Community
General and Everything Else => The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff => Topic started by: JRedant on September 07, 2014, 06:03:08 PM
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Hey guys!
I've been on a long hiatus. Part of it was work and the other part was my social life catching up.
Soo....I started work on a new game without finishing up Island of Secrets. There are two reasons why. The first one I just mentioned. The other reason was I put too much into it and needed to put myself in a different frame of mind.
I thought it would be fun showing off my development process, as well.
And now, my current project: "Werewolves and Wanderer".
This comes from Tim Hartnell's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Hartnell) book, "Creating Adventure Games on Your Computer" from 1984.
Because I'm only one man, and any game made by Sierra is completed by a whole team, I've decided to focus on detail at a time.
The Ego
Not much of a description was given.
...you are the wanderer (pg 7)
WHAT IS YOUR NAME, EXPLORER? ANDREW (page 16)
It's open to interpretation. For this version, I decided to do a google search for "Adventurer". The Ego for this version is based on the image found here. (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-64903276/stock-photo-adventurer-or-archaeologist-in-brown-leather-jacket-with-stolen-idol.html)
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Map
The map for the game is on pages 35 and 36. The setting for the game is:
...a forbidding-looking stone castle
Having a map in front of you is really good. Don't design a game without one. Also, having brief descriptions of each room is helpful, too.
Looking at page 18, there is a provisions menu for the game. I have decided to not to implement the menu for this version.
So on that note...time to start work on the rooms:
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In this past weekend I've (almost) completed three rooms:
ROOM 1
HALLWAY
Exits: W, S
YOU ARE IN THE HALLWAY
THERE IS A DOOR TO THE SOUTH
THROUGH WINDOWS TO THE NORTH YOU CAN SEE A SECRET HERB GARDEN
Inspiration provided by Google (https://sites.google.com/site/saskolinasoft/hallway.jpg?attredirects=0)
(http://s16.postimg.org/3w16avqvp/hallway.jpg)
After about 6 hours of work (https://sites.google.com/site/saskolinasoft/Room%20001.jpg?attredirects=0)
(http://s27.postimg.org/an3u0s9wz/Room_001.jpg)
Let me know if the links work. If they don't, I'd like to figure out a different way to post these.
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ROOM 6
ENTRANCE
Exits: E
YOU ARE AT THE ENTRANCE TO A FORBIDDEN-LOOKING
STONE CASTLE. YOU ARE FACING EAST
Inspiration (https://sites.google.com/site/saskolinasoft/Entrance.jpg?attredirects=0)
(http://s22.postimg.org/63kpiuuc1/Entrance.jpg)
Finished Image (https://sites.google.com/site/saskolinasoft/Room%20006.jpg?attredirects=0)
(http://s30.postimg.org/tudf7i0tt/Room_006.jpg)
By the way, this also happens to be the starting room for the game.
...and so on.
My goal is to complete at least one room per week until I'm done. According to the map, there are 19 rooms, and I will be done with the third room by the end of today.
By the time this is done, I will upload the first version of the game.
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Your gdrive doesn't allow other to access it. I sent a request. The one image you linked to in your first post is reminiscent of Kay Kuter as Werner Hube in GK2. http://sierrahelp.com/forums/download/file.php?id=4331&t=1
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Darn it.
Is there a better way to link images?
nvm. I think I have it figured out.
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Nice.
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Looking good so far, and glad to see you come back around.
Darn it.
Is there a better way to link images?
nvm. I think I have it figured out.
For images, I have been using this site a lot lately, simply upload it and then place the direct link between the [ img][ /img] tags: http://postimage.org/
I have gone ahead and uploaded the images you had linked and stuck them in your forum post.
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Most excellent, thank you!
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Hey Cloudee, Is there a space issue on the new service? If so, I can understand, but on the boards I run, I always preferred to have images uploaded directly to the board. I always bugged me when images tune up missing on boards where it is one that I am likely to go digging through old posts for information. Images that are attachments don't disappear, but there is no guaranty with external hosting services.
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No there isn't a space issue, just old habit I guess.
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Just wanted to make sure that there was no problem with attaching images instead of linking to them, not that I often add an image to any of my posts.
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Before I head off to do my work, I wanted to share this:
ROOM 2
AUDIENCE
CHAMBER
Exits: N, S, E
THIS IS HE AUDIENCE CHAMBER
THERE IS A WINDOW TO THE WEST. BY LOOKING TO THE RIGHT
THROUGH IT YOU CAN SEE THE ENTRANCE TO THE CASTLE.
DOORS LEAVE THIS ROOM TO THE NORTH, EAST AND SOUTH
(http://s2.postimg.org/k521y6p89/Audience_chamber.jpg)
(http://s15.postimg.org/4n2g2kv2z/Room_002.jpg)
I flipped the original image so that the door was on the correct side. Also...there is no window. And with room 1, there is no window looking out. So those are my first two issues to address after I finish with the other rooms.
This room took me a long time to finish given with all of the details in it.
