QFG game creation

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Construed
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QFG game creation

#1 Post by Construed » Sun Apr 01, 2012 2:52 am

Hey, I'm Construde aka Grimreapyou aka Jared from Http://GrimQuest.tk a multiplayer qfg1 project.
I was just thinking, there should be a forum or a place for people who program and do art for qfg games to share snippets, Ideas and whatever.
There's not really too many real qfg fans left so i thought here would be a good place to post the idea, maby an admin will think It's a good one, If not I might change our forums at GP to reflect such an enviroment.

Paladinlover
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Re: QFG game creation

#2 Post by Paladinlover » Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:15 pm

I think there's already a game creation forum over here. :)

Till next time stay cool 8))

Blake00
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Re: QFG game creation

#3 Post by Blake00 » Sun Apr 08, 2012 10:40 am

Your website link does not work, however I popped into your Grim Quest forums and found a direct link to download the game.


Note sure which forum you frequent the most so have posted this at both.

Well I’ve played the game for a few hours. Very impressive, I had a lot of fun mucking around with it! :) I’ve added your project to my QFG fan games page (scroll down to the active fan project area to see yours) and decided to give you a full tribute page showing off your game instead of just a list mention! I whipped it up pretty quickly so will probably give it some more polish soon, and I’ll obviously update it over the years as you update your project. Hopefully I bring some traffic your way! :) And yeah feel free to link me on your site too.

I saw your threads over in the AGS forums.. can’t say I’m surprised at some of their responses as they can get a little hostile there after a decade of noobs suggesting much and delivering zero! However some of them do make some good points in that QFG1 with a chat window will not be enough to keep interest in the long run. So what makes a multiplayer online game good? Long term playability and addictiveness. QFG1 can be finished pretty bloody quickly (a matter of hours if you do the minimum required training) so it’s going to need much more to attract the masses and keep them around for a while.

Food for thought:

PvP – obviously you need this. Would be quite fun training your hero and setting him/her against others heh. Although someone who’s done a whole bunch of quests and is near completing the game isn’t going to be happy if they get pawned by some 13yr old with a hardon for upsetting people. Perhaps a ‘can only beat down to low health – winner gets more experience than loser’ system could work.
PvMonster – Why do people love WoW and multiplayer Diablo? Guilds/gangs crawling dungeons fighting super monsters, team work! You could do the classic cheap Final Fantasy 1-6 trick of grabbing a standard monster and making the sprite bigger and a different colour and calling it ‘Goblin boss’ lol and only a team can take it down. If 1 lonely player sees one? He RUNS lol.
Joint quests – Monsters gets boring after a while, reengineering some of the quests so that only a party could beat them could be interesting. But it breaks the game if no one else is playing at the time other then you lol.
LOTS of content – Like I said QFG1 isn’t really enough content. I think I saw you already talking about this somewhere but consider expanding it either QFG4 ½ style (adding new areas in Spielburg) or adding on more QFG games making it one giant game (eg you save the barons daughter and hop on the carpet to Shapeir to battle stronger monsters and human players running around).
Portability – QFG1 is old.. really old, young people today will laugh at the VGA version let alone the EGA one lol. However where are old style games like these becoming successful again? Facebook games and mobile games. You port it to them and millions will see it “if you build it they will come”. I believe AGS is working on mobile phone portability atm but as for a facebook frontend.. hmm no idea how. Just an idea.
Promoting – I’d suggest making a facebook page with pictures and making a youtube trailer for your game at some point. I’ve made a few QFG videos for dead fan games or rare demos of the official games (my youtube page if you’re interested), I’ve found they’ve brought traffic to my website and some interesting comments and emails sent my way. Plus I was then able to embed the videos on my website too bringing traffic both ways (eg my QFG4.5 page has embedded videos). I thought about making a video for you but decided not to since 1 I don’t have your permission and 2 I normally only make videos of dead or finished games and yours is neither!

