AfterImage
AfterImage is a story-driven adventure game made in the style of SNES-era RPGs such as Chrono Trigger and Illusion of Gaia. Gameplay involves movement using the WASD keys and interacting with objects with SPACE. There are several hand-crafted maps to explore, with puzzles that require the use of a surprise game mechanic to complete. We decided to focus on the game's atmosphere and storytelling rather than developing complex game mechanics, which ultimately resulted in less content and variety in gameplay. However, as our testers can attribute, short and sweet works very well for AfterImage. We hope you'll agree!
This game is purely Javascript/HTML5, rendered in the DOM. We used CraftyJS for our engine, which is still at a fairly immature state of development and had numerous issues that slowed down development. We had to make several modifications to 0.49 to make it work for us. Map creation was done through Tiled, and the maps themselves are saved as JSON objects that are imported via a heavily-adapted script released as a component for CraftyJS.
There are two of us on the team: Piers (me) and Joel. We are both employed full-time as developers, and have shared an interest in game development since we studied together in college. 6 years later, AfterImage will be our first actual game.
We actually did not find out about the LPC until a few days into July, and the contest had already been going on for a week before we started developing. Weekends and those precious few hours after work have given us approximately 80-90 150-160 hours of development time between us.
EDIT: Here is the link to the submitted files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8198qxipmxxhn3q/U-dnEBOLIm/afterimage_v1.7z
EDIT 2: REVENGE OF THE EDIT: Here is the link to our updated, bug-fix-only version as of 8/6: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10601458/afterimage_v1-1.7z
EDIT 3: SPAWN OF THE EDIT: Nushio was awesome and hosted AfterImage 1.1 (not our official entry) on his server: http://k3rnel.net/after_image/index.html Thanks Nushio!
As promised, some screenshots:
http://imgur.com/a/TpOuJ
These are from some of the earlier levels in the game, before there's much combat or any interesting puzzles that could get spoiled!
Speaking of combat, that is getting finessed graphically tonight, so I'm hoping to be able to show some of that soon as well. Hope this is more interesting than the big 'ole wall o' text above!
What's the font? I like it!
Joel picked it out, it's called Modern Antiqua.
Speaking of assets, my associate is going through and documenting the attributions right now. He's having trouble finding attribution for some of the base assets provided by the LPC:
victoria.png
frame.gif
Just thought I should ask rather than continue to have him spend time looking, in case any of the authors has a fast answer. Thanks!
Well, our entry was too large to upload, and we weren't working off of any sort of repository...So I posted a public link to my Dropbox. I hope that's acceptable, as we really didn't have any other way to do it after we realized how large the entry would be.
I'm hoping to have a patch version that fixes the last-level breaks tomorrow. For now, I'm looking forward to sleeping for the first time in weeks. Thanks for the fun!
I guess it would be good if I could share the link outside the entry form: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8198qxipmxxhn3q/U-dnEBOLIm/afterimage_v1.7z
This has bugs in the final levels, and the game bugs out right before the end. I will be posting a patched version in the next few days, so that even if we aren't judged on it people can still play it. Enjoy!
Hmm. It's crashing when I try to sleep... Ubuntu 12.04.
Sleep? I don't think we put sleeping into the game...But I have been missing a lot of sleep myself. Can you let me know more what you mean?
I should note that we developed this for Chrome or Firefox, I can't guarantee that all the features even work outside of Chrome. Again, Crafty is a very immature engine.
Wronnnnng comment thread. I have it open to remind myself to download it when I leave the firewall and can access dropbox...
Fun so far! I entered the keep, and the key room doesn't have collisions defined for the walls. The storeroom also has a really funny collision layer. I've also run into a couple game crashes going into and out of the keep, getting stuck in walls. I should have it beat soon, very cool storytelling concept. Where'd you get the sword?
That last level is a mess. We had it working, then changed some things, and couldn't fix it before the deadline submission. When we "patch" it this weekend, all the fixes are going to be with that level.
The sword was from http://opengameart.org/content/lpc-medieval-fantasy-character-sprites, the expansion pack. Super great collection.
