Actually, Keke, this rocks pretty damn hard. I can definitely use it. Inspiring stuff.

I know I'm hardly ever on the forum, but I still pay attention to this thread often, so please keep those ideas coming, as I really do plan to get some more work done on this soon.

Cheers

Skip

Help? How about you take a big gun and exterminate all the other people who are taking up my time, it would make me feel so much better. No, wait - they're paying me, so I'd better keep 'em sweet.

Keke, if you would like to help, you can have a go at drawing some dungeoneer graphics. This is the one part I haven't got started yet, simply because it's a mammoth task. Think about it: I need animations for walking, turning, running, jumping, ducking, picking up, sidestepping, shuffling, 'using' and death animations - in eight different directions! If you would like to at least do some rough designs, I'm sure I can use them. Make them vector-based (Flash FLA or Fireworks EPS) and knock yourself out.

Anyway, here's a new screenshot.

http://www.skiponline.co.uk/clients/km/kmtest2.html

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Regards

Skip

Still working, still working... just think of the Grolsch. I'm not trying to wind anyone up or anything. It's just taking forever.

Skip

What with Keke's super little game appearing out of the blue, and people still showing interest, I thought I'd be courteous and say hello to you all.

Believe it or not, the project is still in development. I'm actually developing the editor as the finished product, so that you can all make your own adventures and share them around. I will have my own adventure ship with the editor, which will demonstrate what the package can do, and which will hopefully incorporate all the cool mad ideas you've outlined here.

So, er... I'll keep you posted.

Regards

Skip

Hi Emily, nice to hear from ya as always. Though if you call me 'Skipdude' again, I may have to reconsider that statement.

I would like you to scribble for me very much, but it won't be for a while yet. As mentioned on my own 'game' thread, I'm tied up for a bit (not in a particularly good way, either) and have had to freeze the project for a month or so. But when things get back on track, I'd love to have some of your work in the game, even just a nice moody pic for the main menu screens. I'll get back to you.

Keep it up keke, you're an inspiration.

Skip

Keep it up Keke, your design process seems considerably more efficient than mine. You've output three rooms in the time it took me to make one. Go!

Oh, and as it's nice for the shoe to be on the other foot, I have to ask - when we gonna get something playable?

Skip

A Flash what? If you mean a Flash game maker, you can get all sorts of utilities from sites like http://www.flashkit.com/. I'm not aware of what you can do with them. I thought it would be best just to start from scratch and code the game engine myself.

Even so, check them out, I'm sure there's some pretty handy stuff in there. Keke, looking forward to your mini-project.

Skip

Frightknight - er, nope. Or maybe they would reappear, jumbled up again, as your Life Force creeps steadily towards red. Mwahaha.

Actually, the 'OPEN' letters are just for demonstration puroposes. A similar puzzle will be featured, but I'm going to come up with a much nastier word. Like I said - hard.

Anyway, I've hijacked enough of keke's topic, so I'll sign off. Flash animations would be cool, but my mentality on this is that if they don't add anything to the experience, they shouldn't be included. My between-room animations will be the simple 'whoosh' from the early series. By the way, what software are you using to code this?

Skip

D'oh. And I call myself a web designer? I really must stop drinking.

Skip

This is cool, man. Keep it up, I'd love to see what you can come up with.

Oh, and don't worry about 'stealing the spotlight' or whatever - we're all in this together. In fact, just seeing you come up with something playable would be just the inspiration I need. As a reward of sorts, here's a new Deeper Dungeons screenshot for you.

http://www.skiponline.4t.com/km/room1.html

And just to give you an idea of my development times, the engine that drives this room took me three weeks to complete. And much like your own dungeoneer, his legs don't move, or even sidestep, yet.

Keep it up my friend, I could do with a bit more of your enthusiasm.

Skip

No, it will not be a Driver 3, Enter The Matrix or Bruce Lee situation. I am like the Grolsch brewery - I'll only let you play it when it's ready.

Skip

Hi everyone. Just thought I'd come out of hiding to give you a quick update on how things are progressing.

I've been very quiet round here of late, and with good reason. Remember I said that one of my clients had scrapped their design brief and I was free to dedicate all my time to The Deeper Dungeons? Well, true to form, they came back to me last week and reinstated the project. Plus, they're currently discussing my fee and potential hiring on a semi-permanent basis. Of course, the brief has changed, so I've been forced to start from scratch. Still, it's a pretty impressive turnaround.

