Wonderland Adventures: Hidden Realms - Update Thread

Muzozavr · Post by **Muzozavr** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:55 pm

I love Q's textures, too. Also, playing "devil's advocate" for a moment and considering that Wondertown may feel post-apocalyptic for some... shouldn't it be that way? After all, WSW had a magical storm sweeping everything away and making a terrible mess. The post-apocalyptic feel is the result of that storm.

The point about color blindness is an interesting one, though. I'm not sure if it was a happy accident or careful planning on Patrick's part, but his color choices being "universal" is an interesting thing.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:58 pm

Pawelec wrote:I meant in general, the tonal modifications you made to the textures make them look faded. I especially dislike the purple-ish remake of Wondertown texture - it makes the place look somewhow like a graveyard and a bit post-apocaliptic... I'm certain no Stinker would like to live there.

Making the level textures a bit of a more "pastel" pallet was always intentional, I find it to be easier on the eyes than the more vibrant WA1 textures (not by much, mind).

Having said that, I don't really see what you mean about Wondertown? It's not actually that much more muted than the original texture, it's just that the pallet has been shifted from a pale yellow to an indigo/purple-ish colour (done intentionally, as Wondertown is where the Indigo Shard links to in WA1) and that the colours in general are a bit more "uniform" for consistency's sake (the path-edge tiles in the original texture are inconsistent on the colour of the "stones", for example)

Not trying to say something like "OMG YOU'RE WRONG MY TEXTURE IS FINE" or anything, I'm just not sure I get what you mean.

I don't take offence or anything to you disliking them, not everyone's going to have the same tastes.

Pawelec wrote:No one expects you to revert the changes - if my sister decides to play HR, I'll make needed graphic modifications myself.

It's something I can do relatively easily, it'd just be a bit more inefficient - The changes to the gates/gems/teleporters can be accomplished by just not using the HR files (for the most part, further details might change that a bit though I can still fix it), while the glove chargers need to have their custom textures in the game's directory. All that would need to be done is just replacing the two colour-specific files (blink and brr) with white ones, so the game colours them normally.

Pawelec wrote:And about the green-orange: my sister said she has some troubles when there's HR blue in the level: she can easily say which one is blue, but she cannot distinguish green from orange. She had no troubles with the WA cyan version of blue. Interesting? Then read below about our little experiment.

From our family experience with my sister we know that colour blindness is VERY complex. So I made a colourtable (table with differently coloured cells placed in a random pattern) with green and orange cells, placed it over a black background, pointed the corner cell and asked if she could point and count all the cells in the same colour. She had no trouble, and when I changed the background to the WA cyan she also did it well. Then I switched the background to HR blue. She said the cells were pulsating (!) and wasn't able to count them. This means it's not only the main object's colour, but also the colouristic surroundings what affects her abililty to see difference in colour.

Huh, interesting. Do the metallic-blue gate frames in WA have an effect for her? HR's blue colour isn't too different from the colour of those gates, IIRC.

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:10 pm

So, is anyone else excited for this? I know you are.

Jutomi · Post by **Jutomi** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:47 pm

How did you know?

Lucky-Luc · Post by **Lucky-Luc** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 10:39 pm

Well, in my case your mind reading skills didn't fail you either. I am soo looking forward for this

If the puzzles are only half as good as the graphics are, this is gonna be a ridiculously good hub!

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 10:45 pm

Lucky-Luc wrote:Well, in my case your mind reading skills didn't fail you either. I am soo looking forward for this If the puzzles are only half as good as the graphics are, this is gonna be a ridiculously good hub!

And if it's 1.5 times as good as the graphics, then i think I'm gonna have to have a party!

Jutomi · Post by **Jutomi** » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:04 pm

I'd bring cookies, but I don't know if we can do that on this forum.

Oh well!

We can all celebrate by playing it.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 4:45 pm

No pictures at the moment, but progress update.

The Creepy Keep is more or less finished, other than setting up the events for one of the adventures. In terms of the Hub, current focus is now the Forever Forest.

At the moment, I'm experimenting with a few ideas for adventures, so we'll see how that goes~

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:09 pm

No rush, as long as it doesn't turn out like super retro squad.

samuelthx · Post by **samuelthx** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 3:48 am

Half the hub's done! Keep it up!

Out of curiosity, how many levels would you estimate HR to have?

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sat Apr 05, 2014 4:24 am

I've answered that question before - it's kinda hard to say for certain.

I've got a design document on my computer where I basically wrote out "OK, the chapters cover these areas, and these areas have between x and y adventures, z of which are optional, and they introduce these gameplay elements etc. etc." and a bunch of other story/development notes to check back on later.

It's not as if it's wholly inaccurate (in fact, it's more accurate than I thought it'd be, but the end number is still unrealistically large) - The predictions in the document for adventures in the first chapter were around 16, while HR itself has 17 - but the thing is, I don't update this file to reflect the hub's current status. It's still got notes on some NPC events that have been changed around, and in the most extreme cases, one area I decided to cut from HR is still detailed in it, while another area I'm going to be adding later is missing.

