next »

[DAISHI]

What is this?
The Golden Anvil is a classic adventure game with some puzzle twists. Using hand drawn backgrounds and based on a short children's story I wrote a few years ago (that my agent didn't like), I've been working on it seriously for about the last year, with a break from about July - December to finish my second novel.

The Story
Kit is a young boy growing up in the area of the Ocenon Moutnains, the northernmost territory of the Pelagreen Empire. Across those mountains to the north is the Barbarous Country, where the uncivilized peoples of the world live. Pelagreen, base don a peninsula, has experience peace since the country was unified by the royal family thousands of years ago.

It's not until that peace is broken by the Sorcerer Ansgar in the southeast, in the mining province of the Gray Veil, that war returns to Pelagreen. Held in check by the armies of the emperor, Ansgar has been unable to breach the lands further west except by deployment of a sinister agent, the Black Lich.

The lich is on a dual mission, to obtain the Golden Anvil, a magical device used by the Blacksmith's Guild to forge powerful weapons of magical properties, and to bring it to its master for his use. It is also intent on obtaining the blade forged for Prince Pelagreen, a weapon that can only be used by the prince and that has fallen into Kit's hands. Indeed, he is the only person that can hold it due to a magical bond. With the anvil being ferried to parts unknown and the sword in his possession, Kit must flee with the agents of the kingdom in order to deliver the sword to the royal family.

So what's actually done?
The story, fairly obviously, since it was written so long ago. A game appropriate script is halfway complete, and the backgrounds are almost done inking. What's left is someone to paint the backgrounds themselves. And possibly music, I have music I've licensed but more and more I feel I should commission an original soundtrack. Still thinking on that. There's a number of engines for these sorts of games available, either free or licensed, and am still determining the value of one over the other. If my count is correct there are between 60-70 scenes.

Do the Ricky Bobby style
And pose for the frame:

[eigenbom]

There are some great illustrations here. Good luck with the game!

[DAISHI]

There are some great illustrations here. Good luck with the game!

I appreciate it. I'll post a ton more once the final penned sets are done and scanned.

[DAISHI]

When I first started making the game I wasn't sure of my artstyle or where I was going, only that I was aiming for something a bit cartoonish but not juvenile. A year later it's fun to look at the original piece against a new one made to replace it.

[DAISHI]

I finished the inked backgrounds today. That leaves the coloring, animation and script. I've also decided to commission an original soundtrack. I need seven major themes for seven scenes, intro and ending themes, a climax theme, a finale theme, and some variations on the seven major themes, so I'd put that at around 20 tracks, but 11 that really need a heavy investment. I'd put my progress roughly between 10 and 20 percent, more like 15, but using the 10% tag for now.

[eigenbom]

So tell us some more about the game, how it will work etc. Is it a point-and-click for PC or maybe an iOS game?

[DAISHI]

So tell us some more about the game, how it will work etc. Is it a point-and-click for PC or maybe an iOS game?

Point and click for PC. The engine I'm looking at, for a higher price, has an export option to make it available for iOS so putting it on Apple systems is theoretically possible. I guess I'd want to gauge the response to a straight PC release first, but then again if I pay for the iOS version there's no point in NOT making a release for it.

It follows the traditional inventory puzzles system but I want to have a greater variety of puzzle solving, falling somewhere between Monkey Island and Professor Layton. Though you won't have anyone saying they'll only lower the drawbridge if you solve their puzzle.

[DAISHI]

Musing on Engines

There are a few engines out there available for use.

Adventure Game Studio is the most notable and has been used to develope more games than I can count.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/ags/

Wintermute is the second:
http://dead-code.org/home/index.php/features/

And Visionaire Studio is the third. Visionaire has, as a matter of note, been used to make one of my favorite adventure games of recent time, "The Whispered World".
http://www.visionaire-studio.net/

Doing a cross comparison:
Costs
AGS - Free
Wintermute - Free
Visionaire - $50

AGS was recently used to create The Journey Down, which has been popular recently.


Wintermute doesn't have anything of note I've played though they have a selection of different games they've profiled on their game page (for a few years in some cases).

