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Has no idea where to post this. Hope this is okay:

Something has been bothering me after watching a few playthroughs of Heroine's Quest on Youtube. I've noticed that on perhaps a third of them, AGS' gametime seems to be incredibly slow as seen below:

Watch the avalanche and troll animation:

Normal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWs7UyuPj1o#t=332

Slow (in this version, the perfectly timed music needed to restart as well):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wLFC78RJU#t=337

I remember awhile back, before the latest AGS version (v3.3??) was released, I was also experiencing this issue on my laptop. It mysteriously went away however, and I can't seem to reproduce it anymore. The bizarre thing was, I could eliminate the issue by opening a Chrome browser. I never knew why this worked.

Any one have any insight on this, or has also experienced this?

I'm pretty sure you've only missed 2 cutscenes and 1 bag of free food. (not to mention several points)

I wonder if anyone is using the numpad for combat? I find it much easier to use.

A far worse problem is the mage's game I tried to play with the Wizard: From what I understand the "character" is moved on the map by pressing some keys.

Actually, there's a "move" button in the lower left or something similar, as the valkyrie can only move the direction she is facing.

I am amazed by your speed of production. How many were you? How long did it take altogether?

From 2009 onwards, maybe a core team of 2-4 people actively working on the game.

Don't forget about the difficulty slider, which can be adjusted for whichever type of gameplay you prefer.

[Crystal Shard is proud to announce the release of Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok, available for FREE download!]

Crystal Shard is proud to announce the release of Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok, available for FREE download!



Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok is an adventure / RPG hybrid. Like in many adventure games, you have a world to save, and must use your wit, guile and inventory to puzzle your way through. Like in many roleplaying games, you can customize your character with various classes and skills, and must train yourself in combat to stand a chance against the fierce monsters in your way.

The game is designed in the spirit and atmosphere of the classics, and strives to have the same high quality of art, music, and plot. With multiple character classes and several solutions to many puzzles, the game has excellent replayability.

Features:
- Explore the rich world of Norse mythology!
- Three character classes with separate side quests: use your strength as a warrior, the arcane arts as a sorceress, wit and guile as a rogue, or create a hybrid with skills from multiple classes.
- 32 distinct voice acted characters with animated portraits.
- Over 100 hand-painted backgrounds and 10,000 sprites in animations.
- Many monsters, including giants, trolls, and svartalfar.
- High replayability due to optional quests, alternative solutions, and the three different classes.








Available for download from www.crystalshard.net/hq.htm .

Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/283880

Soundtrack available here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/heroines-quest/

Just finished the final game run.

[Crystal Shard announces Heroine's Quest Christmas release!]

Crystal Shard announces Heroine's Quest Christmas release!

Crystal Shard is pleased to announce that we will be releasing Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok on Christmas evening (December 25th, 2013, Europe/American time).




It has been a long journey, but we are finally at the stage where the game is ready for release. The game can be downloaded for free from our website http://www.crystalshard.net/hq.htm, and we will also organise for it to be hosted onto various mirrors.

Stay tuned for the release, and happy holidays from Crystal Shard!

              

Some fun previews until the release:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/heroines-quest

Not much longer now.

Looking forward to playing through the first act! Looks amazing as always.

I just watched the voice acting preview and the voices are pretty good, but the animations were totally out of sink with the voices, which broke immersion for me pretty bad.  Will this be fixed in the finished product?  I hate nitpicking about this since everything else about this looks so great.

Been fixed for quite a bit now.

You also paid per character, most of it is just copy and paste!

Sweet creamed corn! $800??

Read too fast, must've been $25/character. I was questioning reality there for a bit.

Congrats!

Here's some more thoughts:

-The mapping for the roof looks like it got stretched again.
-The rock glossiness could be due from specular levels. Maybe a rock texture with bump mapping would look better.
-The terrain mapping seems too stretched.
-I think you turned all your shadows off?

Adding lots of details can make a bunch of standard primitives look good:
http://mad-owl.deviantart.com/art/Handpainted-textures-Town-WIP-348427001
Most of the objects are just rectangles and cylinders, but the extra detail is worth it. How about some boards to hide the seams in the rooftiles? Some boards at 45 degrees for more structural support? A chimney? Windows sills?

I think orthographic projection would obscure the door/windows because the roof seems a bit too big. It looks like it could use some support beams on the sides just to hold it up.

Some pointers:

-The shadows could use some softening of the edges. Maybe look for parameters like "Sample Range" or "Sample Spread" or "Shadow Integrity" to soften the edges.

-It looks like you have two light sources? One should probably have shadows turned off. The large rectangular shadow the roof is casting stands out as odd.

-The windows seem a bit large?

-The roof tiles also seem too large. Maybe play with the mapping there?

Which anti-aliasing filter are you using for your renders? I use "Catmull-Rom" which seems to give the least blurry results. I'm assuming you're using Max?

Another anti-blurry trick is to go into your texture's diffuse settings and in the first panel, there is the Blur amount (default is set to 1.0).

For lighting the interior scenes, have you tried using some attenuation? The exterior scenes look a bit dark, unless it's a night shot. If so, maybe a bit of blue light?

Thanks for the comments everyone. Testing is going well, and the final art is nearly complete.

Just a small detail in the trailer: in the scene where the Heroine's watching smoke rise, the smoke rising upwards gives the impression that there's no wind, while her hair and cape flutters like there is wind. Just looked a little strange. Sorry to be picking on small details, but the game looks so great that I just had to!

Ahh! There's a huge thicket of trees blocking the smokey area, but the red-headed character is in an open area.... 

Hey everyone, we did a short preview showcasing some of the game's voice acting. Enjoy!

[embed=640,480]<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/s3-WDwlmOgo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

Most everything I know about Canada I learned from Bob and Doug in the 80s and a few personal forays into the Great White North (mostly in the 90s).

I recall Twelve Beers of Christmas was a holiday classic when I was younger. At any rate, I did notice quite the homage in your game.

I haven t seen milk in a bag since I was a kid...

I'm on the bagged milk right now. When I got my first apartment, the milk bag container was up there along with other essentials, like a can opener.

I played this a few months back, and as a Canadian, really enjoyed it. I haven't heard "Tripod" being used as an insult since the early 90s.