Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Star Trek Discovery & Tardigrades




I've been approached lately by some of my fans via twitter, facebookyoutube and the AGS forums about several similarities between the new series  Star Trek Discovery and my point and click adventure game Tardigrades. I honestly don't know how to begin this article, so I prepared a few screenshots from both the TV show and my game for comparison. I am doing this to clarify that I haven't stolen ideas from the show at all since all of my posts from the devlog are dated years before the show.


Tardigrades production announcement was on May 8th 2014. The devlog can be found here. The game is about a civilization that lived on Earth 20,000 years ago. They are on the verge of intergalactic travel using giant Tardigrades to travel anywhere in the universe. The main character, Carter, is a botanist whom will discover later in the game the connection between the super tough creature and instantaneous space travel. I've made several promo videos that can be found on my YouTube channel that show my ideas of space travel using giant Tardigrades.


The following two videos are what triggered most of Tardigrades fans to contact me:




My twitter friends also told me about how some of the characters resemble a lot of common traits between the show and the game. For instance, one of the main lead characters of Tardigrades is called Yolanda - a female that comes from an area that is now central Africa (remember the game is set on 20,000 B.C.)


I also have a homosexual couple with each of the men is assigned in different parts of the solar system. They are: bearded "middle eastern" Aziz and his boyfriend Ty who is in some danger situation. Later on the game another character is imprisoned with Aziz, his name is Maciek, a very white blonde dude.



To their defense, I think having a diverse crew is very relevant. It's just the too much coincidental appearances of the characters that may put my project into a weird situation. Not to forget that Paul has a "friend" in another federation ship that gave a hint of a long distant relation just as Aziz (Jupiter orbit) and Ty (Titan base) from Tardigrades.


Saturday, September 23, 2017

Using Maciek

Maciek is going to be a very interesting NPC in Tardigrades. The player will be able to take control of him in an unconventional way. His actions can be triggered in several ways either by mental manipulation and/or verbal insults.

Sunday, June 18, 2017

Hands & Feet



If you managed to discover a newly drilled hole on one of the toilets dividers by Aziz, you might be able to obtain an inventory item in an interesting alternative way. If you're more forward, you can change Aziz's mood to alter later events in the game's story and puzzles.



Should you be anonymous? Or should you cancel the whole thing? What if Aziz doesn't create that hole, could you drill one yourself? Those are all options available with the non-linearity behavior of Tardigrades.





 

Thursday, June 8, 2017

A Dark Tunnel

One of my favorite rooms in adventure games is the metal tunnel from the garbage ship in Space Quest 3. Being claustrophobic, I had to overcome my fear and stay as much as possible inside the tunnel to admire the simplicity of this beautiful background. Blacking out the outside surroundings of the tunnel is a usual technique used in art generally as seen in some other games or even comic books. But in this case it adds more mystery specially that the palette changes drastically from the previous rooms in the game. All the previous rooms had blue backgrounds with little red components. The percentage of blue pixels drawn in the tunnel is much less than the red pixels used in the blue backgrounds throughout the game.


On first entry, the player is forced to think quickly since Roger is already walking towards the darker center then the other side of the tunnel. Note that the player's mind is already setup from the background music and perhaps have seen the giant rats too. So one would definitely smash the space-bar on the keyboard to activate the text input box and pause the game.

An interesting part is Roger's shadow near the exits. The 1 pixel high walk-able area limits the walking animations used to sideways only. Perhaps this is used to minimize the number of sprites needed for the shadow animation.

Another important aspect of the room is the use of roundness. Roger seems a little sinking in the tunnel which in my opinion is a brilliant simple use of foreground. After walking for a little more and the shadow disappears due to darkness, the action begins. You can interact with the dangling wires, walk more and get one of the biggest shocking surprising moments I ever felt in an adventure game as a child. Boom! A giant rat falls from above and fights Roger. Should I type something? Should I move? What do I do? The fight doesn't last for long. You don't die but you lose a couple of inventory items as if the whole fight intends to give you an idea of what kind of smart game you are dealing with.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Skinny Dipping

Testing a new script I wrote. Y-axis wobble across the screen to create an underwater effect.



And here's an unfortunate X-coordinate displacement...

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Erum Panel


Here's a damaged computer you need to get it fixed. Is it over heating? Needs a new fuse? The output monitor is missing a light bulb? Maybe borrow a bulb from another part of the computer, but the text on the monitor would look different with each bulb color.