24th Mar 2023

Posted at 18:01h in General by
BOY, THAT'S SMOOTH. SMOOTH AS SHIT FROM A DUCK'S ASS!
MR. EDDY, LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

The Dig (1995) is one of a kind in the amazing list of point & click adventure games from LucasArts. I posted this tone chart in an earlier update, too, but here it is again: The Dig is perhaps the only game of the bunch I’d deem more serious than comedic (Fate of Atlantis is really the only other one that comes close, but I’d say it’s still funnier than The Dig). There is some dry humour in The Dig, of course, but the game is quite realistic (well, as realistic as a sci-fi game taking place in another galaxy can be) and mostly about exploration and isolation. There are always exceptions, but those themes are often a better fit for dramas than comedies.

This post is not about tone, though. Since day one of Sixtus Flaming’s modern development, The Dig has been my most important reference overall (if you don’t count Monkey Island 1 & 2). And when it comes to the User Interface of our game, even more so. The UI of Sixtus Flaming is basically The Dig’s, with a touch of Delores (Ron Gilbert’s unofficial mini-sequel to Thimbleweed Park) coupled with Sierra-esque symbols.

SMOOTH GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

The smooth walking animation in The Dig
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

What I always found groundbreaking and inviting in The Dig back in 1995 was surely the previously unseen smoothness of animation (even turning around before walking was animated), but even more so, the smoothness of gameplay: as soon as I got an idea, I could move to another place and try the idea in practice almost right away, while most games of the era would require the player to patiently wait as the character walks through different scenes before trying things out. Having a double-click cause instantaneous scene switch helped a lot.

Now that I played The Dig again in 2023, especially after experiencing the lightning-fast movement of Guybrush basically flying through the scenes in Return to Monkey Island, it was funny to realize that the walking in The Dig, smooth as the animation still looks, is slow as hell. It takes a LONG time to walk through a room. There’s no double-speed movement by double-clicking or anything like that in The Dig, double-click only works for room exit. We’ve come a long way.

Now, some would argue it’s actually a good thing that it takes a longer time, as that, in a way, forces you think more about what you want to try next. While I absolutely agree that our attention span as a species is decreasing at an alarming rate, I think having a slow walking speed is NOT the best way to tackle this issue. Instead, making the gameplay as smooth as possible and enabling player to feel good about playing a point & click adventure game, where the only way to advance is to use your brain, THAT is a way to grow the attention span.

USER INTERFACE

Sixtus Flaming’s context-driven user interface

Many people who love P&C adventures also love the classic verbs interface, introduced by Maniac Mansion in 1987. Nevertheless, after Day of the Tentacle in 1993, LucasArts decided to abandon it. They first tried a Sierra-inspired changing cursor interface in Sam & Max and next, a pie menu in Full Throttle. With The Dig, however, they came up with the most simplistic approach possible. You simply notice something, POINT at it and CLICK. If it’s possible to pick it up, that’s what happens. If you’re able to push it or use it, that’s what happens. And if you’re just supposed to look at it, the protagonist Boston Low will tell you all about it.

People have argued that this system takes the simplicity too far: you don’t get to decide for yourself what to do with the stuff you come across! Nevertheless, The Dig is widely considered perhaps the most difficult game by LucasArts, so simplistic controls don’t necessarily mean that the game is easy.

Well, I don’t want to take things quite as far as The Dig, but I don’t see the point of enabling the player to attempt to give shovel to door or talk to cupboard either. That’s why with Sixtus Flaming, we’re going with a context-based approach. If it’s only possible to do one thing, like look at an object, then that’s all you’re given. If there are more things you can try, then those choices will be there for you. And if you like verbs, have we got verbs for you! Crawl inside (see image) is just an example here – in the demo, we currently have 22 different actions available and I believe we’ll still add a few more before we’re done with the demo. The final game will likely have at least 50+ possible actions. That’s what going context-based enables you to do. More flexibility.

With dialogue, we’ll go with the good old classic style where you can read the exact responses beforehand and choose from them instead of a vague image referring to a possible topic. Return to Monkey Island also favoured this vintage approach.

INVENTORY

With all that said, I think people could easily play our game and never know The Dig was a major influence… if it wasn’t for the inventory. I love the inventory of The Dig and have not seen a better take on it in an adventure game anywhere, which is why we’re using an almost identical one in Sixtus Flaming.

Inventory view in The Dig
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

Having an inventory onscreen all the time next to the verbs or something like that is obviously handy, but how cool is a fullscreen game view? P&C adventures that have that pretty much always sport an appearing inventory that fills the screen while it’s open. Return to Monkey Island’s inventory only fills half the screen. That’s a step to the right direction. What’s different in The Dig is that the appearing inventory is transparent, so you never lose sight of the room you’re in. Also it’s kind of nice being able to move the inventory items freely around the possible slots.

The only design flaw in The Dig’s inventory in my opinion has to do with examining inventory items: you have to pick one of the items, a magnifying glass, as your cursor in order to examine any of the other inventory items. As most players will likely look at their inventory items time and time again, that’s an unnecessary extra click you have to do each time. I think it makes sense to smoothen even the smallest things. That’s why in our inventory, you only need to use mouse-right to examine an object (when it comes to porting, we’ll have to come up with a clever way to do the same with other devices).

IN CONCLUSION

All of the UI choices mentioned above are obviously OK and you can make a good game using any one of them. We’ve chosen the ones we like the most for this game. But for example, I sure love Monkey Island 1 & 2 exactly as they are and wouldn’t want them to be modernized in any way. Just as Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, we will always have the precious original Monkey Islands. But where we go from there can be something else entirely.

-luuk

BOY, THAT'S SMOOTH. SMOOTH AS SHIT FROM A DUCK'S ASS!
MR. EDDY, LOST HIGHWAY (1997)

The Dig (1995) is one of a kind in the amazing list of point & click adventure games from LucasArts. I posted this tone chart in an earlier update, too, but here it is again: The Dig is perhaps the only game of the bunch I’d deem more serious than comedic (Fate of Atlantis is really the only other one that comes close, but I’d say it’s still funnier than The Dig). There is some dry humour in The Dig, of course, but the game is quite realistic (well, as realistic as a sci-fi game taking place in another galaxy can be) and mostly about exploration and isolation. There are always exceptions, but those themes are often a better fit for dramas than comedies.

This post is not about tone, though. Since day one of Sixtus Flaming’s modern development, The Dig has been my most important reference overall (if you don’t count Monkey Island 1 & 2). And when it comes to the User Interface of our game, even more so. The UI of Sixtus Flaming is basically The Dig’s, with a touch of Delores (Ron Gilbert’s unofficial mini-sequel to Thimbleweed Park) coupled with Sierra-esque symbols.

SMOOTH GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE

The smooth walking animation in The Dig
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

What I always found groundbreaking and inviting in The Dig back in 1995 was surely the previously unseen smoothness of animation (even turning around before walking was animated), but even more so, the smoothness of gameplay: as soon as I got an idea, I could move to another place and try the idea in practice almost right away, while most games of the era would require the player to patiently wait as the character walks through different scenes before trying things out. Having a double-click cause instantaneous scene switch helped a lot.

Now that I played The Dig again in 2023, especially after experiencing the lightning-fast movement of Guybrush basically flying through the scenes in Return to Monkey Island, it was funny to realize that the walking in The Dig, smooth as the animation still looks, is slow as hell. It takes a LONG time to walk through a room. There’s no double-speed movement by double-clicking or anything like that in The Dig, double-click only works for room exit. We’ve come a long way.

Now, some would argue it’s actually a good thing that it takes a longer time, as that, in a way, forces you think more about what you want to try next. While I absolutely agree that our attention span as a species is decreasing at an alarming rate, I think having a slow walking speed is NOT the best way to tackle this issue. Instead, making the gameplay as smooth as possible and enabling player to feel good about playing a point & click adventure game, where the only way to advance is to use your brain, THAT is a way to grow the attention span.

USER INTERFACE

Sixtus Flaming’s context-driven user interface

Many people who love P&C adventures also love the classic verbs interface, introduced by Maniac Mansion in 1987. Nevertheless, after Day of the Tentacle in 1993, LucasArts decided to abandon it. They first tried a Sierra-inspired changing cursor interface in Sam & Max and next, a pie menu in Full Throttle. With The Dig, however, they came up with the most simplistic approach possible. You simply notice something, POINT at it and CLICK. If it’s possible to pick it up, that’s what happens. If you’re able to push it or use it, that’s what happens. And if you’re just supposed to look at it, the protagonist Boston Low will tell you all about it.

People have argued that this system takes the simplicity too far: you don’t get to decide for yourself what to do with the stuff you come across! Nevertheless, The Dig is widely considered perhaps the most difficult game by LucasArts, so simplistic controls don’t necessarily mean that the game is easy.

Well, I don’t want to take things quite as far as The Dig, but I don’t see the point of enabling the player to attempt to give shovel to door or talk to cupboard either. That’s why with Sixtus Flaming, we’re going with a context-based approach. If it’s only possible to do one thing, like look at an object, then that’s all you’re given. If there are more things you can try, then those choices will be there for you. And if you like verbs, have we got verbs for you! Crawl inside (see image) is just an example here – in the demo, we currently have 22 different actions available and I believe we’ll still add a few more before we’re done with the demo. The final game will likely have at least 50+ possible actions. That’s what going context-based enables you to do. More flexibility.

With dialogue, we’ll go with the good old classic style where you can read the exact responses beforehand and choose from them instead of a vague image referring to a possible topic. Return to Monkey Island also favoured this vintage approach.

