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[HelixFox]

Looking great, Tom!

I really love the character design. It's giving me a very Layton-esque feeling (and I love Layton).

[Nitromatic]

I hope you get Windows version out, too.

This looks very interesting, I am always up to new adventure! :D

[lapsus]

name dropping games by Shu Takumi (i actually finished ghost trick yesterday :) ), awesome looking graphics, great voice-acting and my favourite genre!

only downside is that this isnt the type of game i typically play on my iphone - i usually go for small simple games on the subway with disabled sound- but ports are coming so all good!

gl!

[SFBTom]

Ahhhh, how did I not see this before? The art for this looks positively loverly. Can't wait to see how the finished product looks. C:

Cheers! No doubt I'll be shouting about it here when it comes out, so you'll be able to take a look.

Looking great, Tom!

I really love the character design. It's giving me a very Layton-esque feeling (and I love Layton).

Thanks Kyle! Praise indeed, Layton is what we aspire to.

I hope you get Windows version out, too.

This looks very interesting, I am always up to new adventure! :D

Me too, cross-platform ports are my biggest priority after actually getting the game done.

name dropping games by Shu Takumi (i actually finished ghost trick yesterday ), awesome looking graphics, great voice-acting and my favourite genre!

only downside is that this isnt the type of game i typically play on my iphone - i usually go for small simple games on the subway with disabled sound- but ports are coming so all good!

gl!

Thanks! We're trying to take into account the game's portable nature, with specific options for users who don't want sound playing. Obviously in the iPad/desktop versions, this'll matter less.

[SFBTom]

Raphael, our amazing musical chap has sent us the final version of the full OST for this game. The guy works fast! The music doesn't suffer at all though. Here're two short samples:

Sample 1
Sample 2


Adam has also been working on a lot of stuff this week:












And finally here's a bunch of background snippets from Catherine's work so far:

[peanutbuttershoes]

Super awesome! 

[JaJitsu]

everything looks so amazing on this!

[Ness Kain]

Ah, great to see you have come to TIGSource!
I remember playing some of your games a long time ago (including the first Detective Grimoire). I always liked the fun introductions you gave to the James the Zebra games... For quite a while, there was a period of time where "you've decided to take up windsurfing" was my standard response to someone asking me to "guess what"... I started out just answering my siblings (who are also familiar with the games) that way, but at one point I was saying it sometimes even to people who had no idea what I was talking about. 

Anyway, this looks heaps more interesting than anything you have put out before. (That's not necessarily meant to demean any of your previous work; I just mean that this looks very cool.)

[thedaemon]

Everything is awesome looking. I'm particularly proud that you made a dialog animation editor for your animator(s). As an animator, I want to give you a pat on the back good sir. 

[SFBTom]

Super awesome! 

Super thanks!

everything looks so amazing on this!

I'm quite confident that it'll be the best looking swamp-based detective game out this year!

Ah, great to see you have come to TIGSource!
I remember playing some of your games a long time ago (including the first Detective Grimoire). I always liked the fun introductions you gave to the James the Zebra games... For quite a while, there was a period of time where "you've decided to take up windsurfing" was my standard response to someone asking me to "guess what"... I started out just answering my siblings (who are also familiar with the games) that way, but at one point I was saying it sometimes even to people who had no idea what I was talking about. 

Anyway, this looks heaps more interesting than anything you have put out before. (That's not necessarily meant to demean any of your previous work; I just mean that this looks very cool.)

Good work on spreading the windsurfing love, especially when used as a weapon of conversational confusion! And thanks

Everything is awesome looking. I'm particularly proud that you made a dialog animation editor for your animator(s). As an animator, I want to give you a pat on the back good sir. 

Animating with anything but a custom tool would be horrible. We know, because we tried it for  the first Grimoire game. Every line of dialogue was tagged with animation directions in between the words. It took such an astoundingly long time, that I vowed 'never again!'

[SFBTom]

Finally starting to get characters in place, rather than grey boxes representing characters. They're animated too, I'll get some video together soon. For now, images:

[I_smell]

HEY, I just remembered that detective game you made ages ago! That was a great game!

The character designs and their poses have got LOADS of character, I really love that. I wish I had more opportunities to do stuff like that.

Even though the animation's really good, the characters seem really static. I can't work out why. Maybe it's the super short animations, or maybe the voices don't fit? I can't tell. I wish a lot of the voices had more punch and more confidence. I kinda feel like you should turn down the music and turn up the voices a tiny bit considering the game's driven by what people are saying. But hey what do I know! I can't make games like this!

You're doing great, this looks great, music's perfect.
side-note: A lot of really slow-paced games have really slow-paced tutorials, watch out for that.

Art's great, really mysterious.

Man, I'm really inspired by the conversation interface you made, I feel like I could jump right into using it just from the screenshot.

[fatso]

Bookmarked your blog - I will DEFINITELY get this when it comes out! Great art style and the characters seem totally fleshed-out. Good to see there is another high-quality singleplayer game coming to the iPhone, I feel like there's a wave of simple casual games and clones and not enough games with deeper storylines, or even stories at all.

[Alec S.]

This is looking very nice.  I love the art style.

PS:  Holy crap!  Super Flash Bros.!  I loved your flash cartoons!  Man, The Decline of Videogaming was good times.

[SFBTom]

HEY, I just remembered that detective game you made ages ago! That was a great game!

The character designs and their poses have got LOADS of character, I really love that. I wish I had more opportunities to do stuff like that.

Even though the animation's really good, the characters seem really static. I can't work out why. Maybe it's the super short animations, or maybe the voices don't fit? I can't tell. I wish a lot of the voices had more punch and more confidence. I kinda feel like you should turn down the music and turn up the voices a tiny bit considering the game's driven by what people are saying. But hey what do I know! I can't make games like this!

You're doing great, this looks great, music's perfect.
side-note: A lot of really slow-paced games have really slow-paced tutorials, watch out for that.

Art's great, really mysterious.

Man, I'm really inspired by the conversation interface you made, I feel like I could jump right into using it just from the screenshot.

Thanks! It was aaages ago, I'm a little chuffed that anyone remembers it at all!

The conversation animations are mock ups so far, not in-game captures. I definitely plan to turn the music right down, it should be more of a subtle bed than melody. We also won't be using the full on animations for EVERY line, that's more of a test to see how they look at all. Most of the time, it'll be subtle eye/mouth animations.

We're definitely wary of tutoring the user for too long. it's going to be more of a 'teach the first time you can use it' thingy.

I'm thinking of handing the convo tool over to the voice actors, see if they come up with some good 'acting' to go with their own voices. We can always clean up/replace them after...

Bookmarked your blog - I will DEFINITELY get this when it comes out! Great art style and the characters seem totally fleshed-out. Good to see there is another high-quality singleplayer game coming to the iPhone, I feel like there's a wave of simple casual games and clones and not enough games with deeper storylines, or even stories at all.

Sweet, another sale! In the back of my mind, I'm slightly concerned because there really aren't that many story-driven single players on iPhone. Is that because the genre isn't suited to the format? I don't know, but we're doing it now, too late!

This is looking very nice.  I love the art style.

PS:  Holy crap!  Super Flash Bros.!  I loved your flash cartoons!  Man, The Decline of Videogaming was good times.

Hehe, so if I casually mentioned that I'm currently on fire, you'd get the reference?