Anyway on to testing I noticed the game’s got no quests yet so it’s not ready to be attacked with CyricZ’s unequalled QFG walkthrough. But as you can see I found plenty to do anyway. ;)

Bugs/Comments/suggestions told with stories and many bad jokes:

- Connection failed as I’m guessing your server is down (guess I miss out on multiplayer), am glad the game let me continue anyway.
- Ahh good old EGA ‘Hero Quest’, brings back memories. :) But I’m glad to hear you’re working on a VGA version.
- Looked at my stats.. archery? No climbing?.. hmm interesting, not all is the same as QFG1 I see.
- Character animation looks great! Although I’m able to walk through them like a ghost haha. Also I’m noticing almost no dialog yet? Or maybe no one likes me lol.
- Had a meal at the Katta Inn for old times sake. :) Was able to walk through the back & side walls though. I think I accidentally chose ‘Dead guy’ character instead Fighter.. hmm f*ck lol.
- Broke into the old ladies home without a key or lockpick, and right in front of her! Beat that Patrick Swayze! (his movie Ghost joke, not awkward real life he’s dead joke :S )
- Problem with being dead is I can’t sign the log book in the Adventurers guild. Although the old man says he wants to be like me. Hmm pretty sure he’ll get his wish!
- Purchased some spell scrolls but can’t seem to use them. I’m pretty sure the undead in Elder Scrolls can cast spells. No fair bro!
- Can’t seem to buy anything off the centaur chick, hmm probably a good thing she can’t see me as I’m rather embarrassed after what I did to her in QFG 4 ½ *cough*.
- Couldn’t buy anything off the dry goods guy, thought I’d walk through his fireplace to scare the cr*p out him yet I slammed right into it. Ouch.. guess the collision detection works here! Clearly Kaspar found it amusing as he ‘thanked me for my patronage’? Smug bastard.
- Broke into the sherrifs house in broad daylight. Centaur chick didn’t seem to care, maybe she’s embarrassed about QFG 4 ½ too. While in the house I walked through the drawer instead of searching it. Also when I tried to walk into the back room my ghostly body suddenly felt compelled to walk up the stairs to the top floor passing through a few railings and walls on the way hmm.
- The old guy in the alleyway asked me for money but apparently I decided to walk through him instead while somehow covering up his plate? Oh well that’ll scare him good. Couldn’t climb over the wall to sneak out of town unfortunately.
- The baker and butcher in the bar ignored me so I walked through their table to annoy them. For some reason each time I click on them I felt compelled to dance around the bar (collision detection gone nuts)? I’m one messed up ghost. ;) Crusher ignored me too stopping me from getting into the thieves guild so out of defiance I stood on his head for a while. Drank some ale and ended up upside down drunk! Interesting.. tried to drink some more to flip me back up but didn’t work. Maybe I’ll try that ‘other thing’ on the menu. Drank dragon’s breath and became EXTRA DEAD lol. Nice animation, glad that worked hahaha.
- BAM! Instantly I’m back at the town entrance.. guess that’s the good thing about being dead, even dragons breath can’t hurt me. ;) Time to leave town and see how much you’ve got out here (I promise I’ll try to be more serious now).
- Armed with my QFG1 map which I made myself (shameless plug) I set out to the south because I miss the old EGA lake & waterfall, I remember it was the most beautiful thing I’d seen on my old 286 in 1994, nothing beat it.
AAAUUUUGGGHH! I got attacked! Couldn’t seem to figure out any controls other than hitting up to stab which seem to only happen occasionally while he pecked away at my larger health. He almost got me but I kicked his butt down to minus 2 health? What the..
- Low health out in the forests of Spielburg is not a good thing so I try eating a strange mushroom that’s sitting in my inventory. Bad idea.. Tripped out (cool animation) and died (cause 13 health points – 10 points = death you know lol). BAM! Back to town entrance again lol.
- Try to go south again and b-line it for the waterfall. Alas! Time appears to be frozen! The water does not move. I decide to visit the hermit, being a ghost means I can just run up the wall and not climb up it would seem lol. Bummer, the hermit appears to be not home, maybe I’ll stay the night here. Although I can’t seem to look up what time it is or sleep. Must be the whole dead mode thing again.
- Checked out the lake, just as pretty as I remember it. The VGA version looked good but didn’t quite capture the reflective glass beauty of the water in the EGA version did it? :)
- Checked out the archery range, had nothing to throw/shoot at the board so I just walked through it for fun. Couldn’t climb over the wall into town like old times, shame.
- Checked out the graveyard, just as eerie as I remember it. Good thing night never seems to come as my own kind would emerge from the graves and be mean to me.
- I head down to the Brigand lair, thankfully no one’s around to shoot arrows through me but I can’t seem to get over the log! However fortunately no annoying Antwerp or giant rock has been implemented yet so I float into the ‘secret’ cave instead.
- I enter the fortress without any resistance or traps trying to stop the dead badass I am. Then something weird happens. I enter through the front door and come into the main hall through the left side door. What the! Now I’m a teleporting badass!
