s_d

According to some very reliable sources, digital items like the GOG rewards will be coming out more quickly.

Yeah, he's really quite good at it, actually! He hasn't done a ton of them, but the ones I've watched are very good.

Yeah, I read it as "Fer-dee", and interpreted it as an intentional term of endearment rather than a typo.
 

Now you're talking!
 
So, each story/plot/item element could be a self-contained concept bit; a funny weird alien could have a name, a bit of backstory, associated inventory items, some written involvement in a puzzle concept, and some art assets to go with them. The writer dude (perhaps Troels in this particular case) could do a short paragraph or so on some particular alien (e.g., the one intelligent, studious Orat, ironically hiding & terrified of being eaten, etc) and attach that to an article for the new game asset. A fan fine-artist could build & attach a concept sketch, and another fan sprite-artist (or the same person with both skills) could animate her and attach the sprites. A musician could compose a short 4-6 bar theme to associate with that character, and attach the MIDI sequence.
 
And so forth. That really would be quite an amazing library to put together, even if it begins humbly.

No idea how I missed out, I frequented nwnvault for sure. I think that, at the time, machinima in general wasn't on my radar (I blame Halo, and by association, Rooster Teeth for that... was *not* a fan of Red vs. Blue). However... great job on these! I see a difference & improvement even between ep 1 and 2. I'm up to ep 6 now...

Can not put this into words right now. Very happy! Your thoughts and feelings?

I was going with "Fer-de" myself, too.
 
I like what you're saying, S_D. So I'll counter-counter with a 3rd idea. A library of Space Quest assets would, naturally, include a library of weird aliens, StarCon personnel, random Xenonian cities, robots, droids, blobs, creatures, what not. Any one of those sprites could be made the main character in any game.
 
My goal here was to build a library to make it easier for fans to create "interactive fan fiction" - stories set in the Space Quest world. Tangential characters could easily have games and plots of their own. One doesn't have to exclude the other.
 
Oh, and the library wouldn't be static. New "packs" could be added all the time.
 
I'm thinking, maybe, a tree like this:
 
Backgrounds:
Backgrounds
Space Planets
Forest planet
In orbit Forest clearing Dense forest Cliffside Desert planet
In orbit Wasteland Skeletal remains Cave Oasis Lava planet
In orbit Geysers Crack in floor Lava lake Lava mountain Abandoned city
In orbit around planet Abandoned street Abandoned supermarket Abandoned house Abandoned post office Metropolis
In orbit around planet Street Supermarket Housing/apartment Shuttle station Space stations
In orbit Landing bay Bridge Quarters DeepShip
Bridge Shuttlebay Quarters Transporter room Characters
Roger Aliens StarCon personnel Citizens/Xenonians Fierce creatures Items
Weapons ID cards / keycards Household items Tools / machinery Plants, fauna and sticky stuff Sexually suggestive stuff (jockstraps and what not)

I love how Akril keeps calling Frederik "Ferde."
 
Also, I'd just like to re-mention my idea of having a fan-made library of game assets that prospective game makers could download and use as building blocks for their Space Quest fan game. I really think this could be a great idea. Maybe someone who's good at doing 3D rendering could do a library of ships (just ships in various angles with transparent backgrounds). Then someone who's good at drawing could do a bunch of backgrounds of stardrops, various planets (ice, lava, forest, city, etc.). Then someone good at animating ... You see where I'm going with this?
 
Games built on those kind of "ripped" assets would have my blessing all the way. It would still force people to use their imagination to craft puzzles in intelligent ways. Well, hopefully. What do you think about that, Ferde?

Are you kidding? Getting a half-dozen people on the Internet to sit down and even *agree* on any one thing is a miracle in and of itself, let alone getting them to cooperate long enough to do something constructive. ;) In particular, Real Life has a *nasty* habit of butting its big fat nose in and ganking your buddies when you need them most. I've been DMing for an IRC-based tabletop gaming group for years now, and we've had members quit and join on a frustratingly regular basis - people keep trying to 'have a life' and such, and it inevitably interferes with our online schedules. :P
 
Seriously, though, there are other factors. Aome people just plain don't work well in groups - I myself tend to do badly in group-based projects because I have an intense hatred of being held to deadlines (read: I'm a procrastinator). Other people feel like handing off parts of 'their' project to other team members - having someone else draw the stuff you want to show, etc. - feels too much like outsourcing. If you're trying to create something, can you really call it *yours* if all of the graphics and sound effects and programming were done by other people? Yes, there's a certain element of egoism present, but it's not necessarily arrogance - just a desire to *make* something and feel proud of having done so. Collaberation gets the job done, but it also means the result isn't really yours anymore, in a sense - you may still feel pride, but not so much as a creator than as a contributor.
 

