Space Police Quest

I wanted to design a locker room for the guards of Marsi-3. So I remembered one of my first adventure games that I've re-played recently: Police Quest I. It had this locker room in all its ega glory. I thought to myself that Marsi's guards are as good as Lytton's police officers and deserve a luxurious locker room too.

Marsi-3 Prison Wardens Control Room

And then he became a botanist

  

v78

Marsi-3 prison cells

Cursors changing

The icon bar and cursors for walking, interacting and talking change depending on the current view of the character.

Carter the Cosmonaut

When Carter decided to steal one of the spies' orange spacesuits, he really made me re-draw all his sprites (walking, talking, interacting, picking up, jumping...) took too much time but was worth every pixel. Of course the player has a choice whether to wear the orange or the white spacesuit.

Titan Oxygen Garden

Home Improvement

I can't believe I was going to get through with this background. It was one of those backgrounds I created and always hesitated of using. Even when I was testing the game, I used to speed up the game to the maximum when I had to be in the room containing it so I can avoid looking at it! After chatting with a friend on the AGS forums, I got a push to work on some improvements on old elements instead of creating new ones. So I spent clean 2 hours re-coloring the same background and only changed the glass design. So typically it's the same background with colors change. Here's the old vs. new Microbial Garden of Marsi-3 near the Jovian system.

Natasha is a bad.. bad girl

Natasha's first appearance is on Titan. She's on the Eram team which is the major rival against your nation. What was she doing on Titan and specifically on land owned by your team? ..and will she be able to buy her way out?

Are you going to be more than friends with her? Maybe -at least- to get more information about what was she doing on Titan. What about Alex? Will she be 'okay' with this situation?

You've got a lot to explain Carter. Just be careful of the women of Eram, there's a big monster lurking behind their beauty.

Tic Tac Tardigroe!

Last night I had a quick chance to sit and code. I created a little mini-game of Tic Tac Toe you can play with the Titan crew through the communicator. The mini-game can be used to manipulate the crews' moods and trigger events as well.

Tardigrades - Steam Trailer

Tardigrades has been Greenlit

Thanks for all of your support! Without you, this wouldn't have happened <3

Can't say it? Sign it!

Carter must prove an emergency in order to convince the captains of Marsi-3 to take a trip to Saturn. However, being a botanist is not enough to have permissions to land with the rescue team on Titan. He has to prove that he -as a botanist- is needed on Titan. If he did so, Carter would be assigned a spacesuit and a communication device where he can use it to talk to other crew members and also use it as a radar map to find his way in the vastness of Titan deserts.

But what if Carter wasn't able to prove his importance on Titan? The game won't stop there, he will have to sneak into the airlock or maybe fool another crew member to hide in the landing shuttle. Of course he won't have a communication device then. After other crew members discover Carter's presence on Titan, they have no time to evacuate him. So he would have to use sign language to talk to the crew.

Not having the communication device means no radar maps privileges too. You'll have to wander around and discover Titan on your own. Using little flags you can mark the places you already visited. Not to mention that your oxygen is limited too. There are some lost oxygen tanks here and there..

One Puzzle's Different Solutions

As many of you already know Tardigrades is non-linear and is open for different solutions for its puzzles.

In this example, there is a wire fence separating this control room into two sections. As a botanist, Carter has access to the left section only. The right section is accessed through an airlock. Carter is not allowed in space. You can either sneak to the right section through an illegal trip from space as shown in the first and second screenshots.

Or, you can find a tool to cut the fence with and go to the other side without the need to go into deep space as shown in the third screenshot. The fence is fixed by a technician every once in a while. You can always cut it again just make sure no one sees you. Getting the tool is a puzzle itself. Also going into deep space won't be an easy task.

A sad day

I was saddened early this morning as I got the news about Scott Murphy's mom passing away. She was such a great woman raising the most noble man I know in my life. They were lucky to have each other in her final years. One would think we the kids take care of our parents as they grow older. But no, our parents take care of us even as they grow old. We learn how to love more and more and become better individuals in this life.

No illnesses, no diseases. May you live in an eternal healthful happy place with those you love.

Scott, my heart is always with you.

Tardigrades Logo

Tardigrades' logo is a combination of the water bear posing as the ancient Egyptian scarab holding a crook and a flail, accessorized with two wings.

'Borrow' Yolanda's tab to send a probe

3 ways to reset the emitter

Emitters are used for the main communications with Earth. They are used due to the distortion from the massive magnetic field of Jupiter. This one needs to be reset. There are three different ways to do so.

You can sneak to the airlock, put on a spacesuit and take a spacewalk and find it. Finding it could be through trial and error or by using a map. Once you find it, you can enter the correct code sequence to reset. Code clues can be obtained from different places and people earlier.






There's also a hack cube that you can get somewhere in the game. Using this cube will automatically reset the emitter. But you have to take the spacewalk.

