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[jO]

I really love the simple details in this animation - perfect!

[dukope]

Back to work on this now.

Yes! It's a shame players won't get to enjoy this anim as much in regular-mo.

[Panurge]

For anyone interested, this is still being worked on, albeit slowly. I did get quite a long way towards making a first playable build over the summer, and I've received some help in livening up the backgrounds, but I was distracted by 'life' and the Ludum Dare (my entry is here, incidentally: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=21166).

I've scaled the game down a little and reduced the number of locations to seven. If that sounds pointlessly few, it's perhaps time to reveal that the game will have a kind of Groundhog Day mechanic which means there will still be a lot of variety. I was withholding that information as if it were some sort of valuable trade secret but now that the '10 Seconds' Ludum Dare has spawned about a thousand games with a similar premise, I guess there's no harm in revealing it.

Hopefully I'll have more news soon but I don't want to show anything before it's as polished as I can make it.

[Kian]

Been watching this, but just subbed now.

[Panurge]

Thanks! I'm afraid I decided a couple of weeks ago to put a bullet in After the Comet in its original form. I just don't have the time or energy right now to match up to the grand concept I had. That said, it isn't entirely dead and I've started shaping what I've already got into something much smaller. The idea is that I'll put it together with a bunch of similar games (a couple of which are already done) and release it as a sort of 'channel-hopping' experience, more like a short story collection than anything else. The workload involved in that will be much easier for me to handle. I'll probably start a new devlog for it in the near future...

[Kian]

Sad to hear, but with every door closing and all that.

Well, look forward to seeing it in the short story collection, i think there is too much potential for that to disappear entirely.

Good luck 

[Alex Higgins]

Sorry to hear that. It isn't easy to decide to kill a project like that.
Def looking forward to your new project, though!

[jO]

Aww man, thats a bummer. But it's good to pull the plug on the project before it pulls the plug on you ;-)
Good luck with the next venture!

[dukope]

Thanks! I'm afraid I decided a couple of weeks ago to put a bullet in After the Comet in its original form. I just don't have the time or energy right now to match up to the grand concept I had. That said, it isn't entirely dead and I've started shaping what I've already got into something much smaller. The idea is that I'll put it together with a bunch of similar games (a couple of which are already done) and release it as a sort of 'channel-hopping' experience, more like a short story collection than anything else. The workload involved in that will be much easier for me to handle. I'll probably start a new devlog for it in the near future...

I expect the phoenix that rises from these ashes to shred my throat to ribbons with its flaming claws of awesomeness. Or if it's just a fun game that doesn't kill you to make that'd be ok too.

RIP Comet.

[Panurge]

I can't let the good stuff go to waste, especially as After the Comet isn't completely dead just yet.

In fact, I've been putting some thought into the compilation of which it will be a part (albeit in a much smaller form) and I'm feeling quite enthused about it again for the first time in a good while. Devlog to follow soon. (@dukope - I hope you're not too attached to your throat, dude!)

Anyway, cheers all! Your good wishes mean a lot.

[Panurge]

Thought I should cautiously mention that I'm still working on this. My focus has been on other things for a long time but every now and then I spend a bit of time on After the Comet and it's starting to gain some momentum again.

I've rebuilt it from scratch and it's more ambitious than it was originally. Writing The Winter Child (which is still my main thing at the moment) has made me realise that some things which I originally thought would be too difficult to do are actually within even my limited powers. So I've scrapped the Groundhog Day mechanic and the game is now a sort of sandbox with randomly generated cases for you to investigate. It's going to be much more text-heavy than it was before, with the analysis of conversation and written clues being the key to progress.

I'm also experimenting with a 'Thomas Crown Affair' style which involves various sliding windows and split screen effects. The picture below shows the screen at its busiest, with the play window (usually this will take up pretty much the whole screen), a view of where your partner is (you can always check on this through a telepathic link with him), the inventory (the business card), the 'clock' and a scripted flashback window (when people tell you their accounts of a crime you get a sort of stylised visual impression of their memories).

It's just a REALLY rough prototype at the moment but I think the concept is nice so I'm going to keep playing around with it.

Expect another update in a year or so...