Topics

Maybe it's just sleep deprivation and a bad cold, because obviously there are hundreds of Monkey Islands all over the world, but I found this weird and funny. I came across these sites while googling for Monkey Island screenshots:

http://www.getgrandresults.com/todd%20monkey%20island.htm
(Seems like ol' Stan has gotten into the real estate business now)

http://www.wakefield.org/pleasureisland/attractions/monkey-island.htm

http://www.ukhotel.com/southern-england/monkey-island-hotel.htm

and finally, actually MI related: http://www.digitpress.com/images/gameon/monkey_island_concept_art.jpg
(Man would I love to have that Guybrush paper doll)

There have been a number of threads about copyright in the forums lately, so you might find this article useful. Not sure if you need to be logged onto gamasutra first to read it:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19970801/myth_and_facts.htm

I was looking through some old computer magazines from 1989, and you know what? I found a number of full-page ads for Screen 7! Very impressive guys. Seriously though, were you aware that Screen 7 actually was a UK game company that went belly-up sometime around 1990 after pulishing a few crappy games like High Steel, Jaws and Crossbow: The Legend of Wilhelm Tell for the C64, Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga?

See some of their games at:
http://hol.abime.net/get.list?N_ref_publisher=521

A few times when I've been stuck in AGS games, I've viewed the program files in a text editor and been able to find game messages that helped me past the puzzle. But while this is sometimes a great feature when you're stuck, it's also a problem if you want to hide "secret" information in a game message (say you're having a contest where the first player to find a hidden message and contact you can win something). Obviously you could just show the text as a background image, so there are plenty solutions, but is there any chance that in-game text will ever be encrypted in the game files?

Following up on some past suggestions (about text window placement and such), which would make the dialog/text display more customizable - I'd like to propose another change, which would take AGS games even further away from being stuck in the classic LucasArts and Sierra style.

Could the Sierra style dialog portrait PLEASE be an optional addon, rather than replacing the on-screen character talking view? My personal reason for this request, is that I prefer Sierra style speech because of the anti-aliasing, but I don't use close-up portraits. But I think it would be a helpful addition for other people as well. Maybe you don't want to bother with close-ups for very minor characters, or maybe you'd like to show the on-screen character talking and gesturing, while showing his face in close-up (I'm not sure about this, but I think some Sierra games did this).

Thanks for reading this suggestion,
GG

I haven't seen a single AGS game where CTRL-V doesn't show the AGS version along with all that techical stuff (resolution, sprite cache etc.). At first I thought it was part of the global script, but it seems to be hard coded? Strangely, it's part of the debug code as well.

Is it all possible to disable this function? Can it be overridden by another key-press check for CTRL-V?

I just got green light to write a series of three articles for a Danish gaming magazine about 1) Creating your own adventure game 2) The online comminity and the available tools (pimping AGS, yeah!) and 3) the future of adventure games, contrasting the commercial games to the independent scene, possibly interviewing Jane Jensen about her new game. Woohoo!

I downloaded The Adventures of Fatman at Underdogs and was overjoyed to discover that the audio commentary was actually in the game file rather than the audio pack (I suppose because the speech file only contains audio for dialog that is also written). Anyway, I listened to it all yesterday and really enjoyed it, even more than I enjoyed the game itself.

Anyway, for a long time I've been thinking of adding a similar feature to my game Shadowplay, as an option available after finishing the game (the game writes to a file in the game dir upon completion and then checks for it at startup to decide whether or not to show the "special features" option in the startup menu). I'm imagining something that is not just a "production commentary" like that on a dvd but more like "interactive footnotes". Theres a huge amount of fact in Shadowplay and just as much fiction, and I want to somehow educate the player in which is which - where the ideas came from, what's actually true and what is not, and what all the little references are hinting at. If you read Alan Moore's From Hell, you'll know how many pages of notes he had at the end, documenting his sources and revealing the liberties he took with historical events. This is more or less what I want to do - except it's in a game, not a book.

I've had a lot of ideas for how it could be done. The easiest option was to do a digital book available in the special features menu, where the story was broken down, either in acts or into topics. But I'd rather have something that ran parallel to playing the game. I feel that an "audio commentary" (more likely text-only) for each room lacks focus - especially in a game where all rooms are re-used throughout the entire story. But then I started thinking about this old educational game from Sierra - Pepper's Adventures in Time. It had this very cool "Truth" icon that you could click on all the objects, and the game would tell you if a character or a background element was based on fact, if it was fiction, or perhaps anachronistic.

