Messages

I enjoy giving my games away for free, its fun having other people play something you created.. Get to tell a story for others to enjoy...  Something you work hours and hours upon and have people say, "Good Game!" or something like that.  (You hope you don't get, "That sucked!")

One option is to have a demo to download, and then a password protected zipfile for when people pay.

My thought on it though, is that unless you are REALLY GOOD and have clout in the community (like Dave Gilbert), its really tough to sell a game.

-Bill

Murran Chronicles Episode 3 (shameless plug) is coming along wonderfully, and I figured I would ask here if anyone wanted me to include their stuff in my game.  Here is the info:

The game takes place over several days, and in the evenings (there are separate day and night cycles in the game) you and your partner can visit the local pub which has open mic nights for all artists.  I am having poetry readings, musicians, bands, etc. 

Not to spoil anything, but the pub is kind of the central hub for a lot of the nefarious activity going on in the game.  As such, the player will be spending some time there on several nights.  Due to this, I figured I would ask if anyone wanted me to include any of their poetry or songs (can have singing or not) in the game.  If you want, I can also do an actual character of you performing the poetry or song (or you can send me one in hi-res if you have one, this way you're doing the performance yourself ). 

I was going to stick some random poetry in there that my wife had done over the years, or some of my buddy's band's music or some other free content AGS users have put online over the years for open use, but I figured this might be nice for someone wanting to get their content in a game.

If you want to have it in there, please let me know.

Thanks,

-Bill

Done!  Your right it is  more realistic when you have to guess all four numbers.
Great job on this game. Really enjoyed it. Thanks....

Thanks!  I am glad you liked it!  Stay tuned for Episode 3, entering beta testing sometime in the next month or 2

-Bill

I think, if I am reading correctly, that Gimble already got that far.  The four numbers are already known to him.  So that means the four digit code is needed to unlock the door.

I made this puzzle like real-life.  If nobody was available to get you into the room in real life, and you actually did this to figure out which keypad buttons were used, you would be in this situation.  Your only recourse would be randomly pushing things

So no, you aren't missing anything, the code is unknown to you, and you need to figure it out.  The only way to do that is trying combinations until you get it.

But, for help, here are some pointers:

1st digit of the code:

Spoiler

8

[close]

1st two digits:

Spoiler

81

[close]

Full code :

Spoiler

8137

[close]

On a side note, a friend of mine was playing through, and I was helping him solve some puzzles if he needed it, and I completely forgot the code.  I forced him to go through all the combinations because I couldn't be bothered to look it up


Hope it helps,

Bill

Many thanks for the help in this forum with the front view of my new lady-character, but now I am unhappy with the side view I got.

Here is the front view :


Here is the side view I have to go with it:


I am not happy with the way the hair looks up near the forehead..  Its almost too large of a brow.. The right leg looks slightly wrong somehow (it is supposed to be turned slightly away from the 'camera'), and the breasts look too..  I don't know.. Large?  Or maybe not proportionate..  I don't know.  I think its a good start, but I just can't place what is wrong with it to fix it.  I am hoping someone can provide an outside perspective to this.

Thanks in advance,

Bill

It's very good.

I'm not sure the motion blur adds to the animation though.

Also: he's very dextrous, being able to stow his cane away without looking what he's doing...

Thats not dexterity, that is shiftyness.  Being a used boat salesman will do that to you, you know.

I like it a lot.  Brought back memories

-Bill

I am by no means a music person, but I like it.  I think it fits great in the description you gave.

-Bill

She looks like she's ice skating! Sorry, I had to say it - that was my first reaction, and I'll address it below.

I think the sprite itself ended up well, but as you say the animation doesn't really flow. Framerate is an issue of course (at least in my browser the animated gif is much too slow, it looks a lot better when I import it into AGS and run it with a delay of 5), but I think one of the main problems is that your end-positions are quite extreme and the low amount of frames make the jump between them quite sudden. 6 frames is in itself quite few for a hi-res animation, but it doesn't seem much of a problem when played at a higher framerate.

