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Looks great (as always)! Is this going to be a commercial game? 

Good luck with the project!

Hi all & happy 2019!

It's been way too long since my last update, sorry about that! Good news is that the game has progressed further in the silence. I don't want to reveal the new backgrounds now, so here's couple of new characters and their walk cycles.





The first one is an Arkham beat cop, possibly of Irish descent. There is some functionality with him, he can help you with the plot and if you get robbed (well the robbing is a planned feature, not yet in the game) The woman is Anastasia Wolejko, a Polish laundry worker that Walter might meet at some point.

Some time ago, I made an impulse purchase, and I bought Asesprite pixel art/animation software. Been using that with the characters and I've been quite happy about it. Seems to be bit faster to use that than my previous Photoshop / After Effects routine.

I'll try to make my next update sooner next time!

Really looking forward to this game! The inclusion of a day-night cycle adds a lot of manual labour but in a horror-game, it adds so much! I loved the "safe" moments in a game like Alan Wake where you explored the town during daylight. Then, when night fell, all bets were off.

Keep up the great work. Your pixel art looks amazing!

Thanks, really appreciate that! Now, back to drawing!

this is beautiful. Only the paved path in the foreground could also be a stone wall. Maybe add some papers or other trash to make the path flat. or widen and flatten the individual stones, I think they are not in perspective. Maybe add a tree on the right that casts a shadow over the path, that should make easier to read.

That's a valid criticism and a good point. I noticed that something was wrong with the pavement when I was drawing it, but kind of let it go, and moved on. But it shouldn't be that hard to fix, I think I'll add it to the to-do list. Thanks for the observation!

Oh, it's like the old Dark Seed!

Hopefully not! I've never played Dark Seed, but it seems to have a quite infamous reputation because of the strict three day time limit. In The Witch House you have sixty days so there shouldn't be any rush.

Beautiful background, I'd love to see the other versions! Must indeed be a lot of work to have different day time in your game.

It's always a pleasure to see updates of your game

Thanks, very nice to hear that! Currently I have made a rough evening version of it, but the night version is still missing. I've finally realized that it's better to not try to finish them, if there's a chance that there will be still some changes coming. If  I edit the day version, I have to fix the other ones too. So I can't yet show all the different variations. I might do it later, the evening version will be quite atmospheric because the city lights and the water reflections!

Look, the chimneys are smoking! 

They are! I would love to add also some background animations to the waterfront opposite side: trucks, people walking etc, but I there's tons of more critical stuff to do.

Do the day and night versions use different rooms, or is it just the graphics that are different? And how is the passage of time handled? If you go AFK and stay in the same room will time still progress? The screenshot looks awesome. Will Walter be able to get his hands on a fishing rod, (or a skiff) and if so, can he fish anywhere with a significant body of water or just at a few locations? Plus a fishing rod can always be useful for various puzzles.

Day and night versions use the same room. There is a clock ticking in the background all the time (1 real minute = 1 hour in game) and when it's time for change, the screen will fade in and out, and all the changes happen during the fade. So if you leave the keyboard, it's best to pause the game first. For the second question, no plans for fishing minigame yet! There will be a fisherman though, so you can watch him fish . I had to look up what skiff meant, and yes, it's possible!

Hi all!

I really like when people post making-of gifs from their upcoming games, so I wanted to make one too! Here you can see Miskatonic River waterfront, and the Unvisited Island with the mysterious standing stones. I probably still need to work on it a bit, but here's the background anyway:



There will be some subtle background animations that you can see here in the almost finished version:



And like most of the locations, this too will have three different versions depending the time of the day, so a lot of work to be done... But last month has been very productive, and I've been able to concentrate fully on the game, which is a nice change!

Instead of using eRepeat, use repeatedly_execute:

Hey, that seems to work, thanks Khris!

I had to use repeatedly_execute_always() so that it is playing in the background, and change the frame delay to 0 (otherwise the sound was playing several times at once). But everything seems fine now. An easy fix for once!