This is the way I'm currently going. A special "footnote"-icon that unlocks during a second playthrough. Obviously not everything will be commented on, but this fits in with my "intelligent hotspot" feature (more on that another time) where the cursor only lights up if the task needs to be performed to proceed in the game. Obviously, when the footnote-cursor is selected, it lights up on all hotspots that have commentary attached to them.

I'm very happy with this concept. This leaves one problem though. How to comment on dialog and on cutscenes? Should I add comments in parentheses to each dialog line, which are displayed only if commentary is turned on? That IS a solution, but it's not very pretty. Any ideas?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on these things. Does anyone have a better solution to the whole commentary/footnote feature than those presented here? Would you even bother reading the commentary if YOU were playing the game? Tell me what you think.

I'm curious about this. It seems that while most amateur designers of graphic adventure are merely revisiting the territory of commercial titles,  amateur text adventures are going in all kinds of new directions. The genre of IF has gradually moved into puzzle-less narratives, and the games that still use them are so innovative, that you'd be hard pressed to point out if you've seen these puzzles anywhere else.

How come we're moving in such different directions? Is it just the graphics that make the difference? It's hardly a new thing that text adventures have more sophisticated narratives. Compare two games from 1987: Infocom's Border Zone, where you play through three parallel chapters from three different character perspectives, and Sierra's Leisure Suit Larry, an utterly plot-less quest for the right objects to give to the right people.

Does anyone else here play IF, and if so, do you think it could inspire the graphic adventure community to take game design in new directions?

Ok, so I finally got my hands on BS3 (aka Sokoban 3D), and played it through this weekend. I'm not going to comment on the gameplay or the story as such, because that's been discussed at length elsewhere. Rather, I'll just bring up one of the points that really annoyed me: I felt as if I'd played it before.

Granted, I've never cared much for games about egypt and other ancient civilizations. I'm one of the few people who prefers LC over FOA, in part because I don't find Atlantis all that intriguing. So I might be more sensitive to these repetitions than others. But still, why do designers just keep recycling old plots - bad plots at that - when there are so many things that have never been done in games?

Evil cult - check. Apocalyptic prophecy - check. Megalomaniac trying to harness occult power - check. Kidnapped scientist - check. Underground temples - check. Pieces of an artifact spread all across the world - check. Energy beams and crystals - check. Ancient animatronics speaking in understandable language - check.

Even the designs are confusingly similar to other games. Egyptian inspired gravity-defying architecture. Machines sparkling with lightning bolts. Weird plasma streams. Haven't I been here before? Lara, Indy, are you in here somewhere? Gabe, is that you? And those artifacts (Key of Solomon in particular) look exactly like the artifacts in Unreal II, and just like the ones in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

I was surprised to find that the three stones weren't stolen by the bad guys just as you'd found the final one. And that they weren't an important part in triggering the apocalypse. It seems in all other games, you find one piece of a device, which could doom mankind should it fall in the wrong hands. And instead of destroying that one piece, making the others useless, you travel across the world COLLECTING(!) all the pieces, so the bad guys can steal them from you rather than go about fetching them themselves.

Oh yeah, and how about the term "Dragon Power"? Was I the only one thinking about badly drawn anime?

I'm getting too old for this shit.

Edit: As an afterthought, it certainly doesn't help to distinguish the game that the characters are so damn bland.

I'd like to ask all the artists who try to draw more or less realistic backgrounds, what's you're take on perspective?

How high do you draw the horizon line? Do you prefer central perspective or do you use multiple vanish points? Is it a good idea to use vanishing points far outside the screen area?

How do you work with perspective in scrolling screens? Do you use one vanishing point, or do you split the screen into multiple perspectives, like those "panorama" pictures you can piece together from photos?

The reason I ask these questions is that I've recently worked on a vertical scrolling room, and perspective was a pain. Basically it was two screens on top of eachother, and I placed the horizon line at the exact middle. So the upper part looked totally distorted, because you're not used to backgrounds shown at low angles. I ended up cutting off most of the top part and resizing the image vertically to get a non-scrolling room instead.

Anyway, I'd like to hear about your techniques.

I'm not sure how to describe this properly. There's probably a technical name for it, but anyway, here goes.

