Interview BakeSale: Bill Garrett

Tonight, we feature poc301 or Bill Garrett. You must of course be aware that lately the articles quality has increased. And I'm still writing the same crap.

GO TO THE GAME TOPIC

1) Why and how did you join the AGS Bake Sale ?

It was Neil, my artist's suggestion. He saw the thread on it and pitched the idea that we do a game for the sale. We had just finished Murran 3 and had only begun some very early work on Murran 4, so it was the perfect time to begin. We weren't stopping any real momentum on a current game.

2) Talk a bit about your game (what is it about, how you came up with it).

Abner the Amazing is about a boistrous, obnoxious and self aggrandizing warrior who is thrust into a devilish task. It seems some nefarious person or persons stole all the color from the world. Abner must discover who stole the colors, where they took them, why they took them, and then get them back. Along his quest he meets a thief and a mage who join him in his quest. The three characters are playable by switching between them at any time. Each has his own special ability they can perform. The game uses a 2-click interface, looking and using (which includes talking, special abilities, or manipulating items). The real goal for the game should have been to get through it without wanting to stab a screwdriver through your computer monitor into Abner to keep him from talking about how amazing he is the entire time.

3) Tell us a bit about yourself and how you got yourself into game making in the first place.

I'm in my early 30s, work in the IT industry, live in Maryland, USA and am married. Neil, the character artist and musician for the game is a professional art teacher living in West Virginia, USA. He is around the same age as me, and we've both been playing games since the early 80s when we were young children. I discovered the Sierra and then Lucasarts games, and fell in love with the adventure genre. I found the AGS engine in 2004 or so, and have been tinkering ever since. My first game was Murran Chronicles 1, which came out in 2009. It was more a learning experience than anything else really. Episode 2 came out a few months later, and was a bit more developed, complex, or what have you. Murran 3 took a lot longer to make, and this was where Neil came on board. His character art with my more careful scripting, background art and just overall better attention to detail made the game over 2 years in development, but it came out right before the Bake Sale. I guess it boils down to Neil and I getting into game making because we're both big fans of the genre and are a bit creative at heart. I think if you asked anyone who makes games, those would be big reasons for them to do so.

Game Dev Part 2: The Setting

Welcome to part 2 of my articles about writing good adventure games. Sorry for the delay between the first article and this one, but between the Christmas/New Year holiday and my contribution of a game to the AGS Bake Sale, I was a bit short on time of late. Part one of this series dealt with character development, and this part deals with the importance of the game's setting.

The setting of a story in a nutshell tells where the story takes place. While it may show the geographical "where" of a story, it should also show the "when". The setting of your game should help set the mood of the game, influence the way your various characters act and interact, affect the game's dialog, can help to foreshadow events, invoke an emotional response with the player, and sometimes even play a part in the story itself.

Picking an appropriate setting for the type of game you're doing is important. Using a tropical location when the game involves romance or exotic thrill-rides is a good idea since that is what our brains are conditioned to think. Likewise, using mountains or woods if a game has to do with running from a crazed madman will be more effective than using a setting like a child's birthday party. There is more suspense to be had running your character through streams, dodging between trees and hiding in abandoned log cabins than there would be if he was blowing up balloons for Timmy the birthday boy.

The mood of a setting is very important to get the character immersed in the game. If you have a setting with an abandoned mansion that is gloomy, dusty, creaking from age, and add flickering candles, scary music and cobwebs, you've got a heck of a spooky scene. This wouldn't fit for a light hearted comedy game. The more immersive the game, the more the players will enjoy it. The mood can be enhanced further by adding weather to your game. If your game takes place high in the Alps in a cabin where you're waiting for a delivery from a secret agent, adding a blizzard can increase drama, tension and overall atmosphere for the game.

And finally, it's the little things make all the difference. If you're making a game that takes place in New Orleans, like the original Gabriel Knight game, you'll want to make sure you thoroughly research your target scene. Referring to places correctly, using slang terms that are correct to the country or region of the country, and even perfecting the dialects are important things. People who live in Louisiana sound much different from people who live in New York or California. This is especially important if you're doing a speech pack for your game. Adding this level of complexity will do much to immerse the player in the game world you have created.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of the series coming soon dealing with the game's plot.

Bake Sale Games Announced

From the executive cow producer of the Bake Sale:

That's right! Against all odds, we, the unbearably sexy members of the mysterious Baker's Dozen, have delivered the thirteen morsels of gaming goodness we pledged to deliver (plus one more, because thirteen is unlucky).

There will be more info on the 20th day of January.

