Final verdict

So, I didn`t update this blog in a week as promised but doing that now. In www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk the game was received almost better than I expected, as the score for the game after 7 votes stands now at 7.1. The game was told to be short and easy(which it was) but on the other hands the artistic side of it was liked. The puzzles were told to be good, if easy and the story thin but cool.

So far, I haven`t heard anything bad from the graphics, which is good. The musics got a mixed feedback, where some people loved them and some people hated. I guess that means I managed to make a small impact with the product. The website for AaS and the yet to be announced sequel will be up during June and I think I`ll put the soundtrack there to download.

Yes, the game will be getting a sequel which is now in it`s first production stages. The story and puzzles are now being written as we speak. So far I don`t want to tell anything else about it besides that it will be around 4-5 times longer with a bit more complex puzzles and nearly 20 new locations integrated with all the old ones. As a game of that scale takes a long while to make, I`m guessing the sequel will be out by December 2007, but that is another story to be told.

If you`ve been reading this blog, I thank you and hope that you enjoyed the game. Canardo out!

It`s out!

Yes, it`s done and I`m enjoying my well-earned small amount of alcohol. It`s been quite a trip I can tell you, and I`m willing to take it again as soon as I get everything fixed and wrapped up for this spring. You can find the games page at AGS at http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk under the medium-sized games category. By July, I should have the official web-site open, so next stop is there.

I will update the reception of the game here after a week so I can get some feedback and a rest :)

But until then, have fun with Keith!

Coming clean

Yup, the RC1 is now ready. Only things left to do are the main-menu -buttons and fix a couple of .avis that still won`t seem to work, dammit! I decided to put honing the action-animations under the axe, since I`m already running out of time with my other projects keeping me busy besides this. The compiled size of the RC seems to be 102mb, which is pretty much what I estimated it to be. Zipped the file is 52mb large so pretty big game nevertheless.

I`ve now set the official release date to 1.5.2007 which is exactly after a week. The next two days will be seeing the RC2 and the day after the release, the final version should be done. This gives me shivers as I only have three days left to edit the game and I`m not sure how I will manage.

More news tomorrow!

The end is nigh...

Hello again,

I`ve been tackling with the beta this week and thanks to the help from my fiance and Jon from adventuregamestudio-forums, the bugs are now pretty much squished. The major problem with the beta was the use of a global modifier which screwed up many things as I changed it. I replaced most of the modifiers with room-mods and particular global-mods and everything seems to be working alright for now.

The musics are now done and embedded to the game itself, making the full product 65mb large(that a little over 40 zipped). Tomorrow I`ll head straight to the studio and make all the cutscenes I have time for and the rest on next Monday. For now, it seems that we`ll see and RC on Tuesday. After that it`s time for the final testing and (drum-roll) Release! I think that I`ll make the non-game material, the DVD-covers and concept art for example, after the release. I think the first amount of prints I`ll get for the game is 10 pcs, with one going to myself, one going to Jon, few going to my relatives and one for the thesis. Perhaps I`ll even send a copy to the kind fellow aiding me with my thesis with sending me Dark Seed II as research-material.

All that and much more next week!

Beta!

Yes, you read right! The game has finally come to the desired beta-status. I decided to have a short beta, lasting only a week since I have only 2-3 weeks left since deadline. If the bugs are squished fast, meeting the deadline won`t become a problem. I edited the cut-scenes yesterday and today I will put them in-game. A few hotspots still needs to be fixed but I`ll have time for that kind of stuff next week.

Finally it`s getting ready.

Anima

A week since last update and since my last working day. I`ve been busy, trust me. Anyway, today I finished the walk-cycles for Keith and battled with few bugs I still need to fix before beta. I also made the idle-animations for the NPC:s so only character-animations still missing are the interaction-anims for Keith. They`re done fast so I think I`ll tackle them tomorrow.

It seems that some parts of the script just don`t want to work the way I want them to. I also need to the rid of Bulk in one scene and haven`t figured out how to do it. Next weekend I`ll get the chance to redo the piano-recordings so on monday I hopefully can finally get the cutscenes together.

Still on schedule, don`t worry :)

Walk-through

Yep, with one I managed to play through the game today and it took me about 20 minutes. With the cut-scenes intact, it`ll take probably half an hour with a wt and without one maybe 1-2 hours, assuming you don`t know what you are doing.

