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Sintra, The underground empire

Plot:

The world is about to end... and no Kyoto Protocol is going to save us if we don’t do something about Mother Earth. Misteriously (or maybe not…) a tip from someone, somewhere, points in the right direction. The answer lies in a small country in the most western part of Europe (also known as… (laughs) the West Coast of Europe). And the instructions are precise: on the night of the 23rd of June meet the man with the pointed hat outside the small Saint Amaro chapel, in a forest area known for its legends and myths. Everything you can think of can be found there. Templers, Lamias, Nereids, Little Folk and even the remain of Atlantis are said to be within reach of those that know their way. Or those that don’t know but are willing to try the adventure. You…

This is about it as the story goes. We’ve mingled fact and fiction from History and the folk stories and are trying to do a funny entertaining adventure that uses FPS Creator but believes that the power of the word is mightier that the sword. Well it’s essentially a “no guns” game, where solving puzzles, finding the right clues and… knowing how to evade creatures patrolling underground corridors.

The game has four big chapters, that take you from an underground maze leading you to an atlantean colony within the mountain range of Sintra (written tradition in the area from the 15th century suggests there is an hidden empire beneath Serra de Sintra) and then to the “lost” library of Alexandria, where more clues take you to a huge spaceship (Atlantean, always them) orbiting in a parallel world, watching Earth.

From there you discover your last destination: Palácio da Pena, a 19th century palace, a magic place filled with mysterious symbols and suggestions, sitting atop an old volcanic chimney. In the palace and in the park around it, and area filled with botanic species from around the world, the clues wait for someone to solve the mystery and get old Gaia on the road again. Before it’s too late and we become history…

Goal:

We are doing this as a kid’s game that grown ups will want to play. The puzzles are easy someplaces, devious others, we are looking for the right balance to keep everybody happy. And again we’re using many traditional puzzles and the popular wisdom, believing that it is a way to make people learn… playing. References to books that can be read also appear along the path.
We’ve decided to go this way because we believe there might be interest into such a game. If not, at least it will be a fantastic ride for us, made us try something different and explore things we’re not thinking about some months ago.

What we’re doing:

We’re really taking FPSCreator for a first spin so we don’t know the program that much. We’re learning as we move along. But we decided to go “out of the box” and remove the S (Shooter) from FPSCreator. So this is an adventure in First Person. And although we know that we’re not doing anything new, we’re trying to use within FPS Creator things like the comic books balloons for the characters phrases, thoughts a.s.o. We’re also exploring the use of different paths and movement of characters to create simple stealth patterns.
We intend to explore the logical conversation threads you find in RPG games, and see how it works to define options for different conversations with the same characters. A kind of log book that keeps the player informed is also in the “labs”. We’re, having fun sitting down at home and talking about what we can or can not do. And we’re working with two levels at the same time, because they’re so different settings that we feel we learn at twice the speed.

And we are…

Well, we are three. One is the victim, the player that we use to test whatever comes inside the game after each new session of work. We have plans to make him work within the game, but for now that’s what he is doing. Playing the victim. Good this is not a shooter!

Only one of us codes. And does all the graphics (well, use whatever is available, modify little things we need, for now…) levels and scripting, to make the game follow the rules we’ve set on paper. Not always easy but it has been a learning experience that will make our second game even better and easier to make. His past experience with Blender and other graphic programs and also coding are being put to test. Anyway that’s what he is studying at the university…

The story and this long text (bahhh…) area from the third part of the equation. In fact the writing, because the puzzle setting and the whole of the adventure are fruit of long hours of talking and laughing at the strange puzzles we hope to set up for players… YOU. A previous experience with GAC (Graphic Adventure Creator) in Spectrum days, for a game that run on old Clive Sinclair’s machine. That was about the same theme we’re exploring now. So History does repeat itself…

NOTE: remember, English is not our mother language, so please do excuse some typo….

And now for some images… -> press download/view

You can view some more images in the following posts. Have a look...

and another one from the same level, at the entrance of the chapel. The character there is only for testing... the pointed hat man is coming later...

last one for now. Another aspect of the chapel entrance, with the forest around.

Looks nice for a first game.I would recommend to lower the ambience,click File-Build Game and under Level Settings click EDIT at the Global Script line.Now lower the AMBIENCE number to something like 10,you will get nicer shadows and more dark looks.Also when your FPS Creator is not running or open,go to your FPS Creator folder and open the settings.ini file with notepad and edit these lines:

lightmaptexsize=512
lightmapquality=5

Edit them so it looks like this:

lightmaptexsize=256
lightmapquality=110

This will give you even stronger and nicer shadows.Increases the loading time when testing game slightly but its worth waiting an extra minute.For more tips I suggest you read Nickydudes Guide.

Hi!

