By the Sword: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:Btslogo.jpg]]
[[Image:Btslogo.jpg]]


For more information on ''By the Sword: Conspiracy'', please [http://bts.xylot.com click here] for the official home page.
For more information on ''By the Sword: Conspiracy'', please [http://www.xylot.net/bts click here] for the official home page.


==Game Info==
==Game Info==

Revision as of 16:49, 30 May 2006

Btslogo.jpg

For more information on By the Sword: Conspiracy, please click here for the official home page.

Game Info

About the Game

By the Sword (BTS) was going to be a graphical point-and-click adventure game, and ran at 640x400 letterbox resolution (for more of a movie feel), with 32-bit pixel depth. BTS' was being made using AGS and was planned to have been the second game ever to be distributed commercially. The honor of being the very first goes to The Adventures of Fatman.

BTS would have featured a deep semi-non linear, original plot, with fully animated pre-rendered 3D characters. The entire game would eventually have over 250 original, fully-functional screens. The game was divided into six chapters. In BTS, there would have been over 50 interesting and original characters that you could converse with, and whom you could ask questions regarding any number of subjects that you have learned about along the way. There would be a wide range of puzzles involved in reaching the end of the game, a diverse variety sure to please any type of gamer. The game would have featured a full original digital soundtrack, plenty of custom recorded sound effects and ambient sounds.

BTS was going to feature voice acting as well. Every single character that had at least one line in the game would be voiced by a talented actor or actress. And Richard Brum, creator of BTS was even going to play the main character, Lieutenant Ronald Ganon.

Interesting Facts

Some people, upon playing the demo, had asked [TerranRich] where the title "By the Sword" came from. There didn't appear to be any swords in the game. Well, the answer is simple. The Castorians are an alien race in the game whose government has had unsteady relations with the United Earth government. Their symbol features an upright sword standing in front of a stylized alien design. "By the Sword" is a metaphorical allusion to somebody standing by the sword of the Castorian emblem, i.e. on their side.

The graphics in BTS were, at one point, being designed in DAZ|Bryce 5. However, due to quality limitations and unsatisfactory results in appearance, Curious Labs' Poser 5 was being used for the graphics toward the end, as well as the characters.

Characters is the game would have included such names as Lieutenant Ronald Ganon (the main character and hero), Commander Nathaniel Hathaway, H.E.C. CEO Phil Bates, Jolana Vetaru, Zelina Loki'tolanu (a Castorian female), Brenda Jameson, Ensign Timothy Ladue, Jenna Marques, Captain Jonathan Perlin, and Ensign Sandra Carey.

The Concept

...as told by TerranRich

How It All Began

It all began when I went with my mother, at the age of 11, to a hair salon. I was sitting in the waiting area, and as always I had my notebook and pen with me, just doodling away. Suddenly, this idea entered my head, an idea inspired by my recent playing of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. What if I made my OWN science-fiction comedy adventure game? Yeah!

Little did I know how difficult a task it would be, and that I wouldn't fully realize that dream until 9 years later, when I finally discovered Adventure Game Studio.

Ronald Ganon is: The Spatial Disturbance

Like I said before, BTS was originally supposed to be a sci-fi/comedy, in the footsteps of SQ4. The original concept was that Ronald Ganon, a Star Force lieutenant, has travelled back to his home planet, Earth, only to find that things aren't as they seem. There's that old theme again, eh?

Eventually, Ronald figures out that his hometown of...whatever it was...is merely an illusion and manages to escape. He then travels through caves, mazes, and other things, fnally reaching a bus depot (of all places), where he meets another Star Force officer named Joanna Kala. Ronald isn't sure whether she's an illusion or not, having been confused by his prior adventure on Faux-Earth, but still strikes up a conversation with her. She agrees to contact her captain and allow him passage on their ship. We then see a cutscene where Ron meets his new shipmates.

The New By the Sword

BTS, later renamed to By the Sword: Ronald Ganon is The Spatial Disturbance, was later redesigned so that it would start off with Ron's new ship, the F.S. Beta-3, being attacked by Axtorian — not Castorian — battle cruisers. (This would have made the entire first concept a "prequel", so to speak.) The ship and her crew are then left for dead, adrift in space, with the automatic self-destruct sequence activated. As Ronald, the player would wake up on the floor of one of the hallways of the Beta-3 and find that the ship had 20 minutes until it would self-destruct and there were two other people left alive on the ship. Ronald would have to find two people (his now-girlfriend Joanna Kala and Captain Jonathan Perlin, not Perseus) and escape the ship through the hangar bay.

Many of the details from the original BTS storyline have been kept in tact, such as the captain and the idea of waking up on board a derelict ship about to be destroyed and escaping on a shuttle. However, once off the ship, the ship would self-destruct and cause a spatial vortex to appear, sendng the shuttle hundreds of light-years onto Castor III, the Castorian homeworld. In ths original concept of BTS, Castorians were an offshoot race of the Saigonians (the English term for their word for themselves, Esel'ganni) and were allies of the Star Force. The Axtorians were instead the enemy race. Instead of just unsteady relations, Earth had been at war with the Axtorians before.

More Designing

So, work began on this "new" version of BTS. During one vacation to the Azores, I took along a scrapbook and put in detailed maps and plans for BTS that seemed to just come out of the blue. There were still six levels, like in the new and current BTS; however, there were probably twice as many rules. Furthermore, the puzzles were illogical, ridiculous, and reminiscent of every sci-fi comedy adventure game you've ever played. I would have gone into more detail on the Bonus Disc of the Bonus Edition of BTS if I had made it, which I might still in the future.

