Well now I'm here, my gaming project will surely get going. Friendship is Magic heralds the introduction of a throwback to 20 years ago, bringing out the best in both versions of Sierra On-Line's SCI interfaces - and more! Just take a few examples: this new interface has the look and feel of SCI0, while utilising the point-and-click and 256-colour palette of SCI1 - and besides all that, the game window is twice as large as the original games, which calls for higher-quality graphics, as you'll see in this screenie: Yeh, there it is, in pure pixelised glory! This is just one view in a potential many. I took the background from 'Adventures in Ponyville', and traced along as accurately as I can - using an appropriate colour palette of course - and added a little colour dithering in the gradients for that ol' retro touch. Which brings us to the GUI in a closer look: As you can see, in this new SCI, not only is the point-and-click bar present, the drop-down menus are back again! I did consider a little use of text parser too, but then that'd be a bit tedious for the target audience. (Note: Obviously the background isn't actually a genuine-styled one; it's only there for demonstration purposes. I'm working on the real one, but it's taking a lot of time! Can you imagine doing all that colour dithering?) I've considered assembling 10 of the best of Season 1. Obviously flashbacks to other episodes will be thrown in where required. The player can score 200 points in each episode, for a grand total of 2,000 points!! While I was at it, I also thought about how the playable characters should be handled. I figured it should go like Leisure Suit Larry 3 - switch between characters in between acts. What follows is a table of episodes, and what character is being played within: [table]Act I | #1 - Friendship is Magic, part 1 | Play as Twilight Sparkle Act II | #2 - Friendship is Magic, part 2 | Same as above, but maybe switch a bit, depending on whose situation comes up Act III | #5 - Griffon the Brush Off | Pinkie Pie Act IV | #7 - Dragonshy | Possibly alternating between Fluttershy and Twilight Act V | #10 - Swarm of the Century | Can't say for sure! Should probably switch between at least 3 characters. Act VI | #18 - The Show Stoppers | The Cutie Mark Crusaders. It goes without saying they'll have plenty of flashbacks! Act VII | #19 - A Dog and Pony Show | Alternates between Twilight and Spike Act VIII | #22 - A Bird in the Hoof | Fluttershy Act IX | #24 - Owl's Well That Ends Well | Spike Act X | #26 - The Best Night Ever | Alternates between ALL six of the "mane" clan![/table] I've already written a few descriptions of some of the scenes! Now, here's the deal: I'm working in Adventure Game Studio and I should have a playable demo showing off what the interface can do some time in the future - don't know for sure, it's already taken me a few weeks. HOWEVER, aside from that, I know I can't finish the project alone! I'm asking anypony who IS anypony for help, specifically in art and programming - I mean I can do a little of the art too, but I lack knowledge where the scripting is concerned. I mean I can do a little bit for the demo, but that's as far as I can go. I'll be sincerely glad if I have a few hands to help me, because thanks to the unique way my ideas are funded - by you the general public - I can afford to think of things like this, which are the envy of the players!
A screenshot of the preview as it is now: As you can see, I've already made a few establishments in the format, including some walk-behinds and the font. For the purpose of this demo, the sprites from Desktop Ponies will be used, so I hope they won't mind. I've still got to install a few other things, including modifying the text boxes, giving them a drop-shadow, adding the drop-down menus... all of that. It's too hot today.
Graphically it looks great. It is a nice piece of pixel art, did you do it (referring to the background and stage)?
