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Tell me where all you midgets are coming from or I'll disembowel you...   

Haha, thanks!

Thanks for updating with the second screen, I should have done that!

And yes, I am/was the creative side of Bloodlust Software. Icer Addis (my old programmer) handled all of the code and, of course, the emulators, but everything else usually fell on my plate excepting a couple of musicians or voice actors. Bloodlust was a response to the big anti-violent gaming push in the early to mid 90s, and it was done by two highschool students. The style was very over the top, relying on big amounts of shock value, so it's important to note that The Knobbly Crook is being made under my new banner "Gnarled Scar Manipulations" to set it apart from Bloodlust style. Eventually, I may go back to doing another Bloodlust game, I certainly have a bunch in mind, but finding a coder dedicated enough for those is a real nightmare. With AGS, I can do everything pretty much on my own except the music. So, to summarize:

Bloodlust Games: Offensive humor (to some), tons of gore, dated (but loveable?) graphics
Gnarled Scar Games: Dark humor, less gore, polished graphics, unique fantasy universe

Thanks for all the feedback! The team is just me for now (excluding the possibility of a musician). I don't see the game being finished soon, but I do think I'll be able to update the progress often. Now that I'm getting the swing of the engine, I can push the artwork harder.

As far as the voices - out of curiosity, did anyone else find the main character annoying to listen to? You can't tell from this demo, but the Crookians are quite small. I'm assuming you may have pictured him as some sort of "mean" sounding character from his looks. He doesn't look that way because he wants to, there's actually a good explanation that will come later.

About the coincidence of having the same joke as someone else - I think it's going to be inevitable since we probably all grew up with the same games and have similar inspirations.

For the points bug - whoops! That was an old test I left in by accident. The mass of heads in his junk bag too (obviously).

Updated: 8/30/2014

The Knobbly Crook
Chapter One: O'Sirus the Snip
Website: http://www.knobblycrook.com

Open image in new tab if you want to see the full resolution:


The title screen.


The Paincutioner's Court


The Draft Horse


A Royal Guffaloon

An older background that will be upgraded to higher resolution:



O'Sirus first draft walk cycle:



Summary:  The Knobbly Crook is an 1024x768 game, a talkie, and is set in a completely original fantasy world.

Story: There are some big plot elements I don't want to spoil here, as well as some gameplay dynamics, so I'll keep it simple. You play as O'Sirus the Snip, a simple paper farmer who realizes he is connected to something much bigger. He'll struggle to join the Royal Guffaloon, the Crookian warrior police, he'll end up in the massive stronghold of the Bogold Empire, and eventually he'll be on the front lines of a huge war. I can't hide the rock, paper, scissors theme with my screenshots, so I'll say it has a big part of the way things work in the Knobbly Crook. Magic takes many strange forms, and O'Sirus controls those three elements (Tic is his paper bird).

Demo: The demo only features WIP rooms, but it gives a good example of the art style and the humor that will be in the final game.  You can find the demo at:

Download the Demo

Various images:

Our Hero
Tarsus Twotalk
The Paincutioner's Court
A Sea Prophet
A Bogold (unfinished)

I think it's a good time to point out the early Sierra games like Space Quest 1 (original). If you look at Roger, he's mostly blocks, has no detail, and his limbs bend funny. He's not *that* far off from a stick figure. The backgrounds are mostly thick lines and use few colors. It's really not an attractive game, but it didn't matter. The game was fun (although it punished you horribly), the characters and tone were good, and it did what it needed to do.

Adding ripped art will actually cause a large number of people to skip trying your game. We all want our games to be played, and I think original graphics, even if they're beginner graphics, will go a lot further towards accomplishing that.

There was this really weird adventure game I remember playing about a duck (da duck?) that was all drawn with crazy sketches. The odd style of the artwork (by no means professional looking) really gave it character because it was consistent and original.

Hi, I'm making good progress with the engine - I almost have a demo ready and the second room is coming along nicely - but I hit a small snag. I should be able to announce something very soon, but first I need to get this resolved:

I got the speech files to work fine - they now play the length of the mp3 file and you can click to abort them, but I'm having a problem when a second character replies to the first one. I tried it using basic interaction and had the same results as how I have it now (as a dialog). The first line is perfect, but the second line plays the text, plays the full mp3, and then just hangs there on screen until you click. I tried to find a reason why in the help files, and did some forum searches for things like "dialog hangs," but couldn't find what I was looking for. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Here's an example of what I have in the dialog:

// dialog script file
@S  // dialog startup entry point
OSIRUS: &7 Hey down there! That looks very painful!
GRILL: &1 It's not so bad, really... Once you get past the initial amputation.
stop

Thanks for all the responses, I'll be able to scavenge info from all of them! It sounds like I missed some really obvious stuff, which is normal for me (absent minded game designer). I really appreciate the fast answers - now I can jump back in tonight without any frustration 

I've looked through the FAQs and Manuals but didn't find the answer I was looking for (was probably right in front of my face at one point). I'm trying to figure out how to make it so when I click the "look" icon on anything, the main character says something like "That's a ____. I remember one time..." with his talking animation. In other words, I don't want to text box, I would like the words above his head as he talks as if he's addressing the "audience."

One other quick question - is there a way to make it so the main character plays a constant looping animation when he is standing in place? I tried with the idle animations, but after some reading it seems as though I'm using them incorrectly. From my understanding his stance animation is just the first frame of the walk animation - any way to increase the number?

Loving this engine - I should have an announcement ready soon.