Messages

Wow is this module for sonic style games? A bit like platform games?

Thanks a million Nik!! and also for the list of team members I may need for the future. Yes you are right it will be nightmarish organising team members to do the audio but I think that can organised without too much stress I hope. I will definitely PM you when the time comes for contacts, that will be a great help and no doubt you will be placed in the credits for your help and input. I also had an idea of getting students from an animation course that I am part of at the moment, to do voice acting as I reckon it will benefit them in the future for their portfolios and credibilities, and perhaps help them in getting known out there. The thought came to me today when I got a student to do some voice acting for one of my short films I managed to finish almost today!!

Loominous!!! I second Miez's swearing compliments!!! That is just bloody brillant! It is far by my favourite! All your backgrounds are my favourite Loominous - you have the most spectacular style! I have seen you develop your style since I first joined . It is good you are still going with your artwork, dont stop ever.

EDIT: Also wanted to ask you, Loominous, is your work done in photoshop in many layers? Also do you use a tablet too?

And here is a nasty horrible evil taxi bug with smelly rotten sharp fangs!!!! Oh vw beetles can be so dangerous when tousled and teased long enough!

The shadows on the plates look SO much better and I love the red cloth on the shelf that the clock and photoframes sit on.

I also like the green. If thats the colour you chose then that is your choice and I like it, it goes well with the other colours, the whole style really.

And as quoted by Uhfgood

Monk - could you posssibly do a tutorial on how you did your backgrounds?

I agree, I think you should as your style is an excellent one and people would like to learn from you. We are always looking for new styles to adopt and learn from in our own style developments.

Hey Nik,
Thanks for your advice. Yes this deafness is a royal pain and in the way I agree, I also believe that I can overcome these obstacles. I mean most of you guys are pretty trustworthy, arent you? lol . Yes I would get you to do it Nik when you are ready. Studies come first! I know what thats like studying myself. I cant post screenshots and I have not started one of my freeware games yet, just the story side and rough sketchs.

When I asked the music question, I really was thinking ahead, preparing myself as you know, being a deaf person I worry a lot about the sound side, and I'm trying to get an idea of what I should expect in sound and if anyone here would be happy in the future to do it. If you do know anyone who would do it professionally, let me know as I don't quite have a contacts list yet or know where to look. I'm a bit relieved that you say "That said, voice acting (especially in low budget games) is not immesnly useful really!" which does kind of take the pressure off this side of making games, but I also feel when my games become more commerical I think I will get voice acting done by a few people. I do have a hearing friend who will be doing the scripting while I do the graphics, I think she will do really well in the sound side too so I will ask her to be involved with the sound/music as well. A group of different people for different voices would be a good quality to add I reckon.

When we start the first proper freeware game, I will be placing in the games in progress thread, the screenshots and % of each section done dont worry . Thanks again for the great advice.

Thanks for the positive feedback!! I will be asking some to help me choose background music that best suits the themes of the games as I am completely clueless to music at this stage lol. And I will probably ask people to do voice overs for the dialogue speechs in commercial games (and they will be paid for their voices and hard work when the games make the sales)

Brillant work! I would suggest the plates on the top shelf and the pot by the door have some shadows and also emit shadows from behind them.... the plates that overlap each other could have shadows between them. Otherwise, fantastic work! I will be looking forward to the game.

Hey guys,
I'm wondering if all games are or need to have sound effects/music/dialogue voice/sound? As most of you will know, me being deaf means that I don't know exactly if all games need to have audio or if its an option? I'm preparing for the future of my games - both freeware to begin with then commercial games. What are your opinions? I feel most of you will say many will prefer sound lol and if thats the case thats good, if anyone is willing to in the future to help me with sound that would be marvellous!!! You will be credited at the top of the rolling credits for the freeware games, AND paid for the commercial ones.

I like both! Will be hard to vote lol,  : come on everyone get more entries in!!!

I think also one of the other reasons I really love Ivy's games is I understand her concepts and style of story telling. I have a pretty wacky imagination and humour like she does - but of course hers is unique to mine, everyone has their own style, just understanding thats on the same wavelength. Nanobots is by far my very favourite game this year and probably always will be too along with some other ags games Ive played and any coming in the future. Rock on nanobots!!!!!

Good, Pablo! Thats something I have just learnt from you here for the walk cycles, that they all need to be even in all sides. Thanks.

Great sprite LeChuck! He is a cute looking (even though he is not meant to be cute! Lol!) character.

the Sierra interface more often than not really doesn't fit its games. In most games, there's only one way of interacting with 99 % or more of all characters/objects/hotspots/etcetera in the game: You talk to people, interact with large items, pick up small items, open drawers, and so on. So what I'm wondering is: Is your game one of the games where I have to scroll through many different mouse cursors just to avoid getting messages like "I don't want to talk to the doormat"  or "I think that woman would slap me if I touched her there" where a simple one-click interface would have worked a lot better, or do you have all the available interactions there for a reason, e.g. that it in several cases can be useful to try all different interactions on an object?

