Diamonds in the Rough goes GOLD!
 

Dear friends,

I'm happy to announce that the making of our game is over. The production of the CDs has started and before long the program will be available for sale from our web page.

Diamonds in the Rough is a 'traditional', 3rd person point & click adventure game.

You play the role of a 20 year old American called Jason Hart. Jason is a high school dropout who works as an office boy. All that is about to change in the beginning of our story, when he is approached by a mysterious man who seems to know more about him than Jason does himself.

The man claims to represent an organization that recruits people who are believed to have "special abilities". Those abilities could be telepathy, telekinesis, or other extraordinary powers. Jason has had such an ability all his life, fearing to admit it to himself, let alone others. He accepts the job offer for this organization, which is called "Diamonds in the Rough".

The story begins as soon as Jason moves to a town in the Midwest, where he will be employed doing this mysterious "work". He will soon start to wonder who he is really working for, and what the purpose of the organization is.

http://www.atropos-studios.com/Exter...TRbuilding.jpg

I'd like to thank all my associates as well as everyone who believed in me. Never forget that this is a title made by a gamer for gamers.

Having helped somewhat from the beginning on the alpha & beta ( and gamma & delta !! :D ) I think I know the game pretty well inside out.
At any rate, I have written a long exhaustive & detailed (sort of ‘official’ I think) walkthrough which will be posted the day DITR is officially released (I guess about the middle of March 2008).

I know that many players are opposed to using walkthroughs on principle, and of course I do not advocate any changes of attitude. But although many of the puzzles are fairly straightforward, there are a few which have proved to be quite tricky. So for people who have not got the time (or patience) to possibly spend a few hours on a baffling problem, the walkthrough should be helpful.

Many people have complained that too many games follow a ‘mould’, and apart from increasingly advanced graphics, need something different.
Diamonds in the Rough is VERY different in more than one respect.

I strongly recommend that you buy & play it… and I (and I’m certain Alkis) will be excited to hear your opinions… good, bad, or indifferent.
I’ll start off by casting my vote... extremely good … but then I’m obviously very positively biased (although unfortunately I get no royalties or dividends, etc. :\ :9~

Nobody got any opinions whatsoever about a game that might be very different from the norm ?
No interest at all ??

I've downloaded the demo, but I've still to play it. Surely, the game looks good and character seems nice. The plot isn't the one for me, but it might be a good surprise ;)

As soon as I play the demo, I'll give you a more detailed opinion

Sounds great! 3rd-person, point-n-click, paranormal activity, I'm there!
The premise sounds a little like a Stephen King short story, Everything's Eventual. I'm intrigued.

I have a feeling that you (and everyone else) will be VERY surprised.
It's a sort of up to date drama/thriller.

( According to your 'top ten' and the list of games you're playing at present, it seems right up your street ! )

I wasn't hugely impressed by the demo, but I'll see what the reviews are like.

I agree with you, Ksandra: I just played the demo and, although the premise is intriguing, the characters have a fixity - in faces and motion - the feels unnatural and unnerving. The music is quite good and the voice acting sure is well done, even if a bit stereotypical.

Yeah, I wasn't impressed either. The animations are horrible. Those kind of animations could work in the nineties with a 320x200 resolution but nowadays it just looks bad. I also hate the "sierra" user interface. That's one of the many reasons I don't like sierra adventures. I find it tedious right clicking to find the right command and usually missing it and cycle all over again through them.

The voice acting is decent on the other hand, I've heard much worse in recent releases... IMO the only thing that could save this game is the story and the writing. From the demo the writing seemed fine we'll just have to wait and see the full game to know if the story is interesting enough.

Also, it would be nice if there was widescreen support. When are adventure game developers in general going to realise that??

I haven't had a chance to play the demo as yet, but it looks interesting. Congratulations!!

Tried the demo.

Good backgrounds, awful animation and plasticky character models.
Intriguing plot.

I think I'll wait for some reviews before I buy this one.

Good luck with it :)

Thank you for your comments everyone.

The models and especially the animation are indeed the game's weak spots. Its value lies in the story and the puzzles. If I did my job correctly, they're good enough to make you forget these flaws pretty fast. There is much more to the storyline than what the introduction suggests.

But I bet that's what every developer says, so by all means wait for the reviews. :) In the meantime, feel free to ask me if there's anything else you want to learn.

@Alkis

Which were your inspirations? Do I dare to see a little bit of Heroes in the plot line? Something about a mysterious Company, special persons that are compared to "diamonds in the rough", an abrupt incipit?

~~ Ksandra, Andrea, Keregioz, Skurken ~~

If you guys want to utilize the facilities of your up to date rigs, or if graphics, sprites, & animation are (understandably) of extreme importance to you, I would advise you NOT to purchase DITR.

If however, they are of importance, but not vitally so, then I would like to point out that :- ..........
..........The music is good, the dialogs very good, the subtitles excellent, the voice acting terrific, and the story superb ! :) :D

I played the demo and I found the setup intriguing enough that I want to know more. On that basis I'd say that the demo has done its job as far as I'm concerned.

Being a moderately older gamer the graphics aren't so much of an issue to me (though I thought they looked quite nice personally) As for the interface it's more or less the same inteface used in any AGS game so if you've played many of those (and I have played quite a few) it should feel perfectly natural to you.

Demo is not working for me, i get a black screen when running the game.

Can you share your PC specs?

This is probably due to a problem with a movie that plays in the very beginning, with the companies logo. This problem does not exist anymore in the actual game (different codecs), but still it's worth a try to do something...

Try one of the following:

1. Go to the file winsetup.com and double click. Then check on the option to play on a windowed mode (instead of full screen). Then when you play the game and it blacks out etc, do click on the window, press ESC, etc to see if it works... If not just close the window.
2. Try moving the file "atropos.avi" to a different directory. Then when you click to play the game it will spring some kind of warning like "Cannot locate the file blah blah" or something close. But it doesn't actually influence the demo. Click, or press ESC and keep playing (hopefully).

If these doesn't work, I don't know what else to propose, personally. Wait for Alkis to provide an idea...

No, the graphics are not of extreme importance to me, and - as you can see from my top list - I'm also a fan of old games. It doesn't mean, however, that I've no aesthetic sense, and - although I might be intrigued by the premise, the story and the concept - I find the character oddly plastic and scarcely communicative.

If the reviews also point out the greatness of the story - and story, as you well know, is the most important thing in a narrative -, I'll surely consider buying the game.

~~ Andrea ~~
Very fair indeed !

I meant to mention, and forgot, that the puzzles ("inventory based" i.e. no slider puzzles, mazes, maths or music puzzles, etc.) are also extremely good and the whole "Thoughts-Panel" concept is quite original!

The ending is long and detailed and somewhat similar to the dénouement of a good whodunit ... so PLEASE don't ever broadcast it when you've finished the game.

deleting the movie worked, try the game out now

edit:
Story seems good, but the character could defently look better