List of games follows:

9 Months In
by Tzachs, Noavana, and gameboy

Abner The Amazing
by poc301 and LocutusOfBored

Barn Runner: The Rich Dame Who Cut The Cheese
by Ponch

Ben Chandler, Paranormal Investigator - In Search Of The Sweets Tin
by Grundislav

Entrapment
by Tenacious Stu

Escape The Barn
by Cat

Falling Skyward
by ThreeOhFour

Fragment
by Kaputtnik and ThreeOhFour

Indiana Rodent and the Raiders Of The Lost Cheese
by Radiant

The Rail
by Technocrat

RAM Ghost
by Ghost

Red Volition
by Hofmeier

Retina
by Dualnames

Zombie Attack
by ShiverMeSideways

We don't post as much as we used to.

Not wanting to sound any nostalgic, cause well I find all my earlier posts a bit mediocre and crazy, and all that. But, it's just a nice statistic. The blog has been getting the traffic that was considered unimaginable, in fact since 2010 or so, we have quantupled the total viewership.

Now onto a graphic. Roll the clip, Steven!


So do you think it's better that the posts are getting less and perhaps of bigger quality? I say perhaps, so take the sentence with a lot of salt. Also despite SSH isn't posting as much as he used, he still owns the record of most posts per month, and that is 54 and just on his own. That equals to about 2 blog posts per day.

I will also like to thank poc301 for increasing the viewership by a considerable amount. And increasing the content.

Character Development

Greetings everyone, and welcome to my first post on the AGS Blog!

I was brought on board to help with the general game, industry and forum based stuff, but also to do articles about game development and writing a good game. I’m going to focus this article on a very important aspect of writing/creating a good adventure game: character development!

Without characters that are well developed, the game becomes tedious for the player. Who cares whether Jack climbs the beanstalk and defeats the giant if he has the personality of a cardboard box? It is when the player builds a ‘relationship’ with the characters in the game, and come to actually care about what happens to them, that the most immersion happens and the game seems to take on a life of its own. It is in these instances that an adventure game can really shine.

I did a lot of research on this topic in 2009 when I released Murran 2 and a lot of the reviews come back saying the game lacked any real character development. I made sure when the sequel was released this year that I had spent as much time as possible trying to turn the pixels on the screen into a living, breathing person with feelings, desires and motivations. I would like to think I accomplished this task, and here are some tips I can share for developing a character:

Make sure before you begin writing any dialog that you plan out each character. What are their back-stories? What happened to them in the past to make them the way they are now? What motivates them? Do they desire money? Fame? Power? Are they just a drug addict willing to do anything for their next fix of drugs? Make sure the back-story for the character SUPPORTS and helps along the flow of the game.

Delve further into the character… Do they have any pet peeves? Does something really irritate them? What is their daily schedule like? If they are a busy person, maybe their character will always be in a rush. Maybe they will be forgetful because they are always rushing around.

When you write dialog, write it “as” the character. Put yourself into the shoes of that character, and design the speech and behavior as that person would. Keep in mind their history, desires, quirks and their feelings on things.

Make your character question themselves. Some good drama can be had by introducing a twist which can cause the character to question who they are.

One arc or two? There is the arc of development which comes over time as the characters experience things and learn. There is ALSO a more subtle arc that characters can experience as they SEE the other characters doing things. A good example of this is character A getting jealous of character B when they are seen going to visit character B’s ex-girlfriend. Character A is developing through the outer arc as he learns about the stolen jewelry she has, and Character B is developing through the inner arc as he perceives some kind of affair going on. It is unfounded, but he doesn’t know it.

Emotions. Learn the five stages of grief : http://grief.com/the-five-stages-of-grief/ Nothing ruins the immersion in a good game like characters who don’t have realistic responses to events. We all know that if someone is killed during a moment of high drama, the main character shouldn’t laugh. But what might not be so obvious is that the character, to be believable, should follow a staged and set path of dealing with this event. It shouldn’t be “I’m pissed off! “, then 10 minutes later be acting like nothing happened.

So to sum it all up, there is a lot that goes into character development, and well developed characters will make for a more fun and immersive game for the person playing it.

The Star Trek team gets a new member

Well, I believe we were always like the USS Enterprise. Just, well not that awesome. So if SSH is Scotie, I am probably and definitely Captain Kirk, then we just got our Spock. Yes, so please all welcome our newest addition:

POC301

We are very happy to have him aboard, and he'll be doing some very interesting blog posts. You'll see. I joined this blog on 26 of November 2008, so yeah, that's a nice sign.
Also not to forget the man, made the Murran Chronicles, so you should check them out, like now!

Anyhow, I'm sure he'll have some great content here as well.

Post of the Week: Atapi and Eric - Cool Adventure Games 3 steps away

Back again, dear viewers or random internet linkers, and we're about to see some really cool stuff from the AGS scene.

-Atapi:
A game by Moody Blues, finally released says I, and it's really looking and feeling rather good. The story takes you to a strange universe, where a father descended from an alien race of some sort (haven't played that much), is trying to save the village from a disease. I say give it a try for it's worth it!!