INVENTORY

With all that said, I think people could easily play our game and never know The Dig was a major influence… if it wasn’t for the inventory. I love the inventory of The Dig and have not seen a better take on it in an adventure game anywhere, which is why we’re using an almost identical one in Sixtus Flaming.

Inventory view in The Dig
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

Having an inventory onscreen all the time next to the verbs or something like that is obviously handy, but how cool is a fullscreen game view? P&C adventures that have that pretty much always sport an appearing inventory that fills the screen while it’s open. Return to Monkey Island’s inventory only fills half the screen. That’s a step to the right direction. What’s different in The Dig is that the appearing inventory is transparent, so you never lose sight of the room you’re in. Also it’s kind of nice being able to move the inventory items freely around the possible slots.

The only design flaw in The Dig’s inventory in my opinion has to do with examining inventory items: you have to pick one of the items, a magnifying glass, as your cursor in order to examine any of the other inventory items. As most players will likely look at their inventory items time and time again, that’s an unnecessary extra click you have to do each time. I think it makes sense to smoothen even the smallest things. That’s why in our inventory, you only need to use mouse-right to examine an object (when it comes to porting, we’ll have to come up with a clever way to do the same with other devices).

IN CONCLUSION

All of the UI choices mentioned above are obviously OK and you can make a good game using any one of them. We’ve chosen the ones we like the most for this game. But for example, I sure love Monkey Island 1 & 2 exactly as they are and wouldn’t want them to be modernized in any way. Just as Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris, we will always have the precious original Monkey Islands. But where we go from there can be something else entirely.

-luuk

8th Apr 2022

Posted at 11:05h in General by
I'LL SEND YOU SCREAMING TO ANOTHER DIMENSION, ONE OF INFINITE PAIN!
LECHUCK, MONKEY ISLAND 2: LECHUCK'S REVENGE (1991)

I’m a rather stable guy. When I experience big disappointments, I usually get over them rather quickly… and then again, when I accomplish something big, I easily downplay the achievement. I guess it’s not that easy to rock my world.

But on Monday, April 4th 2022 my old idol Ron Gilbert managed to do just that. He revealed that for the last two years, he’s been working on a sequel to the infamous Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge! The game is soon finished and will be out later in 2022. WTF!

For me personally, this is especially emotional because throughout my life, Monkey Island 1 & 2 are the video games (and pieces of art in general) that have had the most significant influence to me as a human being. They’ve been with me every step of the way. I first played them in 1991 or 1992 at age 8 without any understanding of the English language (I believe my dad told me what the verbs meant and that’s all). When I got on my first date in 1998, we spent the evening playing SoMI together. And in 2007, when I madly fell in love for the first time, some the best moments of that relationship were spent playing SoMI together. And without Monkey Island, I never would’ve begun developing Sixtus Flaming, that’s for sure. I can’t stress enough the monumental importance these games have to me. Nothing else can ever come close.

I’m not the only one to whom this was an incredible announcement, though: after 30 years, the man who’s always been best known from Monkey Islands 1 & 2 returns for the incredibly long anticipated 3rd chapter. Do we finally get to find out the SECRET of Monkey Island? Do we get to find out what happened in/after the end of LeChuck’s Revenge? Well, I believe these questions have stayed with us for all these decades solely because they WERE left unanswered, and that was BRILLIANT. If Ron is going to answer them now (I don’t think he should), he’d better have even bigger questions in store for us. I very much believe that it’s the questions – the mystery – that drives us. That’s what made Monkey Island’s legacy so wonderful. That’s why the 3rd game should end with the same amount of ambiguity.

PIXEL ART VS. HI-RES?

The teaser trailer that was released with the announcement showed a glimpse of the visual style of the upcoming game. Some loved it, some liked it, and then there were those of us who think that Monkey Island is, in it’s core, a pixelart world – Ron Gilbert himself has said so in his famous 2013 blog post.

As the teaser trailer makes clear, however (and he soon updated that blog post accordingly), those words don’t matter anymore because Gilbert has changed his mind. Either he was pressured into that by Disney or simply because it’s been 9 years and circumstances/people change.

I’ve spent some time this week arguing that the retro visual style is a crucial part of the true Monkey Island spirit. Well, it is, but I have now come to a realization that the idea of making the new game a hi-res one in itself is NOT the actual issue here. I don’t dislike Curse’s visual style (as a Monkey Island game) because it has better resolution than Monkey 2. I dislike it because the approach is GOOFY and CARTOONISH.

“Well why is that such a big deal?” you might ask. “Guybrush is a funny chap and the games have so much humour in them they can be called comedies. Cartoonish style is a good match to that.”

Crop from the box cover art of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

Monkey 1 & 2 certainly have those qualities: they are very funny games! But at least for me personally, that’s not at all the full extent of what these games have going for them. Especially Monkey 2! If you look at the magnificent cover art of LeChuck’s Revenge and imagine you’d now see it for the first time, I’d be surprised if your reaction would be “ah, we’re in for some goofy fun.” That cover is downright scary. And at least to a certain 8-year-old boy, it was definitely scary.

Crop from the game Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

“WHAT’S WITH THAT BIG, SHARP, DEADLY-LOOKING PIN?”

When I entered that tunnel at the end of Monkey 2 for the first time (again, I was 8 years old) and started my escape, my heart was pounding because it was clear that LeChuck could reappear any second! I kept click-click-clicking things hoping that Guybrush would move faster to prevent another encounter. I was about to have a heart attack whenever the scary music would announce the zombie pirate’s arrival. To this day I remember the visceral panic. As I looked at LeChuck’s pixelart sprite graphic, in my mind’s eye I was looking at the realistic monster I had seen in the box cover art.

I was young and those things stayed in my mind: I started having actual nightmares because of that part of Monkey 2. I even asked my parents to hide the diskettes of the game so that I couldn’t play it anymore! But I always found them anyway and resumed playing…

I haven’t really discussed this with anyone before so I don’t know if anyone else has anywhere near the same experience of these darker aspects of Monkey 2. I don’t know if others have found it as scary.

To me, this definitely influenced how I see the games now: while I love them both, Monkey 2 is my favourite because it’s a richer experience that offers a wider variety of emotions. And when I think of the game, it’s easy to draw comparisons to a phenomenal tv-series from the same era, Twin Peaks (1990-91), which also had the ability to jump from scary to funny and back effortlessly. Actually, if you look at the ending of season 2 of Twin Peaks and compare that to the ending of Monkey 2, well… there definitely are similarities! Both are legendary. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ron Gilbert was influenced by the tv show to some extent. Gilbert also recently tweeted that he finished watching Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) and loved it.

REALISTIC VS. CARTOONISH

A close-up of Guybrush in the Secret of Monkey Island
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

So, to come back to the pixelart thing, I think my biggest problem with The Curse of Monkey Island and the ones that came after is simple: the better resolution is not the problem there, it’s the fact that the characters aren’t realistic. I think I would have absolutely no problem with the new game having hi-res visuals had the characters been created in a realistic visual style, using that box cover art for LeChuck’s Revenge as a reference. And if you look at any of the SoMI’s in-game closeup screens (especially the VGA version), they are extremely realistic as well. Actually in-game, SoMI is the more realistic one of the two.

On the other hand, having a realistic visual style in the new game would probably be a problem for other people. It would likely be a turnoff for anyone waiting for the visual style Curse etc. had.

And THAT is precisely why the pixelart approach is so wonderful: with pixelart, there is ambiguity. It doesn’t matter if you prefer a realistic look or a more cartoonish look. It’s up to you to experience the art either way! Those big, juicy pixels leave the characters’ details ambiguous and therefore give you room to dream so you can decide for yourself.

TO SUM IT UP

We now know that the team decided to go with the more-or-less cartoonish high-res style. It’s a shame, but I’ll be doing my best to ignore this. In any case, I’m definitely going to be playing the hell out of Return to Monkey Island when it arrives. I have a firm belief that even in its worst possible form it’s going to be a dream come true.

I want to send my heartfelt thanks to the whole RtMI team for realizing this dream I’ve had for 30 games that there would be another one. I’m sure it’s gonna be fantastic! And my guess is we’ll see an actual trailer within the next month.

-luuk

17th Dec 2021

Posted at 17:45h in General by
I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THIS WILL LEAD US, BUT I HAVE A DEFINITE FEELING IT WILL BE A PLACE BOTH WONDERFUL AND STRANGE.
DALE COOPER, TWIN PEAKS (1990)

When it comes to point’n’click adventure games, background graphics are CRUCIAL to success. And I’m certainly not talking about monetary success alone: when playing these games, you WILL be spending a LOT of time staring at the screen, thinking of a puzzle. It’s essential that the environment where you place your player feels beautiful/exciting/scary/weird or just moody, whatever it may be you’re going for. The atmosphere needs to be just right. Music and sound play important roles here, too, sometimes even more so.

Of course if you’ve reached the stage that someone is playing your game, an important battle is already won! I mean to get there, they must first:

learn about your game's existence

go buy it (or at least download it)

find time to actually play it

There’s no shortage of games these days so getting noticed isn’t an easy task. And you can’t rely on music there – online, first impressions are pretty much always based on graphics. The trailer comes soon thereafter, sure – but only after the decision to watch it is made. And that decision is made when looking at the graphics. So they ought to be good.

The following is a story of how our first background art was created.

First of all, I can’t really draw. So when I began designing the first room I had in mind for the underground world we descend to, I chose a familiar starting point. Knowing we’re going to be spending some time in the sewers, the first thing that came to mind was… naturally the Lost City of Atlantis! 🙂 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis has always been among my TOP3 games of all time. I simply took a screencap, edited it a bit and indicated actionable objects by text:

First vision of Sewer room #2
Background graphics © LucasFilm Games, Disney

Next, I gave the pic above to my team’s graphicians. Quickly – and with a legacy 320 x 240 aspect ratio in mind – one of them made the following first draft:

This was the first time I ever saw a version of a background for my game and instantly the project seemed more real.

My mind, however, was blown only when our concept artist Tuomas Korpi came up with this:

All right, this was really beginning to go somewhere! We used the above background as the first asset in our Unity project and it remained there for a good while… until the first pixel art version was created by a third graphician. We also got to see it in colours for the first time (this version of the protagonist was shorter than the character is in the final game)!

The version above was pretty much done with my first reference image (FoA) in mind, so a rather realistic take on the matter.

At this stage, it was time to really start thinking about the visual style for the game. We had decided to go with 320 x 180 aspect ratio in order to nicely fit the modern 16:9 screens. It was then when I found another spectacular background artist anokaki and asked him to join us – which he did, to my pleasant surprise. We had a lengthy discussion and his first version already added a great amount of style to the room:

It was such a joy seeing this, but the goofy looking piping in the foreground kind of took you straight to Day of the Tentacle, or that’s what I thought. DoTT is a game I love to bits, but I didn’t want to go to such level of cartooniness here. So what WAS the style I was going for?

To clarify things, one of our team members handed me this image and asked me to do a tone chart, so I quickly placed SIXT among some great LucasArts titles:

I stress the word quickly here – I would have to change the positions a bit if I really wanted to make the chart accurate.

The artist’s next version? Well… you’ve seen it already. 🙂

-luuk

3rd Nov 2021

Posted at 12:08h in General by
DANCE. EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO DO IT BUT YOUR OWN LIVING ROOM.
BAZ LUHRMANN

As a filmmaker, I have always heavily disliked high frame rate cinematography.

The very first experiments with this medium and art form with the late 19th century cinematographs had rather low frame rates. With the silent movie era it went up to around 16 FPS, and finally became fixed at 24 FPS (partly because of sound). Even at 24 FPS, we remain far from the top speed the human eye is capable of detecting, but that definitely doesn’t mean one should aim to go higher. 24 FPS is just enough to give an audience the illusion of lifelike movement… albeit slightly dreamy. 24 FPS hit the perfect balance.

Some blockbuster filmmakers like Peter Jackson and later also Ang Lee have been fighting this standard with their gigantic productions by going 48 FPS or even 120 FPS, as if 3D (also a failure) wasn’t enough. I’ve never understood the reasons behind these ideas.

In order to give you a detailed scientific explanation as to why I heavily dislike high frame rates, I’m gonna go with “it just looks bad”. Namely, too smooth. A bit like soap opera or reality TV and even more like a sports match. In short, 24 FPS is what a film should* look like.

“Well, I’m glad you got that our of your system. But what does all of this have to do with the creation of a retro point & click adventure game?”

Well, when going retro, there’s a crucial discussion that needs to take place. Which rules shall we stick by? For some time already, we haven’t HAD to think about the technical limitations of the golden years, so you have to DECIDE which year’s level you’re going to go with (there are obviously more variants than this, I’ll knowingly overlook some of them):

  • 320 x 200, 4 colours: a super-purist CGA approach
  • 320 x 200, 16 colours: EGA, from Maniac Mansion to the Secret of Monkey Island
  • 320 x 200, 256 colours: VGA, from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge to The Dig
  • 640 x 480, 256 colours: VGA, from the Curse of Monkey Island to Escape from Monkey Island

So, you need to ask yourself these questions: Do you like big pixels? What’s the game’s aspect ratio? What about the colour palette?

In the case of Sixtus Flaming in the Far Reaches of the World, we will go with 320 x 180 (in favor of the modern 16:9 aspect ratio) and with unlimited colours. The colours aren’t going to be unlimited when creating the pixelart backgrounds, though (and they’ll be even more restricted for all the sprites) – for each scene, our pixel artists will decide upon a palette and stick by it, but we’re going to add modern effects and such to bring forth a game we would’ve liked to see back when we were kids. So, in conclusion, the approach is rather similar to that of Thimbleweed Park.

“That’s nice, but AGAIN, what does this have to do with the high frame rate cinematography, with which you opened this rambling?”

The “Dance” aka walk cycle from Maniac Mansion (3 frames)
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

All right, all right! We now return to the topic of smoothness. Because of file size limitations, the animation with the early LucasArts classics was very simple. It later became more nuanced as technology allowed it.

This key question was missing from the list above: what are we going to do with animation? Especially, how SMOOTH should it be? What is the FRAME RATE we’re going for? With SIXT, we’re going with big pixels, so that kind of calls for an animation style which isn’t super smooth, because the big pixel games of the past usually weren’t very smooth.

I guess it boils down to two things: 1) how much does the team want to restrict itself and 2) can smooth animation in a retro adventure game please the eye (while in film, high frame rate (in my opinion) cannot)?

And the definitive answer to those… I do not know! I’m not sure! Which is why I’m going to ask YOU!

Not all adventure game characters can juggle. Sixtus Flaming can. Which kind of motion do you prefer?

A smooth animation

only 50% of the frames used; shown at a slower speed

-luuk

*) That said, knowing these rules may inspire the best filmmakers to break them in innovative ways which can certainly lead into a place both wonderful and strange… BUT, also, inspire lesser filmmakers to do something we don’t want to see.

DANCE. EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO DO IT BUT YOUR OWN LIVING ROOM.
BAZ LUHRMANN

As a filmmaker, I have always heavily disliked high frame rate cinematography.

The very first experiments with this medium and art form with the late 19th century cinematographs had rather low frame rates. With the silent movie era it went up to around 16 FPS, and finally became fixed at 24 FPS (partly because of sound). Even at 24 FPS, we remain far from the top speed the human eye is capable of detecting, but that definitely doesn’t mean one should aim to go higher. 24 FPS is just enough to give an audience the illusion of lifelike movement… albeit slightly dreamy. 24 FPS hit the perfect balance.

Some blockbuster filmmakers like Peter Jackson and later also Ang Lee have been fighting this standard with their gigantic productions by going 48 FPS or even 120 FPS, as if 3D (also a failure) wasn’t enough. I’ve never understood the reasons behind these ideas.

In order to give you a detailed scientific explanation as to why I heavily dislike high frame rates, I’m gonna go with “it just looks bad”. Namely, too smooth. A bit like soap opera or reality TV and even more like a sports match. In short, 24 FPS is what a film should* look like.

“Well, I’m glad you got that our of your system. But what does all of this have to do with the creation of a retro point & click adventure game?”

Well, when going retro, there’s a crucial discussion that needs to take place. Which rules shall we stick by? For some time already, we haven’t HAD to think about the technical limitations of the golden years, so you have to DECIDE which year’s level you’re going to go with (there are obviously more variants than this, I’ll knowingly overlook some of them):

  • 320 x 200, 4 colours: a super-purist CGA approach
  • 320 x 200, 16 colours: EGA, from Maniac Mansion to the Secret of Monkey Island
  • 320 x 200, 256 colours: VGA, from Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge to The Dig
  • 640 x 480, 256 colours: VGA, from the Curse of Monkey Island to Escape from Monkey Island

So, you need to ask yourself these questions: Do you like big pixels? What’s the game’s aspect ratio? What about the colour palette?

In the case of Sixtus Flaming in the Far Reaches of the World, we will go with 320 x 180 (in favor of the modern 16:9 aspect ratio) and with unlimited colours. The colours aren’t going to be unlimited when creating the pixelart backgrounds, though (and they’ll be even more restricted for all the sprites) – for each scene, our pixel artists will decide upon a palette and stick by it, but we’re going to add modern effects and such to bring forth a game we would’ve liked to see back when we were kids. So, in conclusion, the approach is rather similar to that of Thimbleweed Park.

“That’s nice, but AGAIN, what does this have to do with the high frame rate cinematography, with which you opened this rambling?”

The “Dance” aka walk cycle from Maniac Mansion (3 frames)
© LucasFilm Games, Disney

All right, all right! We now return to the topic of smoothness. Because of file size limitations, the animation with the early LucasArts classics was very simple. It later became more nuanced as technology allowed it.

This key question was missing from the list above: what are we going to do with animation? Especially, how SMOOTH should it be? What is the FRAME RATE we’re going for? With SIXT, we’re going with big pixels, so that kind of calls for an animation style which isn’t super smooth, because the big pixel games of the past usually weren’t very smooth.

I guess it boils down to two things: 1) how much does the team want to restrict itself and 2) can smooth animation in a retro adventure game please the eye (while in film, high frame rate (in my opinion) cannot)?

And the definitive answer to those… I do not know! I’m not sure! Which is why I’m going to ask YOU!

Not all pixel art characters can juggle. Sixtus Flaming can. Which kind of motion do you prefer?

A smooth animation

only 50% of the frames used; shown at a slower speed

-luuk

*) That said, knowing these rules may inspire the best filmmakers to break them in innovative ways which can certainly lead into a place both wonderful and strange… BUT, also, inspire lesser filmmakers to do something we don’t want to see.

30th Oct 2021

Posted at 00:32h in General by
A BEGINNING IS A VERY DELICATE TIME.
PRINCESS IRULAN, DUNE (1984)

Know then that it was in the early 1990s, when I first laid my eyes on Ron Gilbert‘s incredible The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and its even better sequel Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (1991). To this day I can’t possibly fathom how on Earth these absolute masterpieces were created only one year apart. It’s uncanny.

