$12256 / $11500
According to OGA, I joined 4 years and 7 months ago. Right before I joined, I made a post asking if people would help me make a game (obviously naive and foolish in retrospect). But when the crushing reality that other people have priorities of their own set in, I decided to just do everything myself. So I learned to program, and write music, tried to learn how to draw, but just couldn't put enough time into it to get any good. I found one other crazy person to help with writing, story ideas and some music.
The link below is to a *.jar file that can be run on PC and Mac; it is the product of almost 5 years of sweat, blood and tears; it is the beta version of a text adventure (without the ability to draw, I figured this was the best way to proceed). On the final day of April 2017, we'll launch it on GooglePlay.
I'm not asking anyone to join the team and help me make a video game, but I'd sure appreciate it if you could play around with it and give me your opinions on it. The scope is too large for me to make everything work perfectly, but it's close enough that I think it's playable. Any help in finding things that are broken (e.g., bugs, awkward turns of phrase, UI elements that are frustrating, etc.) would be appreciated.
Thanks!
-Eliot
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PyBIYoI9JeajJrRjRpYkZJdW8
P.S. For those who want to know what it's about, really the closest thing I can call it is a sentience-acquisition simulator. There are 6 distinct personalities and you gain affinity with the different personalities vai your actions and choices. We tried to make each choice compelling, so that people could legitimately be rewarded even for "mistakes". If you have any other questions, please post here and I'll do my best to answer.
This website's content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Would you mind posting some screenshots? :) I haven't been able to play most games since last summer, so it'd be nice to see a preview.
Not much to look at, given that it's a text adventure, but I have uploaded some screenshots so you can see what it looks like.
I have experience making games and will beable to help out with programming and making music.
check out my profile to hear my music.
Alex McCulloch
@el-corleo - Well, by that I meant that I can't look at certain types of games. I've got a chronic migraine, so I have to be careful. :) Thanks for the screenshots!
@ElizaWy: Then you might want to be careful as there are some flashing effects in the game (not sure if they'll affect your migraine situation)...
@Amac1990: Thanks for the offer, but this project is already nearly finished! Where were you 5 years ago? haha
haha alrighty
Alex McCulloch
I don't think your original request was foolish or naive. There was even interest from several people. It took a few months for them to reply, sure, but at the time that was not an unreasonable amount of delay, unfortunately.
There are many, many people who say "we're making a game. It's going to be amazing! Come help us out!" There is nothing wrong with that, but less than 3% of them actually make something playable. Most artists are wary of joining a project when they aren't sure it's got enough momentum. 97% of the time, the artist pours their heart and soul into some work for the project only to have the project organizer say "Eh, I don't have time (no longer want) to do this project anymore. Bye."
To your enormous credit, you are a rare success. Well done! This game looks good and I look forward to trying it out. But the answer to your question "...Where were you 5 years ago?" is, in most cases, "waiting for evidence of project momentum."
Playing the game so far, I am enjoying it. It is well-written enough that my imagination can picture most of the scenes. The ambient music contributes to the mood of the game, as does the interface. Pretty polished. It is intuitive as well. No need for a tutorial on how to navigate the game for the most part. No bugs that I could find yet. The gauntlet mouse cursor seems to have some transparency effect in the dropshadow, but the alpha channel was removed, so the gauntlet's shadow just looks like a whiteish border. I wonder if the cursor graphic would look better with the shadow border removed entirely. Honestly, this cosmetic thing is minor and the only nit-picking I could do. A good experience overall. :)
--Medicine Storm@MedicineStorm: I say naive and foolish because at the time I didn't realize 97% of projects were destined to fail, and honestly, I almost found myself among the 97% several times throughout the past 5 years because it's significantly easier to just quit. So I can understand on a level most profound why people would be reticent to hitch their wagon to this train.
Thanks for all the comments! Bugs, there are plenty; broken addresses and other things that make it crash; really the scope is too massive for a two-man project, so I'll be dealing with these smaller issues even after launch, methinks.
The comment on the gauntlet interests me a great deal as well... Are you using a Mac or PC? I've never tested it personally on a Mac (but a friend has), so I would guess you are of the Mac persuasion. If not, I wonder why the gauntlet is rendering that way. And I think libgdx usually handles transparency well.
In any case, thanks a lot for trying it out!