Instead, try in-betweening some of the elements and make the end frames more subtle. For instance her torso seems to be rocking back and forth like a boat (very noticeable on the neckline a breasts) in very sudden jumps between frames. I also think the final hand position in front of her is too extreme, it seems she's behind her wrist rather than just moving her lower arm forward. And as for the "ice skating" issue, I think it would help a lot if her legs moved inward rather than to the sides when they bend backwards.
There's some minor problems with the shading of the dress (the vertical shadow appearing on her thigh is somehow distracting) and the shoes look a bit lumpy in the forward position, but that's something to deal with when you've perfected the movement itself.

All that said, I think this is very good work for someone who (as you said in the other thread) doesn't consider themselves very artistic. If you can achieve this level of movement in just 6 frames, you're well on your way to becoming a good animator.

Thanks for the critique.  I appreciate the help with this.  I added 2 additional frames to the cycle, adjusted the final hand position, added some "in-between" movements, and adjusted the breast and neckline animations.  In the process I also inadvertantly created a bit of "bounce" when she steps.  I HONESTLY didn't mean to do it, but it is kind of neat.  I wonder if I should leave it in, or if people will thing its gratuitous "jiggle" for the sake of sexuality.  I adjusted the torso rocking motion as well as the way the legs bend in instead of out, creating the sort of ice-skating motion (which I totally see now that you mentioned it).  Finally, I upped the knee location, making the legs bend a little higher up.  Otherwise I realized it made her thighs look to be waaaay too long if you figure her hips are up just above her wrists..

I couldn't quite figure out the shading needs on the dress, but I tweaked it a little bit to try and make it nicer.  I also tried cleaning up the shoes a little, but I don't know if it made much difference.. 

I sped up the animation speed on this one too, making it similar to the speed it will be in the game.  I don't know why I made the original so slow

Again, any comments or critiques are very welcome, I am kind of enjoying this



-Bill

So with Kastchey's help from my earlier thread : http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37490.0  I came up with what I think is a good female sprite.  It fits into the existing character sprites great!

However, I animated it into a walkcycle, and something doesn't seem to be flowing..  Its 6 frames long (7 if you include the standing still frame which isn't in the below animation).  It almost seems jerkey..  Like something is missing, and I think it is a frame when the one leg passes the other on the forward stride..

EDIT NOTE: This is the original, updated one is below..



Anyone have any thoughts for it?

Thanks,

-Bill

I made an attempt to 'feminize' your sprite and this is how it turned out:


There might still be some anatomy and shading issues, but this is just a quick paintover.

Wow, very nice.  I think mine does still look a little frumpy and dumpy..  I will take yours and play with it some and see what I can get.  Thanks much for the help.

-Bill

Mr. Matti made me think...

I decided to give another go to my initial sprite (which I have the ability to animate), and using the suggestions from earlier, along with references from the new one for proportions, etc, etc..  I think I was able to get much more of a female figure..

The face still needs to be modified, I need to shade the legs, and maybe fine tune them some...

The dress..  I need to figure out how I want to shade it.  Maybe put a pattern on it, or maybe something else, I don't know yet.

Any suggestions are welcome, as are comments and criticisms on the new sprite.  The woman is a married mother of a 12 year old boy in my game, and is helping with the murder investigation, so no crazy sleazy stuff can go on

Thanks again for all the comments and help guys.

OLD SPRITE         NEW SPRITE

           


Thanks again,

Bill

Hm.... if you're only able to draw characters in a pose/quality like that woman by overpainting photos I guess you'll have genuine problems with animating them. Are you sure you wanna do that?

I don't really have a choice, unless I find someone willing to do a female pixel set / walkcycle for me at 640x480.

There are walkcycle tutorials out there that I can use to attempt to animate the traced image.

I am more the story/programming type of game designer.  I have just enough skill at art to make something roughly recognizeable as human or a brick wall.  Thats about it  

The other option is to modify the existing male set like I initially tried to do.  But really scale it down and make it look more female.  That way I already have the animations ready, I just need to fine-tune the sprite itself.