The new alpha channel support is awesome, and I've created some rather cool light and shadow effects with it. But transparent sprites are overlaid the screen image, background as well as sprites. Would it be possible to have some kind of sprite that only showed in the pixels where there's a another sprite underneath it. Is this making sense?

I'll give you an example. I'd like to do a scene where a character walks between a projector and a screen, a couple of feet in front of the screen. I want to create the effect that the image is projected onto the character, off-set from the image on the screen (for now, don't bring the character's shadow on the screen into this, that's another problem entirely). So I would have an translucent image, similar to that on the screen, overlaid on the walkable area, and when the character went past the image would be visible (transparent) is the area occupied by the character sprite.

Maybe this confused things further. I hope SOMEBODY understands what I'm saying and can translate it into tech-talk.

Thanks,
GG

I've been considering buying Runaway ever since it showed up in the stores, but I'm not sure it's my kind of game. I've read the reviews, but they mostly speak of the story and the graphics - and horrible pixel hunting!

So those of you who've played the game, can you recommend it? I should probably mention that I prefer the realistic Sierra style of puzzle and story to the wacky LucasArts games, and that I'm not a big fan of humorous or too cartoony games (even the first two Broken Swords weren't my cup of tea).

I'm really torn about this, because I could get three DVD's for the same price (not full priced, but still, Labyrinth, Edward Scissorhands and Prince of Darkness...), or I could buy Broken Sword 3 instead, when that arrives.

Thanks,
GG

I'm not sure if I should rather have posted this as an update to the Shadowplay thread in Games in Production, but I felt it was more of a general thing - though semi-related to the progress of the game.

To remind myself of what works and what doesn't, I've been replaying a number of so-called classics. And I've come to the rather surprising conclusion that I don't actually like adventure games! I don't know how to explain it. I've played every damn adventure for the last 15 years, I've regarded the genre as above all others. 80 or 90% of my favorite games are adventures. But now I find myself playing The Longest Journey (which might as well be titled "Doesn't This Ever End?"), bored out of my mind with repairing machinery, making distractions, and achieving goals, which have little or no relation to the actual story, not to mention listening to endless dialogs, that keep repeating the same pretentious and self-righteous philosophies - something a good screenwriter would have cut down to a single 2-3 minute scene. And I wonder: "Why do I even bother?".

I feel like a person who've eaten hamburgers all his life and suddenly realizes how disgusting and unnecessary meat actually is. It's almost like a sudden loss of religious faith.

I'm not saying that I don't think there are any good adventures - just that they aren't necessarily good BECAUSE they are adventures. I'm beginning to understand all those people who spoke of the death of adventure gaming. My feeling right now is that the genre as such has become as inbred as some of the royal families in Europe. A monstrosity with certain features exaggerated to the freakish, because it's fans have so closely guarded the bloodline against dillution by other genres.

When I look at my favorite adventures, they mostly aren't about puzzles at all, and when they are, that's pretty much the worst parts of the game (Le Serpent Rouge in GK3 being an exception, because it advanced the story rather than being an obstacle - e.g. if the game was turned into a movie, the riddle would remain an important part of the plot).

The reason that adventure games have meant so much to me is 1) that they're a great storytelling medium and 2) they let you experience a complete world in a way that no other genre, not to mention non-interactive media, could. They were - and still is, although other games like the GTA and Hitman series are strong competitors in my book - the best way to immerse the player in a fictional world. The actual gameplay conventions of the genre were secondary.
For a long time, I've thought that I, unlike most people in these forums, preferred Sierra to LucasArts because of the lack of humor (I tend to prefer serious games, and LA only made a couple of those). But now I realize that it has to do with the gameplay. In the best Sierra games, you just go along with the story, doing the obvious things in each situation rather than worrying about contrived obstacles and solutions. A game like Conquest of Camelot has next to no "true" puzzles - a few riddles require some thought, the rest of the action is a breeze. You can stumble your way through the Colonel's Bequest, not finding a single clue, but still get to the end. And the Quest for Glory games, like Police Quest, consist of nothing but the tasks expected from each hero class.

They are games of immersion, narrative and exploration.

