[Mattias Gustavsson]

This past month (July) I've been participating in a challenge, to make a game in a month, using any technology and tools. The only restriction was the theme: Justice. And even that was open to interpretation.

I saw this as an opportunity to practice a bit of game design and, more importantly, telling a story, so I decided to make some sort of classic point-and-click. I used my game engine Pixie, and the coding was quite straightforward, but it was rather difficult to come up with what was to happen in the game.

To make it a bit more interesting, I decided to try and make it in a bright and happy visual style, while keeping the story itself a bit more dark and sinister. There was something about those two conflicting ideas that appealed to me.

Anyway, I'd like to share the end result here - as I usually get good feedback from this place - and it would be great to hear any thoughts you have about it, and especially ideas for improvements. But keep in mind that I only had a month to make it, so it is definitely not as polished as it could be. I'm still very happy with it though :D

The game can be downloaded here (for windows, but should run on Linux through Wine):

http://www.colossusentertainment.com/forumref/strangler_1_0.zip

Might as well post some screenshots from it too:

The name of the game is "The Strangler", and is about Tom O'Reilly, Private Investigator:


The game starts with you, playing as O'Reilly, getting a visit...


... from a lady who has a case for you - to find out if her husband is a killer.



So you have to hit the streets in a search for clues, but you're not very popular with the local PD:


There's a couple of cut-scenes in the game, giving you another perspective on what's happening:


I didn't have time to add much interactive dialogue (so that's something I'll be adding over the next couple of weeks). But there's a little of it at least:


When you discover a new location, you get a marker on a map, which is used to move around in the game:


I had to come up with a bunch of characters for the game. Ten of them in total.



As I only had a month to do it, and everything took longer than expected (especially the animations), I didn't have time to do the last scene of the game - so instead I just added a quick little thing to mark the end of what I had done:


I will try and continue working on this, and add more dialogue, a few more puzzles and the missing scene. One thing I'd like to have is different responses for everything you try to interact with, instead of always the same "I can't do that now".

If you do try it out, please let me know what you think :-)
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www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

Looks very cool from the screenshots!
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Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Thanks :-)

As usual, I use Poser to make the art. For those who don't know it, it is a program which allows you to tweak and combine pre-made 3d models (some which comes with it, but most of which you buy separately), and then render them as images. So actually all the characters are the same 3d model, and I just change it around and stick bits on to make it into the character I have in mind.

I made a video of the process, for those interested in how it's done:
http://youtu.be/ltJjD__nGlE
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Hajo]

Your skills at game art are just fantastic :)

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Ha ha, thanks :-) I'm definitely still struggling with art, but the program makes it a lot easier :D
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I've finished this now! :D Well, there's still things I could add, but at least it has the whole story now, from start to finish! :D

http://www.colossusentertainment.com/forumref/strangler_1_0.zip
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Finally took the time to zip up the source code and upload it, for those who are interested in how I went about it:

http://www.colossusentertainment.com/forumref/strangler_source_1_0.zip

It includes both the code for the engine and the code for the game, but not the data-files for the game (you'd have to get them from the games zip file). The code is public domain. The source code for the game itself is not particularly pretty - time limitations meant doing quite a few nasty hacks. But sometimes it can be fun to see that other people hack their code too, so I'm releasing it as is :-)
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[tcaudilllg]

I like the "death at realizing digital rain" joke.

[Mattias Gustavsson]

So, after putting it off for a while, I've finally captured a movie of a play-through of the game:

http://youtu.be/w5JNWf7h6e4
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[RampantCoyote]

Wow. Okay, I've been so wrapped up in my own things I never actually played it. But this looks sharp!
_________________
Tales of the Rampant Coyote - Old-School Game Developer talks Indie Games, RPGs, and the Games Biz

[Mattias Gustavsson]

Thank you! I appreciate that :-)
_________________
www.mattiasgustavsson.com - My blog
www.rivtind.com - My Fantasy world and isometric RPG engine
www.pixieuniversity.com - Software 2D Game Engine

[BadMrBox]