Tag Archives: games

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Robbing the Princess facts

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WARNING: THE BELOW DEFINITELY CONTAIN SPOILERS! IF YOU’VE NOT PLAYED ROBBING THE PRINCESS PLEASE DO SO BEFORE READING!

For those interested, here’s a few facts about Robbing the Princess:

  • All of the final game script (finished by about the 5th day) got put into the game. There was nothing I was trying to get in that didn’t make it.
  • Like Breakdown I did have a few extra ideas on a strict “if I have time” plan. I didn’t, as expected, so I didn’t do any work towards them.
  • One of the ideas was an introductory  sequence that would teach the player the controls and fill in a bit of the backstory. The player would control Alec only who would be on a train. The player would be walked through a simple puzzle with text prompts teaching them commands such as picking up and using items, then would have a confrontation with the unnamed bad guy on the roof of a carriage. The bad guy would escape by being airlifted by a convenient helicopter – see why I didn’t have time to implement this? – leaving behind his coat (intentionally as it later turns out). The packing slip Alec mentions in the intro of the game would be found in one of the pockets, and Alec would radio Suzy telling her to meet him at the docks.
  • The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, but I would have liked to make it more so. The end credits show The Princess sailing off into the sunset, and I’d have liked to have a submarine surface behind them at the very end.
  • If I was going to continue the story (and I have no desire or intention to) I’d pick up with The Princess being torpedoed and the player having to solve a puzzle to get Alec and Suzy out of the sinking ship. They’d then escape to a nearby island and probably have to work out how to get back to the mainland.
  • I have no idea what was supposed to be in the crate. Stolen property and/or something that could be used for great evil probably. I never came up with any of that backstory. Hey, Mission Impossible 3 got away with it, why shouldn’t I?
  • I wrote initials are hidden in the otherwise pretty random pebble-dashing on the front of the pub. I then put the ladder and fire escape in front of them, so you can’t actually see them. I did a similar thing with the grass in Erk.
  • I tried to use a particle effect for the gas but I couldn’t get it to work with alpha channels or transparency, so I just hand animated it instead.
competitions, game updates, games, MAGS, my games

Robbing the Princess

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I have finally put Robbing the Princess, my latest game and entry to the November 2009 MAGS competition, on my website.

It may be 18 days after it was first released, and already be on it’s third version, but better late than never right?

Expect some form of analysis of the game in a day or five, but for now click the picture above to play it or click here to view some of my other games.

art, games, general, my comics, reviews

Why you shouldn’t let me play free games

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Many thanks to SSH and his AGS Blog I downloaded my free copy of ‘Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal’ on ‘Talk Like a Pirate Day’ and spent the next several hours finishing it.

Unfortunately I wasn’t particularly impressed.

It wasn’t that it was a bad game… it’s just that it felt rushed, amateurish*, the puzzles and plot were all over the place, the interface was clunky, every line of dialogue was scripted (seriously, what’s the point of giving you four options to choose from in a conversation when Guybrush ignores your choice completely EVERY SINGLE TIME**) and it was a Telltale game, not a Monkey Island game***.

Feel free to disagree with me on any or all points, my arguments probably won’t stand up to fearsome interrogation. This post was as much an excuse to draw something with my tablet as a rant anyway.

– – –

*Except the graphics, animation and I guess the acting.

**I have a theory about this – in the classic LucasArts adventure games you could choose your response to a conversation from a number of options. Naturally you choose the one that you found the funniest, which means you’re tailoring the jokes towards your sense of humour. With Tales: Episode 1 Guybrush says the same thing no matter what you choose thus destroying all replayability, denying you control of the character and leaving you with the feeling of a potentially hilarious missed conversation.

