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The Great Blackout of 1924 -tech demo

Let's see.. it was 192-.... 4.. Yeah, it was 1924. This was during the prohibition, and crime was at an all time

high, even for Chicago. Every gangster, thug, hood, and dirty dealer in the whole damn city was doing what they

could for a good drink. This includes-, hell, especially the pigs. The whole damn force was crooked as a fat

stripper's dancing pole. I was the only one in the city who could clean the place up. Wouldn't you know it, right

when I'm THIS close to blowing their whole operation, an even bigger problem just pokes it's fucking head out of the

gutter.. Somebody had actually stolen the sun right out the god damn sky. If that ain't enough to get me re-assigned, nothing is.. Damn crooks'll hock anything on the black

market these days. As it turns out, the missing Sun was going to cause serious complications if I didn't get to the

bottom of it. What kind, you ask? Who did it and why, you ask? Well. I guess I'll just have to tell you the whole

thing from the beginning...

This is set in 1924, during the prohibition. You are [nameless] Private Eye/detective who has to deal with the greatest threat that mankind has ever had to face.. the sun is gone. Obviously, it's not meant to be a super-realistic game due to that aspect, but it has many (somewhat serious) overtones hidden in lighthearted dialog (SP?), storyline, and whatnot.

Okay, now past all that..

Graphics will look something like.. this. It's a screenshot straight from an early test of trying to get it to look how I imagined it. The black boxes at the top/bottom are always there.. so the scenery is going to be rather limited, but I love the effect it gives off (In the end, isn't that all that really matters?).

Gameplay will be along the lines of .. say.. Mario's missing.. to some extent. Your character never talks. The game is going to heavily rely on a system (very simple event-based) of having to 'type' everything you want your character to say (aside from a few instances of 'do you want to move to the next screen,etc and whatnot which will just be a yes/no choice). Most of the gameplay is going to be common-sense based riddles, and a lot of trying to figure out what to do next. Don't sound fun? Well.. that's my problem I suppose. I'm trying to make up for that by thinking up mini-game esque riddles. (puzzles and stuff).

Scripts Aside from a few basic tweaks to the default scripts, I want every aspect of this game to be completely based on events.

difficulty? Fucking HARD. Nearly every screen is going to have some kind of riddle (easy or difficult) just to figure out what the hell you have to do to get past some obstacle or to obtain some object or something.

What makes this thing so different? Well.. it's not an RPG, for one. It's side-scrolling, for another one.. And.. the graphics (along with everything else) in the game are 100% froms cratch, down to the system sounds (i wanted to have an origional font, but i found one that perfectly suited it).

music? Well.. it's based in chicago. Expect a swing beat 99% of the time, and some jazzy bass.

Length? Eh, shouldn't be TOO long. I'm hand-drawing all this stuff, and I dont wanna get arthritis (yeah, i know, the most likely of scenarios).

plot/character development? Can't promise anything there, that's not my strong point.. at all. It should be a straight shot from start to finish (that is.. assuming I actually finish it).

All I got to show for is about a minute (if you know how to do it) or so of an actually playable tech-demo. It's 2 screens, has one riddle.. and one screen that's pointless so far.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3269 ... antvq3.png[/IMG]
Okay, the little green thing on the right is the nameless investigator. He's a frog. :3 (By the way, in this game pigs = cops.) The little magnifying glass shows up when there's somethign you can interact with, which -in this spot- is the pig.
KEEP in mind that this is just a early screenshot, there's going to be a HUD, point display (didn't mention that anywhere up there, there's going to be a point system in the game) inventory display.. etc,etc. Maybe a few other little perks, if I can cook anything else up.

How much is done?
Story.. Presumably around 50% of the story
graphics... don't know.. 5%? I just gotta draw the stuff when I need it.