Thanks! I'll wait to finish AfterImage until after the weekend, then.
Alrighty! Here is AfterImage version 1.1
There's no new content, we just fixed the issues with the last level. You should be able to play all the way through to the end now. The only things that was not fixed were the odd colliders in the storeroom, as those were not actually game-breaking (and Crafty makes it very difficult to profile incorrect behaviour).
We're planning on having a write-up by the end of the week. It might not be a full post-mortem, but just something to share about some of the issues we had and decisions we made as first-time developers.
Hey there,
I tried to review & play the version you uploaded at http://opengameart.org/content/afterimage
However I think that the Afterimage.htm wasn't included. (There is an "Afterimage.lnk" but I can't open that in Linux)
I also downloaded the one labeled 1.1 and it seems to have the same issue. Am I missing something?
Nushio, look in the scripts directory.
Thanks Malachite. Found it and found the king, but apparently one hit turns the screen black. Did I do something wrong? :-/
Oh, and I decided to host it on my server so people can play your game. I'm currently hosting v1.1. I added a small "index.html" to the main page so that the user doesn't have to go inside scripts or use that nefarious lnk file.
Feel free to use it! :-) http://k3rnel.net/after_image/index.txt
If anyone wants to try the game... http://k3rnel.net/after_image/index.html
It's atomic_swerve's game, not mine. I just enjoyed playing it and didn't want you to miss out.
Yeah, I know it's his game, I meant "thanks for telling me where the script was".
Did you manage to defeat the king? Did the screen go black? Or is there something else? I hear music playing and I believe, the sound of rain, but it won't go past one stab at the king.
Wow, thanks for hosting it Nushio! That's very kind, it's much easier to share that way. After we submitted the game, my collaborator pointed out that .lnk's are Windows-only, which is...just...great. Having a single URL that works is a much better solution.
As for the ending: The fight with the King cuts off after one hit, because that's all I was able to include before the deadline. What else I had was not enjoyable or nearly polished enough to include in the final version. You're actually (probably) supposed to see a "Thanks for playing" message after it fades to black...Oh well. There was a proper ending in mind, the fade to black is not it.
Our 1.1 update was not supposed to add any new content, just fix the castle so that you could get TO the King at all. We felt that if we made any significant changes/additions, it should not happen until after the LPC judging is complete. AfterImage will definitely be revisited someday, and given the time it deserves!
I wrote a review about your game: http://k3rnel.net/2012/08/11/lpc-game-review-afterimage/
I'm looking forward to updates on the game, as I think it's one of the best ones I've played so far (though I've only played 15/48). Its a shame that the ending isn't finished. I had a very similar problem with my game, the ending also cuts off suddenly, hah. I wish they had given us that extra week.
I have a hanful of bugs to report for the version Nushio uploaded. :)
@Nushio Wow, our first review for our first game! *milestone'd* Thank you! I think it's great that you're reviewing and providing an overview of the entries, for those of us that might not be able to handle the more difficult compilation instructions for the non-HTML5 games.
@Parasyte Thanks for the bug check! If those are the worst errors you found, I'm really quite pleased:
1. I wasn't thrilled about the semi-colon in the filename of the LPC entry, but with our limited knowledge of attribution standards we didn't know if we were allowed to change the name to something less iffy with JS. Looks like we should have!
2. There is only one place that I know of (in the locally-running version) that has the "call undefined" error, and that's when entering the castle for the first time. I don't think it breaks anything, though, at least not in that particular instance. The error shows up whenever a cutscene terminates early, which should only happen when more than one executes at once (which, again, only happens once and halfway-intentionally).
3. That last one is known, kind of. You're not supposed to be able to swap to the Desolation in that level, so we didn't implement the Desolation version. That you're able to swap is the bug. Good catch!
Btw Atomic_swerve, you're very welcome to use (and/or modify) the index.htm I made. It uses an iframe but is otherwise invisible, and lets you keep an index.htm where people expect it.
I'm glad you liked the review, I enjoyed playing the game a lot, its one of the most polished titles out there, despite the ending.