I'm sure some of you can see where this is going, so I'll cut straight to it - I have had to temporarily suspend work on The Deeper Dungeons until further notice. This does NOT mean the project is being scrapped - as I've reiterated countless times, I am 100% committed to seeing the project through to its completion. It simply means that I have other priorities to attend to. I stated this unequivocally at the beginning of the project, and I hope you all understand.

The game engine is practically complete, so the next phase will be character and level design. I will be posting new developments as and when they happen. As a guide though, my current brief has a projected deadline six weeks from now. So who knows, I might have a nice little Hallowe'en present for everyone when I return.

Thanks for your patience. This thread will remain open, so please continue to submit your ideas and queries in the meantime.

Skip

"I'm going to flog you faster than the speed of sound!!"

Nice, I love this kind of random silliness.

Skip

The game will feature spot effects (spellcasting, footsteps, doors closing, death-knells etc) and ambient loops (dripping of caves, wind, sinister groans). There may be the occasional jingle but probably not a lot of music. I refer you to my earlier note that this is a browser game, and that I'm trying to keep it as streamlined and compact as possible. Voices will therefore not be included. The dialogue will be written in scrolls that appear in the top-left hand corner of the screen. Anyone who's played *Final Fatnasty * [sic] or Parasite Eve 2 will know what to expect from the dialogue. Anyone expecting *Metal Gear Solid * should probably go elsewhere.

Skip

Ahahaha!

Hello Sumaya, welcome to the forum. I haven't been around here that long myself, I'm sure you'll find everyone friendly and (more-or-less) harmless. Enjoy the forum!

Just thought I'd post up and send my regards, as it was your adventure (and your 'death' in particular, sorry) that inspired my name when I stumbled across this forum, much the same way as you did - by typing it into Google. In fact, the first thing I posted was entitled "You Have Reached Journey's End". Which, if memory serves me correctly, was the last thing the good old Dreadnort said to yourself before, well, ripping you up. Ouch.

Have fun!

Skip

Well FK, since you had the (albeit posthumous) distinction of putting me out of the Battle Royale, I was going to ask you if I could include you anyway! Your main use would be killing, and of course controlling the Causeways. However, I was going to 'humanise' you insofar that you would say stuff. Just like you would in the Surrounds. In fact, I had you pencilled in as the Hands/Lissard character, who did all of Fear's dirty work (and takes all his sh*t when it goes wrong).

Remember our first ever glimpse of Lord Fear in the Spyglass, and all those mindless FKs were zooming around behind him? It would be like that, 'cept with just the one FK, and Fear would be agitated and coming out with lines like "Look, would you just halt the damned pacing back-and-forth, tinhead? You're making me sick just looking at you" and Frightknight would stop what he was doing and come back with a retort like "Sorry your Lordship, I was just trying to look busy so you wouldn't give me any messy jobs to do" or something a lot funnier.

You will naturally be afforded the opportunity to take a few Dungeoneer heads along the way. Interested? Thought so.

By the way, dropping ceilings, along with all other gruesome means of dispatch, will be heavily featured.

I've streamlined my development process, and have got it down to about one complete room per day. That incudes architecture, lighting, incidental detail, objects, traps and events. I knocked up the First Ever Dungeon Room (the one with the four portals) yesterday. I've designed it in monochrome, so I can apply various shading, tinting and lighting at a moment's notice. I even hand-drew a passable Dungeoneer, who stood impassively within the echoing chamber. Unfortunately, that's all he does.

My animation skills are suspect at the best of times, and I may have to liberally hack the good old Doom .wad file for a brief lesson in economical character animaton. My plight is that I have to create animations for the dungeoneer standing, walking, running, turning, jumping, ducking and being killed. In eight different directions. In fact, it's really only the animation that is holding the project back at the moment - that and the horrendously convoluted maths required to get the dungeoneer moving in 3D space.

I'm sad to say that I've had to push the final release date back indefinitely. The end of this month, which was the original deadline, will now be the release date for the first playable demo of Level 1. I hope you won't be too disappointed. This does NOT mean the project will be scrapped - indeed, I'm working on it harder now that I ever have. Stick with me.

I'll be back with some new screens in the next week or so.

Skip

Sorry folks, I'd better clear up the confusion.

By 'KMRPG' I actually meant The Knightmare Roleplay Surrounds board at ProBoards. I did NOT mean the chromakey roleplay filmed by the talented hardcore. Drassil was good enough to realise what I meant and point it out to me via IM, as I'm afraid I have very little knowledge of the RPG film and its crew. Sorry for the mix-up. If you look back through the thread, you'll see that this was briefly discussed before, and it was made quite clear then that I was referring to the Surrounds board, but I should get out of the habit of referring to it as 'KMRPG'.

