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General and Everything Else => The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff => Topic started by: Cloudee1 on May 17, 2010, 10:27:26 PM
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Ok gang I have started a new summer project. I have always been disappointed with the playability, or lack thereof, of Sierra's old AGI version of Disney's The Black Cauldron. At this point I highly doubt that I will ever have the time or energy to ever redraw all of the graphics so I am not planning to. There are a couple of rooms and views that I will have to I think just because but my real goal here is to simply make it playable. I have already got all the original inventory items created and ready to go, as well the first 24 rooms of the game can be explored, not necesarily completed but you can travel the map. I may add a couple of new puzzles, I haven't really decided on that yet.
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Nice! I look forward to this.
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I must say that I am more intrigued by SCI remakes of Sierra AGI games than I am of new SCI games. Perhaps it's because of the Sierra's own remakes like KQ1SCI.
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Yeah hopefully real work will let up soon, 13 hour days even on Saturday are killong me and it doesn't leave much time to work on it. Momentum is a terrible thing to lose when it comes to summer time projects and mine has gone to about nil over the last two weeks.
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So I just realised something. Unlike Sierra, I do not have an artist, a musician, or even a programmer working to get this done. It is just me doing everything and just between me and you, the project leader is a lazy piece of shite. No, but really even when I get some done, there is still so much left to do that it doesn't feel like the project is moving forward.
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Aw crap. So I was tooling around in my game today testing out a couple of new things I have been adding when I decide to check out my inventory, can anyone guess what happened... Out of Heap!!! Are you kidding me. So I have gone back to the drawing board and have already begun rewriting how my rooms major functions operate. The rooms I have applied the changes to are heap error free, but I'm still losing some heap here and there... need to track those bytes down and get those resources back otherwise it is only a matter of time before trouble strikes again. The worst part is I thought I had the heap space puzzle cracked, but I suppose, do new stuff and encounter new delimas.
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Oh well, even Sierra fell victim to Out of Heap errors occasionally.
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It's awfully early to be running into this issue. I'm missing something but I haven't figured out what yet. There is over 60 rooms and I've only got about half walkable and far fewer which are actually playable plus I want to do more with the pnc menu. That'll burn up space in every room it's used straight off the top.
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So work is actually progressing right along. I would give an updatw to how far along the story you can play till, but that might give some of the game away. Has anybody else here even had a go at the original or will my version be the first time anyone else has played it?
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I've played the original but not beaten it. That said, I have seen the movie so I'm not worried about it being blown.
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I've never fished the game either.
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Even worse still is there are no diagonal buttons on the laptop and you need them to cross a rope. I have programmed up to that point. Now I guess it's time to lug out the dinosaur desktop and switch everything over to that.
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Does your laptop not have a Function key combination with some letters to emulate the numpad?
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Probably but I have been to lazy to even bother with looking. I've got him climbing the rope now in mine, I just don't know where he is climbing to. That is officially as far as I have ever played till.
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If you don't want to play the original, you could read a couple of walkthroughs.
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It's not the same. I've read through a couple of walkthrus and it's not the same as actually seeing it. As a sidenote the original and the official hintbook are available to download from Al Lowes website.
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So my guy has now officially entered the castle. I also took some time and played the original so I now have the last of the game mapped out. Progress is good.
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Can you decompile the original in AGI Studio to see the elements so as to not miss anything? How much sense can one make of the scripts this way?
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If I wanted to, I could decipher the agi logics created by agistudio, but just looking at the text responses and the views loaded by a room seem to be sufficient, well that and actually playing the room. So far I'm pretty sure that I'm on top of everything, at least as far as the main story branches anyway.
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So it feels like the train is rounding a bend. I'm just a few (6) rooms away from having a fully travelable map. Also the game is playable up to the first trip to the Horned King's castle in all the story branches. I am expecting some pretty smooth sailing as I breeze through some of the "filling up the map" rooms, those are the ones that serve absolutely no purpose except to spread apart two other screens and there seem to be alot of of them.
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I realised I haven't updated lately . The map is complete, you can walk and do everything you need to do to get there. I have decided to make some small changes, for instance, if you travel south you will eventually be in the room you started in. I am closing off the map so that there will be a north/ south boundary. Also, there Are several points in the original when there is absolutely no hint as to what you need to do so I'm adding in more print statements. But otherwise I think that when the time comes, this "sierra" version will be released as a demo, it will be a complete game, the final release will be a redrawn extra puzzle affair. But that will take a really long time.
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Looking forward to it!
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I am a hair away from being able to complete the whole game via all of the main puzzle branches. I am up to and inside the room of the final showdown. Only nothing happens yet. There are still some other details to squish in there but for the most part I'm real close to the testing stage. Then its just finalising the graphics I've added (basicly just the menu buttons) and squishing any bugs that I've missed.
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Sooooo close.
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Hopefully in the next couple of days I'll be attatching the game to a thread hoping for a couple of testers to help me find any bugs,ambiguity, or whatnot that I may have missed.
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Nice! I played the original only a few times (never got very far), but I'll volunteer for general playability testing.
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Indeed. Same here.
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I've got one bit that I just fouled up, going up a ladder while the pig is following... and the I think I'm ready to roll. Then while you guys are testing I'll finish up the buttons and inventory graphics.
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Shout it from the rooftops, I am done. :P Seriously though, if some of you guys who are members of other adventure game based communities, spread the word.
My summer project took just a hair longer than I had intended, summer officially ended a week or two ago, but nevertheless it's done and The Black Cauldron: point and click can now be downloaded off the sciprogramming fan games page (http://sciprogramming.com/fangames.php).
Hope everyone enjoys playing it, if I dare say it might even be better than the original, at least in ease of playability.
Now then, what should I start working on next...
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Well? Anybody have a chance to form an opinion?
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Hey, I enjoyed it. I probably never would have played BC otherwise.
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The sad part is that I wouldn't have either. That was part of the reason I rewrote it to pnc.
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Wow, I can't wait to play this version. I've always wanted to port this game to another system and get it some more attention. I really thinks its way under rated for its time. Multiple endings, decent graphics, and I am one of the few that loved the movie. Thanks again for all the hard work you put in. Maybe one of these days I'll try a Nes graphics Hack of KQV or Maniac Mansion but that's way above my head right now.
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I hope you enjoy playing it. Let me know what you think of it
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Cloudee, do you know of the other BC remake? It was done by one DreamMaster in AGS:
http://tg_comics.tripod.com/bc.html (http://tg_comics.tripod.com/bc.html)
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Actually I learned about it after I had already finished my version. Never even crossed my mind that someone out there had the same idea that I did. All in all though, I think mine might be better ;) He used the default menubar that comes with AGS plus I added in some extra bits of dialog to guide the player through some of the more vague parts of the game that and a couple of little eggs (for lack of a better term) that I included. You'll have to give them both a try and see what you think
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Funny thing, I got lost on youtube for awhile today and I found where someone did a long play of my black cauldron version. Good that he made it through the game without crossing too many bugs. Thanks to my tester for that!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC2256E5FEC210553
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That's pretty cool that someone actually has done this for a fan-made game from here. Congrats!
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Nice one!