Untitled OHR Point and Click Adventure Game

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What is the setting / story of the game?

Sci-fi game, traps in a space station with a vllian
3
33%
Fantasy game, the wrong demon lord was summoned
3
33%
something else?
3
33%
 
Total votes: 9

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Spoonweaver
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Untitled OHR Point and Click Adventure Game

Post by Spoonweaver »

Welcome to the official sign up forum for the Untitled OHR Point and Click Adventure Game.
We are currently in need of ::
-Kylekrack and Artimus Bena will be coding it.
-Artimus Bena is the writer.
-Morpheus­Kitami is the puzzle / gameplay designer
STILL NEED ARTISTS

If you are an artist and want to work on this project, please message me or Artimus for delays.
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Mon Aug 03, 2020 1:37 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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SwordPlay
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Post by SwordPlay »

What kind of features do you want to add?

I had a go a long time ago with some text-adventure type thing.
It was rather basic though.
https://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewto ... 912#130912
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Spoonweaver
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Post by Spoonweaver »

I don't know what I'm looking at with the link you posted
but overall I think all we'd need is pixel based mouse movement, and mouse interactions.
Maybe an item bar and being able to drag and drop items. That should really be it. everything else would be story, events, & puzzles.
Maybe a few mini games

for example of the game type, look at machinarium, the longing, or broken age
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

I have some experience doing adventure game puzzles. I can't claim to be the best designer ever, but I have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. Generally speaking the major flaws in most adventure games are busy-work, pixel-hunting and not knowing the exact way to solve a puzzle. I.E., you have attach a rope to two things, and it has to be done in a specific order. Since this will be a short game I think its no question the first can be avoided. The other two just depend on good communication with the artist and the writer.
In terms of gameplay, I don't think this necessarily has to be complex, we can just use a simple Coktel Vision style game. Like Goblins or Ween: The Prophecy. In terms of general set-up. It shouldn't have multiple characters or a first-person perspective. The games Spoony mentioned could very well have much the same design, but I don't think I've played any of them. Unless Longing is that slow-as-molasses game that came out this year.
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Post by ArtimusBena »

One of the games that is nearest to my heart is King's Quest VI.

I don't think I can spare the energy right now to write for this, but I've been a head writer before and would be a terribly good collaborator for someone who has a concept. I agree with Morpheus it doesn't need to be first person (which would be a whole lot more effort on the part of the artists). Multiple characters, however, is something I would consider essential. Unless Morph is simply referring to there being more than one hero here.

As for the programming: this does seem pretty straightforward. But I've said those words before :D

Priority one is a concept. Once a cool concept is in place, the designer can do his work, for the simple reason that a game works best when it has a theme.

Okay, so here's a concept:
______________________________________________________________________________

Title: Solar Event (or: Time Capsule)

I'm putting this down in wave because I think I'm going to die.

It's 2212. Two thousand, two hundred twelve years on an outmoded calendar. The solar system is ever more crowded with ships. Tankers, traders, name it. At least that's how it is near Sol. Some call it the Inner Yolk. Like we're all waiting to be born again.

Desperate to solve the energy crisis, we dug as far as we could. But at some point, all you're gonna find is rock. No more dead carbon to burn. Meanwhile, the population is so high you go around worrying about breathing somebody else's air -- somebody who needs it more than you do.

23 years ago, or 24, I forget, a complicated plan of action came up. We all knew the sun has immense energy. Earlier generations tried ground panels, but that technology couldn't keep up with the population growth. Let's face it: it couldn't keep up with capitalism.

So, as I said, a plan of action. More like a plan of desperation. We would take the solar panel idea, and bring it closer to the sun. A lot closer. Last I heard on the news, they just completed eight degrees of the "Golden Ring." Eight degrees of a ring of energy collectors that - someday - would crown the entire star. But that's a lot of energy for each waystation to store. If one of them exploded, it could drown the Earth in radiation.