The Right Engine

My only problem was what to use to create this game. At first, BTS was going to be a text adventure. Yes, a text adventure game. Around 1995, ths was the only method I could feasibly use, given the technology and availability of game engines at the time, as well as my modest age of 13. Yeah, I know the age isn't an excuse (anymore), but it felt like it at the time. Nowadays, you could have a 10-year-old making a video game, for crying out loud!

I didn't even start workng on the test BTS before I discovered Visual Basic. I decided to try to use it to create a graphical BTS. I used Paint Shop Pro 3 — yes, 3 — for the graphics. They were shadeless, gradient-less, and detail-less. Walls were rectangles and used sharp, bright colors. There were also "InfoPanels" along the way to use as status displays and information panels on the ship.

Suffice it to say, I finally discovered Adventure Game Studio around 2000 and have followed its evolution to the great tool it is today. Until my absence, of course...

The Story

The Premise

You play Ronald Frederick Ganon, a lieutenant in the Star Force — an interstellar exploration/military organization based on Earth. The year is 2197. You serve on board the U.S.S. Merrimack under Captain Jonathan Perseus and his first officer, Commander Nathaniel Hathaway. In the few months you've been on board the Merrimack, you've made a few acquaintances — not really friends, per se — including Chief Engineer Garrett Lemieux and Ensigns Timothy Ladue and Cassandra Carey.

Among your shipmates, you are generally thought of as friendly, a team player, and an excellent officer overall. But Commander Hathaway doesn't agree; in fact, you could swear that he has it in for you. He has picked on you several times since you've been on board, choosing you for menial tasks and almost holding you back in your Star Force career. You've tried talking to the captain about this, but due to the chain of command in place you have to go through Commander Hathaway first.

The Intro

One day, the Star Force orders your ship to the non-aligned planet Jel-ek IV, to collect soil and mineral samples, as well a perform a geological survey of the land. Your landing party splits up, each going their own way to explore the area and learn all they can. You and Commander Hathaway, however, decide to stay together in the arrival site. You pull out your scanner, performing some scans without being ordered to. Hathaway scolds you for this, but then you find something interesting: humanoid-sized life forms are approaching. Knowing that preliminary scans showed nothing threatening in the area, Hathaway tells you to put away the scanner, commenting that transfers can be really jumpy at times.

And then, out of nowhere, you're ambushed! You hear plasma weapons fire off to the west, and then suddenly, from behind a nearby boulder, a Castorian officer charges. Luckily, you are a quick fire with the phase pistol and dispatch of the Castorian easily (set to stun, of course).

Hathaway makes contact with the Merrimack and asks to teleport the landing party back up to the ship, but the other two officers in the party (Ensigns Ladue and Carey) are out of range and cannot be targeted. Hathaway orders the teleporter operator to beam the two of you up anyway. But you disagree. You decide to run off after the two ensigns, and Hathaway beams himself up alone anyway.

You eventually find Ladue off to the west, Carey unconscious beside him, with an injured ankle. Then, out of nowhere, come two Castorian officers. You turn around and dispatch of them as well. Carey, impressed by your quick shooting, thanks you and you all beam back aboard the ship. Big Trouble

Back aboard the Merrimack, the captain immediately orders you and Hathaway to his office, and he asks Hathaway was happened. He explains that you disobeyed a direct order and put yourself and Hathaway in danger by running off to find Ladue and Carey. You then explain that it was the humane thing to do, and the captain seems to agree. Angered that his point is now made moot, Hathaway argues that you cannot go unpunished, and Captain Perseus makes it clear to the commander that he understands everything and dismisses Hathaway rather harshly after he continues to argue with the captain. Captain Perseus then has a private talk with you, saying that he has no choice but to put you into suspended animation until you arrive at Earth for a formal hearing. The captain is confident that you will not be found guilty of anything, and in return for this inconvenience, the captain will re-assign your hull inspection duty to Hathaway — a very tedious task that you're glad to be rid of.

You head for the CryoStasis Holding Area and prepare to be put under for seven weeks until the Merrimack reaches Earth.

Even More Trouble

But something goes wrong. Deep from your unconscious, you can make out plasma weapons fire and screaming. You can sense that something is wrong. Suddenly, a computer malfunction triggers your cryo-stasis booth to revive you and open. You walk into the room...and find that nobody is there. Something is wrong...very wrong.

So, Wha Happen??

Basically, a number of factors contributed to the abandonment of BTS. Firstly, my hard drive crashed. The hard drive that had everything for the game: source code, Poser 5 model files, even all six chapters of the game, planned out in Microsoft Word... all GONE.

I nearly gave up. I nearly put BTS to sleep for good. But the drive was still in me. Despite the major setback, I desperately wanted to complete BTS and release it to the general public for all to see and play. So, a few months later, I contacted Lil Gryph Master (Andrew Edmark) regarding possibly helping me to re-do the game from scratch with an improved storyline, puzzles, and character development. I even found the last three chapters of the game in some saved emails I sent to Gravator to have them reviewed. Thanks, Yahoo!

However, things popped up. Andrew and I both found ourselves too busy to work on the game. I went back to college (for web design) and was working whenever I was not at school. For nearly two years I was consumed with my own life and tasks.

Now that I'm out of school, I have a new job doing both web design and graphical design for a company dealing with cross-branding golf merchandise, and I love it. However, web design has also become my primary hobby. I've created many web sites, mostly wrestling-oriented.

It wasn't until just recently (January of '06) that I got the bug again. The adventure game inspiration bug. I got it after playing Out Of Order, made by the guys that made SLUDGE. It inspired me to once again make an adventure game. Instead of tackling BTS, however, I started working on a new game. A game that is being kept a secret until I'm well enough along to be able to brag about it. BTS was a large-scale project that I don't think I'm ready to tackle just yet. But soon, though. Someday...

You never know.