Larian Studios Forums General Chat RPG Chat Looking for comments/feedback

Hi all,

Some of you might know I'm working on my own little pet project - a point and click adventure game!

I created a short demo of the game I'm working on.

Basically I'd like any comments, suggestions etc. on what's done so far so I can see if things are on the right track. So I can continue as is or tweak something that most people might not like!

No point finishing the whole thing only to find there's something no one likes...

Sure that's what demos are for!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

It would help me a great deal. - You wont be able to enter the house, but you can freely wander around outside.

**Note - ignore the intro that goes by too quickly - working on that still!
You can use the skip button to jump past it!

http://www.freewebs.com/plowking/coc_testcode.html

(the preloader may take about 10 seconds to appear)

Cheers! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Watched the demo, walked around the house. It looks nice, when it's finnished I'm sure it will be interesting. Some sound to the mane gameing would be nice though.

Übereil

Yeah sound will be the last thing to be added!

There's a tiny bit of an intro soundtrack!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Looks pretty "decent" plow <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> but maybe you should work on the guy's walking a bit it appears when you go back to the front of the house (after chatting with the Hobo) Frank appears after the transition facing in the wrong direction, now having said that ... I realize you are still working on it and you prolly will be fixing little details like that and this 1 too> when clicking on the tree Frank happen to be on the side of the tree and the description (looks like a dead tree) was partially obscured by the tree so maybe you can work around a way to have the text always appear in the foreground.
Also during the Conversation with the Hobo I couldn't find the next button till I realized I had to scroll down, now in all fairness it is prolly notdesigned for a browser frame, but never the less it would look more practical if the "NEXT" appeared on the right side of the conversation panels.

Aside from all that I am definitely looking forward to playing it, have never really done a mystery adventure <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Oh and in regards to the rapidly moving text in the prologue ... why not put a "NEXT" button on the pages?? as many varied ppl read at many varied speed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

But looks good hope some of your "plowking humour" will be included <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Looks good Plowy, like Mea said the story at the begining was as fast as lightening!!
Found that i couldn't use items until he was right upon the objects...what i'm saying is that i had to carry out some orders twice because the first time he just walked to where i had asked him but he did not perform the task i had asked, so i had to give the order again!
Could not get the bucket out of the well even though i merged the rope and the hook together, so is that as far as i could get?
Overall..Good effort Plowy. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wave.gif" alt="" />

Ah, yes! And it seems to be creeping in already... I tried different actions on several items, including the tree stump. Got me the comment: "No idea how to use that... I'm stumped... ahem."

Also appreciated the "I might be able to use the rope and hook to bring up that bucket!! But not in this demo!!..." <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/delight.gif" alt="" />

The only observations I can add -- and no doubt you're working on these already -- are that Frank's comments about various things were made while he was looking off in a different direction entirely; and that during the opening prologue, the "skip" was sometimes hidden under the prologue text.

But overall, looking good! Add me to the I-want-to-play list!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Look good, Plowking! I also like how you've set up things you can't do, like using items on or taking the Hobo.

About the only bug/lack of feature I noticed is that I couldn't walk from the East side of House to the Front side of House with a single click. The barrel was in the way.

really love it, plowie! i managed to unclog the rusty pipe, got the hook tied to the rope & talked with the hobo.

well the character movement is a bit stunted but it does not detract me from a good experience of the game. after all, animations aren't everything in this genre.

keep it up, except for the intro (slow it down! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> )! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />

Cheers guys...some useful stuff there!!

I'll put a next button into the intro. I was hoping for a voice over, which is why there wont be a next button, it'd be paced out to the voice so wouldn't be too fast.

Voice over might not happen so when I get around to doing the intro properly I'll stick a temp next button in.

Yeah the 'double' action thing is a problem. At the moment there's no way to click on an object so he walks to it then comments or uses an item.

At the mo I can only make him either stand where he is and use/take/examine, or walk to it, then with a second click use/take/examine - can't make him walk and use/take/examine in one action. Not yet anyways!

The direction facing is another problem, when entering a new screen, or when interaction with an object - only by chance will the character be looking in the correct direction. I have a theory about how to solve it, but I haven't tried it out yet!

EDIT: I've fixed the direction facing for everything, objects and screen changes! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> - You wont see it in the demo yet.

HeF - The path finding (what little there is) is quite basic. He'll move along the x-plane first, then the y-plane. So he will get stuck on the barrel and the wall unless you walk down first. Generally I'll try to design screens that wont have him getting stuck.

You can't get further than trying to use the hook/rope on the well, I only programmed the results of that last night!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the feedback so far...
It's my first attempt at anything like this, and I think it's going well! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/evilgrin1.gif" alt="" />

Yeah, which is fair enough. Pathfinding is really a trivial matter.

I fixed the intro on the demo so that it can be read... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

very nice plowking, offcourse there is a lot of tweaking to be done, some problems will get solved, like the facing etc, you'll find the sollution. Keep working on it, it has great potential. But do keep in my that it's a webgame, preloading is good, try to divide the preloading into levels it loads slowly just beeing a demo.

Cheers! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

Facing has now been fixed, but you wont see it in the demo.

I can't divide the game into seperate levels that load because if I do there will be problems with the varibles that record the games saving and loading state.

Also, if I did create seperate levels it would actually be a much bigger game overall by file size.

The core engine is about 700kb - everything over that is content being added. So if I seperate the levels to different files, the engine has to be loaded again, which is another 700kb. So only adding levels to the one file adds about 300kb, but in a seperate file a new level would be 1 meg.

Once the game is preloaded, there's no more loading, and if you don't clear your cache from your browser it will always appear almost instantly. (my free web host bandwidth is low, so less file loading the better!) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />