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The Journey Down

Total Posts: 232

Joined 2010-08-21

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Thanks everyone for the kind words, I really appreciate it! If you’re curious about the development of TJD3, I’ve been tweeting some rants and sketches recently, and hope to keep on doing so during the remainder of the development. If you’re curious you can check my twitter out here.

millenia: Sound like you got it figured out. Smile

A.A: Hah yes I saw that. pretty neat coverage. I was totally expecting nines from them, they both seemed to like it so much. Different scale I guess. We’ve been getting tons of great reviews anyhow so it doesn’t make a big difference, either way. Smile

Thanks again, guys.  Heart

     

Total Posts: 232

Joined 2010-08-21

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In case you missed me spamming out TJD1 steam keys but are still interested in trying out the game (but hate paying for stuff) the first game in the three-part series is free today on iOS. Smile

Check it out here.

     
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Total Posts: 1573

Joined 2003-09-10

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I have developed a theory that one of the designers of this game loves cars. The automobiles shine, show myriad reflections, and the metal practically sparkles.

You would expect to see a lot of different vehicles in a game with “Journey” in the title, and I’ve seen things that can be driven, flown, and (now) floated. I’ve arrived at an island, which comes as a shock after the urban settings. Kito says that he feels right at home here. Strange, considering how mechanically adept he is. Why would a mechanic be at home in the jungle?

I’m doing a complicated symbol puzzle right now using a rotating device. If understanding this puzzle is the ocean, then I’ve gotten my little toe wet. I’m currently experimenting and fiddling.

A question for theo—why only three save-game slots (four if you count the autosave)?

     

Total Posts: 232

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Thanks for the comments becky! Grin

lol regarding the cars. yeah in retrospect I think maybe I overdid it a little bit. Perhaps a bit too shiny, I just couldn’t help myself at the time! I’m not a huge car-freak, but I do believe that cars (just like clothing) help convey a certain mood, so getting a nice array of noir-esque vehicles in there was a top priority.

You’ll see a big shift in TJD3 vehicle design. Gone are the 40’s!.

The save slot limit is merely a way to keep things simple. Do you honestly need more than three slots? If so, for what? (I’m curious how you play the game.) I guess maybe for TJD3 we could consider adding a couple slots, but It’d be great to know what the motivation would be in doing so. Smile

Thanks again for the kind words Becky, I really appreciate it.

In other news TJD2 is now also live on the humble store.

     
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Hi theo—

I like to go back and walk around the environments again without having to play the game again. If there’s a story twist near the end, I sometimes to go back and listen to some of the dialogs again—now that I realize what a character said may have had a different meaning, or may have been a hint of what was to come. I’m even so obsessive that if a puzzle seems to require knowledge from earlier in the game, I’ll go back and check that bit to see if I missed something.

I understand why you don’t want to add complexity if you don’t need to, though.

I’m still gathering courage to do the symbol puzzle.  Innocent

     
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Total Posts: 487

Joined 2012-10-03

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Hey theo,
TJD looks great! As I said on the Catyph forum, I was wondering how you create the game, which engine you use? Is it Visionaire or Wintermute? The graphics are very detailed and clean.

     

Total Posts: 232

Joined 2010-08-21

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Becky:

Thanks for explaining that! The symbol puzzle is actually a lot less complex than most people think it is. They tend to totally over-think the puzzle and thus have a lot harder time solving it than what the puzzle actually warrants. We have actually decided to patch in a tiny clue into the puzzle for the next update, because many people have stumbled on that last bit. But don’t hold your breath, we aren’t rushing the update… lord knows when it goes live.

I’d love to hear your final thoughts once you make it through. Smile


Simon_ASA:

Thanks, Simon!

It’s our own home grown engine called Gobby. You can read about it here. It’s an old post, but still pretty accurate. Smile It is an engine built from the ground up for one purpose: To run The Journey Down.

The backdrop art is generally hand drawn in photoshop with a couple 3d stuff on top, like animated water and cars and stuff. The movies are a mix of photoshop, maya and lightwave 3d. All characters are pre-rendered and are modeled, rigged, animated and rendered in maya.

