mastered and ready. I think you'll all salivate over it as much as I did.

<snip>
To follow our progress, visit our news page:
http://www.chapter11studios.com/newsupdates.htm
</snip>

What are the catepillar monsters called? I've always like titles like, "Vengeance of the [Monster Name]" or "In the grip of [Monster Name]" or something. That old scifi serials type of titles like [gasp!] The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones.

New sample animation. Better? I don't like the swaying head motion. Any other suggestions?

who animated it, may i ask?

Someone who saw my "help wanted" spot on Adventure Gamers Underground. I think there's some promise here, but as you all noted, it also needs some work. I've passed on everyone's suggestions to her, along with my own. I will post the revised walk-cycle when she finishes it. Thanks everyone!

-Josh

Something about this looks wrong to me, but I'm not sure what it is. I think it has something to do with the shoulders and arms as she walks. Suggestions welcome!

Farlander beat me to it, but that's what I was going to suggest as well. Anyone can learn to do it, and it's actually a lot of fun.

That being said, if you really feel that quality of your work is poor, push ahead anyway and try to get some help after you've made a lot of the game--it will be an easier sell to people when they see you're serious.

Good luck!
-Josh

I don't think 1 game has been succesfully completed by a team.. I could be wrong.. FOY and Kinky Island are team games, and they seem to be progressing nicely.

The Tierra games are definitely team projects, and those are quite successful. That being said, there is indeed very little chance of you getting a team together without first having something of a resume (at the very least) and a storyline, plot, etc. My suggestion: Don't just post that you want to form a team. Figure out the full extent of what you'll need, get very far along in production, and then you might have some more luck.

Also, you'll want to try non-AGS type sites to get your team as well. Most folks here are here because they're making their own games. Not many people have time to help out on someone else's.

Hey all,

For those who are interested in following along on one person's game design odyssey, the latest installment of my design journal is now online and, as always, kindly hosted by the good folks at adventuregamers.com. This month, I discuss a boneheaded mistake I made early on that forced me to redo some of the work I'd already completed. Plus, there are snazzy screenshots with character sprites.

Find it online here:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/underground/display.php?id=365

-Josh

You can get any number of free zip extractors at http://www.download.com. I suggest downloading ZitItFast Pro 3.0, which is free. Enjoy! It's a good game.

I have some comments about the backgrounds: They all look very monochromatic. I'm not sure how that fits in with a comedy adventure. The level of detail doesn't really demand 640x400. If you dropped it to 320x200 you'd make the character art 4 times quicker (to manufacture, not design). I think it would improve the backgrounds too (call me crazy). A lot of scenes look quite "narrow angle" (small field of view) and seem to call for a lot of character scaling, which AGS isn't very good at, particularly if you use line art. It will be interesting to see how characters move around in these scenes.

I should probably clarify my earlier statement that this is a comedy-adventure. It is, but the focus is the adventure aspect of it (similar to BS1). It does not, however, take itself so seriously that there's no room for jokes and poking fun at itself. From that perspective, I think the backgrounds serve the setting nicely. It's a cartoony backdrop, but not exaggerated. It will actually be 800x600, by the way.

Re: the narrow angle of some of the background screens, you're right, and this is actually an unfortunate mistake we made with a few screens early on that we're currently in the process of redrawing. The big mistake was trying to sqeeze too much into each screen, making it necessary to change the scale on some of the important objects to get them to fit. In the end, I decided to redo those screens that were affected (only three in all, thankfully) rather than try to scale the animations for those screens.

-Josh

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your encouragement and enthusiasm for our project. Also, thanks to those of you who took the time to PM me with suggestions for other places I could check for animators as well. I'm heading offline for a few days (vacation, finally!) and won't be around to respond if anyone else decides to write to me. But I will respond when I return.

Oh, and netmonkey, I am not Evan Dickens, although I have worked with Evan in the past for AdventureGamers.com. My name is Josh Roberts.

-Josh

I'm the lead developer and project coordinator for a design team called Chapter 11 Studios, which is currently working on a Wild West comedy-adventure called Rise of the Hidden Sun, in the mold of Indiana Jones with a healthy mix of Monkey Island.

Rise of the Hidden Sun is a cartoony adventure (visual style similar to Runaway or Broken Sword I or II, as you'll see from the screenshots below) set in the American Southwest in 1869. It stars a down-on-his-luck cowboy turned treasure hunter named 'Rattlesnake' Jake Dawson, and it's a mix of adventure, intrigue, exploration, and humor.

You can see from our website that we're far along in development. Now we're beginning to recruit character artists because we are ready to start the actual coding of the game. Here's our website: http://www.chapter11studios.com

What we're looking for: A person or persons to contribute character sprites, custom GUI, et cetera, for the game. The storyline is 100% complete, the puzzles for much of the game are finished, and we have a great headstart on all of the background screens. What we don't have right now is enough animators to keep up with the pace we've set for ourselves. If you're interested, please e-mail me at chapter11studios@yahoo.com. I'd love to get some people from this board on the design team!

Here are some screenshots to give you an idea of what the game will look like:



And here's a sample sprite. I'm undecided on the dark outlines, although I think it gives him a sort of CMI look against the painted backdrop that I kind of like:

Thanks for the suggestions! Just from my quick browsing, those two websites are going to be really helpful. Mods, I'll keep that in mind. I may just need to take you up on that offer!

Disclaimer: I apologize profusely if there's a link to something like this prominently displayed somewhere on the AGS site. I have looked but didn't find anything--but it could be just hidden in plain site and I somehow missed it.

But anyway, what I'm looking for are some premade sound effects (footsteps, doors opening and closing, etc.) that I could use in my game. Is there a resource out there for something like that?

Thanks!

Oh, and there's a T in "Chapter", btw  

D'oh! Just... er... checking to see who's paying attention.

Hmmm can't you use the one included with the AGS package itself?

I see that there is a "REVISION HISTORY" document with the AGS download. I was just wondering if there was a version of the manual with all of that stuff integrated already. Not a big deal, but I thought I'd check. Thanks!