Project Devonia: ‘Manticore’ – Adventure Game [WIP] [DEMO]

[PayItForward]

Hello all,

My name’s Chris and I’m an indie author but right now in the process of making a point’n’click adventure game with the AGS game editor.
A demo in English and German for either Linux or Windows can be found on my new itch.io game account.
https://weltenberg.itch.io/project-devonia-manticore

Since I use Makehuman besides Blender to create the characters I thought I would present to you what has been done with your help.
I have the main development thread over there on the AGS forums if you want to have more insight. I will post some ideas here that concern mainly character modeling.


Watch my game trailer video on youtube or
visit my itch.io game developer profile




Main hall: That’s the first room of the game. Interiors’s mostly not made with MH of course but first time you really see the character in-game.


Walk cycle: One frame of main character Lucia Torres.
I tried different rigs from ammarkoV, rez and Dreamium_blend with motion capturing data from ACCAD. Best results gave the ACCAD rig naturally but the results were generally still somewhat dissatisfactory in one way or the other. I’m not exactly sure what the issue is but it has been discussed elsewhere on the forums if I remember correctly.


Credits: That’s a still of one slide that will roll at the end of the game.
Know though that almost every asset that I used has been heavily edited or even redone so you probably won’t recognize it. Most recognizable is probably elvaerwyn’s racing suit and littleright’s bobcut.


Early drafts: First models of Lucia. In the back she still “wears” the racing suit by elvaerwyn.
If you have any questions just ask

best regards
Chris

[tomcat]

Greetings!

Very interesting project! Thank you so much for sharing. It is extremely informative to watch the development process of the game.

The game can be posted on itch.io and/or Patreon.

I too am more comfortable using a separate standalone program, although I'm not complaining about the performance of my tablet.

Out of curiosity, what was the reason for choosing this game engine?

If you want to add other languages, you can use DeepL for translation, it has a higher quality than Google.

Probably a trivial trick, but I did all the animations, with different clothes with one renderer:

[PayItForward]

Greetings!

Very interesting project! Thank you so much for sharing. It is extremely informative to watch the development process of the game.
Thanks a lot my friend, and welcome. I hope people may learn something from this and also that they see that the assets they create are really used by somebody.

The game can be posted on itch.io and/or Patreon.
Patreon? Isn't that a donation site? I saw there's also humble, gog and steam but I have no account on any of these sites.
Since I plan to offer the game for free there's also no real financial incentive. I would also have to setup a stripe or paypal for this. Then there is the hassle with tax forms ...
But maybe I team up with somebody.

Out of curiosity, what was the reason for choosing this game engine?
I grew up with games like Indiana Jones and Monkey Island and to this day they are my favorites. And AGS is the dedicated go-to engine in that regard. It's specifically made for classic point'n'click adventure games so that I don't mind that it's a bit older.
I actually had Godot on my computer for some time but it's far more complicated than AGS, and I'm just not experienced with coding. I also tested the Bladecoder engine but I had trouble making it work (I'm on a Linux machine).
AGS has also the license that gives you total freedom if you want to go commercial. Unity has some limits, I heard. That wasn't my main concern but I like to keep my options.

If you want to add other languages, you can use DeepL for translation, it has a higher quality than Google.
Thanks for the hint but being an author I'm always a bit warry of AI translation. People will note if something is auto-translated. That's why I'm going for German and English so far. Maybe other people want to contribute other languages, too. I'm open for that.

Probably a trivial trick, but I did all the animations, with different clothes with one renderer:

Nice one. I just started experimenting with cryptomatte a couple of months ago. What I would love to see is a sprite generator plugin in Blender. So far I have to rotate the camera manually for every frame in a walk cycle (and I have eight of these).
Perhaps I could make an animation and render out single pictures ...
P.S. Yes, I know, I should work on my ability to quote

[tomcat]

Patreon? Isn't that a donation site?

Yep, it's basically a donation site. But no one forbids posting content there for free.

I saw there's also humble, gog and steam but I have no account on any of these sites.
Since I plan to offer the game for free there's also no real financial incentive. I would also have to setup a stripe or paypal for this. Then there is the hassle with tax forms ...
But maybe I team up with somebody.

Then there's Ko-fi and Buy Me a Coffee. They are similar to itch.io and offer voluntary donations, allowing free downloads. Moreover, Buy Me a Coffee can transfer money directly to your bank card without any other payment system. GOG seems to work only with companies, while Humble and Steam are totalitarian organizations. And there's probably a tax problem in civilized countries. None of this is relevant to me, since bank transfers don't go to the country I'm in.

I actually had Godot on my computer for some time but it's far more complicated than AGS, and I'm just not experienced with coding.

Oh, Godot! If you have no coding experience but want to make games, GDScript is the best way to start. It's even taught in schools as a first language to learn.

AGS has also the license that gives you total freedom if you want to go commercial.

By the way, Godot's license is fine.

Thanks for the hint but being an author I'm always a bit warry of AI translation. People will note if something is auto-translated.