An audio related question (names and situations have been changed to avoid spoilers!):

Let's say that I have a blacksmith smithing with a hammer in a long, scrolling room . I want that:

1. The hitting sound plays precisely at the moment of impact (I can do this with the Linked audio property, or in the View editor).
2. That the sound volume increases as player approaches the blacksmith, and decreases when player walks away (I can do this with SetRoomLocation-command, and give the sound X and Y room coordinates).

The problem is that I can't seem to combine these two methods. I've spent hours trying to make the animation and the sound match each other, but the sound always starts to drift and lose the sync, which is no good. And it seems impossible to use Linked audio property with an audio channel.

My script is basically something like this, it works except the sync is off:

Code: ags

cBlacksmith.Lockview(HIT_HAMMER);
cBlacksmith.Animate(1, 2, eRepeat, eNoBlock); 

AudioChannel Hammer_impact = aHammer_impact.Play(eAudioPriorityNormal, eRepeat);
Hammer_impact.SetRoomLocation (800, 180);

So is there a third way to do this, or is this impossible?

Any help is appreciated, I'm so close getting this thing working!

Good luck with the project, the backgrounds look great!

My favourite is Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth as well, it was suprisingly faithfull to Lovecraft, usually the games add strange elements to the mix, that don't fit the mythos or atmosphere. Even further away from adventure games is Alone in the Dark, but the first ones capture that same cosmic horror -feeling.

Some upcoming Lovecraft related titles on steam:
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Call of Cthulhu
The Sinking City
Saint Kotar: The Yellow Mask
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure

It's really impressive that so many Lovecraft -themed games are being produced right now. Stygian looks interesting, need to try the Demo. And haven't tested Gibbous yet either!

Hopefully The Witch House will be added to some lists next year!

Implementing general behavior on a per hotspot basis is not just tedious but not required.

Sure is tedious! Thanks for the tip Khris, will try this!

Okay, I just wanted to report that things seem now pretty good. If you see a catastrophical error, please tell!

Code: ags

bool Update_Flashlight = false;

function late_repeatedly_execute_always() {
  if(Update_Flashlight) {
    Flashlight.Update();
  }
}

Code: ags

function hCauldron_Look()
{
  cFlashlight_Dummy.x = mouse.x + GetViewportX();
  cFlashlight_Dummy.y = mouse.y + GetViewportY();
  Update_Flashlight = true;
  Flashlight.SetFollowCharacter(cFlashlight_Dummy);
  player.Say("It's a large cauldron.");
  Update_Flashlight = false;
  Flashlight.SetFollowCharacter(null);
}

The code probably could be more streamlined, but it seems to do everything that I had hoped it would do!

In the Flashlight module (always nice to give a link to the relevant module thread when you're asking a question, BTW), near the bottom, there's a repeatedly_execute() implementation with a call to Flashlight.Update(). Change this function to late_repeatedly_execute_always().

Sure, I have to remember to add the links in future. That "Update" command seems to work! It was mentioned in the module's thread, now that I went through it again. I had to import it to my room to get it working:

Code: ags

import void Update(this FlashlightType*);

It's not yet working perfectly, but I think I can manage with that, or study and experiment this further.

It seems like the module is already using _always, otherwise it incidentally would work as desired by rongel, with the blocking action also blocking the module's GUI update.

So while one could store the click coordinates, then move the mouse in rep_exe to offset the scrolling, a much easier way seems to be to change the module so it's blocked, too.
It could in theory be as simple as moving all its repeatedly_execute_always code to its repeatedly_execute.

I'm testing it now with an invisible flashlight dummy-character, that gets targeted when clicking hotspots. But storing the click coordinates sounds more elegant way. Maybe I'll try that.

Thanks for the help!

[4. Mouse / flashlight freezes over the hotspot while player is walking to it, illuminating it, and screen scrolls to it's place.]

Thanks for the replies!

Some progress, but still not working properly. Basically I just can't make the mouse/flashlight position change to happen before the other blocking scripts, even with using repeatedly_execute_always(). The position change always happens after the other scripts. I'm also using Smooth Scroll / Parallax module, so I wonder if that has something to do with it.

