Vampire Story

[hcf]

Thank you everybody for the interest and the kind words!! 

I have to make an unexpected travel next two weeks, so it's almost sure that the release of the demo will be at the return of my trip (around 15 days) because registering the audios in English is taking more time than I could imagine   

Of course, the problem is that my English is not very good, so I must check and re-check every text in the game, in order to avoid that Vampire Story became a sequel of "All your base are belong to us" 

[Arkhan]

Thank you everybody for the interest and the kind words!! 

I have to make an unexpected travel next two weeks, so it's almost sure that the release of the demo will be at the return of my trip (around 15 days) because registering the audios in English is taking more time than I could imagine   

Of course, the problem is that my English is not very good, so I must check and re-check every text in the game, in order to avoid that Vampire Story became a sequel of "All your base are belong to us" 

what is the native language its in! maybe someone here can help translate

[hcf]

Well, my native language is Spanish, and I am making the game in two languages: English and Spanish. Of course, the Spanish texts are easy for me, but the English dialogues are a bit difficult. In any case, the texts of the demo have been translated yet. Maybe in the deluxe version I will ask for help 

[nodtveidt]

hcf, don't forget that my wife and I are both knowledgeable in Spanish (especially my wife), plus you might be able to ask bonq to help.

[hcf]

Thank you very much for your help!! Well, Old Rover, I guess who you are, and you have helped me a lot with my game yet, so it would be too much if I ask you for the translations too, hehehe 

In any case, if I go for the Deluxe Version and I have troubles in some translations, I will ask for help in this forum. Thank you very much!! 

[hcf]

Well, finally I have finished the Vampire Story Demo 

I have uploaded it to rapidshare, but as I have not an account with enough points yet, it can be downloaded only 10 times. If we arrive to this limit and anyone cannot download the file, let me know and I will upload the game again (maybe in that moment I will have enough points to make the file permanent).
This is the link:
 
http://rapidshare.com/files/251148132/Vampire_Story_Demo.rar

Please, keep in mind that this is not a high-quality game. It's purpose is to test new kinds of games doable with HuC, and encourage people to make our scene grow. So please don't be very tough with your opinions   As I said in a previous post, the design of the sprites is not very accurate, and the audios are not good either, so sorry to the English speakers (I have tried to do my best, but it's not my native language) 

Finally, I want to say special thanks to Nodtveidt for having helped me to learn lots of things about HuC, and having encouraged me to do this 

Well, if anyone tests the game and wants to tell his opinion, I will love to read it. As I said, maybe in the future I will release a Deluxe Version, with a longer script and better audios and graphics, but at the moment I am testing other things doable with HuC, in order that my future games can be better. 

[esteban]

Wow. I remember the original thread about Monkey Catcher, but all this stuff about Vampire Story has been a nice surprise

[Arjak]

hcf, I have tested your game to the best of my ability, and it is indeed a great start. I love this genre of game, so I was quite excited to try this out. Unfortunately, I am having much trouble. Here are the things I noticed while playing:

-I couldn't get into the house at the beginning. I tried clicking the action icon on the door, on the naked woman in the window (!?), but I was unable to progress.

-In fact, the action icon doesn't seem to do much of anything! I couldn't even talk to "Officer Kunio" in the park. In these types of games, being able to interact with your environment in interesting ways is much of the fun.

-The look icon only does one thing in each room. There should be many "hot spots" so that players can know what things in a room are important through clues in the text.

-My character (is that one of the Bad Dudes!?) only walks left and right. I really wanted to walk everywhere, like in most games of this genre.

-The game felt very claustrophobic and bare bones. I felt disappointed that I couldn't go into the store or embassy, etc.

-It's quiet...too quiet...

Even though the game is problematic at this stage, I would still love to help if possible in any way I can. If we can get this game up to a certain standard, at least close to something like Beyond Shadowgate, I know it would be something I would love to play, so keep working on those programming skills, and let me know if you want any help playtesting this! I'll help you get it into shape!

[hcf]

Mmm, Arjak, it is very strange    What plattform are you using to test the game? Maybe an emulator (what emulator?) or a real PC Engine?

In fact, the Action icon DOES many things. If you click in the door with the action icon selected, you go into the house and you see a cutscene. You can speak to the policeman too with the action icon when you have gone out of the house (if you do it before, the character says "I don't need anything from the police now"). And in the same way, you can interact with the ambassy and with some objects (I don't want to spoil!) using the action icon. It seems like the action icon doesn't work for you, and I don't understand why... Maybe if I know what plattform do you use, I can debug that problem...

