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[TeraBit-Software]

Hi All,

Just posting my first Devlog for my latest project, "Dark Recall"

I wanted to do something completely different to my last game 'Call of the Ninja' which was very light on story and more ninjary _{(not a real word)}.  

Back in the day I used to like playing the old Text Adventure games, but after rummaging around on the internet I found that many of the Text Adventures didn't create the atmosphere I wanted and I spent a lot of time typing things that were not understood by the parser.

So I decided to mix it up a bit.  

"Dark Recall" as a game is still very story driven, but is in a sense 'read to you' (in that you aren't blasted with a screen full of text all at once) and you are provided with ambient images, sounds to set the mood of what is being said.

You interact mostly by mouse, examining items, talking to people, seeing their thoughts.  

The game takes place on a colony in deep space, where a natural disaster has left people stranded, on a quarantined world.




The menu system you can see above was one of the first things I put together, as it was based on the opening paragraph of the story brief. The thought was to try and make the text take front stage, but to be made more interesting by the surrounding menu.

[TeraBit-Software]

One of the biggest challenges for this type of game, is not the game engine itself, but the process of putting put the game into it.

To stop me going mad, I have built a story builder application to put the bits together.

One of the modules is the hierarchical conversation editor, pictured below:

[TeraBit-Software]

Hi all,

The Dark Recall web page is up: http://www.TeraBit-Software.co.uk/DarkRecall.aspx

A couple of YouTube videos on the main page, showing the menu system and a short gameplay clip.

It's interesting trying to make a web page for a hybrid graphic / text adventure game, since screen shots are not very helpful in giving the overall feeling of the game. 

YouTube is better, but of course video is not the best way to read text.
On the positive at least the video shows some of the interaction possible and the fact that sound and images are synced up to the text.

[TeraBit-Software]

Some additional customisations are possible in game:

+ / - Keys will increase or decrease the read speed respectively.

Right Clicking or Pressing Enter will auto complete the reading of the current paragraph.

Clicking Middle Mouse or Pressing Space will trigger the word-hint highlighting

Also remember that the font can be changed along with some other things on the options menu. 

[KissMaj7]

Hi, I tried the demo and I liked it very much The game looks great the game mechanics work nicely.

I've always wanted play more story-based games. I've played some old fashioned text adventures but I never fully got excited of them. This looks just the kind of game I've been hoping to play. Keep up the good work!

[TeraBit-Software]

The game looks great the game mechanics work nicely....This looks just the kind of game I've been hoping to play. Keep up the good work!

Thanks. I wanted it to read like a text adventure, but play like a Graphics Adventure. I'm glad you like it. If you have any suggestions for improvements that could be made, I'm happy to hear any ideas. 

[TeraBit-Software]

Hi All,

Well development on 'Dark Recall' has been going ahead slowly. More of the actual game has been put into print, although this is not reflected in the 1.1 Build, since the executable and the game data are completely separate (all the fonts, text, images, sounds are in the data.pak).

Hence although the default font has been updated to make it more readable (less glow), this is not reflected in the download, since only the executable has been updated, not the Data.Pak!).

Stuff that is in the executable (which is reflected in the new download is listed below)

Updated to Alpha Ver. 1.1.
* Switched to OpenGL rather than DirectX.
* Fixed some issues with scrolling.
* Save Games now contain preferences (Read Speed / Volume etc.)
  (Delete old save games or it will go boom!)
* Max read Speed increased to 400%
* Other Misc. fixes.

[TeraBit-Software]

Hi All,

Well it just goes to show that multiple choice style narratives can get complicated very quickly. Not counting the dialogue entries and choices, the options in the house now look like this:


This represents about an average of 10 mins of gameplay. What a tangled web we weave. 

[TeraBit-Software]

Hi all,

Well, things have moved on. There is a bit more of the story having made its way in to the game.

Other important changes are afoot though. For one thing, each location in the story opens into a clear screen (although you can still pause and review previous sections).

The default font has also been changed from the hard-to-read futuristic, to one that's a little easier on the eyes.  

New Font


It also illustrates the updated character graphics.