I'm going to stop looking at Shadowplay as an adventure game. I'll spend no more time concocting devious puzzles. In fact, I'll probably try to forget every game I ever played. I'm going to tell a story set in an interactive environment, and that's it. I'm not sure it's even a game. I don't really think it should be. It's an experience, and it will be staged as such. If I wouldn't watch a movie or read a novel with Guybrush Threepwood running back and forth, finding an oar, breaking it, getting it repaired, using it, why would I want to play it?
Maybe this will disappoint some people, maybe it'll be a pleasant (or at least interesting) surprise. Maybe you can't spot the difference. The whole genre issue does nothing but limit inspiration. I'm telling stories set in an interactive, non-competitive, virtual environment. If you want to label them adventures, that's your own decision. Right now I feel utter alienated from that genre, and the only way I can regain my enthusiasm for the project is by evading categories.

I know that something similar to this is already mentioned in the future.txt file, but as it's really important for my interface, I hope we'll see it soon:

The ability to specify coordinates and widths for text windows as for any other gui. I'm aware that there is a problem with large amounts of text overflowing the window if set improperly, but as long as you keep track of your own message length it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm trying to create an interface similar to GK1's, where all text is shown as subtitles in the letterboxed area of the screen, and it isn't really possible with the current setup, unless I use DisplayAt for everything.

An alternative could be the possibility to set a permanent (x, y, width) for the Display and DisplaySpeech - as well as normal dialog - commands (prefereable custom values for each character for the speech, or at least for player character and NPCs, as it would really make it easier to set up custom dialog screens (e.g. GK1 interviews)). It would be tons easier than using DisplayAt for every single message.

(Also, maybe I've missed something, but could it be possible to turn off talking portraits for Sierra style speech, and get normal LucasArts style talking view along with Sierra speech?)

Thanks for reading this CJ,
GG

Ok, so it's one thing that nobody ever uses those "Notes" pages at the end of game manuals, but this page from the Post Mortem manual is ridiculous:


What were they thinking? Who writes their notes with correction fluid?

It makes as much sense as that blurb on the back of the GK box: "Includes a bound and illustrated graphic novel". Oh, as opposed to those text-only graphic novels?

Ok, I'm trying to make an interface similar to Gabriel Knight 1, where all text, dialog as well as other messages, appear in a letterboxed area at the bottom of the screen.

Easy, I thought, I'll just customize the text window and place it at the bottom of the screen. But lo and behold, as soon as I turn the GUI into a text box, the X,Y coordinate settings no longer apply. Is there ANY way of moving the speech box to the bottom of the screen and setting a fixed size (I'm keeping an eye on message lengths so as to not overflow the window). Or am I stuck using the DisplayAt command for all text?

I've considered using LucasArts speech, turning all text into voice, and making a hidden narrator character. But I really could use the anti-aliased fonts which doesn't work in LucasArts style (in my opinion, those different speech styles really confuse things more than they help. I still haven't figured out what QFG4 speech does). I'm using a black background for the text anyway, so there's really no need for the transparency of LA text.

Some days ago, I opened my Indy 3 box and found, along with the disks and the manual, some folded paper sheets with my handdrawn maps of the catacombs. It was a very nostalgic experience. I remember, back in the day, when I made notes, drew maps and kept lists of locations with unsolved puzzles. Some of them still exist, like my maps of the QFG 1 and 4 forests and that nasty bamboo maze for LSL3, while others got lost somewhere along the way, such as my endless amount of Manhunter notes, all the names and clues I scribbled on the back of the photocopied manual pages (ah yes, the days of copy protection schemes ), or how about those licence plates and telephone numbers from PQ1 (did anyone actually use the in-game notepad?).

These days, when I play games, and somebody mentions a telephone number, a password or a name, I expect the game to record it for me. Not for a second do I consider writing it down. That's not how things are done anymore. (Of course, not recording an important phone number or password should never lead to walking deads. The player should be able to return to find the information - but isn't it more satisfying to actually make the connection yourself, than running around with the number on a piece of paper in your inventory?) Some games keep dialog transcripts, others use a journal to keep track of events (to be honest, I rarely use these features, as I complete most modern adventures in a couple of days, but they have become the standard). And this is a good thing, isn't it? Isn't it?

