Work in Progress: Ripper

Games that never made it to the light of day.

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Work in Progress: Ripper

Postby Mike_Sharp » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:11 pm

Something I started years ago but only got round to actually finishing the initial scene to see if the project was fesable.

Background

Back in 1996 a then small known company called Take 2 Interactive released a Gem of an Adventure game called Ripper. Spanning 6 CD's and sporting a star studded (At the time) Hollywood cast (The main Big star being Christopher Walken) and boosting replayability with its 4 different endings a work of art with a fantastic story and gameplay was born.

The Story

New York 2040. A murderer is on the loose. Naming himself after the infamous Jack the Ripper of the 1880's he has already killed 2 victims and is about to make his 3rd. As Reporter Jake Quinlan you immediatly arrive on the scene of the 3rd murder to get the details for your next big scoop.

The Project

With the original game being a DOS only game and now being out of print its very difficult to find and even more difficult to play without having to resort to an emulator like DOSBOX on modern systems. I wanted to see if it was possible to port this game to Windows and use Adventure Maker to make it possible.

Whats currently done in the entire first scene of the game complete with Sound Effects, Introduction Movie and 2 Full Screen Video conversations with 2 characters including Christopher Walken as his character Vincent Magnotta. The Scene ends on the cliffhanger move that was in the prologue on the original game.

The only exceptions to what was in the original game and are not in the port are the following:

- Interface Elements like World Map screen etc
- The Broken Mug Puzzle - Im still working on how best to implement this using adventure maker
- The Sound Bite when you receive a WAC (PDA) message

Current Bugs:

- End Movie loses Audio Sync at the end

I hope to get the mug puzzle implemented soon how ever would like opinions on how to do it to try and remain as close to the original as possible.

Download Links

Please find below the download links for this scene. The total download size is roughly 120MB but ive split it into 6 parts using WinRaR

http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part1.rar
http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part2.rar
http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part3.rar
http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part4.rar
http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part5.rar
http://sharp09.myzen.co.uk/files/Ripper.part6.rar

Note: Due to the original game being rated M for Mature there are a few scenes with profanity. To help alieviate this I have password protected the Archive and will provide the password to people who PM me and are willing to take the risk so to speak :P

Feedback Required

Note: Due to Web distribution the Video and Sound quality had to be reduce. Im working on getting it better.

Also Due to the nature and age of the source material many of the transition and conversation windows include artificats due to the technology of the time.

I would like where possible the following feedback

- Those that may of played the original game, how my port translates the game to windows.
- Any ideas on how to implement the mug puzzle
- How easy the scene was to complete (There is a End of Scene Placeholder Frame)
- Any improvments youd like to see
- Any general comments.

Technical Bit

This scene requires DivX to play so head on over to www.divx.com and download the free codec if you havent done already.

Due to the age and quality of the source material the frames and video are limited to 640 by 480. There is a check box on the startup menu to switch to this resolution but i recommend unticking it and stick with your desktop resolution

Ideal specs would be:
1Ghz Processor
1Gb Ram
120mb HDD

Try tweaking your DivX Decoder settings to get the best picture quality from the available material. However DO NOT enable the hardware overlay as that will render the scene unplayable.

I look forward to any feedback.

Mike :)
Last edited by Mike_Sharp on Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Its not the winning, the losing or the taking part that counts its the way you cheat.
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Postby GM-Support » Fri Nov 09, 2007 7:25 pm

Sounds great!!!!
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Postby Candle » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:40 pm

Downloading now.
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Postby Imari » Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:11 pm

Hi Mike,
That makes me nostalgic for the old games. Never played The Ripper though, so I'm notmuch help on that score. I took your advice and ran it in a window, and I didn't even notice sound or images breaking up.

How is the coffee mug puzzle supposed to work? Do you reassemble the pieces and examine it? Maybe in Flash combining draggable/moveable pieces combined with animations as each piece fits?

Good luck with this.
~C
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Postby Mike_Sharp » Sat Nov 10, 2007 5:45 pm

The Mug puzzle is basically 8 Pieces of the Mug which you have to rotate and slot together to reassemble the full mug which has a clue on it.

As for the Flash suggestion i'll think about it but ive never used Flash before so probably not fesable at the moment.

Many Thanks for the comments though :)

M
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Postby Candle » Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:18 pm

I ran it full screen and it ran fine. but I do have a fast computer too.
Could you do a slider puzzle with the mug?
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Postby Mike_Sharp » Sat Nov 10, 2007 10:59 pm

I could but id rather stick as close to the original game as possible. :)

Shame they dont make games like this any more.
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Postby Candle » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:35 am

Where did you get all the video for this and will someone be mad your using said video for your game?
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Postby Mike_Sharp » Sun Nov 11, 2007 11:53 am

Just to clarify:

This is by no means my game one bit

The original game was released back in 1996 for DOS and has sadly been out of print for 7 years now and I just wanted to see if its possible to bring this game to Windows using the power of Adventure Maker and as you can see ive met some positive success.

Im not for making anything out of this project apart from bringing this fantastic game to a new audience and im hoping that this small project may spark an interest for people to browse ebay for the original game :P .
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Postby Candle » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:25 pm

Well the look you have gotten there, I sure would like to play more of the game thats for sure.
The FMV looks cool in the game.
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Postby mugginsmajik » Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:41 am

This is such a wonderful idea, I've always loved this game, but could never get it to work on XP. I hope you manage to do it all!
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