'Forever Yours' - an interactive short story done on the Ep2 Engine - Developers

Source recorder! Shows how long I"ve been away from mapping. Thanks! And I entirely forgot about particle fog too. Thanks again

this would be so much better if it wasn't so blocky. i would take it a lot more seriously. it's still good, don't get me wrong, but models, lighting, etc is kind of bland and would pop out and enhance the story so much more if more attention to detail was paid to.

[QUOTE=Aspen;32736368]this would be so much better if it wasn't so blocky. i would take it a lot more seriously. it's still good, don't get me wrong, but models, lighting, etc is kind of bland and would pop out and enhance the story so much more if more attention to detail was paid to.[/QUOTE] It's still under development

Did a whole lot of playtesting today. I'll summarise my findings for you guys later on. Some interesting things I noticed though: -Most of the time, the first object people went for WAS the paper on the table! Success. -The several that I questioned regarding the story had mixed views. At least one mentioned outright that they weren't really paying attention to the voice over. This means that there is a possible clash between 'Wow let's explore!' and 'Let's listen to the story'.

[QUOTE=Maloof?;32756321]Did a whole lot of playtesting today. I'll summarise my findings for you guys later on. Some interesting things I noticed though: -Most of the time, the first object people went for WAS the paper on the table! Success. -The several that I questioned regarding the story had mixed views. At least one mentioned outright that they weren't really paying attention to the voice over. This means that there is a possible clash between 'Wow let's explore!' and 'Let's listen to the story'.[/QUOTE] One thing to do to solve that would be to have the enviroment move to represent the story being told. Like if its about leaving, it could be things slowly fading away or something like that.

[QUOTE=sirdownloadsalot;32756621]One thing to do to solve that would be to have the enviroment move to represent the story being told. Like if its about leaving, it could be things slowly fading away or something like that.[/QUOTE] That's the plan =D The piece where the player 'reads' the letter where she states she's leaving will be redesigned to take place in a church. As the player learns more about the wife's leaving and stuff the church will crack and bits will begin to fall apart.

[QUOTE=Maloof?;32756762]That's the plan =D The piece where the player 'reads' the letter where she states she's leaving will be redesigned to take place in a church. As the player learns more about the wife's leaving and stuff the church will crack and bits will begin to fall apart.[/QUOTE] That would be great! Except how are you going to do that? Physboxes?

[QUOTE=cardboardtheory;32772477]That would be great! Except how are you going to do that? Physboxes?[/QUOTE] It won't be entirely 'falling apart' - probably just chunks of rubble falling down, little bits of debris sprites and such. It'll mostly be done through shaking, sound and small ornaments/pillars being damaged, I think [editline]14th October 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=cardboardtheory;32772477]That would be great! Except how are you going to do that? Physboxes?[/QUOTE] It won't be entirely 'falling apart' - probably just chunks of rubble falling down, little bits of debris sprites and such. It'll mostly be done through shaking, sound and small ornaments/pillars being damaged, I think

Holy crap. So through playtesting I found that players tended to not really pay attention to the story. To remedy this I've been figuring out ways to have text pop up on the screen, playing with the idea of memory and word-associations. I had some issues though - using env_screenoverlays didn't work out (I had an animated overlay that faded in and then faded out, but Source doesn't like starting animated env_screenoverlays from Frame1 on trigger). I tried game_text but the words were too small. Turns out game_text uses the same information (font, text height, weight, etc) as env_message (the entity that shows the 'Freeman has Failed'-type text when an ally dies). I'm using this in conjunction with game_text to create these on-screen words. Images soon.

Revised Paris sequence Colourcorrection up in this biatch [img]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/290/d/d/__forever_yours___dev_12_by_zacharyhogan-d4d3j9c.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/290/0/5/__forever_yours___dev_13_by_zacharyhogan-d4d3jer.jpg[/img] [img]http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/290/7/2/__forever_yours___dev_14_by_zacharyhogan-d4d3jyl.jpg[/img]

I think you should move the fallen tree further back, so that it don't block the view. Also, put some small rocks or some small foliage where the road meets the grass, and blend the textures. Other than that it looks promising! I like the idea with the massive gate, symbolizing the player not being able to recreate or go back to his/hers memories (at least that's my interpretation) Keep it up!

The gate was intended to symbolise the inability of the player to visit Paris at all in his memory, due to the wife's reluctancy to go (it'll be explained in the dialogue). The gate symbolises the physical inability to go to Paris during the marriage and, I realise now, also symbolises the inability to go there in his mind: he has no memory of the city. Thanks! And thanks for the detailing advice. I'll take it into account on the next aesthetic pass (if there is one before the deadline)

More stuff [URL="http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11648678744/1/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ue"][IMG]http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ueo1_500.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11648678744/8/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ue"][IMG]http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ueo8_250.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11648678744/2/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ue"][IMG]http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ueo2_250.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11648678744/5/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ue"][IMG]http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ueo5_250.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL="http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/11648678744/3/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ue"][IMG]http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltb462Xc2g1r3f6ueo3_250.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

The church looks nice but i should do something about the end of the room. Its to empty