And I have a sliming maniac on my ship hell bent on making that happen. He locked all the doors. Burned half the fuel putting us on a collision course, and anybody on my crew with a word of protest got shoved in the airlock.

[a long inhale followed by an uneven sigh]

[silence]
Last edited by ArtimusBena on Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:18 am, edited 2 times in total.
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MorpheusKitami
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

Nah, I was referring to multiple PCs. Goblins has multiple PCs, each corresponding to a particular action. I guess I didn't explain it well. Coktel Vision's games didn't really have the command system of most other adventure games, you click on something, if you can do something it happens. Or you need to use an item. Nothing unnecessary, at least in theory.
On the whole I don't consider first-person more work on the artists half. They don't need to do player sprites and most animation is unnecessary except background and maybe portraits if want to do that. Or the programmer wants to do that.
Don't have any deep ideas for a concept. Just the haunted house and sci-fi spy thing. For haunted house I had the idea that instead of the player going in to stop some evil entity, the player is the evil entity. A bunch of cultists brought you forth from some other dimension. Only you're not an evil other entity, they picked the wrong thing to summon. You're not terribly fond of these cultists, but you were weakened by the summoning. Do you leave and let them maybe summon something really evil, or kill them all?
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Post by Bob the Hamster »

Okay, I just want to say "trapped on a spaceship with a madman", and "the cultists summoned me, the wrong demon" are both great concepts for this type of game.

I think I favor the cultist concept, especially from the angle of being an other-dimensional being, but having to keep up the appearances of being an even more powerful being than you actually are, so the cultists won't realize the mistake they made.
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Post by Rue »

Bob the Hamster wrote:I think I favor the cultist concept, especially from the angle of being an other-dimensional being, but having to keep up the appearances of being an even more powerful being than you actually are, so the cultists won't realize the mistake they made.
Opens up a lot of options. Keep up appearances for one, otherwise they might kill you. You, yourself could also have the option of summoning the real other dimensional being so they leave you alone. You could have the option of destroying the cult once you realize how messed up they are. Or, maybe the cult members are more sympathetic than they seem (I mean, cult members are usually manipulated into joining because they've got some pretty tragic pasts).
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

I was actually thinking something as powerful or more powerful than they wanted. Just something they summoned wrong. Maybe part of you is still behind, maybe you need something to keep your power in our world and they didn't do it properly.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

That's the plot of an anime I watched recently.
How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
You're describing it almost word for word.
I'm not saying it's off the table, but you should watch it so things don't over lap.

EDIT: The genre of the misplaced traveler in a different dimension is incredibly popular. What seems to work best is when it's an average guy from modern times in a fantasy setting.
I think it's a great idea
Last edited by Spoonweaver on Sun Jul 19, 2020 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ArtimusBena »

Sounds like it would be a little more light-hearted, yeah.

The space ship idea in a little more detail, if it's still on the table:
The concept would at first be an escape-room puzzle. You try sending out a communication, which won't work. While you're doing that you notice the air processors are offline. Using some items in the room in tandem let you trick the door into opening. Once you're out, a voice on the intercom:

"Well, that was clever. 'Wilt thou not go quietly into the night?' " [Laughter] "Rest your soul, Captain; where you're going there is no night."

You look around: it's a small cargo ship. Kind of a dingy junker. There's an escape module, but the code has been changed. It looks like the airlock can be opened. (Etc., stuff of this nature). There'd be some kind of thing you can build with pieces of the ship you can tear off. A small explosive, or drilling tool, something like that.

Once you're able to open the door of the control deck, you're knocked out. You wake up, being dragged by a cord to the airlock while the guy goes on quoting classical authors. He shoves you in the airlock chamber, and almost pushes the release button.

"Welcome to the human condition, little fly in the jar."

You can see his smirk through the little round window before it disappears.

One last escape room. There's a suit hanging up. You still have that makeshift macguyver tool you fashioned. You hear the escape module firing up. You put on the suit, open the outer airlock door, and do something to the escape module before it flies off.

