Dungeon Blabber

[time-killer-games]

Dungeon Blabber... ...is a classic pre-rendered 3D, first-person, point-and-click, puzzle, adventure game with well-known, old-school, Myst-like gameplay. Not to be released for quite some time as this is my first "serious" project that I fully intend to work on until it's complete and spotless. What do you guys think? =)

[DaSpirit]

Okay, well, the purpose of high contrast is to make it easier to see. However, it seems like you are overdoing it, which does the opposite. With too much contrast, it becomes harder to see because everything starts turning black and white. That's essentially what I think you're missing from your game - color. Asides from two screens, you only have white, black and blue. It needs more variation.

Also. judging from your screens, it might be difficult for the player to explore. I love the point-and-click puzzle game genre, but it usually takes place in a house, mansion or even outside where there is a more variety of objects. Your place looks like a cave or temple, and those places are usually empty.

Anyway, I hope you do well. I really like that last screen of yours, that place looks really cool. I'll definitely give this a try when you finish a demo. Good luck!

[time-killer-games]

Thanks man for the kinds words. I intend to perhaps tone the contrast down a bit I don't know why I like it so much the way it is I feel retarded since everyone seems to see something I don't. but yes as painful as it may be I'm going to lower it down for consideration of those who are going to play it. =)

Edit: forgot to mention this project is inspired from when I saw the second Hobbit movie. Though it's still very different and it isn't at all a direct or indirect rip of that movie since almost everything is different there's just one concept they have in common - a large underground fortress. In the hobbit if I remember right it is a whole city underground inside a mountain. But in my game It's not an entire city, just a castle.

About the story: you take the role of a 23 year old woman who spends her life hiding from the outside world by isolating herself in her father's well hidden underground castle. Everything she needs is there, food usually consisting of small rodents and self-cleansed well water to keep her alive. She hides in fear of death. Her father was captured by an evil force and thus abandoned her when she was little. She ever since has been crying out day and night for her father's return and for the war to be over. She is protected day and night by her guardian spirit and here and there he will make himself visible to her to comfort her and let her know he's still there so she won't feel alone. However she can't always see him, spirits can't usually be at all detected by the senses but he has a special gift that when he focusses his mind hard enough to be visible, he becomes temporarily visible but it requires draining his energy so he's not always strong enough to do it. But when he can do it also enables him to destroy possible threats that may harm her, such as wild animals or intruders.

Since it's an entire castle it's not just a "temple" or dungeon there's also going to be bedrooms, a large dining room and kitchen, primitive plumbing, etc. Also the lights are powered by fire magic - not technology.

[Josh @ Dreamland]

Have you considered just rendering a few of your models in that contrast? You seem to be attached to the way it makes some things look, while ignoring the fact that other objects into unrecognizable meshes of light black and white. The final render you posted looks beautiful; the two before it can't be understood visually. The skulls in particular look good with the high contrast, as it brings out the texture.

[time-killer-games]

Alright I'm going to make the contrast only apply to objects that look good with it and we'll see what I'll have then and I can make further adjustments if need be. Thanks Josh! =)

[Goombert]

Yes now I have to agree with everyone else, too much contrast. However, I can't help but feel all of us are saying this based on our gut feeling, and not appreciating what the graphics may be trying to convey.

[time-killer-games]

I'm still working on redoing all those old renders but
at least I have something new to share. More of my
artwork in progress. I still need to model some trees.

[DaSpirit]

I think that looks pretty cool. Can't wait to see those trees.

[time-killer-games]

The trees are done. It took long enough, that's for sure.
To see it in action, check out these links. Click and drag
the cursor to rotate the screen. Requires HTML5.

Interactive Spoiler 1
Interactive Spoiler 2
Interactive Spoiler 3

If your browser is outdated or doesn't  support HTML5
here's a Flash version for each spoiler, it may run slow.