Broadly speaking I’m the one who works on the backdrop art and my colleague Henrik does the characters and animation, and together we do the movies. Smile

In other news, our Journey Down bundle just launched on iOS. So if you’re looking to pick up some sweet adventuring for your iPad, that’s a deal that’ll blow pretty much everything else out of the water. (In my absolutely unbiased opinion, at least).

     
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I’m the same as Becky, after I finish a game, if I really liked it, I like to go back to some of the key scenes to relive some part of the game. I tend to end up with a huge list of savegames by the end of playthrough.

     
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theo - 22 October 2014 05:12 PM

Thanks, Simon!

It’s our own home grown engine called Gobby. You can read about it here. It’s an old post, but still pretty accurate. Smile It is an engine built from the ground up for one purpose: To run The Journey Down.

The backdrop art is generally hand drawn in photoshop with a couple 3d stuff on top, like animated water and cars and stuff. The movies are a mix of photoshop, maya and lightwave 3d. All characters are pre-rendered and are modeled, rigged, animated and rendered in maya.

Broadly speaking I’m the one who works on the backdrop art and my colleague Henrik does the characters and animation, and together we do the movies. Smile

It’s totally amazing that you are using an homemade engine. To think that I had never heard of this after searching for hours for the best way to create my game Catyph! I am now quite happy with Visionaire, but there are many issues with the interface that still bother me quite a lot. Do you think that Gobby is complete enough to create all kinds of puzzles and make also 1st person adventure games? Does it require to write some code? Which language? Ahah sorry for all the questions, but I’m very curious, even if I will keep using Visionaire for my current game (no choice! I won’t restart from the begining!)

Regarding the technique and softwares you use, I find it very interesting. It’s probably very helpful to work with another person too. I think that all the designs in TJD are very good, the art of the backgrounds is rich and the characters are very funny and well thought. IMO the world you have created in your series is as good as what existed in Grim Fandango (not talking of gameplay/puzzles, but only designs), which is a compliment. Have you ever thought making a new episode with a realtime 3D character in 2D environements just like in GF? I believe that it is totally possible since you use Maya. It depends on what you can do with Gobby, but I know that Visionaire Studio now offers this possibility. And so does Wintermute Engine, which is totally free.

Anyway, congrats for all you’ve done, keep up the good work, and good luck!

     

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giom:

Hmm it’s interesting to hear that this is something that people commonly do. Thanks for the input!

Simon_ASA:

Thanks for all the lovely compliments. Smile

The gobby engine would be ideal for a first person game, from a technical standpoint. It’s main strengths lie in the fast data shuffling (basically that we can have a lot of stuff animated on the screens without getting nasty loading times). Thus moving between screens in Gobby is generally very smooth.

I haven’t used either visionare or wintermute, but I have extensive experience with AGS. GobEd, the editor used to create Gobby content is deeply inspired by AGS, both script-wise and layout wise. We’ve just thrown out the stuff we didn’t need, and enhanced the stuff that didn’t quite cut it for us.

There’s no support for realtime rendered 3d whatsoever, though. I’d love to work on such a game, but I know from experience how much more complexity such depth adds to a project’s pipeline. We like to keep it simple in order to keep it achievable. More complexity = more production time, and that’s just not something we can afford.

That said, I’d love to try working on a grim fandango style game (prerendered backdrops and realtime characters) at some point. I’d also totally love doing something along the lines of the new Book of unwritten tales, with semi-static yet realtime rendered backdrops with baked, projected backdrop art. That’d be a lot of fun. But time consuming as hell.

It’s not a big deal, but one boring limitation with 3rd person games in 2d is that we can’t allow for dynamic camera angles. Being a composition-freak myself, I kinda envy realtime 3d games for that possibility.

Then again, limitations are good. Without them we’d never get anything done. Smile Fact is, for coming projects after TJD3, we’re more likely to simplify things further, rather than make things more complicated.