To clarify again, here is my situation and goal :
1. Player is walking and the screen is scrolling. Mouse cursor acts as a flashlight (illuminated circle in blackness).
2. Hotspot comes to view.
3. Player clicks the hotspot while the screen is scrolling.
4. Mouse / flashlight freezes over the hotspot while player is walking to it, illuminating it, and screen scrolls to it's place.

Hi all, a quick question:

How can I lock mouse location to scrolling room coordinates? I'm using the Flashlight module by monkey_05_06 (the flashlight is following mouse), and it works fine. Except that I have a scrolling room, and when player interacts with a hotspot, and walks (blocking walk) to it's location, the room is still scrolling, and the mouse/flashlight moves away from the hotspot. Then the player starts to describe the object, even though it's covered in darkness and the flashlight is pointing somewhere else.

I tried to change the flashlight mode to follow character when clicking the hotspot, but it updates after when the blocking actions are over, and it's too late then. So the best option seems to somehow lock the mouse/cursor to the hotspot's room coordinates, so that it would stay put, even when the room is scrolling. I would release it again, when the player actions are over. But I've had no success with that...

Any help is appreciated!

Looking forward to this!!!

Have you created the main sprites?

I recall the witch from a while back.

Nice to hear that!

If you mean the main characters, then yes. I think Walter's friend Elwood is the only main character that is still missing. There should also be quite a lot of Arkham citizens and students, so that takes some time.

Nice background Rongel, so old-provincial!

Thanks! It depicts poorer part of the city where the Polish immigrants live. Online image search and research really comes in handy, when imagining late 1920's Arkham.

Obviously I need to read the story eventually. The Masters of Horror episode and rock opera haven't provided me with any information to have a clue about the new background.
Looks very nice.

It think the location was mentioned only couple of times in the short story, but in the game it's importance is boosted a bit.

I hope you wrote the street kid's dialog in the clueless and stereotypical way that Lovecraft wrote how the kind of people he had never talked to talked!

I really strived for that tone while writing the English version of Chronicle Of Innsmouth, especially with the way the Innsmouth smugglers talked as if every day in Innsmouth was "Talk Like A Pirate Day". And the voice-actors totally understood how to pull off their lines without any direction from me at all. It was almost scary how much their performances matched the voices I heard in my head while writing the lines.

Gonna be even more interesting in the sequel now where I'm writing lines spoken as if... REDACTED

Yes, the final, polished dialog is something I may need help with. Old accents and phrases are a bit difficult for a non-native English speaker. I haven't played the new version of Chronicle of Innsmouth with the voice actors, but it sounds interesting. And even more interesting is to hear about the sequel!

this background looks very cool, I'm very excited for the full game

Thanks selmiak! Me too

This looks very good, nice work. I love it when horror/suspense movies center around a ship and/or the (ant)arctic

Very professional indeed!

Thank you! I think that setting is one of the main attractions of our film.

Nice job, Rongel! Even if the idea of an annual Lovecraft festival shock me... I mean, after 5 years doesn't become monotonous?

Thanks! I was able to attend the festival personally, and had a great time. I guess it's a tradition for most of the visitors, and chance to see other fans.

Wow!

This looks amazing.
As others said, very studio-quality looking

When will it be released?

Thank you! There were many talented people working on it, and we managed to get relatively good funding. It's already released, but like with most short films, the main place to see them is in a movie festival. It will have a Finnish television premiere at some point. And eventually we'll release it online.

Looks awesome! The trailer looks very professional and creepy!

As a fellow fan of HPL I really must see this sometime!

How long is the full movie?

Thanks Mandle! We've got really nice response especially from HPL fans, it seems we did justice to the mythology. The short film is just under 30 minutes, so it's not very short film at all.

This is very, very, very much right up my alley, and it looks great! Loved that trailer. On my to-see list, question is, where can I buy it / stream it?

Thank you! The film is included in the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival 2017 DVD, so you can buy it there, along with other short films: https://arkhambazaar.com/films/h-p-lovecraft-film-festival-best-of-2017-collection-dvd/
Currently that's the only way to get it. It's still touring some film festivals, but eventually it will end up online.