You all may or may not know that I’ve been working on creating an indie computer game. I haven’t decided on what story and setting to use (I have a ton of ideas in mind as contenders), but I’ve been working with Adventure Game Studio. It’s a powerful, and thankfully free, game design studio that makes games like the old school adventure games. Only it’s totally customizable and you can basically make the games any way you want.
I don’t know if any of you remember the old adventure games like the Secret of Monkey Island. Despite a slightly clunky interface is was a great game. I know because I just finished playing the revamped Special Edition, which sports some really nice painted graphics in hires. I realized that some of my favorite games of all time, the games I actually played all the way through to the end, were mostly adventure games. Especially games like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle (one of my all time faves), and Full Throttle. More recently I also played Drawn: The Painted Tower. It’s a pretty cool and beautiful game and was so imaginative. I’ve decided that I really love both the first person games, which involve less animation-thus less difficulty in many ways, and the third person games where you have a fun main character. If you’re into adventure games, what are your favorites?
Well, I don’t have that kind of budget and I don’t have the ability to put together a team to work on my first game. Also, I want this first adventure to be fairly short and achievable. I want to be able to finish it, you know. As I mentioned, I’ve been learning how to use Adventure Game Studio, or AGS. It’s a solid adventure game studio, and did I mention it’s free? For a freeware game studio its the most solid and well done one I’ve seen in a long while. And I’ve been really researching too. Well, the latest version supports 1024×768 high-color graphics, which I’d say is pretty good. So far I’ve got the game engine and basic user interface (GUI) working. It uses an easy to use interface similar to the later monkey island games. Click and hold the left mouse button over a character or hotspot and a icons pop up allowing you to easily select Use, Look, or Talk. This gives a little more options that a simpler point and click interface. Just right-click to get your inventory, which you can than drag and drop items to combine them, use them on things in the game, or hold down the left mouse button to Use Look or even Talk to an item. It’s pretty easy and fun to use.
But here’s the thing. I’ve got so many game ideas, setting and story ideas, I don’t know which to do first. I have thought of doing a TFR adventure game. TFR was born to be an adventure game. And I could tighten and rewrite the story and release it a chapter at a time, which seems to be the thing they’re doing with adventure games right now. Or, I have a couple really cool cyberpunk stories and ideas. I could do more realistic pre-rendered 3d graphics, or go for a more TFR style graphics. I just can’t decide. I love first person adventures, where you feel like you’re there yourself. But it’s also fun to have a cool character running around, and have a great story. I like adventures where they give hints when you’re stumped, and have good puzzles that aren’t pixel hunts or annoying to figure out. They have to organically fit the story and main character. So anyone out there like adventures? Give me some ideas 
It’s not an idea it’s just “wannato”:
Cyberpunk with TFR-style graphics where one cane see character.
And here is an idea. CyberPunk world where people don’t die but can be destroyed phisicaly and later reconstructed (if they are wealthy or popular enough). And noone knows why death have abandoned her work
I think a TFR game would be great fun
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Pros: Characters, world, concept art and (if applicable) storyline already exist. A small audience who already like the setting may help too.
Cons: Do you want to re-tread old ground instead of creating something brand new?
As for the game style, personally I think I prefer a story/character driven adventure, which would mean 3rd person view. It just gives more options for jokes, pathos, tragedy etc. The Longest Journey wouldn’t have been half as good if the protagonist was a silent cypher (a la Half-Life) standing in for the player.
Anyway, whatever you do, good luck – I’ll be watching this space with great interest
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Thanks for the input!
Yeah, I think a cyberpunk game with TFR style graphics would be cool. I already have a story for it. Though a TFR game might be fun, although it is treading old ground. Maybe I can do an original game first then come back to TFR. Who knows. 