If you're afraid of getting lost in Jovian space, you can send a probe instead and navigate it using Yolanda's tablet. Now getting Yolanda to leave her tablet unattended is not an easy task. Also getting access to it won't be that easy.

Note that the probe GUI is not finished yet.

Saturn's Hologram

#screenshotsaturday

Cut Scenes Enhancements

When I prepare a scene, I usually use initial sketches to be able to visualize and direct it. When it feels right, I start finalizing it by redrawing the elements on it. Here's Kat's hair in three different layers, the set is based on a room with micro-gravity where she is supposed to get shot. I changed her hair and added details to it along with highlights.

Playing God

At some point, Carter 'finds out' that Aziz is getting annoying and better be temporary unconscious. To do so, Carter would have to manipulate Aziz's mood or do worse things.

Even though he is Carter's roommate and best friend on Marsi-3, Aziz gets in the way and sometimes annoyingly frustrating.

You can knock Aziz down in two different ways, get him detained or high. Either way he would end up in sickbay unable to move, talk or even gesture anything to Dr. Chantal.

Tardigrades Trailer

Falling Paper

Animating a falling paper is my favorite stress therapy. It can never fail, whatever you draw in the next frame fits fine. I found myself spending so much time drawing falling papers without feeling how long passed. And the result is always fun -at least for me. This is from a scene where gravity was lost for a moment and then got back while everyone and everything was just floating med air.

A video posted by AnasAbdin (@anasabdin) on Apr 27, 2015 at 9:59am PDT

Recreation

Jupiter Paints Marsi-3 Corridors Orange

Facing Jupiter's lit face while in close orbit gives this corridor an orange hue. Later when Marsi-3 is on the dark side the place gets back to its normal lighting.

The Holographic Universe

Background Sketch

Instead of a boring screenshot, here's the original sketch of one of the project's backgrounds. You will probably notice that some of the elements mentioned in the sketch (first frame) are not visible in the background (last frame), like the seat or the light bulbs hanging from wires... Well some stuff get cancelled along the way and others may appear as well. Anyway the last frame is not the final edit of the room. It still needs polishing and adding a few elements here and there.

Pan - Tardigrades Teaser #9

Dexter Morning Routine

Dexter Morning Routine is a free point and click game that I created with Adventure Game Studio. The idea is to complete Dexter's morning routine in the correct order before the music ends. There are three difficulty levels missing around with music duration, objects placements, and wait period events.

Please visit the AGS Archives page to get the game for free.

The Name of The Game

After a lot of thinking and a massive amount of advice, research and opinions, there is no escape from going through one of the hardest steps for me, a name change for my little baby.

I shall call him:

Tardigrades, waterbears, moss piglets... call them whatever you like. For me, they are the indestructible. Despite their little size of about 0.012in, they can survive temperatures from just above absolute zero up to above the boiling point of water. They can also survive extreme conditions of radiation and the vacuum of space. They can go without food or water for more than 10 years. Who else can travel space like Tardigrades?

Bedroom Build

Who Is Ty

Name: Ty
Age: 120 Mercurian Solar Years
Class: 4D
Occupation: Chemical Engineer
A.S: Methane storage facility T14-53
Location: Titan

Ty is responsible for the storage of the metallic ammonium in the silos on Titan. Making sure the conditions are perfect for the metal is not an easy task due to the gravity weakness of the Saturnian moon.

Ty is Aziz's boyfriend. Born and raised on Mercury. He is more of a fan of colder climates since he spent most of his childhood on the cold dark side of Mercury. His application to join the crew of Marsi-3 was rejected due to an incident that is clearly stated on his record. He managed to get a job on Titan instead.

Alone With Ra - Epoch Teaser #8

Carter finds Javier

#screenshotsaturday

Carter finally finds Javier's body in the deserts of Titan. Taking a closer look he finds out Javier's death is not an accident after all. But who did it?

Epoch gameplay test 2

Even Dirty Talk?

#screenshotsaturday

Alex is over excited when Marsi-3 is travelling in light speed.

Backgrounds Enhancement

Sometimes I draw backgrounds that beg me to change. I keep them for the functionality while developing puzzles but then apply proper improvements. Here's the landing location on Titan that I completely hated from the start.

The ship took the entire right edge of the screen with a big entrance for vehicles and crew. I was too excited during the creation of this background specially while adding the animated river. But then after completing it I sat back and looked at it... I hated it. I couldn't believe I would actually have the decency allowing anyone play a game with this background!

So I kept it while I developed other things, code, puzzles, sounds... etc. Until last week, I couldn't bare to look at it anymore. So I decided it was about time to draw another one. Here's the result which I hope you'd find more interesting than the previous one. Here's Carter standing outside the shuttle next to an ethane lake on Titan.