And Visionaire has the aforementioned Whispered World:


So what common features do all these have?
Windows Compatible
Resolution up to 1024 X 768
Up to 32 bit palettes
Multiple rendering methods
Multiple translation and localization methods
Compiler options

Visionaire and Adventure Game Studio seem to pull ahead at this point on one point.
Greater flexibility with video and audio options (OGG,AVI, XVID, etc.

What I like about Visionaire above AGS:
Greater variety of special effects.
Object based programing (Lua optional)..
Multiple interface options.

What I really don't like about Visionaire:
Full commercial distribution costs a license of 1299.


Financial realities will push me to Wintermute or AGS. So which one?
AGS seems to have a simpler language scripting, but I've read that its organizational structure is somewhat archaic. It's going to come down to one of these two.
AGS has the benefit of a large and supportive community as well. It also has numerous plug-ins to enhance its capabilities. For the fact of flexibility and ease of use I'm going to be trying AGS first and have Wintermute in reserve. Though practically I'll be playing around with both.

[DAISHI]

Forgot to do a map screen. This is taking forever.

[SrKen]

Hi, pretty nice artworks!
I'm willing to participate in the project development.

I'm a composer, here's a climax theme to begin:  https://soundcloud.com/ken-r-s/the-golden-anvil-climax

[TheSpeakerOfTruth]

Hi, pretty nice artworks!
I'm willing to participate in the project development.

I'm a composer, here's a climax theme to begin:  https://soundcloud.com/ken-r-s/the-golden-anvil-climax

That was, to be brutally frank, very terrible. It honestly sounds like a piece a person with a week's experience in Fruity Loops or any other DAW created. Not to derail the main topic of course, but you could do well with starting simple and with a pronounced melody. I even had to stop playback a few seconds in to make sure that I wasn't playing several pieces of music simultaneously. Other than the lack of clarity, there doesn't seem to be much effort put into the melody, which the listener needs to strain for to get a sliver of.

On topic: the illustrations look very charming. I personally do not like the style in the least because they're akin to those children's scavenger hunt drawings. If you weren't already, I think it would benefit a great deal from coloring coupled with less-pronounced lines or completely digitally painting using the drawings as line art. Because I think you have some good ideas, but the style is just atrocious.

[DAISHI]

Hi, pretty nice artworks!
I'm willing to participate in the project development.

I'm a composer, here's a climax theme to begin:  https://soundcloud.com/ken-r-s/the-golden-anvil-climax

That was, to be brutally frank, very terrible. It honestly sounds like a piece a person with a week's experience in Fruity Loops or any other DAW created. Not to derail the main topic of course, but you could do well with starting simple and with a pronounced melody. I even had to stop playback a few seconds in to make sure that I wasn't playing several pieces of music simultaneously. Other than the lack of clarity, there doesn't seem to be much effort put into the melody, which the listener needs to strain for to get a sliver of.

On topic: the illustrations look very charming. I personally do not like the style in the least because they're akin to those children's scavenger hunt drawings. If you weren't already, I think it would benefit a great deal from coloring coupled with less-pronounced lines or completely digitally painting using the drawings as line art. Because I think you have some good ideas, but the style is just atrocious.

Yeah they're going to be colored, although the style is to basically be an adventurous cartoon so that wouldn't change.

[SrKen]

Hi, pretty nice artworks!
I'm willing to participate in the project development.

I'm a composer, here's a climax theme to begin:  https://soundcloud.com/ken-r-s/the-golden-anvil-climax

That was, to be brutally frank, very terrible. It honestly sounds like a piece a person with a week's experience in Fruity Loops or any other DAW created. Not to derail the main topic of course, but you could do well with starting simple and with a pronounced melody. I even had to stop playback a few seconds in to make sure that I wasn't playing several pieces of music simultaneously. Other than the lack of clarity, there doesn't seem to be much effort put into the melody, which the listener needs to strain for to get a sliver of.

On topic: the illustrations look very charming. I personally do not like the style in the least because they're akin to those children's scavenger hunt drawings. If you weren't already, I think it would benefit a great deal from coloring coupled with less-pronounced lines or completely digitally painting using the drawings as line art. Because I think you have some good ideas, but the style is just atrocious.

I use Cubase and it's been one year I'm practicing. To be honest, I used very simple harmonics, maybe I exagerated with the compressor or something in the DAW. I'm just not too much familiar with it. Just tried to give it a try, not looking to compose something orchestrally perfect, I lack of knowledge and experiences.

