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Hi!

School's started again, but I'm still working quite hard on the game. I've been working on the intro-sequence which will feature an animated flash-movie of the villain burning down Tom's house.

But here's a sprite of the villain himself: Hilbot the Wizard and one of his goons.

The dow sure looks funny and weird (as a compliment). Is it a good guy creature or a bad guy creature? I really like the forrest background.

Thanks! It's just a creature that eats grass. It's neither good nor bad. It's not intelligent enough to choose sides.

I wonder, when do you think this game will be finished?

Oh, the dreaded question!! It's still to early to say when the game's finished.

My first game took me 7 months to finish, and the second about a year. Since this game is my most ambitious to date, I'm expecting it to take AT LEAST as long as a year. Sorry!

But I'm really working hard on it, so who knows!

Thanks Darth! I really try to make this game better than my previous games. I've put much work into the story: For example I've given all (important) characters a background story and written a list of their personality treats. And I've also come up with a history of the woodlands. It's not very important for the game's plot but hopefully it will accomplish a more believeable atmosphere.


Here's a screenshot from one of the woodland-path scenes. It shows one of the creatures that inhabit the forest. It's called a "dow" for now (might change it later on).

I thought I should update y'all on what I've been doing the last weeks:

I've drawn three new backgrounds, all containing many trees and lots and lots of green.

I've also completed all basic animations for Tom (the main character) including all four directions in all four of his moods (normal, angry, afraid and persuasive).

On top of that I've drawn and animated the evil guy. He's got a couple of moods on him as well so it took some time.

Right now I'm doing the finishing touches on the next background, then I thought I'd draw some of the evil henchmen... Maybe I'll post them here when I'm done... What do you think?

So considering I've been at work from 7am to 4pm every weekday the last four weeks I must say I still have got a great deal of things done!! And now that I'm free for two weeks who knows how much I'll be able to do, right!?

EDIT: Geeze, I sound jaunty!!

The devil has told you that! The devil has told you that, cried the little man, and in his anger he plunged his right foot so deep into the earth that his whole leg went in, and then in rage he pulled at his left leg so hard with both hands that he tore himself in two.

Hmm... That was weird! 

All right! For now I'll stick to what I already got. Thanks for your thoughts, people!

Well, the interface seem a bit okay for me but what if you want to try different kind of stuff, like trying to open a chest but it doesn't work and you want to push and/or pull it instead? When you got four commands (hand, feet, mouth and eye) the amount of actions are very limited unlike the Verb Boxes Interface were you can use different kinds of actions on things. The more possiblities there are, the more things you can do. I mean it's different giving a goon a ming vase than use it to smash it on his head (Give and Use for the Verb Boxes and either on them on the inventory use command). In other words, I don't personalitly think that the interface system is "marvelous". But it's your game, not mine.

Of course it's better with "lick lollipop" than "talk to lollipop" or "eat sandswich" than "talk to sandwhich".

You've got a point there. Hmm. But still I think I'm sticking to this interface for now. I'll think about it, though.

You say you draw in paint? Why don't you try out Graphics Gale instead? It's more powerful than Paint and you can also do game animations with it!

Just google for it and you'll find it.

That sounds like a marvelous interface system.

Thank you!

Damn! That looks gorgeous! And the style is familiar...

Have you been playing "Woodruff and the Schnibble of Azimuth" lately?

I wonder, what kind of interface will you be using for this one since there are no visible interface apart from the mouse cursor. It doesn't seem to be the SCUMM Verb Box Interface you used for Frank the Farmhand, so what interface are you going to use?

Maybe it's Sierra like right click-change-mode thingy?

Right you are! But I still have the verb displayed next to the cursor. I will have four modes: Look at, Interact, Pick up and Talk to. The verb that is displayed will be different for different kinds of things but these are the default verbs.

Ex. A door which you can open. If you choose the "Use"-cursor and hold the mouse over the door the the cursor text will read "Open door" not "Use door".

Ex2: There's a lollipop in your inventory and you want to eat it. Choose the "Talk to"-cursor and hold the mouse over the lollipop. The cursor text will read "Lick lollipop".

So it's a bit more adaptive than the regular verb box interface. Which will hopefully also make it easier.

i thought i'd hand this over to my sister:


cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecutecute cute


and, now for what i have to say:
excellent game. looks really good.

Thanks a lot!  I'm glad you think the creatures are cute (because I meant them to be). But for all of you who are afraid that this will be a children's-game or something, don't fret because not all creatures in the woodlands will be cute... I say no more (right now).

p.s. Sorry for posting two comments in one day but I just registered for the fourms.

I don't think you have to excuse yourself seeing that most people here post about 3 to 5 "comments" a day.

by the (2) I meant that instead of allying individual frames to a letter for lip-synch, you could do entire loops, so that you could do full animations. Like in Indiana Jones, when Indy said something with an "!", there would be an animation of him crossing his arms. And when he said something ending with "?", he would raise his arms and shrug.