All the scenes for the cuts are done, all the graphics are intact and the scripting in nearly finished. My to-do -list is now ten phases long so everything seems to be in a good shape. I moved the studio-day for tomorrow however, since the easter-holidays are beginning on friday and I don`t have access to the studio and hardware that time. This moves the final scripting onward to next week. That kept in mind, the game should be ready for release in a little over two weeks. Hopefully, again.

Good news and bad news

The good ones first: today, I finally got the rain working the way I wanted it to. Also after working through the whole weekend, the skeleton is actually intact and the game is nearly completable. Just a few things to fix in the ending and we`re set. The cutscene-videos are also now nearly done, only two more cutscenes need their images. I`ve put a couple of screenshots of the slideshow-videos below, just so that you get the idea. Tomorrow, I will make the last two videos and start focusing on the character-animations.





























Then the bad news: I had a recording day on sunday and all the days recording are unusable.
For some reason the volume went so low that even after amplifying, the volume level is much too low. Also, the filesize of the game will be pretty huge. Right now, with just the scripted game and one song the complied size of the game is 12mb and if I`m correct, after putting in the .avis and rest of the music (6-7 songs) the filesize will be over 100mb.

Anyway, I will be having a studio-day on friday. That day I will be recording the guitars for the soundtrack for the 2nd time and also Keith`s voice in cutscenes. Voice will be provided by yours truly. The piano-parts of the music will have to wait two-three weeks, so I can forget the estimations of the game being out earlier than predicted. Instead, the end of April still seems pretty accurate. Hopefully so at least.

My head hurts...

...for making another longer-than-healthy day with AaS. At least the item-graphics are done, now only graphics I need are the cutscenes, which I plan to do with Adobe Premiere, in .avi -format. It`s just easier for me to put all the things I`ve planned together that way. The scripting went also forward and by the looks of it, I think I`ll have the skeleton done by the end of the week. I also added a new puzzle to the game which I hadn`t written beforehand(meaning I improvised it today). It may not be that good, but at least it explains some things better and -of course- longens the game a bit.

Looking good, now I`ll rest my case and go enjoy a bright sunny spring day. :)

Món Day

Whew, a very lazy day. I`m actually amazed I managed to pull myself together to actually doing this today. Nevertheless, another room has been completed with puzzles and script. Only 4 to go, yay! I hope to get the skeleton of the game together this week, so that I have enough time for the cutscenes, music and beta-testing. No problems, so far. Better get some sleep now, me be dead tired...

Party!

Yes! Finally my classes are over for this week and I`ve also done all the backgrounds for the game. Now it`s time to party like it`s nine-teen-ninety-nine! I will get back to After a Shadow on Monday. As I don`t have to keep any classes for the next two weeks, I`ll have all the time for the game I want so hopefully I`ll get it to the condition where I can release it. But for now, let the good times roll!

Ne-vah!

No, not even if I try as hard as I can, I can never keep up with my promises to myself and so, one background still remains to be drawn. As with some objects and couple of NPC:s. And the rest of the week goes attending other matters, so I`ll be virtually unable to make any progress this week. I`ll try hard tomorrow, but time will tell do I really have the chance to get to designing again. Nevertheless, one more screenshot from the game:

















The image still needs a little work, like some objects around the house to make it feel more real but after the core-game has been completed, I`ll have time to attend to those matters better. Graphics aside, everything is looking bright good, except the fact that I still can`t make that darned rain-plugin to work. Other bugs and problems so far have been fixed. Finally the first dialog works as it should, which helps me a lot with the upcoming dialogs. It seemed that I couldn`t change the global graphic variables from the dialog-script, but I had to create a completely new script for that action, which was started from the dialog-script itself.

Anyhow, I still seem to be on schedule if nothing surprising come up on the last couple of weeks.

Caffeine

Another manic pair of days are again behind. Yesterday was basicly hell on earth, so I could not make much progress. On the good side, two new rooms are now crafted and I`m a step forward solving the problem with the dialog. Only two rooms are now left and some of the items so the graphics are starting to be intact. Hoping to finish them by the end of the week, if I can get the time from somewhere.

Toilet humor

Okay, two work-filled days are now behind and the results are two new rooms and some new item-graphics. Next week I hope to have some time to finish the graphics. If that goes well, the game may in fact be ready a little earlier than predicted. The two new rooms are both toilets. With them I had the chance to try out a little different staging. Example of the result below.


















I`ll continue working on the game next monday. In a week, I`ll be wiser about meeting the deadline.

