Video to show the progress on my game 'Dark Asylum' (Working title) in HD

StormyStudio

Here is a video showing the progress so far on my game Dark Asylum (Working title as the name is not available...at the moment).

What's in the video:
- New Stormystudio intro sting.
- Working lift level,
- Shows the collectables menu working
- back to main menu clock function. (Activates if you touch and hold screen)
- New instructions screens.
- Lift controls
- And all round experience of the game so far...

Available in HD..720p



(sorry about the dodgy camera work, lighting etc).

AppChogie

That is awesome mate, very smart with a touch of Grisly manor charm! this is a sure hit many people will play this. I love the point and click type adventure storytelling games.

I cant wait to play..

Hope your well

Keith

StormyStudio

Cheers Keith...glad you like it...have a good Christmas...(must do another big GS meet up next year).

Have a good christmas...

...The poll is not that enthusiastic... 3 votes for NO.... :-/

IsabelleK

Looking nice! How's your work going? When we can expect Dark Asylum to be available? I love the title - mysterious and terrifying

VoidedSky

Wow! This looks GREAT!!!!! I cant wait til it's out!!!!!
Merry Christmas!
~CTM

StormyStudio

TheMoonwalls said:
Looking nice! How's your work going? When we can expect Dark Asylum to be available? I love the title - mysterious and terrifying

Work on it is going ok, ideally I'd take some days off work to make a lot more artwork for other rooms. Rather than doing a few hours here and there. I was originally hoping for a Valentine day launch...but I can see it taking a lot longer...

StormyStudio

For those voting No...

Just out of interest what don't you like...

- Loading times? (There should hopefully only be one longish load per 30 minutes of gameplay give or take a bit)...

- To dark?

- Too complicated?

- Something else?

Just want to know so I can make changes if possible...

Devils

I think it looks awesome and I will buy on day one. I'm actually working on a horror type game myself right now though I can't do the drawings myself so I will have Ian do all that. Good luck with your game and the name is great as well.

IsabelleK

Myself I voted (as one of these persons) that you need to change few things. But I really like the concept!

1. These "signs" that you collected an item, are not necessary. I think that they are destroying the sense of reality (and this is important in horror games), (I've hope that you understand what I'm talking about). I would delete them.
2. Instructions should be more descriptive (for example, when you have the "touch for main menu" screen, you should write if player will be able to continue his game after entering the main menu).
3. I don't know it you need the Penrose Triangle on the loading screen, but I think that it doesn't match the game.
4. I think that this screen blinking during the game is too hard. My eyes hurts when I watch it for the long time.
5. Icons to go backward (for example, when you are looking at the blood on the floor) are destroying the sense of reality (and this is important in horror games). I would delete them, and make player touch any part outside the main object (f.e. blood) to go back.

That's all. I like all the rest (the title is also great) and I think that this riddle with sponge and coin is great! Really well designed. I'm talking this as a adventure games fan.

Hope that post will help you!

firemaplegames

Looking real good, man! I love the attention to detail. Excited to see how it turns out!

scitunes

looks great!

quantumsheep

Stormy, this looks incredibly good - nice one mate, definitely the kind of thing I'd be interested in playing (sorry - I may have just jinxed you there!).

The 'collected items' signs and 'go back' stuff is fine. I'd say that you don't want to sacrifice ease of play for atmosphere. While atmosphere's important, making a game that's more difficult to play than it should be, and therefore frustrating, isn't a good idea!

What I *would* say is that the toolbox as a solution to unscrewing the panel is a bit obscure. Sure, a toolbox *should* have a screwdriver in it, but it's not explicitly shown so it isn't obvious. I'm sure that's just placeholder though!

The very best of luck with this - look forward to playing it!

QS

madmassey

lol, he used the coin that he picked up to unscrew the panel, not the toolbox. The toolbox is the inventory.

It interested me man, I'd buy it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to take the modular challenge aspect of a game like "Cut The Rope" and mixes it in with point and click adventure gaming. Which is a good way to keep mobile users interested, I think.