Ever since those times, point & click has been my favourite genre and ever since those times, I’ve dreamed of one day creating a P&C adventure game of my own.

I’m no coder. Absolutely not. When I started 3rd grade (aged 9) there was a computer classroom in my elementary school full of Macintosh Classic II computers. A few years in, around 1995, I began learning HyperCard to create the first thing distantly resembling a game. At home, my father had a PC 286, which I only used for gaming. Christmas 1995 saw a major update as we got a new PC, a Pentium 75MHz that had QBasic on it. I went through the code of some of the .BAS files it came with and taught myself some of the simplest commands that enabled me to do something of my own. Soon enough, I was creating text adventures.

By the beginning of high school I realized that my maths skills would never be good enough for making it in the video game industry. I gave up on the dream I had had for 10 years already (an eternity at that age). Nevertheless, having always been a creative, visual person, I decided to turn to films. I gathered my friends and formed a filmmaking group called Amazement. That’s also the name of my production company today. Between 2001 and 2005 we created around 10 short films, starting with Mad Tricks (2001). Try and guess the source of inspiration for that film…

Vield enjoying The Secret of Monkey Island back in 2007

In 2005, I got accepted to a film school. Soon thereafter I met Vield and together we ended up playing Notpr0n, a tough web riddle. We spent a lot of time solving its levels, found an excellent IRC community, loved everything about it and decided to make a web riddle of our own. Swell was released in June 2008. “If we can do this”, I thought, “what’s stopping us from realizing my old dream of creating an adventure game?” Vield hadn’t played a lot of adventure games before so I gave her the first Monkey Island to try. She loved it.

We put our heads together and came up with the character Sixtus Flaming who would start an epic journey from a swimming hall locker room. We had some other ideas, too, but as fate would have it, we went our separate ways and the project was shelved in the process.

luuk with his lead actor at Fantasporto 2020

Fast-forward 10+ years to the 40th Fantasporto International Film Festival in Portugal, March 2020: my first feature film, a self-funded teleportation drama I had spent 9 years making, had just won a jury prize at a major European genre festival! On Sunday, March 9, I returned home to Finland – two days later, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

As you well know – as we all know – that was the historic turn of events that changed everything. Almost two years later, we’re still fighting this thing. But it was during that first crazy month – whilst searching through the supermarkets for the last available toilet roll – that I realized I needed to do something.

I had just made my dream come true: I had created a feature film of my own. I knew shooting for the stars COULD end well. With a deadly virus running loose, the whole world had just turned upside down. What better time to begin realizing my other, even older dream: the point & click adventure game!

Obviously I still couldn’t code and for the lack of practice I was even worse at maths than before. Despite all of that, as the years had gone by, I felt this wouldn’t stop me anymore. Creating an adventure game was now easier than ever: with the help of Adventure Game Studio, Visionaire or Unity with Adventure Creator and the likes, it was possible to create one without writing a single line of code. At this point, everything seemed to finally click together.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want to do this alone. After going through our old notes, spending a few days writing a synopsis for the game and noticing that ideas really started flowing, I wanted to see if it was possible to find people who would be interested to join me in this crazy undertaking – even though I had no previous experience of creating a P&C adventure game.

Well whaddaya know, the project might be crazy but people are even crazier. After a month, I had gathered around 10 people with various backgrounds, some of them with quite impressive CVs, having worked previously with multiple AAA titles and whatnot. What had they NOT done before but remembered dearly from their childhood? Exactly. P&C adventure games. While I had no previous experience, I had the mad 9-year long feature film experience to prove that I’m serious about this and I’m no quitter, so they jumped onboard. Vield joined in as well, albeit in a smaller role than before.

Fast-forward another 1.5 years and here we are. The website has now been released and work is well underway creating the game and the playable demo using Unity + Adventure Creator. And we’re doing our utmost to make sure it’s going to be FREAKING AWESOME!

As I type this, we’re in the process of setting a roadmap that will pave the way to our current goal to release the demo at some point next year.

In this devlog, I’m going to go through what it means to make a game like this. I won’t set up a strict posting schedule, so new posts will come simply when I feel like writing them. That won’t be very often, because I want to concentrate on making the game. I’m the project leader and in charge of the development, the design and the writing, while doing some work on character sprites and animation on the side. I have some experience with creating tracker music back in the day, but will leave that department to the pros! That’s just to say that I’m also very much interested in music and sound, too. They play such a crucial part in delivering the correct mood and atmosphere from scene to scene.

So, my following posts will cover a broad spectrum of topics regarding the development of a classic point & click adventure game. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll join me for the ride! 🙂

-luuk

A BEGINNING IS A VERY DELICATE TIME.
PRINCESS IRULAN, DUNE (1984)

Know then that it was in the early 1990s, when I first laid my eyes on Ron Gilbert’s incredible The Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and its even better sequel Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge (1991). To this day I can’t possibly fathom how on Earth these absolute masterpieces were created only one year apart. It’s uncanny.

