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[:^)]

Super awesome! 

[JaJitsu]

everything looks so amazing on this!

[ness io 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?

[Alec S.]

Yes, yes I would.   

[Helmeted]

Ooh, this looks great! I'll be wanting to play this when it comes out.

[fish]

that is some background and character art you've got there!
gorgeous stuff!

[guille]

Wow, this is looking great!

Something I noticed is that when the characters are talking they change their pose/expression very abruptly, that jumped out a lot to me. It's kind of distracting.

Besides that it's looking awsome, keep it up! 

[oahda]

I'm not in love with the art style, but it grew on me after seeing it in motion. The animations are great, and the characters have a lot of life. There are a few things bothering me in your texts ('Well...thanks.' instead of 'Well... Thanks., ...? instead of ..?, !? instead of ?!, and beginning a sentence with the word but), but that's not something that would ruin the game for me, and even less so for most of the audience, haha. That's just me being pedantic.

I like the music! It fits in and doesn't interfere with the voice acting (which is nice too, even though I prefer British English). I just recently tried out Monkey Island for the iPad, without really having any previous experiences with this kind of games, and I really liked it, even though it was a bit too hard for me, and I ended up pressing the screen with three fingers to get clues a lot of the time, so I am definitely interested in playing this when I get my iPad in about a month, even though I guess it won't be released by then, but at least I'll have an iPad when it does!

Keep going. I'll stay tuned.

[Craig Stern]

Oooh, man! I totally remember when you guys came out with original Detective Grimoire. I really enjoyed that game. I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

Edit: Just to sate my own curiosity, I went back in Newgrounds and read my old review of the original Detective Grimoire. I had forgotten about "the eye," which kind of broke the first game. You're not including that in the new one, are you?

[SFBTom]

Ooh, this looks great! I'll be wanting to play this when it comes out.

Cheers!

that is some background and character art you've got there!
gorgeous stuff!

And the programming's lovely too right? RIGHT?!

Wow, this is looking great!

Something I noticed is that when the characters are talking they change their pose/expression very abruptly, that jumped out a lot to me. It's kind of distracting.

Besides that it's looking awsome, keep it up! 

Yeah, the videos are just test conversations, not the in-game real thing. They'll be kept less abrupt in the game. Thanks though!

I'm not in love with the art style, but it grew on me after seeing it in motion. The animations are great, and the characters have a lot of life. There are a few things bothering me in your texts ('Well...thanks.' instead of 'Well... Thanks., ...? instead of ..?, !? instead of ?!, and beginning a sentence with the word but), but that's not something that would ruin the game for me, and even less so for most of the audience, haha. That's just me being pedantic.

I like the music! It fits in and doesn't interfere with the voice acting (which is nice too, even though I prefer British English). I just recently tried out Monkey Island for the iPad, without really having any previous experiences with this kind of games, and I really liked it, even though it was a bit too hard for me, and I ended up pressing the screen with three fingers to get clues a lot of the time, so I am definitely interested in playing this when I get my iPad in about a month, even though I guess it won't be released by then, but at least I'll have an iPad when it does!

Keep going. I'll stay tuned.

The text in the videos wasn't the final script. The script has now been written though, and scrutinized for this sort of thing - I'm a stickler for it, just like you!

I need to get my hands on an iPad too, for testing and such. I'm pretty excited to see it on the larger screen!

Oooh, man! I totally remember when you guys came out with original Detective Grimoire. I really enjoyed that game. I'm looking forward to seeing this completed.

Edit: Just to sate my own curiosity, I went back in Newgrounds and read my old review of the original Detective Grimoire. I had forgotten about "the eye," which kind of broke the first game. You're not including that in the new one, are you?

Thanks, glad you recognized it! There's no more eye stuff in this game, we're keeping it simple and detectivey!

[GrimoireChicken]

Woah!! Got a lot of questions to ask Tom!!!

[SFBTom]

Wow, it's been a while since I posted huh? My bad!

So a lot has happened since last we spoke. The background art is entirely finished! The script is written and sent out to the voice actors and we're getting lines back thick and fast! Our soundtrack is nominated for an award (best free creation)!

Also, I've just put up a new official site for the project, along with a teaser trailer. All the graphics you see in the video are in-game, no pre-rendered cut-scenes for us, no sir. So if you have a moment to spare, head on over and check it out.

http://detectivegrimoire.com/

[SFBTom]

We've just uploaded a video of the first 7 minutes of gameplay. Well, it's not exactly a gameplay video, but every single asset apart from the fake cursor is taken right from the game. A real gameplay video will be coming soon.





Sorry for the sound sync issues near the end, problems capturing and exporting the video!

I can also announce officially that this game is being created in Adobe AIR for iOS/Android. Initially I was building it in cocos2d, but AIR suddenly got really good and all the animations were being done in Flash anyway, so it was a really quick catch up port to AS3.

We'll be targeting both tablets and phones, possibly desktops too if we can!