Hello all, and welcome to the second installment of testgame.exe: Making the Adventure. As some of you may know from last month’s issue of GameCola, the purpose of this feature is basically to provide an opportunity for you, the reader, to watch as I, the Lizo, attempt to create an adventure game. It’s also a great opportunity for me to show off. 😉
Over the past month, I’ve been playing around with different bits of the game, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. The most notable change in this version is that I’ve actually discovered how I was supposed to be using spoken dialogue. So now, if you want to hear Paul’s awesome voice, you’ll have to download a separate voice file, and if not, you’ll still be able to see the dialogue in the form of word’s floating above the character’s head. This way, you can’t do things like make Paul moonwalk by telling him to walk one way and then looking at something in the other direction, which was rather strange when it would happen before (to say the least)…
And while we’re on the topic of voices, there are new parts in the game in which there is dialogue but no voice over. This is due to the fact that I am lazy, and should be remedied next month. Also, the best way I could figure out to do narration makes you have to click to remove some of the messages, which is reeeeally annoying I know, and I’ll try to find an alternative soon.
There’s not much more I can say here, so, without further ado, I give you (my thanks to anyone who’s actually doing this by the way!)…
Speech.vox (optional)
(no extra files needed to run the game, but the .vox file must be placed in the same folder as the .exe file for the voice pack to work.)
Things to do/new features of note:
- Inventory items. They exist. 🙂
- New and improved backgrounds! OK, not so much new, but certainly improved!
- Check out that door! It’s flawless I tell you, flawless! It doesn’t open until it’s been unlocked. When you open it, it opens. When you close it, it closes. And you can only walk through it when it’s open! You have no idea how happy this makes me. 😀
- A bit more voice acting. If you’re lucky enough to have downloaded the voice pack, you may even get to hear Lizo‘s voice as she tries to be a narrator.
Upcoming tasks for Lizo:
- Another character/plot. Yeaaah, I know I said I’d do this last time. I already have one fourth of a second character animated, I swear!
- More interactions with inventory items—maybe even the ability to read the letters or look at the map.
- Redo second background screen. I’m really not a fan of how much I have to zoom in on Paul to make him fit the right size for the door. This must be changed.
All the graphics, design, and dialogue are by Lizo. Paul is voiced (appropriately) by Paul Franzen. Adventure Game Studio (the program used to create this game) can be downloaded at: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Â Â Â Â
