Spotlight (Based off a Book Idea) COMPLETED

[Jaked]

By joves, I made another one! This one involves 2 stand alone puzzles, 3 inventory puzzles, and the rest is talking to people, getting the evidence, and finally putting all the evidence together in a final report/quiz in which the killer is found out! If you don't remember, Murder in the Spotlight is about the murder of an actor past his prime named Sheldon Roberts. The suspects again are Jack Edson, Sarah McBower, Donald Parcheesi, and Samantha Lawrence, with the addition of Ron Von Hoodle, Sheldon's producer. The places? Jack's Agency Office has both Jack and Ron, Donald's Apartment has Donald, Samantha and Sarah just hang around the crime scene.

An unrendered but light edited glimpse of the front end of the theatre.

The front of Jack Edson's Agency Office Building. It's the size of the house's master bedroom and has little but a desk and a filing cabinet. In future additions a computer WILL BE ADDED and it WILL BE RENDERED.

In short, it's done in 8 parts:

Find Jack


Interrogate the Other 3


Search Jack's Premises


Search Crime Scene


Reinterrogate All 5 Suspects


Search Donald's Apartment


Search Crime Scene Again


Make Final Verdict

[mercedes]

Nicely done...
I like the atmosphere of the picture...looks kinda spooky..at night..

[Jaked]

I've added one color wheel puzzle and one Letter Code Puzzle. Also a puzzle with ropes. There's mainly combining and using inventory items. And talking to people. It's not *completely done* yet. You see, (HIGHLIGHT NEXT AREA IF YOU WANT IT SPOILED) in one part where you have a conversation with a suspect, it branches off in two directions. You pick ONLY one. It turns on a variable or five and then in your final quiz, the culprit is chosen out of the choices YOU MAKE! Also, though all the other parts are D-O-N-E, the scene of the crime parts are N-O-T. I might need to ask someone on that.
The atmosphere won't be as creepy as the Sleepmurders or Murder on the Mound, but those have not been far into.

[reneuend]

Clever!

Nice work, Jaked!

[Zenoc2]

Cool stuff! It looks like you're still using SketchUp. What are you using to render?

[Jaked]

The pictures you see are the Beta Test Edition of the game. The true renders will be in the public release. One problem, though. I cannot find a suitable rendering programme for the game screens.

[Zenoc2]

As long as you're not planning on selling this game, I could run your stuff through my renderer. Of course, it might not be done for a while...

[Jaked]

Thank you. It will not be for sale and it will be a free public game . I'll send the current pictures *via* PM ASAP!

[Zenoc2]

There's a problem with that. I can't do a rendering with just the pictures. I need the SketchUp files.

[Jaked]

First of all, after I got ALL of the needed frames, say bye bye to the building (except for the outdoors brick house and donald parcheesi's apartment).

I hit many walls.

A: I am not using the free version. A scripted one is only available for private use in "Project Test". An unscripted game has a max of 150. VBS has a max of 20. I hit the wall at 17.


B: I am not a good scripter. Mercedes's tutorials and a few from myself are all I go on. One fourth (2) of which are color related: The Color Wheel (Mercedes' Arrows Tutorial) and the Color Box Safe (Mercedes' & Lyberodoggy's) Color Boxes. Also uses a Randomizer and a few inventory combinations.

Though all this is good, the Color Wheel hasn't even been STARTED and in the Color Boxes, only the handle hotspot and thefirst of the four boxes work. If Mercedes can help, great! If the puzzle's just bad, scrap 1/10th of the game.


C: I've hit a wall using scripting in Dialogue Wizard. If you have more than one action, and that isn't your last question, it skips the script's commands! Why? If anyone can help, dialogue is completely UNSCRAPPABLE!


I've also hit much luck.


A: The only 3D un-outlined part of the whole game (that includes Sheldon Roberts and the guilty suspect). The intro's going quite well:

It's a dark, dank, gloomy day in the theatre as Sheldon rehearses his lines. Suddenly, we cut to a person holding a rope. Suddenly and without warning, he/she lets go of the rope. Sheldon looks up, shields his face, and it cuts directly to black, with electricity, banging, and screaming to begin the game.

Now, though, I have to work on the only OTHER completely 3D part, where the killer is revealed saying a pun that is also classified!

B: A kick-butt new inventory button and background! It's not the best, but I consider it a victory I became an "intermediate VBS user"!


Thank you, Jaked.

[reneuend]

I need to see your dialogue code to fix it. I've done quite a bit of dialoguing in my games. I think I can help.

Someday, someone needs to build a dialogue plugin.