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Those are nice looking screens John, I'm impressed. You cranked out all three of those screens over the weekend? That's great progress.
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I imagine I'm at either at Sierra or LucasArts, working around other programmers in the same physical space and showing our progress to people like Ken And Roberta Williams, Mark Crowe, Jim Walls and so on. It's what keeps my creative juices going.
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How is the proportion working out with the ego?
I notice that the doorways at the back of the room are considerably shorter than the door along the right edge.
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You're right. The ego is to big for the room. I was thinking of using it anyway and put the control area at a different part of the room. Or, use part of that photo and redo the entire room.
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You could always try to do a bit of scaling with the ego. Drop a couple of control areas and as the ego moves back into the room, switch to smaller versions.
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I can live with that. Is there a tutorial somewhere about switching egos?
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That had occurred to me as well, but it would not be a gradual transition. I suppose you could setup many transition points so each change would be more subtle, but that might be opening the door to other problems like performance and hunk hits.
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How many transitions would be enough?
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I think you would have to experiment. Too few and you will see your ego suddenly jump in size. Too many might have problems. If you start finding it sluggish, try setting core to dynamic and cycles to max in the dosbox.conf.
Try creating a range of different sized views that you can cycle through depending on the position on the screen. The further back, the higher the control line. Each control line should trigger the next sized view. The higher the smaller, the lower the bigger. Just for testing you would not need to create full walk cycle views, just enough to visually see the changing size for testing.
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There is a tutorial now.
http://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php/topic,1066
I wrote it up with the idea of control colors, but if you have enough ego views set up, there isn't any reason you couldn't use ego's priority as the value to check against. Then you wouldn't have to draw all of the control lines.
But yeah, as collector said, just play around with it a bit to determine how many ego sizes you would want to make the transition from the front of the room to the back of the room suit your tastes.
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Okay, for the sake of moving forward, I will put that on the to-do list for now. I will work on that once all of the other screens are done. Either there will be other screens in this game with the same issue, or this may be the only one. The input I got from you guys is pretty valuable, and will come into great use.
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Issue #2, same room: The South and East exits both go into the same room (not done yet). So this room needs a bit of a do-over.
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A cold took me out this weekend.
To build up some momentum, I gave myself one hour to do some work on the game.
The redesign was easier than I thought:
(http://s30.postimg.org/9pc0f3m1d/New_Room_002.jpg)
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Looking good.
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Hey guys! I'm working late tonight. I wanted to share some stuff for this weekend.
The next room reads as such:
ROOM 3
GREAT HALL
Exits: N, E, W
YOU ARE IN THE GREAT HALL, AN L-SHAPED ROOM
THERE ARE DOORS TO THE EAST AND TO THE NORTH
IN THE ALCOVE THERE IS A DOOR TO THE WEST
While on a Google search for a Great Hall, I came across this great photo that I will be working on this weekend:
(http://s10.postimg.org/4p3re8zop/Great_Hall.jpg)
This carries some elements from some of the previous rooms. Even when it comes to tracing images, consistency is important. For this room, I think I will work on scale (Thanks again, Cloudee) on the programming side.
I'm going to take some artistic liberties for this room. This is not an L-shaped room. For the sake of simplicity, I'm just going to focus on making this a "Great Hall". Also for this room, I'm going to "reverse the compass". (South instead of North, etc.)
At this point my game is no longer 1:1 with Tim Hartnell's version.
Happy programming, everyone!
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Amongst other personal obligations, I finished this today.
(http://s22.postimg.org/l4oshplwx/Room_003.jpg)
I seem to get better at this with each room that I make!
I haven't had a chance to test it out. I haven't set up the control and priority areas yet. Scale of the Ego in these rooms certainly plays an important part.
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Very nice.
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Ive forgotten how tricky it is working with priority areas.
I wonder if that's remedied with the scale of the ego?
It just dawned on me that what I was attempting was needlessly complicated (ie: after the Ego walks through the arcs, he would be transported to the next room).
So what I am doing instead is, as soon as the Ego approaches the arcs, transport to the next room.
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I'm planning on doing some improvising for the next room:
ROOM 5
INNER HALLWAY
Exits: N, E, D
THIS INNER HALLWAY CONTAINS A DOOR TO THE NORTH,
AND ONE TO THE WEST, AND A CIRCULAR STAIRWELL
PASSES THROUGH THE ROOM.
YOU CAN SEE AN ORNAMENTAL LAKE THROUGH THE
WINDOWS TO THE SOUTH
I plan on flipping the compass again (East instead of North) and a normal scary looking stone staircase instead of a circular stairwell. I couldn't find a Hallway photo on Google that fit what I wanted, so I'm going to use the following as inspiration
(http://s23.postimg.org/k3tndcax7/stock_photo_vintage_toy_train_passenger_car_illu.jpg)
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I was hesitating on this one. But I went ahead with it anyhow:
(http://s13.postimg.org/bv48uuy4n/Room_005.jpg)
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Very nice...
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Dude, this is fantastic!