Hi Olafmoriarty, you posed some really good points, especially one above that has helped me determine how I should have the GUI/point click icons as, for my games. I want to ask you a question - is the sort of point click on objects without having to "right click" to scroll/change icon types, a bit like the one in the game "Runaway - a Road Adventure"? (assuming u have played it - if you havent, maybe others here have?). I am interested in just having 1 or 2 icon changes for particular things.. like for example I point on a box of bottles and the icon is "Go To box of bottles" and then if its meant to be looked at then right click and it changes to "Look at box of bottles" and if its not meant to be taken, then there wont be an option to change to get it, but if there is, then the icon can be changed to that in one click. And for another object... say a door, roll mouse over it and it says "Go To door" then there is the option of "Open Door" and no other option. Is this what you meant? It makes things a lot simpler I agree, having specific mouse over on objects that are meant to be interacted with. So that the only things on a GUI might be the inventory bag and the save/load/quit buttons.

Also I am a little confused by "another inventory screen", what do you mean by this? I'm asking this as I am not familiar with the wording, so something new for me to learn in understanding how to develop games and avoid killer pitfalls that prevent people wanting to play my games.

Alkis, I am looking forward to purchasing your game when I am able to afford it - the price I am afraid is in Euros, which will make it WAY too expensive in Australian dollars. There should be thoughts on currencies but it is your choice. Other than that, I think its a game worth playing and supporting you in your endeavours. I am very glad to see another AGS member embark on a commercial venture with AGS games .

Marion what an excellent looking game!!! I also love horses and riding them, having been riding for 20+ years, so I will be downloading the game this week!!! Excited!

Ghost - I agree with you, the abuse of mediums is a positive thing The same thing with abuse of paint and drawing materials creates art that is different, original. I have never seen a management type game made in AGS either so this is an exciting new side to AGS - the possibilities are endless!

WOW at what I have just read, coming across this thread! Dave, this makes me even prouder of you! I have watched you grow from a small business to this. It just goes to show anything is achievable when you set your mind to it. I am so happy to see you and Ivy pairing up, she is the best!! I have just sent her a comment on her article in NotesOnGameDev saying how proud I am of her getting out there into the gaming world as a developer to show women can do as well as males can - we're an equal race thats true. Now I am going to be excited to see games made by both of you.

Hey hey hey!!! I HAD to come here to say what a fantastic game nanobots was!!!! I LOVED it! Normally I may play a great game but not compliment so much about it, but I felt nanobots is very deserving of compliments and real acclaim! The graphics, story plot, puzzles and characters, the whole game play is just SO good! I am not yet finished. Stuck somewhere. I consider a game to be very very good if I get stuck for a long time in a game. So well done Ivy and Vince!

There is something else I nearly forgot to mention.... Ivy have you seriously considered making this game into a commercial series? I think you should... I know I am wanting more.... and I want to see more of these adorable characters doing many more things in more games. Seriously think about it.... Also I want to run by you - the future prospect of making your characters into life-like toys, hard plastic/metal models, soft toys, and any kind of memorabllia, and oh yes the electrical type too!!! Remote controlled nanobots. I know I really would love to have them all in my house walking around .

glennpfc - I am with you on this, I played so many old games from Sierra and nanobots brought those exciting memories and feelings back right into it, and I just could not leave the game alone. Definitely better than today's games (apart from Runaway adventure 1 and 2 which I would say is an exception for its quality of adventure gaming, and Neighbours From Hell 1 and 2 as well). I have also added that I'd love to see Ivy make more of nanobots games.

olafmoriarty - I agree with you! Personality is one of the most important aspects in a game. I fell in love with the nanobots right away.

Again thank you for such a great game! Nanobots is the BEST game of the year!!!!! For me at least (and by the looks, for many others ) Both of you Ivy and Vince are very talented!

Hey there, thanks for the really good advice. I will look up Trust tablet on the net. Wacom I've heard of that one, thats more expensive but more compatible with most systems? I have the newest system, hopefully Trust wont have compatibility issues with it. My pc is a dual quad and win xp on it. Yes freehand style is what I was wanting to do for my images. Thanks also for the heads up on Painter, I might give this one a go too, always willing to try new things to develop my style. Definitely will keep you all in the know and posted on my progress.

Alright, I'm trying to work out how to get the black dress. I have managed to get the glass, cleaner, cucumbers and concocted the drink with the cleaner and cucumber in the glass - and yet to give it to the woman in the 3rd stall but unsure how to do this. I'm sure there is a logical solution.....

EDIT: I solved the giving her the drink part and hah got the dress too!! Now the make-up one is the hardest.... I have tried to distract the woman, managed to by attracting her pet fish to the seaweed, but cant seem to get the make-up... any ideas/clues please?

RE-EDIT: solved. Thank you for a great game! Short but fun

Lol thanks Gilbot . Yep sometimes I'm very bad with remembering names and yep I have heard of that game b4 just not the abbrevation for it. Thanks once again and I will go look at the link you gave me! Excited already!!

Hey Andail, I LOVE that piece of work. Its one of the most beautiful artworks I have seen on this forum. I noticed that you said you did it in photoshop with a tablet. I would like to know more about the tablet - what brand is the tablet? I am asking about the brand because I have heard only some brands work best with photoshop while others dont. I have one but it doesnt do a good job. Also around how much would the tablet be? Another question is, because I am not yet experienced with the use of tablets, can all colouring and effects be done using the tablet? I just feel a tablet would give me the desired style that I am after for one of my upcoming games. Let me know more about this tablet. And once again GREAT work Andail!