[Lyberodoggy]

Don't pull my leg!
It's way too hard to keep track of all the dialogues AND have an easy to use GUI. I was thinking of a plugin with an external config executable.

[mercedes]

Though all this is good, the Color Wheel hasn't even been STARTED and in the Color Boxes, only the handle hotspot and the first of the four boxes work. If Mercedes can help, great! If the puzzle's just bad, scrap 1/10th of the game.

Which tutorial are u speaking of Jaked...the 4 colored boxes..? This one..?
http://www.adventuremaker.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3845

If so, I can only assume it's because the code is set up for only 4 blocks[Hotspots] of color..and perhaps you missed to add the additional variables....?

myvariable5=1 ----Additional Variable--added to Frame's Properties~
Box5---Additional created Variable~

In Hotspot 5 the script should read~:)

box5=0
If myvariable5 = 4 Then
myvariable5=0
End If
Select Case myvariable5
Case 0
Color = "Red.jpg" In here somewhere box5 has to become=1
Case 1
Color = "Green.jpg"
Case 2
Color = "Black.jpg"
Case 3
Color = "Blue.jpg"
End Select
Action.LoadAPicture Hotspot(5), color
myvariable5=myvariable5+1

Then in Hotspot(6) the Exit hotspot, It should read
allboxes= box1+box2+box3+box4+box5
If allboxes = 5 Then
Action.message"You did it!"
Else
Action.message"Sorry wrong!~"
End If

[Jaked]

That with self modifications. Now there's only three options: Red Blue Yellow, along with the fact that Red is supposed to show up when you start the puzzle and it doesn't!

[reneuend]

Don't pull my leg!
It's way too hard to keep track of all the dialogues AND have an easy to use GUI. I was thinking of a plugin with an external config executable.

That sounds good to me!

When can we expect it?

[Jaked]

Mercedes the same thing is happening to the number lock as well.

FRAME PROPERTIES:

Code: Select all

myvariable=1
box1=1
myvariable2=1
myvariable3=1
myvariable4=1

HOTSPOT 1: (I have the box variables, but I don't want to spoil the answer, so they were edited out in this post.)

Code: Select all

If myvariable>0 then
box1=0
End If
If myvariable=3 then
myvariable=0
End If
Select Case myvariable
Case 0
color="Red.GIF"
Case 1
color="Yellow.GIF"
Case 2
color="Blue.GIF"
End Select
Action.LoadAPicture Hotspot(1), color
myvariable=myvariable+1

HOTSPOT 2:

Code: Select all

box2=0
If myvariable2=3 then
myvariable=0
End If
Select Case myvariable2
Case 0
color="Red.GIF"
Case 1
color="Yellow.GIF"
Case 2
color="Blue.GIF
End Select
Action.LoadAPicture Hotspot(2), color
myvariable2=myvariable2+1

HOTSPOT 3:

Code: Select all

box3=0
If myvariable3=3 then
myvariable3=0
End If
Select Case myvariable3
Case 0
color="Red.GIF"
Case 1
color="Yellow.GIF"
box3=1
Case 2
color="Blue.GIF
End Select
Action.LoadAPicture Hotspot(3), color
myvariable3=myvariable3+1

HOSTPOT 4:

Code: Select all

box4=0
If myvariable4=3 then
myvariable4=0
End If
Select Case myvariable4
Case 0
color="Red.GIF"
box4=1
Case 1
color="Yellow.GIF"
Case 2
color="Blue.GIF
End Select
Action.LoadAPicture Hotspot(4), color
myvariable4=myvariable4+1

HOTSPOT 5 (SAFE HANDLE):

Code: Select all

Allboxes=box1+box2+box3+box4
If Allboxes=4 then
Action.Message "Got it!"
Action.GoToFrame "Safe"
Else
Action.Message "Snappers. Not the right combo."
End If

[Lyberodoggy]

Don't pull my leg!
It's way too hard to keep track of all the dialogues AND have an easy to use GUI. I was thinking of a plugin with an external config executable.

That sounds good to me!

When can we expect it?

Maybe we can work on that together. I can create a VB program to simply edit dialogues and store them into an Ini file, in a format that AM can read, but they need to somehow be displayed in the game. I think that the Custom Dialogues System tutorial should help creating this.

[reneuend]

Sounds good to me. Before we start, I'd like to research how best to display the dialogue.

[Jaked]

Ah, and thus I would request a version of this Dialogue Plugin upon completion, please. I need a new dialogue quickly in order not to scrap my dialogues.

[General Failure]

Take your time, no need to hurry.