-Bill

Wow Paolo, that was a really good analogy. 

I think, based on the replies here, to keep the dead-ends out.  I think I might take advantage of various ways to do puzzles as well as alternate endings.  That could add to replayability, as mentioned above.

The only problem will be keeping the alternate endings in line with Episode 4 (which already has the plot hashed out)..

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.

-Bill

One other thing you might want to think about is adding new, fresh, original content.  Some of the classic remakes out there have additional content added in just to spice things up.  Maybe some additional events, crimes to investigate, etc.  That might be really neat.

Also, if I might ask, other than just combining the games into 1 big game, is there any reason in particular you are doing this?  All the PQs except 2 already has the VGA versions out there..  Why not just do an upgrade/remake of PQ2?

Thanks,

Bill

I'm wondering, since you're going for pixel art, why the hi res?

Because the game is hi-res due to the backgrounds.   I didn't have any digitized walking sprites or characters, instead I have the pixel sprites.  Since I am horrible at artwork, for background images I use real-life images converted to a cartoony/dreamstate/rendered look to fit with the pixel sprites.  If I left them real photographs, I think the pixel art would look even worse.

But I guess all in all I like the higher res games better, so I am going that route.

You can see screenshots of them together at my website : www.billandnicole.net/games

Thanks,

Bill

Ok, starting from scratch..

I decided to convert a real photo to pixel art, simply because it would have proper proportions, and look more like a real woman than I could ever draw free handed.

I used this method : http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/phototochartut.shtml


Here are the original and the pixel version.  I then shaded it (also below).  I am not fully happy with it..  I think it needs better shading.. Anyone have any tips for me?  I want to get it to fit in with the main character sprite, which is at the bottom of the post.

ORIGINAL:



INITIAL PIXEL VERSION:



SHADED PIXEL VERSION:


MAIN CHARACTER (Trying to make it uniform with this sprite):


Hmm, in retrospect, my main character sprite kind of sucks lol.  Maybe I will re-tool him to be a bit more on par with the fluidity and human-looking nature of the converted female sprite...


Thanks,

Bill

Very nice review, thanks

I will take your comments to heart on the 3rd game, which is underway now.  All of the critiques make sense and I think you're on to something.

One quick note about your review..  The 1st game takes place in New Jersey.  Episode 2 takes place in Montana.  Tyaskin, Montana to be exact   (Its a fictional place.  I live in a town called Tyaskin, so I threw it in there)

Thanks!

Bill

Hello everyone.  I have hit the bane of my existance head on..  Women..  Well, drawing them, rather..

I am not very artistic, and am lucky enough to have (through the help of people critiquing, suggesting and painting-over on this forum) gotten myself a workable male character sprite set to use in my past two games.  All my moving, walking, acting characters in my Episode 1 and Episode 2 are male characters.  All females were just standing still and I was able to use still images rendered into cartoony shape for the games.  The only problem is that these characters, though stationary, were not blending in well with the game.  They obviously stood out as they weren't uniform with the other people in the games...

For my new game (Episode 3), I want to make ALL characters myself.  I want them all to be hand drawn sprites so there is a uniformity, and I can animate and move them.  I am looking to have a much more comprehensive experience with this game.

That being said, I have realized I am Horri-bad at drawing female sprites..  I started with the base of my male character (which is what I do with my male sprites, and change them size/complexion/clothes-wise), and tried to make it female..

Here is what I came up with :



The sprite is 640x480, and I think the waist looks kinda off, the breasts don't look proportionate, the shoulders might be a little to broad, and the legs...  I just couldn't get them right..   The face..  That is the face of my main character with redder lips, blue eyes and long hair..  How can I make the face more feminine?  Maybe higher cheek bones, or a slimmer face? 

Does anyone have any suggestions for me on how to make this lady look more feminine?

Thanks in advance!

-Bill

Oh, and Chatroom was an interesting game.  Something very different.  I enjoyed that one.

-Bill

Yeah, Ben's Shifter's Box was really fun.

I liked all the Ben Jordan series also (which you have listed already).

-Bill