Já agora, olá

A verdade é que até não está mal, mas devias ter mais cuidado na construção dos cenários e as luzes, por exemplo. Eu sei que ainda não testaste muito o FPSC, mas se tiveres dúvidas, diz qualquer coisa.

It's not bad, but you should be careful on how you build the scenery and lighting, as an example. I know you've yet to test FPSC, but If you have any doubt, please tell.

To the forum: He's portuguese, so do I, so I spoke in portuguese first lol.

Looks interesting - at least another fantasy game amongst all those zombie-mashers.

btw:that creature in the 2nd screenie looks exactly like an NWN2 Lizardfolk to me....

Thanks for all the posts and help. Yes we're new here... We have two weeks of work in FPSCreator. We envy all those nice lights but for now we're just touching the surface.

djmaster - We already have the ambiance to 10 (read it in the forum) it's just that the images are lighter so people can see something. A static image always needs to have more info than a moving one... Anyway, thanks for the tips, it's always good to learn a few tricks more.

alimpo83 -hi/olá - thanks for the comment and offer of help.

The Storyteller 01 - Hi and thanks... we're trying, we're trying... The lizard is from a model pack from FPSC and yes it does look like NWN2. We've played that game for a while.

Portugese:
Voces sao portugeses? Eu tambem, aonde e que voces vivem? Eu moro em Amsterdam. Fixe que nos encontramanos aqui. Viva Portugal .

Dutch:

JZo jullie zijn portugees? Ik ook eigenlijk, waar wonen julllie? Ik in Amsterdam. Leip dat we elkaar hier ontmoeten. Viva Portugal. .

English:

You guys are portugese? I am too., where do you guys live? I in Amsterdam, Nice that we met each other here. Viva Portugal. .

Well that were three languages. If there are italien, spanish people out there, i am happy to speak those language too.

Later Guys,

Red Eye

Looks great for your first game. I think you should add a few rubble/rock entities into the caverns to make them look more natural. Also, in the first image you need to move the light some. Move it from the blue circle in my attached image, to the purple circle. Nice to see a first game that isn't all stock media.

Hi Coach Shogun 20

thanks for tips... We're still fumbling with lights and everything. Any hint that makes us learn faster is welcome. And well, we have bought some model packs and have been looking around intensively for stuff we can use. We want to learn to do some but for now we just look at what the community offers and try to get things that can be used.

Thanks again for posting

Red Eye

yes we are... we're in Sintra, or close by. What is The Black Bird? A game. We're curious looking at everything?

Welcome man, and the game looks fantastic so far! Indeed nice to see another fantasy game

There is a really great site you can grab some free media from, link below -
http://fpsfree.com/
I would have suggested "fps-files.com" as well, but they're currently shut down for the time being.

Also don't forget to check out this thread -
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=150270&b=24
Of all the awesome media that people have generously given away to the community over time!

But with all the media in the world! Still, it's always best to know exactly what you're doing, both with FPSC and game making in general. Definitely check out the superb guide that our fine mod Nickydude composed for us -
http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=131868&b=21


Hope to see more of Sintra soon!

-Cheers

Well i am working on 1507(on forums), Red eye Island(dont want to share yet maybe next year as it is it will be made in leadwerks or in unreal engine) and The black bird (will be soon on forums).

Your game looks nice. the things i wanted to say area already stated.

Hi all

We're moving along with our first level, the underground maze where the hero starts the adventure. The pictures here show some of the underground areas (we're trying to do the lighting correctly but we do not want pitch black rooms, there is life underground here...) and at the same time we had time and a chance to get some of the "actors" together for a nice "family shot"... in front of the Real palace that is the core of the adventure.

We are still far from having something playable, as we're making the texts for all the characters... and yes it is in portuguese, but we are thinking about translating at least this demo level to have some feedback from the community. More work, more time, so please bear with us. Have a look at the pictures...

The picture with this message shows the alchemist room. It's a goblin living underground at the park around the Palace that has found some books and decided to study Alchemy. He is doing fine but needs some ingredients and our adventurer just arrives at the right time to fetch them.

Another picture for Sintra, The Underground Empire

This area is packed with containers left by the dwarves on their way to... we can not say yet...

This picture from Sintra, The Underground Empire shows something special within the game: the teleporting system used by the alchemist to get at fast speed to the things he needs. This fantastic piece of engineering is based on the platform created by Josh Mooney (100 days/100 Models)

http://forum.thegamecreators.com/?m=forum_view&t=151473&b=3

And the last picture of today is a "family shot" with some of the actors from our game. They all gathered together for a walk within the magic park of Palacio da Pena, and stopped by at a clearing in front of the palace for us to grab a picture. Digital, as you guessed...

Well... We are almost done with the first level. There's only a portuguese version for now and it's gonna take a while to write the english version.

Some more scripts, add some sounds, and the demo will be done.