I started to think about why I am so disappointed with nearly every adventure game coming out these days. Either there is no challenge you just go through them in less than 10 hours, or you get frustrated with the absurd puzzles, download a walkthrough and go through the game in even less time (Syberia and Post Mortem are examples of these two experiences). Either it's a breeze or it's impossible. There's just no in-between.
Point-n-click may be to blame for some of the problem. Instead of finding out what to ask npcs about, you just click through the lists. My feeling is that you no longer pay attention to what's being said, because you're really just going through the options, hoping to trigger the next part of the game. Rather than actually observing and deducing, you stumble upon the solution by random. Is this why Myst style "logic"-puzzles have become so popular with game designers, because they are nearly impossible to solve unless you "get it"?

Has it become too easy to play games?

Should we, instead of simplifying interfaces and reducing the amount of work for the player, demand even more of an effort? To expand the process of playing outside the scope of the screen?

This has been bugging me for a long while: How do you draw "organic" animations like wavy water, rising smoke or fire so they'll loop smoothly (i.e. the last and first frames match up)? For example, how would you go about creating somthing like the rippling ocean at the Rubacava harbor  in Grim Fandango without a 3d program (or are there any freeware 3d programs that could do such animations to use as templates)?

[Game Features]

While acquiring some rare prints from the estate of a deceased collector, film archivist Dinah Burroughs stumbles upon a disturbing but strangely hypnotic silent film by Conrad Gray, a long forgotten director of the 1930's and 40's. What begins as a routine assignment becomes a waking nightmare in the city of dreams, as Dinah's obsessive research into the film and the fate of its enigmatic creator brings her deep inside the dark mirror image of Hollywood's glamour and glitz.

The mystery soon engulfs her, turning Los Angeles into a paranoid twilight world of sunshine and noir, where seeing is no longer believing. A mirage of false memories, where the border between authentic and imaginary is disintegrating, forcing Dinah to question her eyes, her mind, and the medium of film itself.

The gameplay takes the form of investigation, research, and interviews, as you move through dilapidated Sunset Boulevard mansions, tomb-like studio vaults, dusty newspaper archives, and a rundown Hollywood hotel, its former glory long gone. The puzzles will be firmly embedded in the plot: Scrutinize clips from Gray's movies on the editing table and analyze film stills with computer aid. Gain access to the director's personal notes in the library's restricted collection, and track down his few still living co-workers, to expose two terrifying secrets; one fifty years old, another spanning centuries.

Game Features
• Ã, Full length mystery adventure in the Gabriel Knight tradition
• Ã, Well researched storyline blends fact and fiction, weaving threads of film history, philosophy, and esoteric religion into a rich tapestry of horror and suspense.
• Ã, A cast of 15 highly developed characters to interview and befriend, to suspect and seduce.
• Ã, More than 30 locations to explore in a contemporary, real world Los Angeles as strange and magical as any fantasy or sci-fi setting.
• Ã, Unique visual style employing the rough look of set design and costume sketches.
• Ã, Original approach to sound and music inspired by the audio design of David Lynch.

Technical features
• Ã, Hi-color backgrounds in 640x480 resolution.
• Ã, Fully animated characters with hand-drawn dialog close-ups.
• Ã, Custom GUI similar to the expanded Sierra interface of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.
• Ã, Digital music and ambience tracks.

Ã,  Ã,  Ã, 

Scheduled release dates: Demo, cancelled. Full game, winter 2005/2006.

28 June 2005

Check out the end of the thread for a couple of screenshots of the game interface.

1 September 2004

Oh look, it's already time for my twice-a-year update to this thread
I have absolutely no idea where the last seven months went. And it's quite obvious that Shadowplay is in no state to be released this Christmas as promised - if the demo is out by then, I'm happy. Hence, you might have noticed that the release date has been postponed another year. Let's hope it's not quite that bad, but better be realistic.
If anything, the time spent away from actually coding and animating Shadowplay strengthens the actual storyline and design of the game, as the little free time I have, whenever I'm working abroad, is dedicated to research and pen-and-paper scripting. Thinking and rethinking the game countless times should help to catch the worst design flaws before they are implemented, and generally make the whole process more structured. If I don't have a computer near me, I'm not tempted to start scripting a situation just to see how it would look in-game.

