Heheh, funnily enough, I've seen that thread myself - while not a member, I don't believe, I have of late browsed around the Adventure Game Studio fora from time to time (especially when hoping for news of upcoming games).  Indeed, I think that I almost linked you to it in my previous post.

From what Markus wrote there, it does seem as though it's not in an ideal state for community usage (in particular through calling for significant knowledge of C or C++), I am glad to read that it may be released at some stage (and indeed, perhaps the community will provide such things as scripting-language support). ^_^

Good to see the progress Theo, and re an engine and possibly sharing it we maintain an archive of active and less active engines and there are literally hundreds available, you would certainly not need to do much support if you wanted to share it, as the tech skills of the development community are very high and any tech crew worth their salt could pick up what you share and run with it, if it fit their needs. From what you say, your team has indeed done a great job on that end of things, and it is great to hear you are having fun with it too. Fun is after all one of the main goals of game development.

Well, ideally one would want an engine such as this which is a little more open to less-powerful teams (think of the single-person developers behind some of the Adventure Game Studio games), hence the desire for scripting support (and prefereably an intuitive, powerful interface and pipeline).

Those that have money behind them would likely be able to afford an engine with a strong pipeline and scripting support, while technically-strong teams would likely be able to either do as Theo's team have done and produce their own, or build on an existing engine.

Come to think of it, I do think that it's those smaller, poorly-backed and less-technical teams or individual creators that I would most want this engine, or another like it, for, to increase the scope of what they might build.  Look, after all, at what they build with Adventure Game Studio.  Imagine what they might do with an engine capable of doing more and perhaps even with a better pipeline, as I seem to recall seeing come up in the thread linked-to above

Well, for now I think engines like AGS and wintermute are a lot better suited for small teams than our own home grown GobEd, for the very simple reason that GobEd still is very TJD specific. It can do a lot more, but that would require hefty programming knowledge. With tools like AGS or wintermute you can do balls out awesome things with practically no code-knowledge whatsoever.

Anyhow, here's a little update from the dev-blog. Our main cast:

Kito and Bwana greet Lina by the pumps.

We just wrapped up recording of Bwana, our main character. All 1350 lines are now in place. Wrapping that up feels wonderful. Apart from some minor roles and tweaks to some of the existing characters, the job of putting voice to the game is starting to finally draw to a close.

Keep your eyes peeled on the dev-blog for more updates!

We recently wrapped up implementation of all the core puzzles and key interactions of chapter one of The Journey Down and have now moved over to the actual polishing of it all. This phase should by no means be underestimated though, just the sheer size of the task of making bwana move to the correct location, turn to the correct angle, and play the correct animation on every single interaction we've got - is a gigantic one.

In short, we seem to somehow magically still be on schedule and are still geared for a PC and Mac release some time by the end of March.



Here's a pic from inside Bwana's dented old airplane. I've spent the last week working on implementing Lina's different animations into the scripts, and this is one of the scenes I wrapped up yesterday. The actual animation work is done by my colleague Henrik though, I'm just standing in as script-monkey.

I also did some ranting on the dev-blog today about implementing emotion in characters, if you're curious, please check it out here.

Your blog is very interesting, Theo, especially the correlation between the African masks of your characters to those in Grim Fandango.  Best of luck with your project.

Thanks Lady Kestrel! I appreciate the kind comments very much! I'm glad you are enjoying the dev-blog. These comments encourage us to keep it updated!

Also, I'm updating to say we pretty much wrapped up voice work on our last major character, Matoke, and that this means we're practically finished with ALL voice work for chapter one of The Journey Down. It has been one heck of a project to get all these actors and lines to do what we want them to, but finally this gigantic project is starting to wrap up.

If you're interested in hearing some voice samples from Matoke or any of our other characters for that matter, be sure to have a peek at our dev blog, where every major character in the cast have their own spotlight.

I'm updating to say that we've now started chronicling our development on twitter, so if you're curious about more behind the scene type info such as how we develop environments, etc, be sure to follow me, @theowaern on twitter.



Above is a pic from a short video Henrik made while working on a short little cinematic for the Journey Down, watch the whole video on his twitter at @Henrik_Englund

If you're more interested in the techy, real nerdy stuff, @skygoblinmarkus is the one you should follow.

Hope to see you on twitter!

I'm just updating to say we just started blasting out our preview build to the press, so if you're an author of internet propaganda, be sure to send us an email at info ät skygoblin . com and we'll be sure to hook you up with a copy!

Chapter one is coming to PC and Mac in mid May 2012, with releases on iOS and Android to follow shortly thereafter. Read me rant about our development on @theowaern.

Please give us a post once the game is released, I've been eagerly awaiting the release of this game. 

I just noticed that the game got added to the list of upcomming games on Gamer's Gate. Congratulations to SkyGoblin for the added exposure that this will bring! 

CH 1 released today w/short trial!

http://justadventure.com/shop/209/the-journey-down-chapter-1