Forget suggestion (2)...I just realised that the individual loops are used for different directions...it would be too complicated to have them for lip-synching.

I've made something like this by specifying different moods for a character.

I've got eNormal, eAngry, eAfraid, ePersuade which are all in the enum Mood

Then I set the mood of the character by a function setMood(*char, *Mood)

In that function I change the talking view of the character to the one corresponding to his mood. As of now I've only made it work for the main character, but by using properties I think you could make it so that you could put any character as a parameter. Hmm. That's a good idea. I think I'll change my code right away.

I guess I shouldn't get into this kind of discussion here, but I'll do it anyway and hope I get away with it:

I agree that the lamps look sort of out of place. But to shade them? They're supposed to be made of really thin coloured paper that light can shine through, so I'm not sure there would BE any shadows in reality. Does anyone have an idea how to make the lamps fit in more but still look like they shine?

I love it! It's got a crisp sharpness that many backgrounds lack! The leaves and stem of the tree look simply stunning! If there's anything to complain about then it's the mushroom: I think it's the colour of the stem I don't like. Try making it more the same colour as the head of the mushroom.

The story so far:
The year is 2150. You play Greg, a young genius who is stationed underground to work on classified projects. One day, he wakes up in complete and utter silence. He then realizes the facility has been taken over by... something. It's up to him to found out what's going on and to get himself out alive.

Hmm... sounds awfully lot like Half-Life, doesn't it?

Great screens by the way! Keep it up!

Thank you everyone!! It's so nice to hear there are others that are interested in what I'm doing!

Whoa!
I just realized that you're graphical skills are so much better now. It's a huge difference of quality when I compare them with backgrounds of Frank The Farmhand 1 and even 2!
I'm excited about this game, I hope it will grab me more than Frank!

Thanks very much! I've worked a lot with both the story and the puzzles so I hope it'll pay off.

I love it. The colours of the bgs just stand out so great. What resolution is this in?

It's in 640 x 480 pixels. 32 bit of course. I figured most people have good enough computers nowadays to make the game look as nice as I can make it. Which will hopefully mean lots of details and transparency effects

By the way, the dancer's legs don't look too atanomically correct :O

I agree, but trust me it looks better when in motion.

[Updates:]

I'm taking a break from Frank the Farmhand. Instead I'm doing a more fable-like game called Woodlands. Here's a short introduction:




In a distant corner of the world, where no man has ever gone, lies an old and great forest. It is a magical place tended to by nirils;.the forest spirits. The nirils are ruled by Nergal, the most beautiful and powerful of the spirits. It is because of Nergal that the woodlands are free of the nasty creatures that roam the rest of the world. It is because of Nergal the creatures of the forest can lead their lives in peace, unknowing and happy. Until now that is.

Because Nergal has suddenly disappeared. And without the blessed powers of the spirit, evil is seeping into the forest. The inhabitants are starting to argue, plot against eachother and steal. And a man has appeared in the woodlands. A short man with nasty creatures in tow. And he is threatening the woodlanders demanding gold and other valuables in return for his protection.

You are Tom, a solitary creature who lives in the outskirts of the forest. When the mysterious man comes to demand payment, Tom refuses and the man responds by burning Tom's house to the ground. Furious, Tom swears to rid the woodlands of the intruder and get his revenge...


Downlad the demo here!! --> http://www.fovmester.se

And here are some screenshots:









Updates:
2008-01-23: Life sign

2007-11-01: Progress report

2007-07-10: Progress report

2007-03-04: New screenshot

2007-02-25: Progress report.

2006-09-20: Progress report and new screenshot.

2006-08-02: Progress report and new screenshot.

2006-06-16: Progress report.

2006-05-23: Progress report and new screenshot.

2006-04-12: Progress report and new screenshot.

2006-03-04: Progress report and new screenshot.

2006-02-12: Progress report.

2005-12-08: New Screenshots and progress report.

2005-09-29: Progress report.

2005-09-06: New character-graphics in a reply

2005-08-18: New screenshot in a reply




Progress:

Story: 99 %

Graphics: 90 %

   1. Backgrounds: 4 left
   2. Cut-scenes: 2 left

Sound and Music: 80 %

Animation: 80 %



More info and status reports can be found on my homepage.

http://www.fovmester.se

I found it really great, though it ended too abruptly.

Spoiler

I mean at one moment Cruise and his daughter was captured by the tripod and managed to escape by blowing it up from within, and then just afterwards the tripods were getting strange and falling onto buildings and so forth. At first I thought it had something to do with Cruise's grenade (which would've been a really crappy solution). But thankfully it wasn't that. But I would have love to see something else happening in between, so the failure of the aliens wouldn't feel as sudden.

That it was bacteria that screwed them up, was pretty nice. Was that what happened in the original?

[close]

The problem with the bunker is that the perspective is wrong. It should be viewed almost from the side and not from above like it is now.

EDIT: I think it'll be better if you make the top edge more horizontal.