That's all there really is to track, I'll start tracking mini-games if I ever think of any good ones.




feedback...If anyone get's the guy in the coat to congratulate them, let me know if it was too easy/hard. Also let me know if there's any spelling mistakes, i'm terrible at spelling. And last, but certainly not least, let me know if it's worth continuing on with this damned project. Thanks.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/7195/1924xg3.png[/IMG]


TECH DEMO V 0.1 http://www.4shared.com/file/14017761/edba3664/Project1.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/14018112/671c9dfd/scb.html (font that needs to be installed)

I REALLY need to mention this, on the beta title screen (the one in that file) it says "The Great Blackout of 1954". Apparently I was off by about 20 years on thinking the prohibition was during the 30's-50's. >_> Please just ignore that little aspect. Also keep in mind the music and graphic files are beta (especially the music files). Another thing to ignore is the menu.. I'm gonna kill that off for a 'pause' screen.


TECH DEMO V 0.2
http://www.4shared.com/file/14115566/110f6c87/TECH_DEMO_02.html
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=DDD287104A62107D (Mirror at yousendit. Only there for 7 days as of April 22)
(i included the font this time)
A few things have been added/fixed. The pause screen is still inoperable, and the 'help' screen is non-existant in the 'play' game. Be aware the game never ends, after the time limit it will just tell you 'you ran out of time' and if you make it out of the house, it just says 'continue'.


WTFUX does everyone think of this? I dunno. It's not done.. but I'll tell you what I think that they think:

Gamespot.com
"We take our business seriously. If you want our attention, you're gonna have to try harder than this"

Nintendo
"Where's Mario at?"

EGM
"Please leave a message after the 'BEEP'.."

EA Games
"From over here, it looks like a 4 year-old drew those graphics. Come back to us when you have a crew of over-worked employees that work 72 hours a week with no overtime. We might take you seriously, then."

X-Play
"No, I will not make out with you. Quit calling, that's part of the restraining order."

Microsoft
"Go away, I'm playing Warcraft."

I also asked pitchfork media. However, they only went on about the futility of my efforts and how the start screen was a crude replica of an unpainted fence for about 4 paragraphs before stating that they weren't interested in my project, and neither is the rest of the world.


Scripts
Anti-lag by lambchop
 
I like the idea, but I was expecting sort of like a film noir look and I found those animals... not that that's bad, I was just surprised. Looks promising, good luck.
 
Haha.. when you say it like that, it seems kinda bad. I guess I'll try to kick the beginning of the actual game off soon and see how it goes.
 
Thanks. I have a 0.2 tech demo done (much more in it than the 0.1 tech demo), it's the first five minutes of the game, and a tutorial (which is actually just the 0.1 demo).. I need a volunteer to test it, please? I've tried it, everything seems to work fine, but maybe there's something I messed up.. It IS a thinking game, even though you're timed, so I guess it's a quick-thinking game. I need to know if the riddles are too difficult to figure out though (I want this to be hard, but not impossible).
 
For some reason, why I type in Flashlight, when i'm looking in the Desk it's not there. I'm trying exactly right, but for some strange reason it's not showing.
But the rest is fine, It is hard, but not impossible, you allways have that help button if you have no idea what to do. Once I finished the Tutorial I didn't need to use that button any more.
I like your Game Style, I would love to play this game when it's finished. :thumb:
 
Thanks, I see what the problem with that was.. I use a name character thing for everything, and sometimes on the conditional branch I set the wrong actor on 'if [actor] name is 
 
I think this idea is rather promising. The graphics are well drawn and look perfect for a comedy or something like that.

I like how you've done the black counterparts for the wide screen look.
The game was rather original in the way it was played, but it could turn out rather boring in the end.

I like the originality of this though, keep it going.
 
Hmmm.. well, I guess it's back up now? I'll mirror it at rapidshare on the first post.
And It's really only got two sound files in it so far (as far as BGM goes). Neither one are finished, per-se, because I'm very critical about how my music sounds. They sound cool, so far, though.
 

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