The estimates from the document... At the maximum, 136 or so, and at minimum 111. Not including post-game/bonus stuff, because that's still not finalized.

In the end, my best guess is the adventure count will be somewhere between MoFI and PoTZ. We'll see, I guess - though I'm pretty sure I can guarantee the adventure count will be higher than WA1.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 9:14 am

It's not yet populated (other than that one Stinker who doesn't have dialogue yet), and I haven't worked on events related to it, but this is how Forest's End looks at the moment.

I think, at this point, once I've laid out the NPC events related to the story flow around Forest's End, I'm going to focus on finishing the core hub first before anything else. Specifics, like the number and locations of adventures will wait until later.

Generally, the side areas will require much less NPC-related shenanigans going on, so I'll likely save those for the end.

|Cookie| · Post by **|Cookie|** » Sat Apr 12, 2014 1:35 pm

It looks so nice, I can't wait until this is released!
Goodluck while making this!

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:54 am

I gotta ask, How long did it take you to make those BEAUTIFUL graphics?

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:04 am

The basic layout doesn't take too long. The detailing varies from area to area, I can't really think of a way to determine how long it takes.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Fri Apr 18, 2014 4:58 am

DP. Not a picture update, but a short video. Don't get excited, it's nothing major - Simply put, I've found a practical use for CMD4 in the hub at one point, so I threw together a 40-second video to show it in action.

Currently processing, but the video's here.

(If you're wondering, what's going on is just CMD4 used on a level-exit's options to make it redirect to another level. The arrow changing colours is just done via generic square objects)

EDIT: I guess minor spoilers regarding the Forever Forest, but nothing too major... Just figured I'd throw that in, come to think of it

Jutomi · Post by **Jutomi** » Fri Apr 18, 2014 5:19 am

Oh, wow!

Something to make the Forever Forest more baffling!

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Fri Apr 18, 2014 5:37 am

It's only used in that one spot, actually. It's more for player convenience than anything.

As you can probably guess, the Forest has a maze like it does in WA1. The coloured arrows are used to signify which room they lead to, so the player's less likely to get completely lost.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 12:46 am

hmm

I'm not sure how I managed to get the in-editor camera screwed up that badly, but... Wastelands. Yes.

MyNameIsKooky · Post by **MyNameIsKooky** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 1:12 am

Looks nice.

Qloof234 wrote:I'm not sure how I managed to get the in-editor camera screwed up that badly, but...

I can relate to this on a personal level.

Jutomi · Post by **Jutomi** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 1:17 am

Same here, albeit only one time.

It's very cinimatic, though!

Here's one of my more recent ones that was actually intentional...

Emerald141 · Post by **Emerald141** » Sat Apr 19, 2014 2:17 am

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 7:04 am

No picture, as I'm too lazy to get one at the moment, but started working on Wonderfalls. Chapter-wise, that's the start of Chapter 6 - which is the second-last Chapter in the game, not counting bonus/side-area stuff.

In terms of sheer numbers... 73 levels, 70 dialogue files (going to go back to populate areas later, so most of the "filler" dialogue will be added then). Number of adventures linked to in the Hub (regardless of whether or not they exist or can be reached properly yet) is 96 - Adding the side-adventures I've got done, that number is currently 111.

Current estimate is that the story will have 115 or so adventure. Side-areas are a complete unknown at this point, I'll have to take a look at them later.

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:17 pm

Looks beautiful. Can't wait!

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Fri May 02, 2014 3:57 pm

Just a thing, to show that I'm not dead.

Even though it's getting closer to completion - I'd estimate about 60-70%-ish - I'm still hesitant to give an ETA for release. I'm going to stick to my guns and go with "When it's done".

samuelthx · Post by **samuelthx** » Fri May 02, 2014 4:09 pm

Awesome scenery as usual!

Qloof234 wrote:I'm going to stick to my guns and go with "When it's done".

I like your style. All the best!

|Cookie| · Post by **|Cookie|** » Fri May 02, 2014 4:47 pm

That's very cool!

Jutomi · Post by **Jutomi** » Fri May 02, 2014 5:11 pm

Really, Qloof, I have no idea how you do these things.

I wish you lots of inspiration!

Super Nuclear Power · Post by **Super Nuclear Power** » Fri May 02, 2014 11:37 pm

Looks nice!

Wonderman109 · Post by **Wonderman109** » Sat May 03, 2014 1:20 am

Qloof234 wrote:

Just a thing, to show that I'm not dead.

Even though it's getting closer to completion - I'd estimate about 60-70%-ish - I'm still hesitant to give an ETA for release. I'm going to stick to my guns and go with "When it's done".

You have a lot of time on your hands, don't you?