Sadly, no. :P The game never even remotely got to a playable stage - most of what I had done by that point was design drafts and the constructing and desc-ing of game objects. Unfortunately, due to two drive crashes I've suffered over the intervening years, anything I *had* done has long since been lost. :(
 
For those who are curious, the (simple) plot involved Post-SQ6 Roger and the Deepship-86 being attacked by the newest model of Gippazoid's killer robots - Arnoid 2.0 (a smarter, more heavily-armed version of the original model). He first attacks the ship - disabling it - but with his own ship getting blown up in the process. Thinking the attacker dead, Kielbasa sends Roger (the only crewmember who isn't needed for damage control) to a nearby starport to aquire some needed replacement parts. Once he gets them and returns, Arnoid (who survived the destruction of his ship) finally finds them again and boards the ship to stalk poor Roger. The Deepship's security forces can't stop him (what with him being invisible and all) and get slaughtered, so Roger is forced to flee for his life through the ship and eventually come up with a way to beat him (with some help from Sidney, who ends up becoming a sort-of sidekick for this section).

I can set it to music if I have music ;)

Not sure how you didn't hear about us if you were a NWN fan! We were everywhere back in the day! From being Interviewed by Bioware on their site, article in PC Gamer UK, hired by Atari to do NWN2 promotional videos, and on several other big NWN sites (nwnvault, several NWN related podcasts, even some non NWN related podcasts!) I am very glad I decided to post about it here (probably the only forum I have ever been on that I hadn't immediately posted it as one of my first or second posts about myself!) LOL - Especially since that means reaching another potential fan of something that was very much a labor full of so much love from me!
 
I always like to warn people that the first 10 episodes are really rough to watch - because we were just learning how to make it work with NWN to make it machinima... We were using cheap things to capture, record, and edit everything - and Season One as a whole was one huge learning experience for us - that I used to springboard us forward into Season 2 (and later Season 3) to make it better than ever. We also spent a considerable amount of money on all kinds of upgrades for equipment, software, hardware, being used to make these.
 
If you watch these - you have about three or four hours of (hopeful!) entertainment ahead of you! And despite these being old - I'd love to hear any comments - good and bad that you have for each and every episode!
 
Also, if there's any NWN Forums or sites you still visit - feel free to mention us, in the event there's others who have not seen our stuff! We have unlimited bandwidth - so if suddenly 30 zillion people began downloading the episodes, I wouldn't mind in the least! I'd love it for that matter, to see new people enjoying what we've done!

What!?! How did I not know about this? As a Linux gamer, there were so few professionally produced games, that it you'd be hard pressed to find one of us from the NWN era without a copy. I played every expansion, and lived for part of a year on one of the persistent worlds (chose the WRONG crafting skill and was miserable, but met good people and had lots of fun anyway). For those like me, NWN holds a special place in our hearts, especially since NWN2 was never ported over (
 
The deeper I go into the Space Quest community, and the network of people that encompass it, the less concerned I am about keeping busy until SV is out. The fan content alone is many months of entertainment (and that's not even including any written fan fiction, which there is plenty of).
 
Now, this... WOW.

Wow, what a hornet's nest stirred with that question... thank you so much, Frede, and all of the other superfans, for giving me that insight into the Space Quest fan community. It was quite difficult, from his original statement, to discern whether or not he was saying "such ripoffs are garbage" or "well, really all of us have played them, I just won't promote them here". It's also clear that this question underlies a tangled mess amongst the adventure game community, at large.
 
Now that I've seen Akril's "Adventure" series, I'm convinced that her (obviously affectionate) homage to adventure gaming is an excellent justification for a doctrine of fair use, and that adventure gaming fandom would be poorer without it.

If you're ever bored and finding yourself with a lot of time on your hands... I introduce to you a project I started back in 2004 with a friend...
 
It's 64 Episodes of Machinima.
 
http://neverendingnights.com/
 
If you're wondering what Machinima is, we talk about it here: http://neverendingnights.com/about (along with some of the things we've accomplished!)
 