Another manic Tuesday

Another day of work behind and we`re moving fast forward. Today´s accomplishments include finishing the script and also finishing another location. The dialog needs a bit of work though, since I`m not completely familiar with the script-codes of the dialogs. Most of all, I need to make global variables to work in the dialog-code and also make things animate through dialogs.

A few visual things need also considering. First of all, I think I should make non-interactable NPC:s just black silhouettes rather than detailing them. After all, their role in the story is near to non-existent so I have more visual freedom designing them. Other thing that bothers me is the map-screen. I`m not exactly sure should I keep with the bare map or detail it some more. Below are screenshots of the map-screen I had first and then a concept I designed today. The concept looks pretty okay in my eye so perhaps I´ll stick with that. Have to ask opinions about it anyhow.






























I decided to have a graphic-day tomorrow which means completing each and every room and item so I can begin to put the rest of the pieces together. Looking good and I`m confident. Even though I am aware that the project is maybe just a wee bit too ambitious.

Here`s looking at you, kid.

Ok, had a nearly week-long break since I had many other matters at hand but today I finally got back to editing. Third actual location is now done and I also fiddled around with the dialogs. First dialog-scene is now complete after a little trial-and-error. It seems that the BASS-GUI recognizes the right-clicks differently depending on what you are trying to operate. For example, I could not get the dialog to work until I changed the operation to Talk-to. So it basically seems to recognize objects are "operate" and characters as "talk". Good to know for the future.

Tomorrow I intend to finish that particular room with hotspots ans puzzles. Also, I need to fiddle around with the conversation a little more, particularly I need to get the script to notice the global modifiers. If I have time, I will also begin modeling the next room. But for now, I`m off.

Scripter`s day

Ok, today was bad, if not even disastrous and I could develop the game forward only for let`s say 3-4 hours. That time went with fixing early bugs, goofing around with global variables and raw-modelling the next rooms.

2nd actual room(eg. not including map and main menu) is now complete. With the modifiers I created even a couple of extra puzzles to the environment. Right now estimated room-count(again not including map, main menu and the cut-scenes) is somewhere around 10-12, so it won`t be the longest game around, nor the shortest one either.

Tomorrow I`ll probably just be doing some rendering and tending other matters around so I`ll get around the actual scripting and development on Thursday.

Another week, another day

So it seems that I didn`t post those screenshots on Friday after all. So I`ll put the new shots below. You have the main menu there and also a shot from Keith`s office. Progress-wise the game looks pretty good right now, as four rooms(including the main menu) are now somewhat done and even some simple puzzle-elements are implemented. Forward towards the week and we`ll see what`s cooking!

Forth goes the boy...

Four days now and we have improvement. The first actual game-room is now completed with puzzles and whatnot. Also a main menu and a map screen got implemented. Tomorrow is time to make a couple locations more and see where this all leads to.

Game is looking pretty good atm. Or should I say that at least I am satisfied with it. I will upload more screenshots tomorrow after the work has been done. I`m as excited as ever!

Day 2

Whoop-de-doo!

Three sprites are now done, animations need a bit fixing but nevertheless they`re there. The GUI got a new look also and some of the testing with the engine is now done. Below some screenshots of today`s achievements:



Here`s a shot showing the room I`ve been testing the engine with, the main character and inventory. Below are the three characters I`ve drawn so far. From left to right: Rose - A once beautiful bartender, Bulk - A Henchman of evil, little light-minded though and finally Keith Night - our protagonist for the adventure. Man after a murder, money and booze.

First anté

Blog started!

Since this day and post I will update the progress of the AGS adventure-game named After a Shadow, which I am developing for my Bachelor`s Degree. The game will be a short classic adventure in the style of Beneath a Steel Sky and such.

The main point in the project is the games visual and atmospheric side, which I try to make a noír as possible. This is because the my Degree-work main aspect is the study of classic Film Noír`s visual style and how it is used in gameart. So Game Noír it is, hopefully it turns out good.

As for now, I`ve created a couple of rooms already and scratches of the sprites. The music is 50% composed and the storyline is 75% written. The rooms will be created with 3DS Max, whereas the sprites will be hand-drawn using a drawing tablet and photoshop. The timetable for the project is tight, the game should be ready by the end of April so that the literal part of the Degree-project can be completed during this spring.

After things get ready, I will upload screenshots of the game, samples of the music and the written novel used as a story too. Buckle up!