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[Schnuffel]

Here you go - it's the intro sequence to the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAhGIC55Vuc

This will be the last preview before I release the game. I'm still very curious to find out how it will be received

[metamorphium]

can't wait to play it...

[maze]

Hi Uwe, congratulations to the ready game. I can't belief how fast you have done it. 
The download is going to finish, so I have to play...

[Schnuffel]

I hope you like it

I'm really surprised that I haven't received a single bad review yet, everyone seems to love the game. I would have expected far more harsh critique. And I'm really happy to see that 99% of the players seem to play all the way through to the end - even adventure newbies and people who don't have the time or patience to finish a full-blown game. I'm curious whether the stream of positive feedback will continue after Dirty Split has hit the major game magazines and websites.

Anyway, the English version is on its way and should be out soon. The German version is already available at http://www.dreamagination.org/ .

[mylesblasonato]

Hey UWE, Congrats man, I'm very excited to see what the public think as well since I was one of the privileged who got to play the game before it's release. I can say that I loved the game and can't wait to see what else you can come up with. Dirty Split 2 maybe?

Anyway man good luck with the english release.

Cheers,
Myles Blasonato.

[Schnuffel]

Dirty Split 2 maybe?

Actually, no. Not yet, anyway.

I have an idea for a scifi/mystery game, which will be a lot more ambitious and also more serious. Something radically different from Dirty Split, although it will still be a story-centered adventure game, no doubt.
But right now I'm concentrating on promoting Dirty Split and getting the word out. And I'm really happy about all that positive feedback

[mylesblasonato]

Fantastic it's great to see you have something planned for after Dirty Split and If you need guys to test or help with it, just contact me and I'm in. All the best with the release.

Cheers,
Myles Blasonato.

[Dudeldei]

I'm so sorry to bump this thread up again, but there is a good reason.... I hope

Some times ago I wanted to create an adventure, looked around for a nice engine and finally found WME. I was so impressed by the work of Jan that I had to donate some little thanks immediately.
Unfortunately, well not directly unfortunately I 'suddenly' had no time at all to do an adventure ... I became father ... again ... and as i am a Homeworker/Houseman I can tell you : OMG, she (my baby) started off nice and quiet but now she keeps me running from 6 AM to 7 PM leaving me as a wreck afterwards... not to mention my tinnitus

But to keep a long story short, I wanted to restart but, helas , had a look at AGS and even installed it... the many ready games as reference were nice and I was looking for a easy beasy solution but AGS didn't seem any easier than WME but they have many great references. AND NOW I finally come the the reason of the bumping! Searching for references done with WME was quite a struggle, either the link didn't work anymore, or the game always crashed, or the subject was too adulty, so there wasn't really any games showing me what WME could actually do, I was even near to really start out with AGS!!! BUT THEN I found Dirty Split!! and downloaded it and played it and WOOOOW!! That was THE reference I was looking for, no crashes, fantastic visuals, fantastic sound, fantastic story, lovely style, everything is so extreme cool I was really wondering why oh why I had to find it by chance?? IMHO the gaming list should be updated ASAP and this game should be mentioned at the top, even with a short interview and a making off maybe. What better reference does WME need??

So, ah yes, that was it   

[Schnuffel]

Thank you very much, that's really flattering

I'm glad you're having fun with the game, and I'm even more happy if it helps in drawing more (well-deserved) attention to WME. I'd love to see you finding the inspiration to create your dream game through this.
However, I hardly think Dirty Split makes use of everything WME has to offer, so I don't know if it's such a good showcase piece for the engine. An eyecatcher maybe, one of many, but there are far more advanced projects that implement many more of WME's features (such as 3D actors).

Anyway, thank you for your nice comment. It's feedback like this that makes me think it was worth spending all this time on this project

[Dudeldei]

Hi Schnuffel (woher der Name bloss kommt...??),

it's seldom the technique that makes a game looking great (->Crysis) it's always the person/the team using the tool that makes the difference. And it's not important how much of a tool you use as long as the end-result is so convincing.

Oh, and inspiration is never the problem I have (maybe overinspiration ) but time, time, time.... (again 45 mins of my spare working time gone,because my baby woke up and my wife was out jogging  ) but it was my choice and it's great for a man to really live how ones children grow up, really top-cool, so no remorse, but I really have fun working, so...

Have you ever thought about a little making-of, would be cool 

PS: I read your post about making a 3D adventure, are you really sure about this, haven't seen any atmospheric title yet, and I am in the 3D business too (mainly architectural vis) and it's terribly difficult to create movies or even worse real-time 3d with spirit. It's easier with stills, because I can use Photoshop a lot and fake fake fake.