Ever since those times, point & click has been my favourite genre and ever since those times, I’ve dreamed of one day creating a P&C adventure game of my own.

I’m no coder. Absolutely not. When I started 3rd grade (aged 9) there was a computer classroom in my elementary school full of Macintosh Classic II computers. A few years in, around 1995, I began learning HyperCard to create the first thing distantly resembling a game. At home, my father had a PC 286, which I only used for gaming. Christmas 1995 saw a major update as we got a new PC, a Pentium 75MHz that had QBasic on it. I went through the code of some of the .BAS files it came with and taught myself some of the simplest commands that enabled me to do something of my own. Soon enough, I was creating text adventures.

By the beginning of high school I realized that my maths skills would never be good enough for making it in the video game industry. I gave up on the dream I had had for 10 years already (an eternity at that age). Nevertheless, having always been a creative, visual person, I decided to turn to films. I gathered my friends and formed a filmmaking group called Amazement. That’s also the name of my production company today. Between 2001 and 2005 we created around 10 short films, starting with Mad Tricks (2001). Try and guess the source of inspiration for that film…

Vield enjoying The Secret of Monkey Island back in 2007

In 2005, I got accepted to a film school. Soon thereafter I met Vield and together we ended up playing Notpr0n, a tough web riddle. We spent a lot of time solving its levels, found an excellent IRC community, loved everything about it and decided to make a web riddle of our own. Swell was released in June 2008. “If we can do this”, I thought, “what’s stopping us from realizing my old dream of creating an adventure game?” Vield hadn’t played a lot of adventure games before so I gave her the first Monkey Island to try. She loved it.

We put our heads together and came up with the character Sixtus Flaming who would start an epic journey from a swimming hall locker room. We had some other ideas, too, but as fate would have it, we went our separate ways and the project was shelved in the process.

luuk with his lead actor at Fantasporto 2020

Fast-forward 10+ years to the 40th Fantasporto International Film Festival in Portugal, March 2020: my first feature film, a self-funded teleportation drama I had spent 9 years making, had just won a jury prize at a major European genre festival! On Sunday, March 9, I returned home to Finland – two days later, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

As you well know – as we all know – that was the historic turn of events that changed everything. Almost two years later, we’re still fighting this thing. But it was during that first crazy month – whilst searching through the supermarkets for the last available toilet roll – that I realized I needed to do something.

I had just made my dream come true: I had created a feature film of my own. I knew shooting for the stars COULD end well. With a deadly virus running loose, the whole world had just turned upside down. What better time to begin realizing my other, even older dream: the point & click adventure game!

Obviously I still couldn’t code and for the lack of practice I was even worse at maths than before. Despite all of that, as the years had gone by, I felt this wouldn’t stop me anymore. Creating an adventure game was now easier than ever: with the help of Adventure Game Studio, Visionaire or Unity with Adventure Creator and the likes, it was possible to create one without writing a single line of code. At this point, everything seemed to finally click together.

Nevertheless, I didn’t want to do this alone. After going through our old notes, spending a few days writing a synopsis for the game and noticing that ideas really started flowing, I wanted to see if it was possible to find people who would be interested to join me in this crazy undertaking – even though I had no previous experience of creating a P&C adventure game.

Well whaddaya know, the project might be crazy but people are even crazier. After a month, I had gathered around 10 people with various backgrounds, some of them with quite impressive CVs, having worked previously with multiple AAA titles and whatnot. What had they NOT done before but remembered dearly from their childhood? Exactly. P&C adventure games. While I had no previous experience, I had the mad 9-year long feature film experience to prove that I’m serious about this and I’m no quitter, so they jumped onboard. Vield joined in as well, albeit in a smaller role than before.

Fast-forward another 1.5 years and here we are. The website has now been released and work is well underway creating the game and the playable demo using Unity + Adventure Creator. And we’re doing our utmost to make sure it’s going to be FREAKING AWESOME!

As I type this, we’re in the process of setting a roadmap that will pave the way to our current goal to release the demo at some point next year.

In this devlog, I’m going to go through what it means to make a game like this. I won’t set up a strict posting schedule, so new posts will come simply when I feel like writing them. That won’t be very often, because I want to concentrate on making the game. I’m the project leader and in charge of the development, the design and the writing, while doing some work on character sprites and animation on the side. I have some experience with creating tracker music back in the day, but will leave that department to the pros! That’s just to say that I’m also very much interested in music and sound, too. They play such a crucial part in delivering the correct mood and atmosphere from scene to scene.

So, my following posts will cover a broad spectrum of topics regarding the development of a classic point & click adventure game. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll join me for the ride! 🙂

-luuk