KQ4 Remake

[Just Some Guy]

Hello,

I have been thinking about making a KQ4 remake for some time. Now that I have some time, I thought it would be a good idea to get started. So far, I have nothing other than a general plan in my head. It goes something like this:

1) Play KQ4 from beginning to end and see how well it would lend itself to a point & click interface.

2) Based on that, see what needs to be adapted.

3) Decompose the game scripts to pull out all the different possible dialog.

4) Make sure that all the original easter eggs are accounted for.

5) Rip all the background images from the game (as placeholders) and recreate the KQ4 world.

6) Start adding interactivity.

7) Find some background, sprite, and portrait artists and adapt code to new images.

Add intro, cutscense, and ending.

9) Test

10) Release

My plan is to write the game using the MAD engine. I like that it is GPLed. I intend on making my remake GPLed also. That way, people can learn to program MAD games based on what I make. Optimistically, I would like to release the game a year from now.

I do not currently plan on adding a voice pack, since that seems like a huge headache. Music will likely be stolen from the original game. I might contact Tom Lewandowski and see if he might be willing to help, though if some other qualified musician would like to help, I wouldn't refuse the offer.

What I want: at least one more programmer, and enough artists to get this to happen quickly. Ideally, the programmer would have experience with MAD (I don't, but I'm talking about "ideal".) I am willing to help any programmer who has a couple years of programming experience under his belt and who has at least read the MAD manual and looked over the Lambazzo demo game.

As for artists, I'm looking for someone who can paint images on par with Sierra VGA games and AGDInteractive remakes. It has to be that style. This begger is a chooser. Disney or Japanese style art is nice, but that's not what I'm going for.

To apply for a position, contact me at magic_toaster@yahoo.com. That's my junk email account. I check it occasionally. I will send you my real email address after that.

If you are a programmer, give me a general idea of the kind of work you've done before. If you only got as far as hash tables, tell me that. If you've written a ray tracer, tell me that. If you single-handedly wrote all the code for KQ6 while working for Sierra, tell me that, too. In any event, I should be able to put you to work right away. For those of you who have never written a game before, a fair warning: They're more fun to play than they are to write.

If you are an artist, I would like to see some sample work if you have any. If you don't have any, then contact me and I'll just have you draw up a scene from KQ4. If I like it, then I'll have you do more. If I don't like it, I'll tell you. No harm done.

On the off chance some musician comes along, I'd like to hear some sample work. If you can make music that sounds better than a guy with 3 months experience in Garage Band or that sounds better than decade-old Sound Blaster, I'll be impressed enough.

Again, my email address is: magic_toaster@yahoo.com

I don't expect to gain much from this post, but you never know. If things take off, I'll post updates in this thread.

[JSG]

Had a chance to play with both MAD and AGS for the last two days. It's pretty certain I'll be switching to AGS for this project. I would have preferred to use the GPLed MAD, but I think things will go faster with AGS. I should have a very ugly prototype using the original SCI graphics with no animations done by the end of tonight, but I should be able to walk through most of Tamir. There aren't too many screens in the game, so it looks like programming will be the easy part. It sure would be nice to have an artist    

[JSG]

Okay, it seems I am a liar about having the game ready so that I could walk around Tamir by today. I think it'll take me two days of work, though I have no real idea since I didn't even attempt it. However, I did manage to make sprites for all the inventory items that Rosella gets. At least, I think I did. SCI Studio showed some images that looked like inventory items, but I do not ever remember encountering them. One looked like a big brown beetle, one was a stop sign which reminded me of the one in certain editions of KQ5 that take you the quit screen, and one looked like a bit of golden string on a black background. I am not really sure of what to make of that last one since it was in the middle of all the inventory images. I'm more sure that the first two are irrelevant.

I also managed to look over the interfaces of the KQ2 remake, KQ5, and KQ6. Strangely enough, they are all completely different. I am not sure which interface to follow, but I am leaning heavily toward the one from the KQ2 remake so that all the remakes are consistant. It'll probably mean ripping a good bit of the artwork by hand. See people? This is why you should GPL your games: it makes it easier for other people to build on your previous work without so much hassle. When I'm through with all this, I'll try to release the source PSD files from photoshop, too. Maybe I'll make a "Developer's Edition".

