When I was younger, I enjoyed catching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Recently I've become aware that they show it at night, mainly through the comic recaps of finkenstein  and mrcolossal who get to watch it at 11:10pm every night.  I, however, have to wait until 2am!  But since today was Friday and I had nothing better to do I decided to watch.  Boy, what a boring episode!  Of course, it had some fun parts, so I decided to rip both of them off and do my own Trek comic:

For those of you who are displeased by the lack of updates to the livejournal, I've started a Twitter.  Updates will be much more frequent than here, but they're mostly stream of consciousness nonsense and/or rants.  Of course, someone might find it interesting, so there it is.

 You may have noticed a distinct lack of updates recently, and there is a very good reason for that: I haven't touched BJ8 since the beginning of July, when I recorded some voices for it at Mittens.

So what have I been up to? Well, I entered the TIGSource Adult/Education competition, and made this.

It was a nice diversion from Ben Jordan, and now I'll hopefully be motivated to get back to it.

A couple more links of interest:

Uhfgood's review of Case 4.

A very brief gameplay video of Case 8 showing a cameo appearance by an internet celebrity.

Couple of things to report in this post:

A review of Case 3 is up at UHFgood's site.

Second, last weekend I made some real progress on one section of the game, and am hoping to finish up that section this weekend.  In the meantime, here is a preview of said section (excuse the programmer art, but drawing the background is on my list of things to do this weekend.)

Uhfgood has reviewed Case 2.  As with Case 1, he has been very kind.

Hooray, a new animation, especially of interest to those people who enjoyed all the walking in the teaser:


Does this mean it's an action/adventure?  Nah...

Uhfgood has reviewed Case 1.  He is planning on reviewing each game in the series, so give it a read!

Today I received two sets of lines for two characters done by their respective voice actors. 

Both were completely different in terms of the characters' natures and dispositions: one was a comedic role and the other a high-energy dramatic role.

Both are absolutely amazing.

I'm extremely excited to hear how this game is going to wind up sounding.

It seems the Grundislav Games forum is dead alive.  Somebody didn't pay the bill  The bill seems to have been paid.  I didn't buy the domain name so I can't renew it.  It seems for now, this will have to be the primary location for discussion.  Disregard this post!

Hey, what do you know? I made good on my previous statement.  Enjoy!

Depending on how productive I am, there should be something interesting on this site within the next couple of days. 

What could it possibly be?!

Stay tuned.

In the previous entry, several people noted that I haven't written in a while, and they are right.  I apologize for the lack of updates, but I haven't really had much to say lately, because I haven't worked on the game too much recently.  Mainly the reason is because I got a new full-time job, which doesn't leave me with as much time to work on Case 8 as I would like.  However, I am doing my best to get back into it and get things done.

Having said that, I guess it's time for a status report, of sorts:

The game is, in my estimation, about 30% complete.  I don't know when it will be finished, but I'm very much aiming to have it out this year.  Realistically, it will probably be anywhere in the range of Fall/Winter.  Someone on my forums guessed Christmas 2009, and I think that would be as appropriate a date as any, so I'm going to do my best to shoot for that goal. 

So I'm also going to do my best to update this journal more often.  Of course, for that I need input from you, the readers.  What do you want to know?  Do you prefer a screenshot here or there, maybe a teaser image?  A full report on what I coded a specific day?  Voice/music clips when we get there?  Obviously I don't want to spoil anything, but I promise I will give you guys what you want as much as I'm able to.

After completing this background, I realized it's the only one in the game with cheerful colors and a blue sky...and it isn't even for a playable section!

A lot of people seem curious about the second player character I mentioned in the previous post, so I decided to show off the latest completed background featuring said character, but with the character blurred to avoid any spoilers.  Although, if you analyze the background details, you might be able to get a good idea.

Long time no post.

I haven't been working on the game as much as I would like to, but I have made some progress.  As it stands, the first playable section as Ben is pretty much finished.  Now I just need to start working on the first section as the second character. 

Oh yeah, I did mention there are two playable characters, didn't I?

Hooray! It's Christmas time!

Since you've all been so good this year, I'm going to give you a present in the form of a new screenshot from Case 8.



Happy holidays everybody!

My 15 minutes of fame have begun!  Considering both these videos clock in at a total of 15 minutes, I'd say they're about over too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr7_-O5tSD8

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-UodAT0VZU

Doing this interview was absolutely great, many thanks to Anthony Carboni, his crew Jon and Jake, and Scottaditios in Brooklyn for providing us with a great environment and food.

Now now, don't let the title scare you.  What it means is that I have finished writing Case 8.  For the first time in the entire series, I actually wrote the structure of the game on a giant notepad instead of using Word.  In a way it sort of feels more authentic, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, for some statistics to satisfy the curious (bear in mind these facts may change as I make revisions):

- The game on paper takes up 4 full pages.

- It is divided into 7 playable sections.

- There are two major "morality choices" which will affect the ending of the game.

- There are 4 possible endings.

I'm excited because this means now I can focus exclusively on doing the art, since I have a good idea of what I'll need for the game.

I haven't posted much since the release of Case 7, but I figured I would pop in to answer the one question that I'm sure all 5 of you who read this developer diary have got on your minds: how is Case 8 doing?

Currently, Case 8 is in production.  However, this does not mean that I am working on it 24/7. I am trying to do as much as I can whenever I get some free time, which is not as often as I'd like.  Anyway, progress can be divided up in the following categories:

Story: While I was at Mittens (the AGS gathering), I felt inspired and wrote down an outline for the story on a set of cards.  As I get further in the design process, I'll flesh out the story and add puzzles and all that good stuff.

Graphics: The game's graphical style is getting a makeover.  Character portraits are now stylistically similar to the ones in the first Gabriel Knight game.  I have also adopted a new method of doing backgrounds, in which I draw them on paper first, then scan them in and color them on the computer, rather than just drawing them from scratch on the PC.

Here is an example:


Music/Voices: I haven't even thought about this yet.

So in a nutshell, the game itself currently has 3 1/2 rooms in it, and about 5 characters have full talking animations.

I'm aiming for a release some time in 2009.  Stay tuned.