Furthermore, I will of course be asking permission, that should have gone without saying but it was good of you all to point it out anyway. I haven't decided on a cast list yet, but it will be a short one, and characters will be selected based purely on how well I think they will serve a particular purpose. No nominations or voulunteers will be accepted, strictly invitation only (assuming people accept, of course). But that's far ahead in the future.

I hope that clears up the confusion. Now for your latest Mad Ideas:

Gizensha - I am indeed trying to come up with new causeway combinations and methods of coding, but bear in mind that they must be crystal-clear and easy to see above all else. I fear that a picture of a 'group of sports equipment' may not translate very well, especially at the other end of the causeway where the blocks are much farther away from the 'camera'. I take your point completely, it's a good idea in theory. Though I doubt many people play basketball in Knightmare.

The Wispy Wit - I'll be trying to include an element of 'branching', but there's one flaw in your otherwise excellent idea - I personally would very much enjoy being flung into the Corridor Of Blades, a bomb room, fiendish puzzles and riddles in quick succession, yet by answering riddles correctly and performing my task well, your Tri-Door room would deprive me of the experience. It's almost as if you're rewarding people for being inept - though it's obviously a very fine line. I will continue to develop this idea, though. Can you re-work it in some way? Oh, and you needn't worry about the 'hell reference', because I spell 'Level 3' like H-E-L-L-I-S-H.

You people are Mad. But I like you.

Skip

You must have telekinetic powers or something, Gizensha. I've already laid out the engine for random selection of what I call 'non-set-piece' locations. By the same token, taking wrong turns will lead to a random blast of instant-deathness - if anyone has ideas for cool ways to kill the dungeoneer that doesn't require intervention from the player, please let me hear 'em.

The 'twin boatman' idea is cool, I've already got a similar thing going as early as Level 1! Actually it's the Level 1 wellways - there's two of 'em! By answering riddles and solving puzzles correctly during the level, the dungeoneer would know which wellway to drop down. One of them, of course, leads to Level 2 - the other to a gruesome demise. Mwa ha ha etc.

As I've warned, the game will be hard. And how do I spell 'hard'? F-I-E-N-D-I-S-H. The riddles will reflect this. They will NOT be based on ANY riddles used in ANY part of the Knightmare universe (that includes the books).

Key characters - Lord Fear, Sly Hands, Merlin etc - will be included. I will, however, be using some characters from the KM-RPG to fill in the extra slots. Yes, that IS a confirmation. However, character interaction will not feature all that heavily - I'll be using lots of hard-as-nails environmental challenges instead.

Controls have already been discussed here - however any 'action' buttons will be context-specific: that is, changing to 'take', 'talk', 'pull lever', 'enter well' etc depending on the situation. 'Duck' will always be available.

The 'if you don't have the item you're dead' effect will be minimal, but WILL be included at key points. If the player has answered riddles/ solved puzzled well, there will be no ambiguity about which items to take. If they haven't, they're stupid, and deserve to die.

One more thing - dragon_of_the_cave, I'm afraid I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Please don't take this as an insult or anything, but either you're very confused as to what's going on here, or you simply haven't read the thread properly. If Flash MX can not create web browser games, someone obviously didn't tell the poor b*stards at http://www.2flashgames.com/ and the hundred other game sites dedicated to it. Go to the back of the class.

Still, it's great to see so many people getting on board. I just hope I can live up to the hype in some way. I'm nearly done with my house move, so the work begins in earnest next week. Unless my 'puter blows up, which is looking increasingly likely.

Skip

If you want a rough idea of my Flash prowess so far - and I'm getting better every day - visit my site, http://www.skiponline.4t.com/ and have a look.

Skip

See, I've never made a game in Flash before. I've made games in BASIC, Commodore 64 6510+, assembly, DIV-Basic, Klik & Play, SEUCK, 3D Construction Kit, and yes, even PASCAL - but never in Flash. As a result, I'm learning as I go, mostly through trial and error. But I'm improving all the while. My first KM room took 3 hours to get right. I can do them in half an hour now.

I'm going home now to try and get something substantial for you to see. I'll post it later in the week. I dunno what it will be, but it'll certainly be of interest.

Does your buddy have a site with some of his Flash stuff on that I could have a peek at?

Skip