Check out my recent post at the bottom of this thread for more progress info. Thanks to Vel for reviving this thread

12 February 2004

The last few months have been pretty crazy. As you may know, the adventure fanzine The Inventory wrote about Shadowplay in its last issue (sadly it looks as if it will be the last issue ever ). When Dimitris Manos contacted me about the preview, I had actually decided to stop development while finishing my thesis. But all of a sudden I had to whip up a batch of new screenshots along with a detailed press release. A month or so later, I'd casually mentioned my game to an acquaintance who writes for a Danish gaming magazine, and all of a sudden he wants me to write an article on amateur game development! From there everything just went insane. Now they want me to write two more articles this month, and the same acquaintance offered me a job as game tester for Electronic Arts. So now I'm travelling to Sweden for three weeks next month to playtest the translated version of the third Harry Potter game! This is part fantasy come true and part surreal nightmare. Everything is just moving so fast, and I don't have much time for neither my thesis or Shadowplay.

Oh yeah, Shadowplay, that was what I'm supposed to talk about here, right? I've got a lot of backgrounds done. The movie star's mansion was the hardest part. I wanted it to resemble the house from Sunset Blvd. so I grabbed hundreds of screens from the DVD for reference. The film is black and white though, so what color should it be? By a coincidence I discovered that the derelict mansion in Rebel Without a Cause - which is a color film - was shot at the very same house, so that solved the problem.
The drawing style of the characters has been finalized. I think I've found a good compromise that removes most of the Poser look from the characters while still making my work much easier than animating by hand. Several of the characters are now designed. I only need to paint the special textures. Using 3D allows me to do some very cool things, like giving the sidekick character Lucas a different shirt to wear every day. without having to redo every single frame.

Apart from that, amazingly I just keep on researching. I've found so many new facts and rumors from the old Hollywood days, that I just have to include somewhere. So I plan on rewriting the story yet another time. I promise you, it will be nothing like you've ever seen in a game before.

7 October 2003

My monitor broke down a few weeks ago, so currently I'm working on my old 14" in 600x800 resolution, which sucks. I did manage to color a background for my tutorial in the latest issue of the AGS Ezine though, so production hasn't halted entirely. But I've given up on doing anything in Poser until I get my new 19" monitor, because the interface takes up so much screen space that it's impossible to work with in low resolutions.
The same technical difficulties have delayed the website now that I can't test how the tables look in 1024x768 - but I'll probably put together a temporary one before the end of the month. Some new screenshots - I'm currently working on the Sunset Blvd. mansion - should be released along with more story and character info on the website.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot to mention. I've purchased a video-grabber card, so now it'll be much easier to gather reference pictures of Los Angeles. And I won't have to wear out my video tapes or my VCR while sketching architectural details or constantly rewinding when trying to grasp the geography of some location (thank God that Hollywood filmmakers are so cheap and lazy that they never leave town. Once you realize exactly how many Los Angeles landmarks are used as movie locations, you'll never search for still photos again).

1 September 2003

Shadowplay is now officially in production. I've been developing and researching the story for more than two years, and the time has come to turn the rough storyline and all the pieces of dissociated knowledge, as H.P. Lovecraft used to call them, into a real design document complete with puzzles and dialog. I'm quite surprised how all the plot elements - fact as well as fiction - are falling nicely into place. At times it seems as if I've actually come across a real mystery similar to the one in the game.

For the last few months I've experimented with different styles of art, and have now settled on a sketchy pencil-and-watercolor look, a bit like the style you see in set design sketches for movies (there are some incredibly pieces on the Se7en and Fight Club DVDs). I think this will work very well for the atmosphere of the game. Technically, I draw the backgrounds by hand, then scan them and color them digitally - it beats trying to cover up mistakes in water color, and it allows me to create differently lit versions of a scene without redrawing the entire background. Characters are created and animated in Poser 5, then output with the program's sketch renderer and colored frame by frame in Photoshop. Faces may be drawn by hand - like the dialog portraits, and a few static characters - and then merged with Poser bodies, if I don't find the original renders expressive enough.

While finishing the design docs, I'll be drawing dialog portraits and "establishing shots" of locations (exteriors shown when visiting a location for the first time). The walking characters and interiors will have to wait until I know exactly which animations and which background elements I'll need for the interaction.
Further down the line I'll need someone to help out with the music. I'm recording the David Lynch-style ambient sounds myself, but there are at least Ã, two pieces of real music in the story - at a party and as a movie score - and it would be nice with a theme/credits piece as well. It'll probably have to wait until the demo is finished though. Until then it'll be difficult to convey the atmosphere I'm looking for.

Shadowplay is © 2003 Camera Obscura