Abandon

[Pancake]

As I've already posted, I'm currently working on a project called "Abandon". I've only posted a title screen in that thread, and have taken the advice given and updated it a little;



Hopefully it looks a little better?

I still haven't come up with the details of the plot or anything, though you wake up one day, a teenage kid, and are surprised to see that no one is in your house. You prepare yourself for school, and are even more surprised that absolutely no one is around. Starting to become worried, you decide to walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone can be found. After looking around, you attempt to call a few people. There is no answer. By traveling to the city, you realize that you may possibly be the only living being in the area, or perhaps the world...
Some other things will happen that I didn't come up with yet, leading to you learning what has happened.

It's going to be a Sci-fi and Exploration game, with elements of Adventure.

More screenshots:



Where you start the game; your house. I plan to put passages where you would enter the empty rooms to uncover them.



Outside your house. I don't really like this one as much.

[Commodore]

the outside your house one might look better if the road was little circle connected to a street. Small things help too, like mailboxes or fire hydrants. Also maybe some fences between houses. And yes the title screen does look better.

[Aplsos]

The areas are too large and empty. Remember, you don't need to take up all or even most of the board, it just makes it a pain in the ass to walk from one area to the next. Whenever possible, think of each tile as being the size of a person, and build the board in proportion to that. However, sometimes it's necessary to stretch things out so you can add enough detail to make objects recognizable.

[Zenith Nadir]

I still haven't come up with the details of the plot or anything, though you wake up one day, a teenage kid, and are surprised to see that no one is in your house. You prepare yourself for school, and are even more surprised that absolutely no one is around. Starting to become worried, you decide to walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone can be found. After looking around, you attempt to call a few people. There is no answer. By traveling to the city, you realize that you may possibly be the only living being in the area, or perhaps the world...
Some other things will happen that I didn't come up with yet, leading to you learning what has happened.

"you have no idea how alone you are, garfield"

in seriousness though, as aplsos said you should make things... smaller... especially in the house where there is a lot of empty space where nothing is happening. as barjesse said in zzt syndrome, there's no shame in not using part of a board for the player to walk in. there's a lot of other ways to use that space, take it from me; during my time making these sorts of games i did it a lot! you did it well with the title screen (much improved from the original, methinks), you can do it with in-game boards too. try to make things proportionate to one another, using the size of the player as a reference; at the moment one road stripe in that last screen is bigger than your house, which is silly.

also, please don't have this game be about aliens abducting the entire world population, PLEASE. PLAYED OUT. (*cough*codered)

[gingermuffins]

I like the black outlines on things.

Where you start the game; your house. I plan to put passages where you would enter the empty rooms to uncover them.

Do you plan to do that in all interior areas throughout the entire game, or is it just a way to hide the fact that nobody's around at the beginning? Cause that's like 5 or 6 (?) boards, just for the starting house. (I mean that's okay and all but just saying)

You could make objects appear as you go through the house, but that would be annoying to edit later on.

[Pancake]

I've re-done the last board I posted.



And this time, I've used the player to help me with proportions. So hopefully it's a bit better than before.

I've also decided a few things on the plot. Your home is located in a large, open-spaced area with farming and dirt roads, before you travel to the city. 4 boards similar to this will make up your neighborhood.

also, please don't have this game be about aliens abducting the entire world population, PLEASE. PLAYED OUT. (*cough*codered)

Yeah, I had that in mind. Aliens being involved in the main plot seems to be a kind of cliche. :(

And regarding gingermuffin's post, I decided to change my mind about the thing where you enter a room and a new board appears. It'll be too much work on my end and a little unnecessary. So every thing's gonna be on that one board.

[Aplsos]

I've re-done the last board I posted.

good job, that is a huge improvement over the previous design, in both appearance and keeping the board interesting for the player to move around in.

[Zenith Nadir]

that board is way better, but the houses are kind of indistinct messes of texture.

[Quantum P.]

I agree with Zenith. That group of three on the left would look better if you smoothed the texture and put black outlines around each of them, instead of outlining the whole group.

[Dr. Dos]

that board is way better, but the houses are kind of indistinct messes of texture.

That's called vomit shading. Mooseka liked to use it and I liked to make fun of him for it.

[Ando]

I remember back in early 2006 that FSFunky made an WoZ entry that used vomit shading quite extensively. All in all it wasn't a bad game, but it certainly wasn't easy on the eyes.

[Quantum P.]

Is vomit shading the same as doing a random-fill gradient in KevEdit/ZZTAE? Because `hyde's shading is random, but it's not especially grainy.

[Shadow Mage]

Actually, I do have a question that isn't completly unrelated to the thread. Sometimes people can take pictures and get the put in zzt. How do that do that? (I'm reffuring to the after dark game. Although notbecause I want to put ***** pictures in my game. Just better graphics. I think it was also done for one of the Weekends of ZZT where you had to steal a golden toilet although I'm not sure.)

[Ellypses]

That group of three on the left...

Actually it's two. The roofs are cupped on top of the main part of the houses.

Hyde', you have an interesting style, and it always help to experiment and fine toning it. Those shading on two of the other houses, namely the grey and dark colour ones, are a bit loud. Not saying that kind of shading is bad though, check the roof on the house you done on the right, and the other two houses. The mix of colour just need to be smoother either focus on a light collection of hue or dark.

You'll figure somethin' out.

Edit: I like to add that's a damn good rounded road by the way.

[Quantum P.]

Whoops, my mistake - this is why you should put a black outline between them!

Sometimes people can take pictures and get the put in zzt. How do that do that? [...] I think it was also done for one of the Weekends of ZZT where you had to steal a golden toilet although I'm not sure.

I think there are a couple of programs that can do this, but the only one I can find at the moment is ZBitmap.

And I'm pretty sure that the artwork in Secret Raid wasn't imported from photographs - you can usually tell if someone used a tool like ZBitmap. The artwork is that good because gingermuffins is that good.