Currently, the development team consists of: me ... well, at least the company's good.

So far, all I have that looks interesting is the introduction screen. I decided to keep with the original dimensions and font, unlike the AGDs. Not sure why they switched it. Maybe I'll find out later and be forced to do it myself. I did have to invent some new letters out of the ones from previous KQ games, but that wasn't particularly hard. Here it is: KQ4 Intro Screen

So far, no replies to this thread but my own. I was thinking of just posting all updates here until there's enough of a game to make its own website. Of course, I could just shut up? What does everyone think?

-JSG-

[Sir Bob]

Hello. My name is Graham. A while back I started a project of KQ4. I have finished all of the interface for a re-make with KQ4. You can contact me at sirbob_5@hotmail.com.

What I am asking is to merge projects into one to make the game. Our team consists of three people, mostly all programmers.

Again, my e-mail is sirbob_5@hotmail.com.

Sir Bob

[Sir Bob]

Whoops, your one of my guys!

Forget what I said lol.

[Sir Bob]

Okay, here is a picture of the interface bar:



And the Main Menu:



Lastly, the text box:



But we still need artists!!!

[Guest]

Sir Bob gets confused easily. Anyways, the team grew a little. I've only met Sir Bob so far. No artists yet, unfortunately. Still, that's not going to keep us from messing around in the dread abyss that is Adobe Photoshop Elements. I worked on a Rosella sprite tonight. Since I worked so hard, I would like some feedback. It's not exactly a finished work, but I thought I did a pretty good job. Tell me what you think. Miss Rosella is here: Rosella

Work is underway in fixing up that inventory. Soon, we will have stuff to carry about.

-JSG-

[Swift]

Well, it looks decent, but I can't see her hands. Good attempt. Are you able to animate that sprite?

[JSG]

Her hands are on her hips. You can see them when you load it into AGS. For some reason, Rosella kept her arms at a 90 degree angle throughout the original KQ4.I'm not sure that I want to keep that feature in this remake. Anyways, that's why her hands are at her hips.

So far, no animations. It's not too high on my list of priorities right now. I just wanted to have something sort of nice slide around my screen. Right now, I'm just trying to get used to AGS IDE. I read a few tutorials and I'm looking through the manual right now.

My immediate plans are to get the "Sierra Presents" Screen to fade in with the Sierra Fanfare music, load the intro screen with the KQ fanfare, fade in the "IV", and then load up a little GUI on the bottom of the screen to get the game rolling.

After that, I want to get the icon bar updated to have Rosella instead of Graham. The one Sir Bob did is okay, but Rosella does no wear a white dress throughout the game, the talk icon makes Rosella look fat, and the white purse and question mark just seem a little out of place.

The rest of the gui, including text boxes, quit screen, and options menu still need to be added. Once that's done, I want to make sure all the inventory items look alright when loaded into the engine.

Lots of preliminary work still to be done. Animations come after that or if I just get really bored and want to do something other than code.

-JSG-

[JSG]

Well, I was really sick last night with a horrible fever. At least, I think that's what it was. I had the shivers something fierce. I couldn't even sleep for hours. I ended up going to bed with two blankets and a sweater and I woke up two hours later extremely hot and unable to get any rest. Crazy stuff. Well, if it was a fever, I did the exact opposite of what they say you're supposed to do, but it seemed to work. Anyways, I decided to work on the game a little more today.

I wanted to make new walk and talk buttons and cursors, so I figured I would just draw Rosella walking and then shrink it down. It wasn't quite that easy, but I have my buttons and cursors and a new sprite. Two sprites down, 100 more to go. I thought this time I would just include a screenshot. Here it is: screenshot

That's the game so far. I'll try to get a little more done today, but my illness, sleepiness, and ADD might prevent that.

-JSG-

PS: I guess it's about time that I make that project page that I talked about. I'll be sure to include a link in my next post, which hopefully will be my last one here.

[JSG]

Well, I finally got around to setting up a site for the project. Right now, all my resources are really scattered about, but I'll try to keep stuff central to that site. Anyways, here is the website I promised. Future news will be given there: http://www.waywardmind.com/KQ4/

[theRedPress]

It looks great, why don't you post those backgrounds you've been working on? I think they're the bees knees ^^