Interactive Spoiler 1
Interactive Spoiler 2
Interactive Spoiler 3

Also note: an explaination will be provided in-game
about the trees. They don't grow leaves because
they don't rely on sunlight. Instead, their bark
magically lights up the cave with a dim neon green.

[DaSpirit]

I just tried the demo. I think you should change the colors of the ledge. They seem to blend in with the water. It also somewhat looks blurry (like the textures are low resolution).

[time-killer-games]

The smallest texture(s) are 512x512 and most of them are 1024x1024 and the actual cylindrical panoramas rendered are 2048x2048 these two panoramas by themselves took more than 48 hours to render and it ate up all the resources thus I haven't been able to do anything on my PC that I needed to for days. I actually agree with you but I have a schedule to keep and I can only have the patience to do but so much. I hope down the road when this game is long past completed I'll have the time for touch-ups such as you requested. =) Or maybe after I have a break from this scene and go on to something else I can revisit it.

Thank you for the feedback as usual! =)

[time-killer-games]

Alright, so here's the deal. I updated the OP so that is will only showcase the semi-official screenshots for this game. As you can see there are technically two screenshots displayed now. Where you see "more screenshots coming soon" future screenshots when released will replace those images just how it also will on my website. So four screenshots are yet to be released unless I change my mind, no more than 6 screenshots total will be shared, as I don't want to completely spoil the surprise! =)

However each screenshot will be of a completely unique area in the game to give variety in my advertising. The skull chamber I intend to make changes to the throw rug, since that scene particularly renders much quicker. The rug doesn't look realistic at all, it has no natural form, wrinkles, creases, or rug-like texture to it. This will be fixed shortly. I will update my website more frequently than this topic, so to be more up to date as well as see my other work check out my website. =)

http://www.timekillergames.tk/ OR
http://timekillergames.weebly.com/

Edit: rug now looks more realistic.

[time-killer-games]

The trees are done. It took long enough, that's for sure.
To see it in action, check out these links. Click and drag
the cursor to rotate the screen. Requires HTML5.

Interactive Spoiler 1
Interactive Spoiler 2
Interactive Spoiler 3

If your browser is outdated or doesn't  support HTML5
here's a Flash version for each spoiler, it may run slow.

Interactive Spoiler 1
Interactive Spoiler 2
Interactive Spoiler 3

Also note: an explaination will be provided in-game
about the trees. They don't grow leaves because
they don't rely on sunlight. Instead, their bark
magically lights up the cave with a dim neon green.

Added another spoiler. =) Now I'm moving on to my
next scene. I'm really excited to model this bad boy.

[Goombert]

Why no playable demo? Your water looks nice, btw, all of your renders remind me of this old school voxel engine.



I don't mean that in a bad way, I am a huge fan of voxel graphics!

[time-killer-games]

Thanks. =) unfortunately I won't be able to produce a demo for a while, 4 weeks minimum. Because every time I render 1 single 2048x2048 panorama or 1024x768 frame it takes hours/days+ to render depending how complex my scene is and how many light sources are being used. The demo will have about 50 renders at least, and perhaps some videos (In Bryce videos are exported as AVI and I'll have to convert it all to multi frame sprites). The music is and will be completely home made by me - an original sound track. Right now I have 1 soundtrack but I plan to have dozens and dozens in the full version about half a dozen in the demo. Right now I have 8 2048x2048 panoramas and 1 1024x768 render so 9 renders total. With this small amount of renders, you can't do much other than walk around and click on things that trigger text messages and/or sound effects. I have many puzzles in mind but I've got a long way to go before they can actually be played and solved.

When I render I can't do anything else on my PC but wait for the renders to finnish because Bryce hogs up all my resources and anything running other than Bryce could slow the render down and/or cause an aborting error message which are really annoying because I have to start over.

The screenshot you have looks neat, Robert, are those gravestones/fences 2D sprites or 3D models? I can't tell because they look like sprites a glance but they seem to have correct 3D perspective so IDK.