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Old 12-13-2011, 10:39 PM   #41
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Ive said it before and Ill say it again. Your guys work is freaking bad ass. I would take any one of those backgrounds and frame it!

I'd love to have the technical know-how to develop my own engine. Dont get me wrong, Visionaire is really really good-but there are some 'sacrifices' that I've had to make for the technical limitations of the engine.
Nicely however, I have contacted the guys who are behind the engine, and they have been very willing to add in a whole lot of feature requests.
Interestingly, your sketch books look exactly like mine. Although they are perhaps a little more organised!

Im constantly drawing on EVERYTHING, so I decided to buy a big 3 hole-punch file, and divide it all up like that. But when you go through the file, you find drawings and notes on the back of menu's, work notes, receipts...

Fantastic work guys. Just truly inspiring stuff!
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Old 12-14-2011, 12:23 AM   #42
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Peter254: Yeah, keeping it simple is what its all about. At a start, the smaller and more contained you decide to make it, the better. It will balloon anyhow, take it from me.

Regarding all those GF similarities, now that you mention it, you're right. They're allover the place. Maybe GF left an even bigger imprint on me than I thought. That can't be a bad thing.

pyke: Thanks agan, man. Your comments are highly encouraging! I know all about the "sketch on everything" syndrome. I've got piles of unorganized bits and pieces of various papers just lying around in a big mess. I should scan it all one day.... A mindboggling project in its scale, heh.

Regarding visionare and AGS, etc. .. Yes, that is the price you pay. One has to admit though that both packages are incredibly competent, and indeed, living things where changes/features to some extent can be requested. Its difficult not to love such development environments even though you do get a little with their limitations some times.
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Old 12-19-2011, 02:32 PM   #43
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Some new screens











See them in higher-res over at the official webpage!

Comments and critiques are always welcome! Thanks y'all!
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Old 12-22-2011, 04:49 PM   #44
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Great pics, but is that Hitler lol?
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Old 01-06-2012, 01:26 PM   #45
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I prefer saying he's a little hitler-esque.

Today we FINALLY wrapped up recording of Bwana's (our main character) lines.
Anthony Sardinha, the voice actor has done an amazing job there. Working with voice actors is a lot of fun but one hell of a lot of work - for everyone. Holy crap. Feels amazing having that gigantic part of the project wrapped up.

Here's a new screenshot featuring the full main cast by the way. Kito, Bwana and Lina all posing for the internets.

!
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Old 01-07-2012, 02:05 AM   #46
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Im interested to know how you dealt with the Voice Artists? Was it just a case of sending off a completed script and waiting for the reply, or did you send batches of lines at a time?

How did you deal with characters talking to each other...like, did you actually send through the recorded dialogue for the voice artist to 'respond' to, or did you keep it all separate?

Forgive my prying! Im just going to be moving onto the voice artists for my game soon and would love to get some insight.
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Old 01-10-2012, 11:43 PM   #47
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Good to hear you're about to begin voice work! It is an incredibly rewarding process, though it is a lot of hard work. But once in place the voices add one heck of a lot of life.

The process has been very straight forward. To most actors I have simply sent a long list of lines, with a comment after each line, regarding mood, like so:

230: "Boy do I wish I had a bowl of pudding!" (happily, dreamily yearning after pudding)

In the cases of conversations for most actors, I simply showed them the full conversation in text so they knew what they were replying to. For our main character I didn't do this though, it would have been too much text to handle. In that case I tried to be specific with my (comments) and when the line was delivered in an "off" manner, I simply asked for a retake. Normally each line delivered to me would be delivered in 3-8 different takes. This is incredibly helpful, since it gives the actor a couple of tries at different approaches, with emphasis on different things in the sentence. Going through all these takes is a huge project but it's definitely worth the effort.

As for flow of conversations, what we've got implemented so far sounds great. The rhythm is surprisingly good even though none of the actors acted "toward" one another. I am confident that we will find places that need tweaking though, once all dialog has been implemented into the game. It is A LOT of dialog.

If you're looking to cast your game I can wholeheartedly recommend headhunting on the VAA forums. It's got the full range between hobby actors and professionals. I've found the lion's share of my actors there and am VERY pleased with the overall quality of their work. (that's not saying everyone on VAA are skilled or will fit your project, you will definitely have to be sure to get a lot of auditions sent to you.)

Going all the way from hunting voice actors to actually receiving finished lines that you are satisfied with is a LONG journey though. I presume you don't have as much dialog to record as TJD, but still I'd like to warn you that the whole process takes a lot of time and you should really consider getting started as early as possible, to ensure you have time to really get what you are after.

Hope this rant somehow helps you in your quest. Best of luck!
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Old 01-29-2012, 09:19 AM   #48
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Time for some good ol' spamming!

We recently wrapped up implementation of all the core puzzles and key interactions of chapter one of The Journey Down and have now moved over to the actual polishing of it all. This phase should by no means be underestimated though, just the sheer size of the task of making bwana move to the correct location, turn to the correct angle, and play the correct animation on every single interaction we've got - is gigantic.

In short, we seem to somehow magically still be on schedule and are still geared for a PC and Mac release some time by the end of March.



Here's a pic from inside Bwana's dented old airplane. I've spent the last week working on implementing Lina's different animations into the scripts, and this is one of the scenes I wrapped up yesterday. The actual animation work is done by my colleague Henrik though, I'm just standing in as script-monkey.