     
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theo - 24 October 2014 03:32 AM

Thanks for all the lovely compliments. Smile

Thanks to you for your reply, and for making games!

theo - 24 October 2014 03:32 AM

The gobby engine would be ideal for a first person game, from a technical standpoint. It’s main strengths lie in the fast data shuffling (basically that we can have a lot of stuff animated on the screens without getting nasty loading times). Thus moving between screens in Gobby is generally very smooth.

The engine sounds very good. Is it possible for external developers to use it? I’m just asking by curiosity because, as I said previously, I already use Visionaire. But a lot of people ask me what kind of engine they should use to create Adventure Games, and the answer is always Visionaire, AGS, or Wintermute. So it’s interesting if there is another engine available, particularly if it’s inspired by AGS!

theo - 24 October 2014 03:32 AM

There’s no support for realtime rendered 3d whatsoever, though. I’d love to work on such a game, but I know from experience how much more complexity such depth adds to a project’s pipeline. We like to keep it simple in order to keep it achievable. More complexity = more production time, and that’s just not something we can afford.

Yeah I understand of course. I see exactly what you mean Smile

theo - 24 October 2014 03:32 AM

It’s not a big deal, but one boring limitation with 3rd person games in 2d is that we can’t allow for dynamic camera angles. Being a composition-freak myself, I kinda envy realtime 3d games for that possibility.

That’s true… Well, personally I don’t see it as a limitation. I like that style with 3d characters in 2d environement, and I miss it a lot nowadays. I was a big fan of The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, Final Fantasy VII-IX, and many other games that use this technique, and I think that realtime 3d doesn’t always bring best results. It just depends on the projects!

theo - 24 October 2014 03:32 AM

Then again, limitations are good. Without them we’d never get anything done. Smile Fact is, for coming projects after TJD3, we’re more likely to simplify things further, rather than make things more complicated.

Exactly, keeping 2d environments makes the workflow easier and accessible for indie devs! I hope you’ll have the possibility to create a 2.5D (or full 3D) project in the future. Good luck!

     
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Total Posts: 444

Joined 2012-03-30

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Finally finished this episode and I’m quite happy about it. Things are going in the right direction. Slightly longer and slightly harder. I never got stuck but everything was intense enough to keep me interested, it wasn’t like a light walk through the game. I expected some sweating at the final puzzle because of the comments but it was very logical and I managed to solve it quickly. I think the hints are quite enough. Of course there are some minor things which reminded me that this is a small budget game but they are nothing compared to the awesome and refreshing atmosphere of the game. I loved the navigation journal where one could get some additional info of the world without being slapped in the face with it. And I’m really sorry for Simon. I loved his score.

     
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I finished this chapter also, though I did finally need to refer to a walkthrough for that final puzzle.

I’m looking forward to the last chapter!

     

Total Posts: 232

Joined 2010-08-21

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Simon_ASA: We’ve many times discussed opening up and sharing our engine but it would require an immense amount of effort from our side, ensuring that it is properly documented, and stays up to date. We’d hate to be responsible for someone’s technical issues if we don’t have the time available to help them get stuff running. So, the short answer is, no. The engine and editor are not available for public use and most likely will never be.

badlemon & Becky: Yeah that last puzzle just totally made sense to some people, and to some folks it was virtually impossible. Once our patch finally launches we will be adding a small, small clue to that puzzle that shouldn’t interfere with people who “understand” the puzzle, but will aid people who are confused by it.

Unfortunately this patch has been horribly delayed as we’ve been busy working on TJD3 and also busy maintaining the engine to ensure it’s continued compatibility with new hardware. (Fortunately it isn’t really a very critical patch, mostly cosmetics and some tiny bug fixes.)

Thanks again for the lovely comments. TJD3 will not disappoint, though it may be a while before it sees the light of day. It’s a huge game. Not necessarily gameplay-huge, more huge in scope. It’s GRAND, or at least that’s what we’re aiming for. Smile

I’m considering starting one of those development threads here on the AG forums, if anyone’s interested?

     
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If you’ll be willing to share some insight of the working process I’ll definitely be among the ones who will follow it. I loved the DFA documentaries and will be more than happy if more studios revealed what’s going on in the kitchen.

     

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