pcj

I honestly didn't think I'd be up for it, but I slapped together a very, very rough background, plus the various objects that can be removed/manipulated. The first picture is the background itself, the second one is the background with the objects in place (plus two sketches of the main character at various scales), and the third one is the various objects, some of which will use more than one image (e.g., the drawer, the toolbox). The only things I changed were adding the solar system model hanging from the ceiling and making the TV and the table it's on slightly obscured -- the cell phone is hidden between the two sofa cushions here. ;)
 
Again, it's really rough, the perspective is wonky, I'm still in the dark about what is and isn't going to be in this game, but I figured I might as well do something.
 

http://kotaku.com/5915096/the-falling+out-and-heartwarming-reunion-of-the-guys-who-made-space-quest

Thanks everyone for participating! It was a real blast!
 
YouTube is still rendering the video as I type this, but once it's done, you can watch what happened (if you have 4+ hours to spare):

Even though I am hopeful that this project will make it, I am a little concerned that the LSL remake reached its halfway point with about 20 days before its deadline, and we've reached our halfway point with less than two weeks left.
 
Still, I decided to double my pledge and make an announcement about this event on that one site I used to update a lot a few years ago, hoping that there's still a person or two on its RSS feed that might not have heard the news about this yet.

Just a few pictures I've posted as my Facebook covers over the last few days.
 
They're kind of large so I won't embed them, I'll just link to them:
 
http://www.sierra-ar...k/tgakick-2.jpg
 
http://www.sierra-ar...k/tgakick-3.jpg
 
http://www.sierra-ar...k/tgakick-4.jpg
 
This post has been promoted to an article

http://www.joystick.net/two-guys-andromeda-space-venture-kickstarter/

Decafjedi's concept, in a nutshell, was that an SQ fan is trapped (in their room, but I vote for basement) and must solve several puzzles to access a computer which sends them to http://tgakick.com ... I like the idea, it's simple and should be doable. On #sq, we all discussed the concept, and there is a lot more AGS experience available (including PCJ himself). Further we all basically agreed that implementing an SCI style (think SQ3) interface & inventory system would be the quickest and most appropriate way to go (I'm thinking, score bar and title at the top, title could be tgakick.com).
 
I must admit that I spend WAY too long last night trying to get a working AGS dev environment set up on Linux and found out the sorry state it's in (the one dude, Electroshokker, who was maintaining it has vanished since February, and no code is up). So, I went and pulled AGS from the SVN repo, but I don't see any makefiles or anything for actually building a library, set of libraries, or a game. But I digress...
 
Backstory tells why the player is stuck in the basement (my suggestion was that the player arrived home from work/school to play SQ, and found the breaker tripped in the apartment building, went down to the basement to reset it, and the door stuck. player left their phone upstairs, and nobody can hear you in this basement).
 
A few puzzles were thought up:
an old dusty, abandoned PC sits rusting in the corner, wrapped in its cables. player fixes the computer (unwraps it, lays out cords, claims it's ready to go) computer needs power; AC cord is busted. player must get electrical tape from a toolbox, combine with the computer (player fixes short & wraps it) boots but needs password. not sure here, maybe player finds a piece of paper (flies out and lands somewhere while fixing?), combines paper with computer to log in Ideas for deaths: didn't fix the AC cord, player gets fried plugging it in mess with furnace, fall in and get fried ... ? Red herring: old ass phone, needs to be charged; player hunts for charger, never finds it ... ? Design notes: "fixing" of computer could just be the player sprite standing in front of it, bends over it a bit, cue animated hand waving, and poof, we swap out the PC sprite "fixing" of cable, same animation, and poof, we swap out PC sprite again Objects: furnace door (won't open) broken PC (wrapped in cables, keyboard standing on end, monitor facing side of tower, profile visible) "fixed" PC
cord piece of paper somewhere on the floor toolbox open toolbox
roll of tape old nokia Tasks: this seems simple and do-able but not very funny; add humor :( all the art (perhaps the VSB basement graphic could be modified, but then it wouldn't look very SCI) all the code music/sounds Anyway, that's my first swag at an extremely simple 1-room design that can be accomplished in a week.

Not a fan at all, I'm afraid. Granted, I own an old iPod which continues to serve me well (though rarely, now that I subscribe to Spotify) and I have considered whether my next laptop should be a Macbook, or even a Macbook Air. I like the design of those things, their reliability and the stability of the OS and the Air is a great little machine.
 
