New Game Demo

[Cosmic R]

okay, I've been working on this for quite some time, and I promised myself I'd release a demo today regardless of how much I had done.  So anyway here it is. The demo is a work in progress. It's called Pharaoh Quest, about an ancient egyptian pharaoh who wakes up in the desert one day.  I've tried to put in some features not used in other agi games, even sierra ones so I hope you like it.  Anyway give it a try and send me some feedback. Thanks!



You can download it here: http://users.bigpond.com/udt/pquest.zip

[Nick Sonneveld]

ok, here's some cleaned up comments I wrote as I played the game:

There's some great music. Written yourself?  what tool did you use?  

I like the graphics too. Looks like you spent a bit of time on them.. I like the random desert scenes.. You could make them less random and more predictable by basing the scene used on the ego's position.

The night scene looks very spiff too.

The problem I had was finding the way to where the oasis is.  How are you supposed to find your way without walking lots and dying in the process?  You shouldn't have to die to solve a puzzle.  Perhaps some intermittent messages that you might get every few screens. "you think you hear something south" "you think you hear someone drinking to the west" "the sound gets fainter" "you cannot hear the noise any longer, perhaps you are going the wrong way"

I didn't figure out till later that I was scaring the camel away.  At least you can swap the screens and he'll be back again.  It wasn't until I entered from another side of the screen that I realised.  Hint?  After 10 times the camel runs away, you could go "perhaps you're doing something wrong".

Does the coin only appear once every 255 times?  isn't that a bit too rare?

I like the tilde key..just press to look.  not your usual feature.. perhaps advertise in the intro?  titled: "differences from ordinary agi games".  I don't think many people look up help

"take" is not understood.. only "get"

should be a message to "alt-z to quit" at end of demo..  or maybe just quit for the player

nice site.. how long has it been up?  will you update?  did you know that time quest has since been updated?

will you need a score of 2000 in the end?  do you have the rest of the game mapped out?

- Nick

[Corby]

Hey! Nice screenshot! I'm sure I've seen that Oasis before!  
Good luck!

[Nick Sonneveld]

... probably from the original pharaoh quest site.

- Nick

[StrangeQuark]

The game doesn't understand "waterskin" and after the camel ride, the speed is reset to normal.

I am very curious about what the full version will be like. It's looking very good!

[Cosmic R]

thanks for the comments so far.
Yeah the music is all original composed by me.  I'm still not happy with some of it though.  my web page is still being made, I didnt really want to let anyone know about it yet...
i'll get right onto the words not understood. I couldnt think of a way to make the same desert screen appear based on your position because the desert is really endless.
here's a hint for finding the oasis: it's down two screens and right one.  I didnt add any clue for it in the game because I figured once the player knew where it was it wouldnt be a problem anymore.
I've tested the coin 'randomness' and I feel it appears often enough - I play the game on fast.
the reason it goes back to normal speed after the camel ride is because it's actually set to normal on the camel ride screen because if it goes too fast, it loses the 'mood'.  I'll try to fix the problem though.
I suppose I didnt make it clear enough that you scare the camel away.  I'll fix that.
yeah I also want to add other shortcuts besides the tilde key, like 'ask about ' and other things.
you dont need a score of 2000 to complete the game like most sierra games, but the full solution gets you 2000 points.
finally, to make the music I did this:
created the songs in fast tracker (in xm format)
converted these songs to midi
converted these midis to rol
then used rol2agi
I know its a long process, but at the time it was my only way of doing it.
oh yeah, I do have the whole game planned/mapped out, if you open it in agi studio you can see some screens not yet in the game, although these might change. I plan on having more never-before-seen features, like a maze more advanced than the one in manhunter, and some new types of arcade sequences.
I dont want to give away too much for now though.
Once again, thanks for the comments and keep-em coming!

[Nick Sonneveld]

I explored a bit and managed to find a coin after going through 20 screens.  It's your game, but I just thought it was a very unfair puzzle.  Puzzles shouldn't depend on chance as much as that.. I wandered around a lot and eventually got lost till I found the coin.  Plus it was hard to see.

create a MOD sort of function.  just say you have 10 screens.. divide your current position by 10 over and over until the result is less than 10.. you only need to do it at the start of each room, so it shouldn't take up too much time.

the problem with the oasis is finding it in the first place.  some people might get frustrated to begin with and get sick of it.  I'm reminded of the awful desert puzzles in kings quest 5.  You need save the game and hope the current direction is the right direction.

not trying to be mean.. trying to be helpful.

- Nick

[StrangeQuark]

I explored a bit and managed to find a coin after going through 20 screens.  It's your game, but I just thought it was a very unfair puzzle.  Puzzles shouldn't depend on chance as much as that.. I wandered around a lot and eventually got lost till I found the coin.  Plus it was hard to see.

That's strange, I found 8 coins in about 25 screens. Sometimes you have to wait just a little bit in a screen, it only appears after a few seconds.
And I thought it was fairly easy enough to see, it has to stay a puzzle. It reminded me of the ring in LSL 6, which was way harder to see.
But this is only my opinion of course. I'm sure others will share Nick's opinion. You should decide for yourself what you do with it.

[Nick Sonneveld]

ah, I understand.. I thought the coin only appeared when you enter a room.. I stood around for a couple of minutes and the coin appeared.. ok..

I wouldn't mind a message though, "suddenly, you notice a coin" instead of having to "look sand" or notice the faint flashy thing.

- Nick

[Joey]

The screen shot looks great! I'll try the game out tomorrow. I have a question. I thought you could only have up to 255 points? Isnt the Sierra games a 255 variable byte limit, or something like that. I thought that the max score could go up to 255 points MAXIMUM. Are you using a different interprter?

[Cosmic R]

No, youre right, NORMAL agi games can only have upto 255 points, as the variable data type only supports that much.  But no, I'm not using a different interpreter.  If you use two variables for the score, you can have up to 65536(256*256) points. So, I just used a programming trick to make the maximum score 2000.  feel free to check out the source in agi studio.

[Joel]

Someone used to have downloadable source code (that used define names, I think) for a custom status bar and
for using more than the 255 point maximum. I think it was Magnus (author of Harry Soupsmith, right?). 'Course, I don't know if this is available anymore.

[Parabola]

hey, not bad.

The camel ride sequence is quite good.

i see you added indications to help ppl find the oasis, much better.