The same place that you get essential game progressing upgrades from should also sell frivilous cosmetic upgrades that you can buy and people will comment on your new look.

As well as AGS, the Wintermute Engine is worth looking into as well: http://dead-code.org/home/

Good article on interface design:

http://www.hardydev.com/2010/01/26/adventures-in-interfacing-part-i-should-the-interface-be-the-adventure/

Grafx2

I'm checking this pixel art program out: http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/

RE Interface: navigation / menu system

You can't include images in comments so starting a new post but this is in response to the last post.

Navigation

I think we should categorise the "types" of stuff we see on the screen. The ones (I assumed) we already have decided on are the environment scenes - where you can walk around, go through doors and click on people or items to interact. We need to decide on a visual way to indicate that you can move left or right. Doors are an obvious one but sometimes when there isn't doors, what shall we have? An arrow? A word saying "Left" or "Right"? For path finding I though we could keep to a set number of "walking lines" so we are only walking horizontally or vertically. This makes it easier to animate, as well as making collision easier to manage. (Does that make sense?) This may effect environment sketches.

Another type I think we have decided on but may need confirmation, by clicking on people you bring up the dialogue screen which includes what they say, what you say/do, facial expressions, and some way to end the conversation. Whether that's you saying "bye" or a "back button" or pressing "esc".

I also like the idea of zooming into certain areas like fridge shelves (or desks, or through certain windows). You could automatically scan and add stuff to your journal from there, or take photos. Or look at the scene using your special eye upgrades. As a robot, would you have smell?

Menu System

The menu system needs some thought. What games can you think of that had a really good menu system, and what was good about them? What's better - loads of options or few? What things will we absolutely need to include?

By the way, saving or auto-saving? Pros, cons etc. Also, option to fast travel from main menu or from public teleport machines? (Personally I like this idea better as it's more realistic.)

Interface

??????

edit: maybe interactions change based on robot upgrades and are reflected in interface. Also, the actions change depending on context -- eyes are a visual description for mundane items; clue hunting mode on key items. Mouth is talk or maybe he just puts it in his mouth. Hand is use (doors and switches), take for inventory objects, and it makes people uncomfortable if you use it on them.

 

Tex Murphy: Martian Memorandum (the 2nd game in this pack) is a really gorgeous point and click game.

I forgot how to take screenshots in DOSbox so here are some phone photos:

It has video clips when talking to people and almost-FMV cutscenes (woah!).  Adding it to my inspiration list!

edit: here is a video http://youtu.be/TatoXJV0CFE

GAME PLAN

What is our PLAN OF ACTION?

We've got technical decisions to make!

We should get the first level - or just *a* level or sequence - outlined so we can cobble some placeholder art assets together and decide what we are going to make this thing in.

Brainstorm for plot

We did some brainstorming and got a little ways with plot ideas- as it stands it goes like this (I'm going to be repeating some ground here, but bare with me)

So to start with, a way, way back, there was a technological illumination. Humans cracked A.I. It revolutionalised a lot of things, and in a couple of years, robots went from being your everyday toaster to your co-worker. It didn't take long for robots to feel like, in fairness- if they didn't get a say in how we made babies, we shouldn't get a hand in how they create new AI. And so it was that robots took the monopoly on robotics micro-engineering. And then overall engineering. And then cybernetics.

Fast forward hundreds of years later, and our city is on the roads to recovering from a long, arduous war. It's only been a couple of years since martial law was phased out, there's still a bit of rationing (enough for a black market), and it's not entirely unusual to see poverty riots/ghost streets from bomb destruction. There's a lot of general languishing for both robots and humans, though it affects them differently. The need for fancy robots is getting pretty thin; they don't need diplomatbots anymore, it's a lot more practical to get car upgrades. And the regulation over cybernetics is harsh for humans, despite the levels of injuries there are both civilian and war related, because of the costs, the resources needed, and the apparently difficult procedures/health risks there are. There's a waiting list for treatment, but unless you are rich, powerful, famous, a war hero or the occasional adorable PR child, there's no chance.

Right, then.

- We have Officer Robot and Officer Buddy who are pals

- They are beat cops, basically

- They do beat cop things, small time puzzles, get-to-know-the-world type exploration

- It's nice

- Only thing is Officer Buddy's got a war wound that's stopping him from being a full detective (Officer Robot is also a couple of upgrades away from qualifying) 

- Officer Buddy doesn't turn up for his shift one day

- His house is empty

- You have to find your buddy

- Your search takes you into a what's basically a chop-shop where Buddy is messed up

- Something something about investigation, going undercover as a human so the chopshop doctors don't think you are a robot snoop

- This is where both of us started to get a little distracted

- Where was I

- Robot discovers that things are not what they seem at all- humans could very, very easily get cybernetic implants. Robots are worried that if humans can be robots, what will robots do?

- You can't take your pal to a regular doctor because then he'll be in trouble for doing illegal things. 

Subplots/Design Considerations

- multi-path endings/early game enders mean no idea is too dumb, melodramatic or cheery. Go nuts with that. If you want to see an ending where if you pick up a flower in a 5 minute window at the beginning of a game and keep it for 6 hours straight then give it to Officer Buddy at just the right moment and he doesn't go off and the game ends with everyone just being pals forever the end then I think we should go for it. Let's make Dan's life difficult and give him lots of things to program and it'll be great.

- There's animosity in a lot of groups that could be played on - the military vs. the police, the... well, I have it down as the League of Misopolemiacs, but the guys aggressively peaceful chaps, that are non-plot vital

- Officer Robot and Officer Buddy are tight at the beginning of the game, since they've been partners for a while. But at first Robot was trepiditious since he got the feeling that they were only partnered because they were the oddballs of the station and he'd worked hard to become a cop and be accepted. I like to think that Officer Buddy was the sheep to Robot's baby elephant, though, and just refused to be pushed away. Maybe it was Officer Robot's.. creation day? chip activation remembrance day? and Buddy brought him a little flower in a pot, and Robot thought he was making fun of his background but Buddy had no idea, he just thought Robot would just like it. Robot was taken aback, because did like and they were friends forever. 

- There are some robots who think it's unfair that humans get to be robots but robots don't get to be humans. There have been a couple of serial killers. One of them jammed some dude's eyeballs into his headpiece and just sobbed until the cops showed up. 

- But seriously I think this is a valid thing, I bet in the future from this game we'll see robots that have squishy human organs or something. I mean, we have some pretty rad stuff. I bet they could find a reason for jamming a kidney or 2 in a robot.

- If you do enough little side bits/exploration I think you should get promoted. NOT YOUR BUDDY THOUGH HE'S A LOOSE CANON

Things to consider

- It's at risk of going a little Deus Ex
- By which I mean I'm pretty sure this is just Deus Ex
- How do we end this
- Help

Danny, I have the full conversation transcipt you can have, but it's pretty much just this but spread out with a lot of 'no wait, what's and 'what about if not that thing but this thing' scattered in between.

That was long and boring to type up. I HOPE IT WAS WORTH IT.

I don't know anything about Unity but I don't know, would going down the path of using it and something like this be a good idea?


http://www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/

Not that I want to take anything away from Danny's programming duties - I legit have no idea how this stuff works or whether it'd make our lives easier or be a pain. The plus sides to it seem to be PC, Android and iOS compatibility, the minuses-- well I haven't looked into the difference between free and pro Unity. Money. Money is probably a minus.

Any progress? I'm still drawing stuff for it but I don't really have a direction.