Now it all comes together

Title: All Roads Lead to Paradise, The Good Dr Ferrer, Jack French and the 7 Dwarfs[sic] (Jack French series)
Author: JohnnyBDesign Games
Release Date: 2006-2007
License: Freeware; click here to download all three games
Author’s Site: JohnnyBDesign.com

Having further exposed myself into other game “genres” the last month or so, I’ve gained a better appreciation of different kinds of game design, and its various methods.* Just before I got back to sampling other game types, I swerved back a bit into the point-and-click adventure genre, but this time I took a look into one of those that are considered “classics” of the Flash adventure game: the Jack French mystery series.

For those who aren’t familiar, players assume the role of Jack French, a detective who looks almost like James Dean but sounds more like Arsene Lupin. He is tasked with solving the mysterious deaths that happen in each of the so-called “webisodes” of the game. Within the game, players are given the opportunity to, of course, question the witnesses and examine the crime scene for any clues that will help solve the case.

Unlike most adventure games made with the likes of AGS or Wintermute, Flash adventure games tend to keep the plot short and have lesser objects to interact with, probably to keep the size small and make the game load faster on browsers. There are less menus to deal with, and inventory menus are made as simple as necessary as there’s usually no need to save games.

The Jack French mystery games are no exception to this. Each of the webisodes’ plots are kept tight and short (”web episodes”). Though there are less objects in each location to interact with, each game is well-clued enough for beginning players not to get lost in pixel-hunting. The puzzles are not really that hard to begin with, and these mostly consist of getting one item after another and using it when interrogating characters, or when getting a quick lab report.

The art is quite decent and almost life-like, which helps lend the game its somber, sober mood. I’m guessing the author’s artist (I’m not sure if it’s the same person or not) used actual photographs of staged murder scenes (fake blood with models, etc.), then rendered to be more cartoon-like for the game. Nudity grew less with each passing episode, but the art became better, especially with the last one, Jack French and the 7 Dwarfs[sic], which featured more abstract art than the others.

Music is well-used only in some parts of the games, contributing a lot to the atmosphere and the tension brought about by the murders. In others, such as the ending cutscenes, music was altogether not present. Take for example, the ones where the actual murderer confesses to their crime. The speech is there, with subtitles and all, but no scary or haunting music. Just the voices of the different characters. (The author finally decided to add music at the end on the last webisode, whch is a bit disappointing.)

Overall, the Jack French series should serve as a good introduction to point-and-click adventures, and should be included in anyone’s list of games for newbie players. Those also looking for a short game to play with over breaktimes should be well-satisfied with this one as well. Heartily recommended for the “quick” adventurer.

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*Or at least I appear to be. It helps if you just play and play these games - whether I understand more design concepts or not, one thing’s clear: I’m having fun

SLUDGE goes Open Source

Finally, Tim Furnish has decided to officially declare SLUDGE as open source! He had recently uploaded the source code to Sourceforge, and has renamed the whole bit as OpenSLUDGE.

Here’s hoping all the bugs get fixed once people start tinkering with the engine’s code, especially those memory leaks some authors had been experiencing.

Definitely w00t!

[ Thanks go to Erwin from Adventure Developers for the link. ]

Moving forward

Several game designers are switching to other development systems for their projects these days. Deidra Kiai, aka “Squinky”, has shifted gears from SLUDGE to the Wintermute Engine, as evidenced by her new game Chivalry is Not Dead, which she announced 2 months ago in the WME forums. In fact, she released her second game in WME one month after Chivalry - it’s called Pigeons in the Park, a short game involving two people in a conversation, inspired by Emily Short’s Best of Three.

From the looks of things, more and more aspiring designers are flocking towards existing game engines that are still actively maintained by their developers, and have a more-or-less stable user base. Consider AGAST, for example: according to Adventure Developers, around a total of four (4) released games were created using this game engine, but the site’s last update was back in 2003. Now, even the website’s forum is down. There are currently no visible signs if it will come back again.

I can’t help comparing what’s happening here to the events in the IF community. Most of the IF design tools are pretty much still maintained by their authors, even those like TADS 2 and ALAN 2 that are no longer considered to be “actively developed.” The support is still very active, though, not just from your peers but also from the engine authors themselves. A lot of helpful reference material have been placed for both online and offline viewing. Some users have even stated their intentions of sticking to the tools’ older version (e.g., Inform 6), for one reason or another.

Then again, numerous IF creation systems have also gone the other way - just look at the humongous list over at the IF Archive. Except for probably just a handful, everything else has lain dormant.

That’s the way the cookie crumbles…

Games, game stuff, game design stuff

I’ve been playing different games and juggling work duties during the whole 2 weeks (or was it 3?) I’ve been out. I initially thought replacing dial-up service with broadband was overkill, since we mostly use the Internet for emails and regular browsing, but it’s turning out to be different. Now bittorrent downloads, RSS feeds, and indie games exposure is easily filling our hard drive up with a LOT of junk - and my head with even more ideas as well.

Some house that was

Title: The House
Author: “vdweller” (Emilios Manolidis)
Release Date: May 2007
License: Freeware; click here to download
Author’s Site: Vdweller’s website

[SPOILER ALERT: This article contains some spoilers.]

I came to this game primarily after browsing through Gnome’s Lair (where it was featured) looking for any new games I could sample on. Since The House was entirely homebrewed (having been made entirely from Visual Basic), I decided to give it a whirl and see what it could offer.

The House is a very short 2D adventure game where the player is cast as a stranger inside a mysterious abode, with no recollection as to how he got there or how to get out. There is very little information about who the player is in the game, as well as how the House is related to you. All the background “story,” as it were, was contained in a few dialog boxes at the start, and nothing else in the game that provided more clues for this.

First things first - the music was awesome. It’s nothing ground-breaking, really, but when you’re playing the game by yourself at 2 am on a Monday morning, it grows on you. I had to turn the speakers off while I was halfway through to help me concentrate on the damned puzzle at hand. Of course, that could just be me Same goes for the graphics. Simple but well-done, the warm colors especially add to the sense of haunting atmosphere the music is trying to create.

The House employs a Myst-like interface when dealing with objects. Gameplay was smooth as the game responded promptly to my actions, and the hotspots are clearly defined. Since the game is very short, the author had decided to leave out the Save/Load Game features, so be warned.

[OFF-TOPIC: All the game's resources (music, sounds, images, etc.) are kept in separate folders in their native format. A smart player can modify the contents of these folders and ruin the game. I would have preferred it if the author bundled all of these in one or two separate resource files so no one can modify them. That's essentially what an adventure game design engine does.]

What irked me at the end was the “win” screen. It tells the player that he/she was able to get out of the house, and that it took her only so-and-so minutes. This kind of congratulatory text totally breaks mimesis, since it clearly tells the player that he/she has just solved a huge puzzle. The game doesn’t even bother keeping with the plot, no matter how thin it was.

If you’re looking for a short puzzle game with “haunted house” elements, The House is perfect for you. Unless you’re looking for something more deeply involving, which The House is not.