One of the great things was having Al Lowe (who I think everyone recognizes?) and Greg Johnson (maybe not recognized by people - but you should know about the two funkiest aliens besides the Two Guys - being none other than Toejam and Earl) - Greg was one of the writers (and the voice of Earl, among others, in TJ&EIII).
 
All the videos are available for download here (in various formats)...
http://neverendingnights.com/nenvideos
 
(If you hit the videos menu you will also get additional options).
 
If you don't want to download, you can watch them on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.c...verendingnights
 
Or even on our FB page:
http://www.facebook....ngNights/videos
 
We parody several things and make all kinds of references to other shows, movies, etc.

You know this is all totally loving homage to Lori and Corey. Hero's Quest (Quest For Glory) is such a cherished memory for me.... I still play that game multiple times a year.
 
 
Bt

Blackthorne, looked at the KS page yesterday, looks freakin' awesome I will definitely be a backer a little further into it (gotta wait for SV to cool down). Really excited, look s like a QFG gam with more of an anti-hero. Kitchen's artwork you posted looks especially Spielburgish.
 
My only request is for additional tiers, but you guys are a smaller project, so I understand if that's not the idea.

Thanks, guys! I know this project isn't everyone's bag - some peeps just don't like the fantasy games, but I do appreciate the support! We've got 30 days, so if you come into some funds by the end - $10 bucks will get you the full game, so hey - why not?
 
Heh... any questions, feel free to ask.
 
 
Bt

Okay, I admit it. While writing Pledge Quest, I ripped several letters -- and, on a few occasions, entire words -- from Infocom text adventures. ;)
 
Jess

I personally have no problem with people using ripped game assets...as long as the game itself is good. A good story and characters always trump things like graphics in my opinion. Maybe it's because I started out with Zork and the other IF games.

Well, after seeing all the cool work from my fellow team members that went into VSB, I've been totally unable to respect the idea of someone wanting to "make a game" by using a resourcer viewer to steal stuff from existing games and stitching them together again with a bunch of possibly half-assed puzzles. I must admit, I don't really mind the legal issues. I'm mainly offended by the whole concept because it is incredibly lazy, and because it's completely screwed-up to design an adventure game by going "Well, this SQ6 screen has this hot spot..." Annoyingly, some fans don't seem to mind this; a while ago, Datadog told me that a fan complained about "Incinerations" ignoring SQ4.5 canon. Canon?! What canon? All this artwork and this music were made to be used in a different context. To claim that such a game has a spot in the canon is completely ridiculous.
 
Truth be told, I've never played any of these games, and I honestly don't intend to. The above reasoning keeps me from ever wanting to try them out.

Hey guys, I'd love to get your thoughts on our new PayPal stretch goals page before we do an official update.
 
I need you all to have some things in mind first. Before slamming the things we have there, remember that we are trying to achieve more so we can add the new features to SpaceVenture. Rest assured, the game will be made, as we have the funding now, but this page below will show you our stretch goal plans.
 
Scott and Mark themselves decided on what the stretch goals would be. I of course gave my 2 cents from a fan perspective, but in the end, they decided on what they considered to be most valuable and what kind of funding we'd need to implement them.
 
Also, consider the fact that I did try and take out certain reward objects that were meant for Kickstarter only. I did need to leave certain things so that new comers will still be excited to pledge for our cause. These stetch goals will only be available for a limited time of course. Note that we're still cleaning up the text/font/formatting stuff on this page and a new piece of artwork will soon be added as well.
 
And in reading all of that, I'd love you to post your feedback here on this forum thread.
 
Thanks so much everyone for all of the support! I apologize that we've been a bit quiet in the last few days. You're about to start hearing a lot more from me and the Two Guys now that we've got some more of the details worked out. More podcasts/interviews/contests coming up!
 
Ok here we go. The password is "twoguys"
 
The link to get the sneak peak is http://guysfromandro...s-spaceventure/
 
Thanks again everyone! :)
 
Chris Pope

what is comic sans frede

I signed up to this a day ago and now I've received 3 updates in one day. Feels like spam.
;)

I had modified several games (along the same era) from Sierra - so that he would eventually even go to LSL and KQ as well. :) Just never got around to finishing it.
 
But thank you for the compliment! :)

It's okay by me! :)
 
Jess

S.D. I know this one was not directly related to TG, put people need a link to this one as well.
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/4959/sierrax.jpg