[Windybeard]

The drawings are really good, i personally think the artwork is cool and i can image once coloured it could be amazing. The detail is great.

Some slightly harsh comments above "the style is just atrocious." I cant see how comments like that will help anyone, these are obviously skilled illustrations and best of luck to you.

As for engine, if you can manage on a free software go for it, however if the one you need to pay for offers higher resolution that 1024 x 768 i would strongly recommend it, thats an old res thats quickly becoming obsolete with HD and widescreen now so common. 1280 x 800 is about the lowest i would recommend for PC if possible.

[DAISHI]

The drawings are really good, i personally think the artwork is cool and i can image once coloured it could be amazing. The detail is great.

Some slightly harsh comments above "the style is just atrocious." I cant see how comments like that will help anyone, these are obviously skilled illustrations and best of luck to you.

As for engine, if you can manage on a free software go for it, however if the one you need to pay for offers higher resolution that 1024 x 768 i would strongly recommend it, thats an old res thats quickly becoming obsolete with HD and widescreen now so common. 1280 x 800 is about the lowest i would recommend for PC if possible.

I actually just found out that Visionaire Studio will provide a 50 dollar license that allows me to distribute through digital stores as long as I'm not working for, like, Activision or something. So I've switched to that, and will be using the 1920X1200 resolution.

[Windybeard]

Nice, will look very crisp!

[TheSpeakerOfTruth]

The drawings are really good, i personally think the artwork is cool and i can image once coloured it could be amazing. The detail is great.

Some slightly harsh comments above "the style is just atrocious." I cant see how comments like that will help anyone, these are obviously skilled illustrations and best of luck to you.

As for engine, if you can manage on a free software go for it, however if the one you need to pay for offers higher resolution that 1024 x 768 i would strongly recommend it, thats an old res thats quickly becoming obsolete with HD and widescreen now so common. 1280 x 800 is about the lowest i would recommend for PC if possible.

Yes, it's definitely harsh. But as an indie developer myself, I'm seeing these forums seemingly curl up into more of a support group than a community of developers. Yes, it's important for devs to gain confidence to push through tirelessly, but they're also going to need clarity along with praise. I will openly be tactlessly candid not because I have any personal grudge but because I think it's helpful to hear the dissenting sides. I have a strong range of visual aesthetics I absolutely love, but unfortunately I also have others I absolutely hate even regardless of skillfulness. But, knowing the developer is going to be coloring them is definitely good to hear and I fully look forward to seeing the finished product.

Also, congratulations on deciding on a game engine. I'm impressed by some of the games that have been made in Visionaire, so I'm certain you'll work wonders with it too!

[DAISHI]

To respond to a previous query, I had already pegged someone to do the music, and am hoping to iron out the details. The guy I want to do paint the backgrounds isn't responding, though.

[SrKen]

Oh sorry, no problem for the music.

[Windybeard]

The drawings are really good, i personally think the artwork is cool and i can image once coloured it could be amazing. The detail is great.

Some slightly harsh comments above "the style is just atrocious." I cant see how comments like that will help anyone, these are obviously skilled illustrations and best of luck to you.

As for engine, if you can manage on a free software go for it, however if the one you need to pay for offers higher resolution that 1024 x 768 i would strongly recommend it, thats an old res thats quickly becoming obsolete with HD and widescreen now so common. 1280 x 800 is about the lowest i would recommend for PC if possible.

Yes, it's definitely harsh. But as an indie developer myself, I'm seeing these forums seemingly curl up into more of a support group than a community of developers. Yes, it's important for devs to gain confidence to push through tirelessly, but they're also going to need clarity along with praise. I will openly be tactlessly candid not because I have any personal grudge but because I think it's helpful to hear the dissenting sides. I have a strong range of visual aesthetics I absolutely love, but unfortunately I also have others I absolutely hate even regardless of skillfulness. But, knowing the developer is going to be coloring them is definitely good to hear and I fully look forward to seeing the finished product.

Also, congratulations on deciding on a game engine. I'm impressed by some of the games that have been made in Visionaire, so I'm certain you'll work wonders with it too!

Fair point.