10 replies to this topic

[EJRobertson]

The History of Development
It's quite a read so I'd suggest skipping if you're not interested.

Spoiler

The Relinquished is a project I started dating back to around 2008. I was in a Skype call playing 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' the multiplayer addition many of you would've heard about. I got around to talking about things I would change in the game and my friend asked me to give it a shot. So, I started what would become a long journey of changes and development. A few days after this, I was talking to another friend in French class about this and he jumped on the team and we started developing a project called 'Post Law'.

About a month in and we had a working flat city with fake three dimensional buildings. 'Post Law' was just an edit and would prove to be an experiment of technology available in Game Maker more than anything else; from there interest of the project began to degrade. Late in to 2009 I began looking at quite a few game maker three dimensional games and the urge grew on me yet again. I decided to pursue the full three dimensional method.

I started on a very limited engine, but for us at the time it was quite the achievement. We had a very tiny world surrounded by buildings controlling a flat character near a moving car. Work carried on with this project and we got relatively far. It was a few months after the completion of the first map I began looking at even more techniques. The engine was limited, 180 degree camera was only possible due to Gimbal Lock and I had a number of bugs to consider.

 

The game itself;

Screenshots

On the Beach | Hmm, what's this place then? | Up to my knees in grass!

Imagine yourself, fallen into the deep ocean. Sinking and losing breath your death is an oxygen bubble away. Within the chaos of struggle, grains of sand - warm sand - push up against your dripping cheeks. An Island awaits, the most hostile and mysterious of Islands. You'd rather be drowning. The Relinquished is a game based on a Hostile environment. It features many different genres of game Horror being the most common. The game is viewed from a top down perspective as you try to guide Alexander Faraday to safety. This demo includes an introduction to both our huge map and our storyline.

This game is being made with Game Maker 8.0 PRO and is Vista Compatible. The game does not change your screen resolution.

The game comes with a 'Read Me' file documenting its controls, but here they are anyway;

W,A,S,D to move the player.
Shift to sprint.
Q/E to use items in your left/right hand.
CTRL to view the items you're holding and view your compass.
Left/Right arrow keys control the camera, note that some times the camera is disabled.
F opens and closes the journal while the up and down keys navigate it.
SPACEBAR is the action key.

 

DOWNLOAD v0.2
^{This game is around 24MEGABYTES zipped and around 27MEGABYTES unzipped.}
*please do not be put off by the file-size, a lot of work has been put in to this project.*

Edited by EJRobertson, 05 March 2013 - 04:45 PM.

[EJRobertson]

-It's now more clear where you cannot go
-During the first part, you cannot get out of the house.
-Bullets nerfed.
-Added surprise to Church.
-Fixed black screen bug.
-Fixed church exit bug.
-Modified the NPCs.

Version 0.2 is out!

[EJRobertson]

No one will play?

[junhalestone]

Looking really good!
I have only had time to watch the video so far, but I will play it in a bit. (I'm really busy but I'll play it later).

The only thing that looked a bit odd was that the characters looked a bit flat. It all looked pretty awesome other than that! Can't wait to try it.
- JUN

[EJRobertson]

Looking really good!
I have only had time to watch the video so far, but I will play it in a bit. (I'm really busy but I'll play it later).

The only thing that looked a bit odd was that the characters looked a bit flat. It all looked pretty awesome other than that! Can't wait to try it.
- JUN

Thanks for the Reply! The character is built on four flat planes built atop of each other sort of like stacking boxes.

In the game itself, it looks partially flat but then there's a sense of sort of 3D.

[KidFisto]

I am actually very excited about this game
my favorite kind of horror genre it seems like =}

i was reading about how to make a better horror game
http://gmc.yoyogames...3d&fromsearch=1
i read Spyro Conspiracy Theorist's great & detailed comment
then i added a reply

i am also increasingly excited about making another horror game
and with a full story this time
which i've never successfully done
or really taken the time to totally do

wish me well
and i hope you complete your intriguing game
to your satisfaction and the interests of others

Vote for Baby Bunny!

[junhalestone]

OK I just played it and it's actually pretty awesome so far.
It reminded me of Final Fantasy VII, with the white flashes.

>> I really liked the cutscene(s).
>> It was quite short so far (I went to Axion Village and it ended - I'm guessing if I explored other places first it would have been longer?)
>> I actually quite liked the character graphics, but they made it seem a bit like a PS1 game, so maybe for the final version make them look a bit more 3D.
>> The horror worked quite well.
>> The storyline's good so far (and makes me want to play more)

Overall, good game. I'll keep updated with this. (+1)

JUN

[EJRobertson]

OK I just played it and it's actually pretty awesome so far.
It reminded me of Final Fantasy VII, with the white flashes.

Thanks, this is a really nice reply because Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game, and I wanted to be able to do something similar to what square soft did.

>> I really liked the cutscene(s).
>> It was quite short so far (I went to Axion Village and it ended - I'm guessing if I explored other places first it would have been longer?)
>> I actually quite liked the character graphics, but they made it seem a bit like a PS1 game, so maybe for the final version make them look a bit more 3D.
>> The horror worked quite well.
>> The storyline's good so far (and makes me want to play more)

Indeed it is quite short, but there's a part where you can free roam a few maps, including the ones you've already been to.

The game was designed to have a sort of PS1-feel to it, the flat character issue has came up quite a lot so I'll have to look to fixing that.

The horror is only really introductory horror, I aimed at not introducing it all and slapping the player in the face with it, but slowly building it up and catching the player off guard.

I'm glad you want to learn more about the story, it's a very story oriented game!

Overall, good game. I'll keep updated with this. (+1)

JUN

Thanks for the great reply!

I am actually very excited about this game
my favorite kind of horror genre it seems like =}

Thanks!

i am also increasingly excited about making another horror game
and with a full story this time
which i've never successfully done
or really taken the time to totally do

It's something which does take a long time, there will be times where you want to just stop working on the game completely, it's those times where you must focus though and try even harder.

wish me well
and i hope you complete your intriguing game
to your satisfaction and the interests of others

I hope you do well yourself! And thanks for the optimism!

[junhalestone]

@EJRobertson
Definitely keep up work on this because it was really good.
OH and I just thought - you should have a way of pressing space to speed up or skip to the end of a section of speech. (But not skip scenes entirely, just speed up the pace of text).

[EJRobertson]

OH and I just thought - you should have a way of pressing space to speed up or skip to the end of a section of speech. (But not skip scenes entirely, just speed up the pace of text).

That's already on the checklist.

[EJRobertson]

Here's a new screenshot from the demo guys. A lot of people have missed this due to not tracking back.



I'm also planning on releasing a second demo in the next few weeks offering some new things such as more item usage, shooting and more freedom. Do you have anything you'd like to see in the demo? If so post here!