[Jaked]

Updated suspect list:

Key:

Friend
Possible
Prime suspect

Jack Edson (Actor)

An actor in his prime, not only does he have a motive, he also had some dealings with the mafia about his IRS troubles. Could he be doing the murders because Roberts beat him in the Pennsylvania Play Actor Standings, or as a favor to the mafia?

Donald Parcheesi :

Donald Parcheesi was good friends with Mr. Roberts, except for the fact that they both have a crush on a certain producer, a certain Ms. Samantha Lawrence. Donald has a motive, small it may be, and he also has some knowledge as a stagehand.

Samantha Lawrence :

Samantha Lawrence was the secret confidant of Mr. Roberts. He told her about the money he stashed away from his previous 5 plays. She has power of producer here, so could she have told a stagehand to do this?

other suspects include:

Sarah McBower :
Owner of the theatre and exec. producer of the play they were working on before the accident.

Ron Von Hoodle :
Sheldon Robert's Agent. Although he comes from a shady past delving in societies of the most notorious and despised dictators on earth, he said he changed, or HAS he?

Amante Derio :
A high class critic who used to be friends with the victim.

[Jaked]

I come with sad news... MY COMPUTER CRASHED WITH ALL THE FILES INSIDE! I may be lucky by also sending it to the D: drive, but unless it is fixed, Spotlight will be on TEMPORARY hiatus, and basically the first images could be abhorent to the final outcome. Here's the standings, for until...

*PART 4 COMPLETED* Murder in the Spotlight (MIS)
*CHARACTER DESIGN* Roaring Waves (RW)
*STORYLINE* Death on the Mound (DOM)
*2013* The Sleepmurders (SM)
*2014* The Rage (TRA)


There will be no following additions for at that point, the mystery Poirot deduction/Nancy Drew Puzzle style will have just been drained of any sentimental value. As seen, three of the above are based on books I wrote previously. The other two I dusted off from the failed Thomas Kenson series.

[reneuend]

Sometimes you can recover data from a drive by making it the slave drive, but you'll need a primary drive to run the OS on.

I hope you can salvage it!

A tip, but it's a bit late this time: I keep a backup of all my work on a usb drive just in case....I had a hard drive crash a few years ago! It's no fun!

[MikeTn1]

just a general comment: DVD disks are cheap and you can back up the data for most games you work on with 1 or 2 disks- the annoyance of having a hard drive crash and losing all your game data makes the effort of burning the data to a DVD worth every penny you pay for them.

[Jaked]

I have the same storyline and puzzle ideas, but if anything within the codes I wrote for then puzzles change, such as the ifs and elses, let me know. All the characters were from Bort's (Giving him noteworthy character credit in case I don't get Poser 7). The only noteworthy difference is the places you saw (the theatre and Jack's place) will be different. It will be about possibly be betewwn October 2010 and January 2011, so don't expect it so soon. This is the closest i've been to a completed game (besides 1/2 of my Escape games, now lost forever ), so I'll be da... I mean darned if it is scrapped!

Also, great Jeff Dunham avatar!

[reneuend]

Be sure to make a back up after each session you work on it...not just a save, but copy the project to a flash drive or writeable cd.

Looking forward to the day when you finish it!

[Jaked]

I hope to, as C. Brendel has in answer to one of his unstarted games, do the game the justice which is deserved. I will have to either use poser 5 or 6 or stick with Bort's characters (which are really good anyways.) And need to obviously buy AM. The plot and the suspects and puzzles are hopefully same-if-not-similar, but the graphics will as you'll see, Improved. I have enough for AM, so I will either get it for my birthday 2 months from now and get Poser 5 or 6, or get Poser 7 for my b-day and AM (the latter seems more efficient).

PS: This may seem speculatory, but I hope a group of people can help with the second game (I try, but it is hard to do an entire 8-part game ALONE) if and when it comes out. But the only thing done there is the suspect list and storyline.

[Jaked]

I was able to keep my frames but the coding... sadly gone. All I need is voice acting! Four suspects are available to be portrayed:

Jack Edson:_______________________

Donald Parcheesi:_________________

Samantha Lawrence:_______________________

Sarah Macbower:______________

They would get a big standing in the credits.

[juhuwoorps]

Perhaps you should clarify what character each person have?

If f.e Jack Edson has a mumble deep voice(with german accent) I'm able to help you.BUt if he should have a screemy, high voice I cant.

You know what I mean?

[Jaked]

He has a somewhat germanic accent with a medium low voice. I will PM you the lines soon. It was better than when I attempted. He had a somewhat high Robert DeNiro voice .