I also did some ranting on the dev-blog today about implementing emotion in characters, if you're curious, please check it out here.
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Old 02-07-2012, 07:52 AM   #49
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I'm updating to say we pretty much wrapped up voice work on our last major character, Matoke, and that this means we're practically finished with ALL voice work for chapter one of The Journey Down. It has been one heck of a project to get all these actors and lines to do what we want them to, but finally this gigantic project is starting to wrap up.



If you're interested in hearing some voice samples from Matoke or any of our other characters for that matter, be sure to have a peek at our dev blog, where every major character in the cast have their own spotlight.
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Old 02-16-2012, 12:33 PM   #50
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I'm updating to say that we've now started chronicling our development on twitter, so if you're curious about more behind the scenes type info such as how we develop environments, etc, be sure to follow me, @theowaern on twitter.



Above is a pic from a short video Henrik made while working on a short little cinematic for the Journey Down, watch the whole video on his twitter at @Henrik_Englund

If you're more interested in the techy, real nerdy stuff, @skygoblinmarkus is the one you should follow.

Hope to see you on twitter!
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Old 04-13-2012, 12:57 AM   #51
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I'm just updating to say we just started blasting out our preview build to the press, so if you're an author of internet propaganda, be sure to send us an email at info ät skygoblin . com and we'll be sure to hook you up with a copy!

Chapter one is coming to PC and Mac in mid May 2012, with releases on iOS and Android to follow shortly thereafter. Read me rant about our development on @theowaern.
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Old 04-13-2012, 03:42 AM   #52
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Great news! Can't wait for it to come out
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Old 05-13-2012, 12:13 PM   #53
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Thanks SpeedBo, I'm glad you're liking what you're seeing!



Finally Chapter One of The Journey Down can be pre-ordered!

If any of you should feel like separating with some cash for a good cause, there has never been one as noble as pre-ordering TJD! Think of it as an investement in the future of mankind's cultural Point 'n' click heritage!
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Old 05-18-2012, 08:25 AM   #54
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…and now it's released! I haven't played it through yet, but I've seen enough of it to risk recommending the game - it's lovely.
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Old 05-18-2012, 08:37 AM   #55
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hooray

I admire the low-res version. definitely gonna admire this one as well. cheers skygoblin
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Old 05-18-2012, 11:48 AM   #56
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ok i haven't played the original but i read about it and i wonder why the Heck would a Game with 11 Awards like it;

Winner, Best Game Created with AGS 2010
Winner
, Best Gameplay 2010
Winner
, Best Original Story 2010
Winner
, Best Puzzles 2010
Winner
, Best Player Character 2010
Winner
, Best Non Player Character 2010
Winner
, Best Background Art 2010
Winner
, Best Character Art 2010
Winner
, Best Animation 2010
Winner
, Best Sound Effects 2010
Winner
, Best Music 2010


goes for a commercial version!... instead (at least) going after releasing/Developing its 2nd Chapter,... (imho)


Really sometimes those commercials marketing behaviors drives me just Crazy!!!

imagine wadjet eye publish an updated Gemini Rue version (Now) Instead of marketing the Upcoming project; Resonance!
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Old 05-18-2012, 02:06 PM   #57
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While I haven't played the prototype, I'm glad that they've made this one. The extra work is totally worth it. The old one looked good despite the huge pixels, but this is really good. The voices are (almost everyone) great. And I like that I can play it on my Mac… (Yep, it's my new favourite game at the moment.)

(I'd love to see Wadjet Eye update their games to look this good too. While I understand that their budget doesn't allow it, I remain slightly disappointed that the characters can't always look as good as they do in the close-ups.)
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Old 05-18-2012, 03:04 PM   #58
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Ok, now I've finished the game, so here's my final opinion:
  • It's quite short.
That's the list of flaws.

The good things:
  • I've already mentioned the music, but it deserves mentioning a lot. It's great.
  • The characters. The main character in particular is lovely to be around. Just having him on the screen makes me happy, and that's a good quality of a player character.
  • It's funny. There were some occasions when I laughed.
  • For me, the puzzles were perfect. It probably means they're a bit too easy to many of you, but for me it was the perfect balance. I never was completely stuck, but I had a few moments where I got struck by the lighting bulb and got to feel clever. This is a rare quality in an adventure game for me.
  • Top notch graphics.

So in short, it does feel slightly expensive for its length, but on the other hand a DVD movie is about the same price, and no longer, so… I recommend it wholeheartedly (and hope the next chapter will be slightly longer).
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Old 05-19-2012, 03:01 AM   #59
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Adventurere No.1 View Post

goes for a commercial version!... instead (at least) going after releasing/Developing its 2nd Chapter,... (imho)

well, i'm generally against too much commercialization. moreover, the low-res graphics of the original are great the way they are because of the nostalgic feel in it. But in this case I must disagree that commercialization isn't for the best. The working process is quite long, and for an indie studio such as this one, it is highly essential to gain some money. Now it will be much more possible to see the other parts developed.
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Old 05-19-2012, 03:08 AM   #60
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Quote:
Originally Posted by badlemon View Post
moreover, the low-res graphics of the original are great the way they are because of the nostalgic feel in it.
Except for those of us who don't care for that nostalgic feel, of course.
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