The Second Step

~airwave~ - I Fought the Law, and the Law One has been out for nearly a week now, and the reception has been encouragingly positive. Feedback seems to show that the world and characters are engaging enough that players are interested in seeing more, the musical theme of the game has been very well received and I've gotten some great suggestions from players that I can incorporate.

Now, however, comes something that I have to do that I've never done before: Build a sequel.

Obviously it isn't really a sequel; I took my original story and split it up into a number of chapters, so it's really more of a continuation than a separate second part. This provides some challenges that I am quite conscious of, though:

- I need to make sure that, even though it's a single smaller part of a greater story, the game can be played as an individual unit, so that if players have forgotten plot elements they aren't left wondering characters are doing certain things. The story needs to have a clear, engaging beginning and conclusion, which ties it to both the previous game and the next one seamlessly.

- I need to introduce a whole new setting without losing it feeling like it is disconnected from the setting in the previous game. The location needs to feel different without feeling like a whole new world.

- A whole new bunch of characters need to be introduced, and they need to be engaging and memorable, with personalities that complement Elodie's personality and allow her character opportunity for further development.

Being my first sequel ever, I'm quite nervous about it. I really love the first game, and am glad it has been well received, and I don't want this to feel like a weaker second part. After establishing the location of Wave, it feels like hard work to go and build Eda City knowing that people probably would like to go and spend more time around Wave.

I'm still trying to sort the game's plot out - obviously I have the major plot points mapped out, but am still quite unclear on how exactly they tie together - something that needs to be compelling.

These things, however, do develop somewhat naturally over time, and I'm not stressing too much about it just yet. I've still plenty of other things to keep me busy for now, and aside from giving Elodie a change of clothes and a couple of backgrounds and characters being sketched out, the game only exists in my head.

We'll see how it gets from there to my (and yours) computer soon, I hope.

~airwave~ - I Fought the Law, and the Law One

The first part of ~airwave~ is finally done!

It's been a crazy time trying to remember how exactly it was I managed to make games before whilst still having a job and a band and actual time off, but we survived somehow, and the game is now available for you to play, should you so wish.

Check it out here.

Mockery!

So! Today was a nice quiet Sunday, and with no backgrounds to paint for any games in progress, I decided it would be a fine day to draw a mockup for an adventure game! I love drawing little adventure game scenes, even if they never turn into actual games.

I played Eternally Us again for the first time in ages last night, and was pleased by how lovely Steve's falling snow looks, so I decided to spend my mockup time drawing a snowy kinda scene. I'd spent quite a bit of my morning looking through Paul Lasaine's stuff, and so quite unsurprisingly ended up painting a kinda fantasy scene suitable for a point and click adventure. Compared to the snow scene in Eternally Us, this one looks much nicer - I've started using a lot smaller brushes and painting at actual size rather than painting large and downsizing, and it seems to be paying off.

Painted the scene in just over an hour, drew the character in just over half an hour, all the while listening to the delightful album Cinéma by those shoe gazing folks known as The High Violets.

Speaking of Eternally Us, the AGS award nominations for 2010 have been announced, and it seems we got quite a few noms for EU. Big thanks to everyone who voted, we got more nominations than I honestly expected to get, so what a lovely surprise.

Anyhow, back to work on real AGS game stuff!

Old vs New

(click for bigger image)

So. The final scene is finally painted, nearly all the animations are done and in the game, almost all of the bugs and suggestions my testers have made have been fixed/changed/added and I'm nearly ready to write the last scene into the game. We're definitely close to the first part being released now!

As I finished the final scene, something I'd been putting off until I was sure I really wanted it in the game and had the time to do it, I saved it to the backgrounds folder and had a look through all the backgrounds of the game. It's not a huge game - and it's only the first part - but there's an interesting range of backgrounds. I designed some nice locations in the town of Wave, where this first part is set, and enjoyed painting them all. However, sometimes the initial concept sketches for the backgrounds - which I did nearly a year ago - are totally different to how they ended up.

The image above shows how I envisioned two scenes for the game initially, and then underneath how each scene turned out in the end. In some cases, where I had drawn 2 adjoined rooms in concept sketches I ended up combining both parts into a single background, indeed, I'm starting to use depth a bit more, particularly in my indoors scenes.

In other cases, I totally changed the shape, layout and colour palette of a location, to make for what I feel is a more visually immersive location. It's interesting to see how much has changed from when I drew the concept sketches to how the scenes ended up, and how much my style changed in that time.

I haven't posted all my concept sketches here, of course, because I want to save some surprise for when you actually play the game, but I felt it would be interesting to share these otherwise never to be used concepts, and the contrast with the final piece.

In Progress

Recently I picked up an old concept for a game and decided I had come up with a good enough plot to actually start building a game out of it. Therefore, a few weeks ago I sat down and spent a weekend putting together enough graphics to make the first part of this game. With quite a bit of plot to cover, I've decided to try releasing the game in short chapters, to let people play the game while I work on bigger projects and real life things.

It's not very often that I wait nearly a whole year to develop an idea into something I like enough to turn into a game, and I'm proud of how the first part has come together, featuring what is some of my favourite examples of my graphics and writing to date. This first part is very nearly done, it's completely playable and missing only a few animations, bugfixes and audio before it is complete, as well as polishing up some of the dialogue.

Therefore, I'm confident enough to announce the first part of the game will be released soon, and look forward to seeing what people think!