***Monkey Island is about grog-drinking, unwashed, unpleasant, skull-digging pirates, hunting treasure and sailing to exotic Caribbean Islands. Pirates playing with dolls, scientific contraptions and frilly pink underwear do not belong here (or at most are only as background jokes ala Largo’s “laundry”, not shoved in your face as puzzles).

demos, games, general, movies, other sites

Runaway – not a road adventure

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A few days ago I got an email from someone who had stumbled across this post that I made on the AGS forums about an adventure game called Runaway – or Monkey Run? – by a German group called Pixel Team (not to be confused with the later Runaway adventure games by Péndulo Studios).

I’ve got a demo of this game from a CD collection and it has always intrigued me because although it’s rather buggy and has an awful interface, it also has several nice touches that seem to have had a lot of thought put into them. I spent a few free evenings recording videos and trying desperately to remember how to complete it (which I’m sure I’ve done, or nearly did).

I couldn’t figure it out, so here’s a video of the first puzzle to show a bit of the game in action instead.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find much out about this game (especially as searches for “Runaway” and “adventure game” find the Péndulo games), so I’m fairly sure it never got beyond this demo. If you have any more information I’d love to hear it.

The demo was released as shareware, so if you fancy playing it I’ve uploaded a copy here. It works fine under Windows XP using DOS-Box. If you manage to get into the keeper’s house (which I think is the next step from where I’m stuck) let me know how because I really can’t remember how I did it last time! If I manage to get much further I might put up a full playthrough.

Tip for playing:
When picking up items you can click the ‘Pick Up’ option, then the item. With the other interactions you generally have to click on the place you want to interact with, *then* click the verb…

art, behind the scenes, game updates, games, my games

Working Title

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On a bit of a coding high at the moment… found and fixed several bugs in the aforementioned Mystery Project and implemented starting and naming projects. Here, have a screenshot and (working) title!

Don’t get too excited, there’s still an awful lot that needs programming and AGS could still come crashing to the ground with all I’m asking it to do… but its holding up remarkably well so far.

demos, games, general, reviews

OneDollar’s Demos – Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships – Part 2

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Continuing on from yesterday’s post…

OneDollar Presents…
A biased and uncharitable review of Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships (Part 2)


I’m sorry but this isn’t a door lock, somebody’s just fitted an electronic game to your wall. I’d call your locksmith and ask for a refund.


Success – I opened the door! Now I can dress up in a diving suit, then attempt all the other challenges while still wearing it. According to George, Nancy has “…solved mysteries in every corner of the world”. The map shows the locations of all of Nancy’s mysteries, so “every corner of the world” actually means North America and four places in Europe. How cultured.


I can deduce one of two things from this book of instructions: either Sonny stole a monkey’s brain, or Sonny stole a monkey’s hairdo.


“You look just like this bird I met in England” sounds like another way of saying “We already rendered a parrot once, lets use it again”. I assume this previous meeting explains why Nancy shows no surprise at a bird that can carry on an intelligent conversation. Seriously, a bird like that should not be left sitting in an empty lobby, it should be on TV hosting a chat show or doing the weather or something.


George told me this golf cart needed water to work, but it runs fine. This is the person we’ve got repairing our one and only satellite phone? It doesn’t work on grass (after all, why would you want a golf cart to work on grass?) but fortunately most of this ‘ecotourism’ island is covered with winding tarmac roads.


After beating the monkey at his own game I get to choose a prize from a thrilling range! Don’t get too excited about puzzle solving though, Nancy’s quick to remind me that the parrot wanted fruit. If only this were a real adventure game, just think of the puzzles you could solve with an eye patch and a goldfish keyring…


This means 7-9-2-0-4 in international signals. Now there’s a fair chance that anyone wanting a sail is going to be using it to sail a boat, and there’s an equally fair chance that said sailor will know the international flag signals so really all this does is weed out the amateurs. Changing this code must be a real pain. Do they have a stock of little flags to put on the bin?


I found this picture hidden in the lobby. It brings home a stark realisation that somewhere, somehow a real game creator made this game and was pleased enough with it to hide a photo of his wife (or daughter, or sister or next door neighbour) in the background. Kind of touching, unless of course that picture *is* the game creator in which case its just creepy.