-In production(yes, not ready so don't get jumpy already!!)
-Eric and the Apostolic Megalith:
That's really so good to be true, a game attempting to pay a tribute to all those 90's games, but from the looks of it and the story of it, man, I have to play this. Can't resist really. Just look at that!! On the story behalf, there's Eric a sort of a loser, a Megalith, and parody all over the game.


-3 Steps Away (Not literally):
A game by a newcomer, to be precise and upcoming game from a newcomer, that's looking really good. And professional. It's a horror based adventure game. A boy while on holiday with his parents wakes up one morning and can't find anyone at home... 20 years later this person is having a peaceful life in Boston. He sudenly receives a letter that the words on it remind the way his father talked. Our hero Nathan thinks that its time to solve this mystery with his parents disappearance. Sounds intriguing...


-Rest News:
Poc301 after losing the last special MAGS, has decided to put a link of his prize (that was a CD with all the 5 years MAGS entries) so you can get it

Here as a zip

Here as a torrent (might work as Save As)
It's legal and free so no worries :D.

Post of the Week: Mr Danger's Sellout Carnival of Aquatic Siths

Due to me not being able to cover stuff on the AGS forums as frequently as I would wish to, I decided to call my posts as "Post of the Week" and post four biggies per month.


Competions and Activities Sub Forum:

Not really much here, but well, here's some interesting ones:
-Progz's Sprite Jellyfish ending 6th of June:

ProgzMax, or Shane Stevens, or Atomic Playboy, has chosen a really cool theme for this sprite jam, can you:

1. Create an aquatic buddy/enemy/other for the lonely Pac-Fish!

2. Name your aquatic buddy/enemy/other and tell us a bit about it.

3. Use gradient-style dithering to help shade your aquatic lifeform.

4. And the most important rule: Have fun.

-MAGS June: Sellout:

This month's MAGS rules are set by OneDollar that won the April MAGS with Breakdown. The last MAGS was a special one, and the winner will just get some inventory items and not the chance to host the next MAGS as it usually used to happen.(That's why it's called Special). The rules can be found here.


-Games to play:
-Mr Danger's Contest:
Despite the fact that the name of the host feels unispired and rather b-movie, poc301 has picked one hell of an idea to make a MAGS entry. The game's really good looking, and the story is about you, wanting money badly, accepting an invitation for a contest among with some other people. Thing is someone has been killing your competitors. He/She wants the money badly...do you want them worse?



-Game to wait for:
-Shai-La of the Sith:
A game initially released about two weeks ago, with ripped graphics, now has been removed by Marion(the author of the game) in order to be given a facelift. The result feels really good, and I'm so awaiting for Marion to finish it..In the Star Wars universe, the life of Darth Vader's young apprentice, Shai-la, who will live the events of the two trilogies and meet characters from the movies and the Extended Universe during her various missions on different planets. She will learn the powers of the Force and become a powerful young Sith ! Oh, and the game's is more of an RPG/adventure thing.

MI - Carvaval Vudu:
A sequel to the Secret of Monkey Island, but apart from the fact, there's not much to tell, it looks astonishing good.









-Last Minute News:
TIG source has an article about the RON, praying Ben mostly. Read it here.

Dualnames Sees All

*With a small help this time

Well, someone has been working on a game. That is of course of no interest to you. And me to be fair. But what if the game looks gorgeous..and what if the man making it is Ghost? Yeah, Bjorn Ludwig, the ags Ghost, the man behind Once Upon A Crime. I'm sure Ghost almost thought I wouldn't see this..:D


Anyway, about the game, from what I can tell it looks awesome, and from what Ghost tells, it's a puzzle based game, and it has something to do with a very famous band. Earth Wind and Fire(and water) that is.

Speaking about all, what games in production I'm shitting my pants for?

1.Murran Chronicles 3: Beerdrinkers and Hellraisers

Well, poc301 is working on another installment of the series and without wanting to hit the other two with a bad comment this looks really better. He has taken some art tutorials and with a little help from the community he's GREATLY improved. Can't wait for this.

Oh, and since it's Indynames hunting the lost games..have another one:
Lemmy and Cpt.Binky are behind this..but luckily, there's something more beside the picture.

Note: Click on the picture for a little more info.



And another thing, something to play:
-Femspray:
Haven't played it yet to form my own opinion, but people find it funny and Babar said it's really quite a fun too. So that does it.

But what game containing this can fail?

"It's got lots of nudity, some sexual bits, loads of gender swapping and even some humour too; So if any of these things offend (especially the last one), or you're a little on the young side (under 18) then this probably isn't for you (but you can use your own discretion)."

Murran Review

JD, aka "Find Therma" has also started a review blog and his first one is Murran Chronicles 2.