I do a forward translation, then a reverse translation, and see what's lost in meaning. But it's true that fiction is still difficult to translate. However, the players, I suppose, would be happy to offer to correct the translation.

Maybe other people want to contribute other languages, too. I'm open for that.

I could help with the Russian, but I guess it's not too relevant at the moment. I tried to study Polish and Ukrainian. If these exotic languages are of interest, I can help.

What I would love to see is a sprite generator plugin in Blender. So far I have to rotate the camera manually for every frame in a walk cycle (and I have eight of these).

This is done with standard Blender tools. There is no need to rotate the camera manually. I just set up 8 cameras and each rendered a different view-sprite.

Perhaps I could make an animation and render out single pictures ...

Actually, my picture has no animation, just individual poses. I put the sprites together and got the animation only after rendering.

[PayItForward]

Thanks for all info! This will come in handy.

By the way, Godot's license is fine.

Yes, of course, I remember installing it from the Mint repository. The license issues I was refering to were with unity.
But for my little needs AGS is just fine. So I guess I'll stick to it for now.

I do a forward translation, then a reverse translation, and see what's lost in meaning.

Same here.

I could help with the Russian, but I guess it's not too relevant at the moment

That's a really nice offer and one I'll keep in mind. And you would of course be credited. But you're right the game has to be finished first. (Btw, my translation file right now has about 1,000 lines and 1,500 words but I don't think this will increase dramatically. Just so you know.)

This is done with standard Blender tools.

I know. I could also just:
a) "spread" my animation (I work with bvh data) so that any next change in pose happens only after 8 frames and then ...
b) animate the camera accordingly to rotate by 45 degrees - a full eight step circle x times for every frame of the walk cycle until I have all my 8 views.

Hope this makes sense but it's easier than it sounds. If you have a six frame animation you need six full circles for example (eg. 48 frames). Generally this would be fairly easy to implement. If you render animation and set the output to single frames you're good to go. Only "problem" left is to piece everything together into a single image.



But if I set it up just once, it's a matter of a minute. I have, frankly, just not gotten around to do it. That's why I would like a plugin. Just to automate the whole process.

[tomcat]

If you render animation and set the output to single frames you're good to go.

Yeah, it certainly makes sense.

Only "problem" left is to piece everything together into a single image.

You mean an album, a sprite sheet?

[PayItForward]

You mean an album, a sprite sheet?

That texture packer looks like a really useful tool. Thanks for posting. The issue with AGS is that it doesn't use sprite sheets internally, neither the editor nor the game engine. However the editor has a function for tile import. That's why I'm organizing all my sprites in external single file sprite sheets. (Presently I use just GIMP with magnetic guide lines which works not too bad. Couple of minutes for about 80 images, at most.)
The whole thing's mostly for ease of replacing and editing graphical details, though. It's also for easier updating the sprites as AGS can replace sprites from the source file or a specific position wherein. But this does nothing to improve performance. Because AGS has just the problem the article you posted mentions. Its tile import function can only import rectangled sprite strips with much space in them and then saves them as single sprites anyways.
This was not really an issue in the past since the AGS game engine was made for adventure games which aren't too demanding on memory in general and are even today often just made in 320x200. But my game has a resolution of 952x536 and some additional animations ("views" in AGS) are quite slow already.

[tomcat]

Presently I use just GIMP with magnetic guide lines which works not too bad.

If you use GIMP, you may find the scripts for it useful:

1. Fuse Layers. fuse-layers-0.1.scm.zip (Size: 1.54 KB)
2. tilemancer

The result is about the same, only the sprites in the sheet are in different order.

Unfortunately, I am not much help, because I am interested in 3D. But I will try to help with the translation.

But my game has a resolution of 952x536 and some additional animations ("views" in AGS) are quite slow already.

They say that Godot 3 is well enough optimized and quite suitable for 2D games. For 3D games better wait for Godot 4.

You can try Ren'Py, I think it has all the features you need now.

[PayItForward]

There's also Escoria specifically made for point'n'click adventures. It uses the Godot engine but they are still under heavy development and it came just a couple of years late for me. My game is actually almost ready as game mechanics and sets/rooms are concerned. There are just a lot of things that need polishing and fine-tuning.
Should I ever do another game I would probably consider other engines but generally I have only little time for games, be it making one or even just playing.
RenPy looks interesting but isn't really what I'm after right now. Visual novels have more or less just stills and are closer to actual books. Like an interactive book with many images. They are super popular in Japan.

Unfortunately, I am not much help, because I am interested in 3D.

No worries, you gave some great tips here!

Btw, do you know of a Russian comic font which is free for commercial use? The unicode support in AGS is very limited. It will be better in the coming version 3.6. but even so. I'll probably have to import a complete new gamefont for cyrillic but I'm quite optimistic to get that done. Anyways, I'll have to get 'Manticore' finished first

so long

[tomcat]

Btw, do you know of a Russian comic font which is free for commercial use?

The easiest one is this one. More can be searched. In Russia in general, there is a very "light" attitude to copyright. That is why fonts (and so on) are often posted without a copyright notice. And in light of recent events, you can ignore it altogether.