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1

Game design / Re: Game Concept: An Unkindness

« on: February 03, 2009, 10:30:28 PM »

Sounds like a very interesting notion - like the whole time-tripping thing  .

Raven reminds me a bit of the green lanturn - no idea why - might just be the pose lol.

As far as those abilities are concerned I think they are do-able - in many different ways. If you come up with a way which you would like to make this happen (e.g. select a shadow of a monster round a corner to scare off a guard NPC etc) to either be an animated sequence or real-time change you will need to take different approaches. But both are do-able for sure.

If you come up with a gameplan for these tricky bits i'm sure the good folks on here will be able to help you out.

Ice. 

2

Game announcements / Re: Dirty Split - Announcement (image heavy)

« on: February 02, 2009, 03:00:56 PM »

Hey schnuffel first of all excellent game and amazing intro! Voice acting is superb aswell as all the artwork!

Can I ask what software you used to create the visuals? Looks very Flash-based but I suppose its also doable in prog's such as photoshop etc.

Keep up the good work guys can't wait to see more from you!

Ice 

3

Won't implement / Re: Windows Mobile/CE support

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:36:35 PM »

Not sure about windows CE etc for games, but I know almost all phones support the java games format - also some phones like the LG Viewty support swf format (though not sure if that extends to games or just animations). But if it does then basically WME-ish games can be created in Flash - you just have to work a HELL of a lot harder. - check out the mechinama(?) thread to see what one looks like.

Don't know if that helps at all but you never know.

4

Software and games / Re: Google Sketchup 7 released

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:30:24 PM »

This is in fact a very useful tool. I used the pro version at university and it does export for .3ds format though some issues may occur (probably just me though tbh).

It may interest people to know but the Lionhead Team (yes the guys who made the fable series among others) used sketchup to draft out almost all of their buildings and environment 3D work for Fable II - then just exported and important in 3DMax or Maya or whatever and tweaked!

Shocked me when I first found out.

5

Technical forum / Re: change background color?

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:25:22 PM »

I think your best bet is to know what resolution you are creating your game in - for example 1024x768 - then do all your drawing for backgrounds in a program such as Photoshop with the correct resolution. This way you can easily save and import without too much fuss.

6

Game design / Re: How do pros create a design document?

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:23:09 PM »

I'm not sure if this is entirely appropriate but I came across a demo of a program called SmartDraw2009. It has many features etc but one that I use is the mind-mapping system where you can quickly sketch up an idea as you would on paper and link it to whatever you like - its never going to be a proper design document but it serves as a computer based tool for quickly jotting down ideas and seeing where everything fits. Just google for SmartDraw2009 and you should get a 7day demo or some such!

7

Game design / Re: Displaying tasks/quests on beginning a new game

« on: January 28, 2009, 11:17:06 PM »

Agree with basically everything here....but just had a thought...

What if someone were to combine the best from both worlds?

Just off the top of my head - some sort of interactive "mind-map/brain-storm/spider-diagram" device. You have basic visual clues or text clues that you have uncovered but instead of the game already associating these things automatically - it is up to the player to associate them and fit them into the puzzle the way that they see fit.

For example you have a few tabs for say a detective story, victim, killer and evidence.

The victim can have his own mind-map - visually linking evidence to his name/image. These in turn are then linkable to any suspect which you see fit.

The tree continues to grow as you find more evidence and more information on each suspect and even more about the victim.

This can also be reversible if you plan to create your mind map around the killer and to see where the victim fits in, or even the evidence to see where victim and killer fit in.

All games like these use this simple method but all the work is done in the players head, and sometimes - especially for me on games such as broken sword - I have no idea where this "handkerchief" should go or what it should do - and it is plainly guess work when i come to a situation where i try every piece of evidence to see if the puzzle is solved - rather randomly and without thought.

I think that a system such as this one removes the rather easy "you picked up a handkerchief with the initials 'J.D' - This must be Jimmy Derry's!" or the sometimes frustrating writing down of "Jimmy Derry - habits include computer programmer - also used to sneeze a lot." but keeps some good things of both. For even though the quests are not that obvious - the clues and the means to link them are still there - and the other way round is that although its not as deeply immersing as writing everything down on a notepad beside your monitor - you still have the option to examine and fit together all the pieces of the puzzle in any particular order and in an order which is peculiar to you as the player.

This went on for more that I thought it would, sorry about the gibberish lol

8

Technical forum / Re: ANN: The future of WME

« on: January 26, 2009, 11:49:36 PM »

TBH the world would be a much better place (and cheaper!) if all folks were as generous as the wintermute team.

9

Technical forum / Re: ANN: The future of WME

« on: January 25, 2009, 06:56:50 PM »

aha didn't see that one - cheers Spellbreaker!

10

Technical forum / Re: ANN: The future of WME

« on: January 25, 2009, 06:11:44 PM »

Excellent news! Just been experimenting myself with the WME 1.8.6 and it is awesome - thanks for such a great tool for us to use for free. Just two things I'd like to point out/request.

1. Do commercial games created with this engine give a percentage back to the WME dev team? If not then I think they should do - put it into a big pot and let the ppl writing the plug-ins and extras use it for the future development of WME.

2. Comparing this to flash (I know I shouldn't!) but it would be nice to see the inclusion of a video format that would serve as a background or part of - rather than animated images - for example the easy import of flv video into the background of flash movies.

Otherwise thanks for such a great tool and I'm hoping to start creating games and interactive stories in the near future with this and hopefully 2.0 as well.