Having ticked off everything on the task list that the game will let me, all I’ve got left to do is to look for Bess. She clearly came to this beach but the demo won’t let me go there, so I guess I’ve been abandoned to drive the golf cart in circles around the map. Anyway, leaving the demo without a proper ending seems a good enough reason for me to do the same to this post.

End.

demos, games, general, reviews

OneDollar’s Demos – Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships – Part 1

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Time for something a little different (although I’ve done something similar before). I got bored on Sunday evening, fired up Steam and downloaded a demo of what I fully expected to be a rubbish game. What follows are my experiences.

OneDollar Presents…
A biased and uncharitable review of Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships (Part 1)


If there’s one thing that immediately made me want to play the full game, its the promise of “Mild Violence”.


Maybe they got the monkey to count them?


I always visit the options page before starting a game. Here I’m glad to note we are given not one but two resolutions: ‘small’ and ‘would fit comfortably on the screen of my phone’. Who is this game made for, those casual gamers who never found the resolution settings on their PC?


Although it’s meant to set the scene, this introduction raises more questions than it answers.
– Shouldn’t that be George and I? If you’re going to keep a journal at least learn to use correct grammar. (If not write a blog instead).
– Who on earth holds a father-daughter banquet? As a side note, arriving a day late to one of these things is never a good plan. I can only assume everyone will be dead, missing or replaced by a robot lookalike by the time Nancy arrives.
– An ecotourism resort that you can only reach by plane? Well somebody dropped the ball there. Does the cost of your ticket include carbon offsetting?
– Floatplane is a stupid name for a kind of aircraft. Not a question, just an observation.
– I guess this is the same journal Nancy will use to record all the grisly details of whatever ‘Mild Violence’-containing mystery we come across. I’m sure the red-purple frilly borders will offset that marvellously.
– “Shark Diving Resort” is possibly the worst name for a resort I have ever come across.
– Seriously, how big is this book? Judging by the size of those poorly paper-clipped postcards… erm… 29×33 centimetres closed. I’m not going to ask where she keeps it.


I have no idea what’s going on here but AHAHAHAHAHA! I’m just disappointed the actor didn’t read the “pppp” at the end of “Stooooopppp”. Also a nice contender for ‘worst water render in a modern game’.


If I were ever to kidnap someone, I don’t think I’d do it on a tiny, inaccessible island with no planes to escape with. Okay, so the story’s wholly unoriginal and the characters look like they were made in Poser, but we’ve already got intrigue, danger…


…and a task to “Win a game against a monkey”? I assumed the introduction was supposed to make me sympathise with the characters and draw me into the game’s plot, but why bother when five seconds later you’re going to a literal list of mini-games I have to play. There are many things that drive people to crime. Need, greed and apparently an insatiable urge to create treasure hunts. We’re dealing with one seriously messed up villain here… do you reckon you actually have to go diving for number 8, or is it just an excuse for them to watch Nancy dress up? Let’s not think too hard about that one.


George demonstrates how to fix a satellite phone: glare at it and shake it up and down. Also if you make the mistake of hovering your mouse over her…


“Hey George, can I talk to… ooh okay…”

Venture back tomorrow, if ye dare, for the terrible conclusivness of part 2!

behind the scenes, game updates, games, my games

RE: Mystery Project

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Little update: I am still working on it when I have the time (and can motivate myself). I could claim that I’ve been busy with work and preparing for an upcoming exam, but frankly I’ve just had a weeks holiday and didn’t touch it once.

Anyway, I put in a good stint tonight and I’m now well on the way with the hardest part of the project, at least from a programming point of view. The problem is I’m doing something very different from what AGS was designed for, so I’ve no idea if what I want to achieve will actually work. I’m getting very close to finding out.

Much more info to come when I’ve decided it’s going to work and I won’t have to scrap the whole idea.