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!