The main concern I would have is that, if you didn't branch out from these single room scenarios, the rooms would remain to be fairly easy to escape from. Maybe a focus on solving minigames or puzzles in addition to the puzzles would help that. Like for instance, you have to rewire the elevator panel or something, which requires 3/5 of colored wires you find around placed in the right place and rotated in the right way (IE - Dummy / red herring items). Or something. If you already have a plan for increasing complexity then just ignore me, lol.

expired_012

Looks like your putting a ton of hard work into this one...can't wait to see the final product

butterbean

Wow, looks spectacular! Very eerie too, love the music and sound effects... Can't wait to see this in stores!

quantumsheep

madmassey said:
lol, he used the coin that he picked up to unscrew the panel, not the toolbox. The toolbox is the inventory.

Gotcha! I'm tired and missed that - it looked like he clicked on the toolbox itself, not the coin. My bad!

QS

StormyStudio

Cheers for all the feedback loads of properly helpful feedback.

And glad to see the poll has improved :-)

In reply to a few points:

Gonna make it so you can turn off the flickering light as an option in errr 'options'. Although the lights will come on better once power is fully restored to the lift.

Need to create a short intro sequence

Will be adding little puzzles as well as exploring rooms.

Thanks for the rewire lift controls idea. I'd already written into the game that you find a wire to fix the emergency phone. But finding more than one wire is a better idea than I'd come up with.

Will try and work some instructions into the first scenes of the game, hints at how to swipe, main menu etc.

Agree the loading screen is a little odd, wanted something to keep the player engaged whilst try wait for it to load. Thought optical illusions might help, but maybe just some story telling text.

Firemaple glad you like the look so far, grisly manor is awesome and has led to me now owning about 10 different point and click puzzle type games.

Qs, yeah coin opens the vent. Thanks for the feedback about makin the game nicer to play over keeping atmosphere.

IsabelleK

Bump @Stormy is there any chance for me to be your betatester? I would LOVE TO

IsabelleK

E-mail sent

beefy_clyro

Looks great, love the direction this one is going

StormyStudio

Cheers beefy.

Fingers crossed it will be worth the effort.

So much I want to do.

Main thing is stayin motivated and willing to change things if they don't quite work.

Just had 3 days away from loading game salad and take a little effort to get back into working on it.

GamersRejoice

Stay motivated, you're making a really cool game. I'm interested to know how large your game project file is so far if you don't mind? I'm struggling to stay motivated with my game too but it's coming along really nice and getting better every time I work on it.

StormyStudio

@GamersRejoice

Last time I did an adhoc export it came out at like 35 mb or there abouts.

There is probably 10 Mb of that, that can be lost by cleaning up the project files, making some images which are 24 bit 8 bit as some dont need to be 24bit. (Lose the scene images that GS is currently unnecessarily adding to an app file),

By the time I make the game as big as I'd like I can see it hitting 100 Mb...

Or I can change the graphic style and try and keep it under 20... but I don't want to do that.

I'm sure gonna try and stay motivated, I'm looking forward to getting the lift scene working exactly right, then can't wait to open the lift doors and start building the first rooms of the asylum...

quantumsheep

Sound promising, fella! A lot of effort's been put into it!

I think you'll lose a bunch of MBs by cleaning out the screenshots from the project file and using something like ImageOptim to reduce the size of your in-game graphics.

Hopefully you'll get it under 20MB!

I'm fiddling about with a shooter for for the iPad - currently it stands at 20MB with the menu and one scene in it. I'm not too worried about it though as I believe (in a totally unscientifically proven manner) that people use iPads at home with their wireless connection, which makes size less of an issue.

Good luck with it!

QS

StormyStudio

Cheers quantum...

I'll take alook at ImageOptim, is it better than using 'Save For Web' in Photoshop?

expired_012

ImageOptim is awesome!!! Highly recommend it.

It reduces image file sizes from 20-60% and the image quality looks more or less the same

Definitely worth checking out

StormyStudio

Cool, just trying it out now on my main lift images...

currently sized between 369Kb and 590Kb (All 24 bit pngs from Photoshop using 'Save For Web')

ImageOptim is doing its thing...
....
....
....

Saving from 3.1% to 5.2% on the file sizes. So not massive but a little help. I may change the look of the lift a little, so there is less texture and colour variation to see if it drops the filesizes down to 150kb ish.