[Schnuffel]

(Spitznamen kann man sich nur bedingt aussuchen, und irgendwann gewöhnt man sich dran )

A making of... I've kinda done one already here. The thing is that I don't have any concept art apart from VERY crude scribbles, so there's not much to show for a making of. What you see in the game was pretty much developed directly without much ado. Rapid development, if you will

When your children get older and if you find the time (which is very hard, I know, even without children) then please DO pursuit your dream and concentrate your efforts on your game. I've started this project for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest was that I needed a break from my everyday IT projects and all the frustration they come with sometimes. Dirty Split was my way of both exhausting and recharging my creative batteries at the same time, something I don't get to do in my professional life. And I'm afraid if I don't do that more often, create something of my own that is, then the everyday frustration will take over the ability and the passion to create. So if you have that passion then don't let it die, use it instead. I'm very much looking forward to your game

About the 3D project: Actually, I don't see any other way. The story and atmosphere are both very serious, so a comic look won't do. And I'm afraid any hand-drawn look will be out of place in the kind of atmosphere I'm after. However, I'm aware of the sterile look so many 3D games and characters have, and I'd really like to avoid that.
I probably won't go towards 100% real-time 3D, though. I checked out a few engines and was pleasantly surprised at their ease of use when creating ego shooters, but I came to realize that a lot of customization would be necessary to create what I have in mind, and that I'd be more busy with the engine than with the actual game. Also, real-time 3D would impose bigger hardware requirements on players, and I don't want to put off adventure gamers who usually don't play resource hungry titles. Besides, WME is such a great tool and a breeze to work with, and I'd love to stick to it for a 2.5D game with heavily photoshopped pre-rendered backgrounds

[Dudeldei]

Schnuffel ist doch nett, richtig süß 

I watched the making-of, very nice to see how you build the scene from many layers. What did you use? Plain Photoshop, or some 3d tool?

When your children get older and if you find the time (which is very hard, I know, even without children) then please DO pursuit your dream

Oh, I will, I have one BIG BIG dream I am working on for one year now, got the prototyp ready a few months ago (on my holidays with notebook) I always work best on holidays, when I can concentrate for several hours without interruption for two+ weeks. Unfortunataly we can't go on holidays as often as I'd like
But besides this one Uberthing I do (people called me crazy and they are probably wright) I need some smaller creative tasks to keep me motivated. The trick is to keep it small enough...

About the 3D project: Actually, I don't see any other way.

I do understand you, and as much as I love 3D this is gonna be a really big task for you, but I'm sure you will find a way. BTW do you know Blitz3D or BlitzMax? I did my second realtime architectural presentation with Blitz3D, because my contractors wanted to serve very basic hardware-configurations. My workflow was XSI->Ultimate Unwrap 3d->Blitz3d. It's only DirectX7 but it's very compatible and easy to use. Maybe it's worth having a look..?

[Schnuffel]

The backgrounds are plain photoshop, no 3D previz used. And the perspective in many screens is total guesswork too, sometimes it's even way off... but it works well enough for this style

I had a quick look at Blitz3D, but it lacks support for shaders AFAIK, and generally seems a bit outdated. Maybe I dismissed it too quickly, I don't know. Torque seemed interesting, but I don't like their business model and the engine's code base has a reputation for being very dirty and spaghetti-code-ish. So in the end it boiled down to Panda3D (for its quick and easy scripting ability through Python) and NeoAxis (for its powerful features and easy to use editors and C# coding). If I did decide to go full 3D, I'd use one of these two... right now though I think they're too cumbersome to work with when you have non-standard ambitions. A game project is challenging enough on its own, I don't want to have to fight an engine and trick it into doing what I need it to do unless there's a major benefit from all the hassle.

[Dudeldei]

Now that's cool, I really would have guessed you used some sort of 3d tool and then draw over it. Bravo

Unfortunately the missing shaders were the reason why I used blitz3d and it's proven workflow and it's maturity it had to run even on the oldest graphic card, texture size was also a big issue, fortunately I could use dds. I once did an interactive vis with quest3D, it was terrible, only nodes that had to be combined and changes were a real pain, never again.

Panda3D is what I will be using for my main project, mainly because it's python and plattform independent. Neoaxis seems cool enough too, at least in the indie version.

But if you want to stick with 2.5D you might as well continue with WME as you already mentioned, at least this tool you know very well and it has served you fine.

[Schnuffel]

Panda3D is what I will be using for my main project, mainly because it's python and plattform independent.

Exactly. Those are the coolest features of Panda3D, and it seems to be pretty resource friendly towards end users. There are not many good examples for its power though, and it's not the most sophisticated of engines. On top of that, there are no visual editors or a development suite, it's all just script based.

NeoAxis on the other hand is pretty powerful, but hardly platform independent due to its use of the .NET environment. That's what bugs me most, although I like C# from a development perspective. Also, it's not as transparent as Panda3D, the documentation is rudimentary and - again - good examples are very rare.

I wish there was a full 3D game engine that's as excellent as Wintermute: Very stable and virtually bug free, good performance, great development suite, excellent documentation, full-fledged examples / finished projects and a developer (or several) who's as kind and helpful as Mnemonic. I'll just keep looking for now, I guess. Luckily my project doesn't absolutely require full 3D and there's nothing that I couldn't do with WME and a few tricks.

Is there something you'd like to show from your project? I'm really curious now