After that, you'd find your way back to the control deck in zero gravity, and right the course of the ship. And you've saved the day. During credits, you're looking at your radar and see a blip that represents the escape module. It moves for some time, and then... disappears.



Anyway. Something like that.
Last edited by ArtimusBena on Sun Jul 19, 2020 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ArtimusBena »

I think if we went with the sci fi idea I'd know how to write for it and even direct/manage it - unless Spoon opened this thread with the intent of directing. The other idea, I honestly wouldn't know how to write or direct it.

Either way, I am interested in coming up with a point and click script / inventory script, so I'll sign up for programming. I want to incorporate some of that into my own game at some point anyway.
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Post by Spoonweaver »

I think it would be best if I just step up and direct, yea.
Assuming everyone is fine with that.

Moving along, I think we need the general pixel walking mouse based script first. It just needs to be able to go to where the mouse has been clicked in a nature way, and interact with npc's.
I don't think we need path finding and here's why. A lot of point and click adventures don't seem to actually have it. What they do instead is when there is an explorable area, it's wide and opened with no need of paths to be found. And when there is a long zig zaggy path, the character tends to animate all the way down the path when it reaches a certain point on the map through walking.

So, I propoe no path finding in the script. and for now, just pixel walking with mouse and npc activation.


As far as the 2 stories. I like both and I can also think of reasons why we might want to go another direction completely.
Ultimately a choice needs to be made. And since this is a community project, I'll start a poll.
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Post by MorpheusKitami »

I think pathfinding can be avoided as long as we don't have any complex shapes in the way. Ah...more complex than a solid block.
That said if no one minds, I'd like to do at least some of the backgrounds. Like I said. I have some experience in the matter. Especially in the realm of dark areas. Is this going to be actual backgrounds or using a tileset as a background?
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Post by kylekrack »

I'd like to say Pixel-Walker would be useful here, but I think it'd be smarter to start from scratch and use a simpler movement system. Specifically, no friction/acceleration in the movement. Spoon, you're thinking the same thing I was about pathfinding. Not necessary, and a lot of adventure games don't use it. Aside from animations and collisions, which I think are completely separate from movement, the movement scripts should be very simple.

I wrote this up to put my thoughts down. Haven't compiled it, so it may not be functional, but hopefully the idea comes across. It sets some necessary things, like suspending the player and initializing the mouse, then has a loop that checks for mouse clicks and moves the hero towards the mouse. It even has a marker that shows where the player clicked.

Code: Select all

globalVariable, begin
    0,lmb
    1,gameIsRunning
    2,destinationMarker
end

plotscript, keypressHandler, begin
    if(mouseClick(leftButton)) then(
        lmb := true
    )
end

plotscript, newGame, begin
    # Initializations
    suspendPlayer
    initMouse
    gameIsRunning := true
    mainGameLoop
end

script, mainGameLoop, begin
    variable(x, y)
    
    while(gameIsRunning) do(
        if(lmb) then(
            x := mousePixelX -- heroPixelX(me)
            y := mousePixelY -- heroPixelY(me)
            moveSliceWithWallchecking(getHeroSlice(me), x, y)
            # Create a circle marker at the destination
            if(destinationMarker) then(freeSlice(destinationMarker))
            destinationMarker := createEllipse(10, 10, 255)
            putSlice(destinationMarker, mousePixelX--5, mousePixelY--5)
        )
        if(destinationMarker && sliceIsMoving(getHeroSlice(me)) == false) then(
            freeSlice(destinationMarker)
            destinationMarker := 0
        )
        
        lmb := false
        
        wait
    )
end
Writing this brought up another thing. If any project is going to have multiple programmers, an explicit coding convention guide should be written up. I know most people don't use camelCase in hspeak, for one. Things like that need to get decided beforehand so the scripts don't become an unreadable mess.
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