Thing is... I dislike their business practices, that they seem to pretend every computer user has to be a complete idiot and that they're spreading the idea that Steve Jobs created a lot more than he actually did. Really, he was just a shrewd businessman. He got inspired by ideas, he stole ideas, he expanded on them, but it honestly doesn't seem like he ever invented anything. I don't like the cult of personality that somehow built itself around that guy.
 
I'll give you that those self-appointed missionaries from either camp can be annoying as hell, though personally, I have yet to encounter any Android fans that are as rabid as those of Apple. I love Android because it's so customisable and lets me do what I want to do, but I don't go preaching about it. Unless someone is trying to shove his/her iPhone down my throat. Which, again, happens all too often.

I can code in AGS or AGI. We also have some unused scenes from VSB if anyone is interested in writing a story around them instead:
 
http://www.sqvsb.com/upload/Backgrounds/stage.jpg
http://www.sqvsb.com/upload/Bgs/506_backstage1.jpg
http://www.sqvsb.com/upload/Bgs/7xx_shower.jpg
http://www.sqvsb.com/upload/Bgs/1xx_belowfortress.jpg

I put together a page of copy calling HTML5 and adventure gaming fans to arms:
 
http://helpthetwoguys.handcraft.com/
 
Please spread this amongst any web developers, software engineers, Googlers, design geeks, etc that you can find - it may help get some more pledges by people who want to see a great HTML5 project happen on top of people who just want to see the game. It may be a viable angle that I'd like to try out.
 
Try not to post this in the Kickstarter comments, though - that isn't the right crowd, as we've seen ;-)
 
Thanks!
 
 
 
 
PS. This is not a confirmation of HTML5 being the final tech used in the game, or even any comment by us on the matter. Like you guys, I don't know what the Two Guys will end up deciding - I can just hold out hope, like any good fan of both HTML5 and Space Quest, that they decide to combine the two. :-) Just FYI so you don't get any strange ideas ;-)

My pleasure s_d! I won't be able to listen every day though because if they happen at the same time as the one today, I will be working. I feel we do need people to listen and summarise the main points though. So maybe someone else could do this during Chris's next live podcast?

Some news snippets from todays live podcast with Chris Pope
 
Ken Allen MAY be involved with SpaceVenture's music. Chris's response to a question asking about this was "maybe he is, maybe he isn't"
 
Gamasutra article is coming very soon. It had to get pushed back a little bit but it is coming
 
Last twenty-four hours of kickstarter should see a massive increase in funds (as has been the case with other Kickstarters) but the Two Guys are not just banking on that
 
Scott and Mark are soon doing a podcast with commentary on each Space Quest game
 
The Minecraft project is not dominating time, Brandon Bloom Blume is heading that up and Chris’s time is being spent organising press and promo right now in what he's calling the two week blitz
 
To clear up confusion, the double GOG package will be on the $150 tier
 
Reddit AMA is coming very soon and should be a very interesting experience
 
There will be a live, online wrap/chat party after the $500 000 is met

I'd really like an area/dimension/sub-server/whatever for regular Minecraft gameplay.
Walking around in a museum would get boring pretty quickly.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-spaceventure-by-the-creators-of-space-que/posts/235514
 
Brilliant move :)
 
I used to think of my pledge in terms of paying for the new game, plus a little extra to support the project.
 
Now I'm thinking of it as retroactively paying for the entire SQ series, from which I've never legally purchased a single game.
 
Pledge UP'D! :D

I'v submitted a Slashdot article entitled "Space Quest Spiritual Successor Project, SpaceVenture".
 
Please up-vote it at http://slashdot.org/recent
 
Slashdot up-votes cannot be linked to directly (to foil ad bots), so folks have to log into their accounts, go to the above link, find and up-vote it (click + next to it).
 
I'm trying to get it front-paged, and there is a limited amount of time before it falls off of "recent" posts. Go go go go!!

http://www.w3schools...wsers_stats.asp
 
http://www.telegraph...eb-browser.html
 
Chrome beat out IE and Firefox and is now the top browser in usage share. It is most assuredly not a "minority browser".

Chrome is far from a minority browser - last week, it overtook IE as the #1 browser worldwide. And even if it isn't #1, it's definitely one of the three major browsers. We had to choose one, and the one we chose is also the one that uses the Webkit rendering engine, which is the best engine right now to develop HTML5 games for.

Which is also owned by Google. *dons conspiracy hat*

I made this ... make this your cover photo on facebook and then you take a picture of your mouth and chin and make that your profile picture.. its fun and helps advertise the kickstarter. Remember to link the kickstarter page in the description of both photos.

By the way, the nacelles on the Aluminum Mallard should point backwards when it is in flight. ;)

And here they are.

Who calls XKCD a kids comic? They're insane.

Find out more...

 
- Fixed.