As far as the lack of sound and deepness, keep in mind what I said in my first post: this is only a demo, I want to test a new kind of game that we can make for the PC Engine, as I don't know homebrew games of this type for the PC Engine. In fact, registering the 26 audio tracks has been terrible... but of course if I go for the Deluxe version, the game must grow in those concepts. 

The fact that the character walks only in 2 dimensions is due to this demo has been quickly programmed, and the backgrounds have been quickly chosen. Of course in the deluxe version we can use 3D backgrounds and the character can walk a bit in the third dimension. It is not a major trouble for me (maybe the main problem is drawing 3D backgrounds).

And last, but not least... yes, the character is from "Bad Dudes vs Dragonninja", but... do you see that the woman is NAKED? I repeat: what plattform are you using? I must buy it too!!

Thank you very much for all your feedback!! I hope that we can solve the problem with the action icon in your plattform, in order that you can enjoy the demo. Let's see if anyone more has the same problem too...

[Arjak]

I am using Magic Engine as an emulator. And yes, the woman in the window looks naked! It looks like you can see her breasts. Maybe it's just me being a perverted idiot, but that's how it looks to me. :-"

I don't know why the action icon wasn't working for me; perhaps it's the emulator? I know that Magic Engine isn't 100% accurate, but this seems like something else...

[hcf]

Arjak, reading your message it seems that my code has an incompatibility with the Magic Engine emulator (or maybe the Magic Engine emulator has an incompatibility with my code, hehehe)   

I remember that I tested my game with other emulators and I didn't notice that problem with the action icon. For example, the screenshots were taken with Mednafen and it worked OK, and also I tested it with psphugo (for PSP) and MednafenX (for Xbox) too, and they worked decently too.

I will install the evaluation version of Magic Engine tomorrow and I will let you know if I find the problem that you found. In fact, the action icon is a critical point in the code of the game, as it asks for reading new data from the CD.

In any case, if I cannot debug the problem, I will tell you how you can install and test the game for example with Mednafen (it is a free emulator) if you are interested. 

In fact, I have liked to read your ideas and opinions. I think that you are right, because creating an standard of this kind of games will be a very good idea. Thank you very much for your feedback again, and feel free to PM if you have more ideas for the game 

[Arjak]

I tested the game in Magic Engine again, and strangely enough, this time it worked!

*SPOILERS*

I got killed by the vampire mistress after entering the house a second time with the stake and camera, but I am confused: Did I win or lose? I felt like I had done something wrong, yet, I saw what appeared to be the ending. If I did win, that's one damn depressing ending! I highly recommend that the game doesn't end there in the final version. There should either be a way to save John Carmack (Wow, I had no idea that one of the higher ups at id Software was a vampire!  ), or the story should take a new turn. Maybe this is nothing more than a big plot twist that causes the main story to begin!

*END SPOILERS*

-The one major problem I had with this demo is that, except for the intro, I could not understand a word that was being said! It sounded like you were whispering. The final game definitely needs some new acting. Maybe I could help? I'm told that I'm a decent actor...

-Also, I love how the police officer says "Sorry, I don't know English," in English!

When you get started on the main game, let me know in a PM. I would definitely help you develop the story (another one of my many talents)!

[Arkhan]

this is an interesting game and the first pointy clicky homebrew i've ever seen that doesnt look like itll turn out to be a steaming pile of poo.

Guess you beat me to it! (I have some ideas for one after my current project!)

[hcf]

Arjak, I have tested the game with MagicEngine, and I didn't notice the problem of the action icon that you related. Besides, I read that you are not having that problem anymore, so I think that we can ignore it. Maybe your computer was rebel on that day? 

I have written all your sugestions, in order that I can think about them if I go for the Deluxe version in the future. Obviously, the story in the Deluxe version MUST be longer. The fact is that when I was creating the demo, I had not achieve to save games, so I decided to finish the story with that unexpected ending after 5 minutes of playing. Now I have written code to save games, so in the Deluxe version we can do a script of hours of playing, like any other graphical adventure. 

By the way, I am going to PM to you, to answer your questions in detail without spoiling in the forum. In fact, if I go to the Deluxe version, it will be very nice to have your help with the storyline and the acting. And... yes, I was whispering when I registered the audio tracks. In my house there is a little kid, and I didn't want to scare her with my "vampire cries"    In the future, I will need some help from someone who can really scream in his home when registering the audio tracks

Arkhan, thank you! Are you planning to do another graphical adventure?

[Arkhan]

Arkhan, thank you! Are you planning to do another graphical adventure?

I have plans for both an RPG and a pointy clicky adventure game.


if you need a female screaming audio clip... my girlfriend does a pretty impressive one.