- Uh oh.. I enter the right side door to find the maze but I decide that’s far enough and step back through the door only to end up stuck outside the bottom door of the main hall instead of coming back through the right side! This badass has just teleported himself into a deadzone and can’t move. *sigh* back to the Spielburg I go.
- BAM! Well not really BAM this time.. more like close game, restart game, name character, connection error, arrive in town again lol! This time I try being a Magic User as I like his yellowy reddish glow, fits with my whole ghost badass thing. I try to buy and use some spells but it’s still not Elder Scrolls lol. I then save (I should have done that in the first place lol) and check out the West!
- I take the northern way around town passing the Healer’s hut. Aww the little Pterosaur is there (I thought he was red?). When I click look on it I suddenly felt compelled to float up to the tree branch and stand on his nest? Sorry little dude. I pop into the healer’s hut to apologise for standing on her bird but she ignores me. Keep forgetting I’m dead, don’t ya hate it when that happens?
- I stop by the castle, when I try to talk to the guard he screams out “OPEN THE GATES!!!” and lets me in, or maybe he was letting someone else in.. timing! Ahh so many memories here.. the training with the weapon master and cleaning the stables.. sleeping there too (cause I’m cheap bastard who loves the smell of manure in the morning). But this time round it’s a little deserted. No guards at the castle door but I can’t seem to walk in anyway. I wonder if the dude at the gate knows everyone has left? I’d tell him but he’d probably ignore me.
- The Centaur dude seems to be missing at the farm. Probably a good thing after what I did to his daughter in QFG 4 ½ (omg why do I keep bringing that up? STOP IT!). With no witnesses around I try to climb over the fence into town but fail again. Really need that old climbing skill! Although since night never comes I guess I won’t need to climb over the gate or walls any time soon anyway!
- Continuing west from the farm I.. AAAUUUGGGHH! Another Goblin chasing after me, I can’t be a badass if I’m dead so I try to make a ‘strategic retreat’ but the game doesn’t let me leave the left side of the screen? Cowardice failing I turn to fight. I break out the ‘casual’ stabbing routine and get my opponent down to -8 health but he’s still swinging? Oh look I’m dead at 0. Guess only real badasses get minus health.
- BAM! Well once again not really. The ‘you’re dead’ screen jammed forcing me to close the game, restart game, name character, connection WORKED, arrive in town, load save game lol.
- No other players online to chat with but this badass works better alone anyway and continues on his quest to the west.
- AUUUGH! Its happens again, same goblin next to the farm, I can’t escape. I reload, same again, reload same again. I decide to bypass that screen and go north from the farm. It doesn’t let me? Strange as it’s the route players normally take up to Erana’s peace? (You’ve got some linking work to do in this area) I give up and walk west from the farm to my doom once more.. then an idea enters my head.. try running away north when he charges at me since west is not working. It works!
- AUUUGGGH! He’s chasing me! Just like in the original game they can chase you from screen to screen (nice work there Jared! Got my heart pumping heh).
- I remember how in QFG1 you could escape monsters by running into non-battle areas so I run into the goblin lair… wait what? No wait its ok, there’s no one here lol. I escaped a goblin by running into the goblin lair, gotta love the irony. May not work in middle earth but it works in Spielburg. ;)
- AUUUGGGH! He’s still there!! The moment I left he was still waiting (is it the same guy or is that just really bad luck on my part? lol).. back on the run again I check out the Meep holes. No meeps around and collision detection on the bushes appears to be working ok so I move on.
- I check out the fairy ring but since night never comes I can’t see them. Say is that the deadly mushroom I tripped out on earlier? ;)
- The dryad appears to be in ‘tree mode’ and ignores me. Strange that I can step behind the tree but still be in front of the branches. If only I could use special powers like this on the stalking minus health badass goblin!
- On a more serious note, I notice things aren’t quite where they’re supposed to be in the south west, the brigand lair road seems to be directly 3 screens south of the goblin lair (it should be 1 east then 4 south) and the fairy ring is to the south west of the goblin lair (should be 2 south of lair). Also the road to the brigands is a bit shorter than it should be. Grab a QFG1 map and startup QFG1 and compare to Grim to see.
- Now for the north! I start with Baba Yaga who’s hut seems to have flown away to terrorize some other village leaving an open gate (no bones on guard) to a hole in the ground! I then check out the spore spitters to find they’re on holiday too (maybe they knew a badass was coming?). All quiet on the northern front!
- Now for my favourite area! Erana’s Peace and the Caves. Very impressed with the garden, fully animating fruit plus music. Just like the old days! I try to pick some fruit and flowers but fail. I then accidentally run through the giant stone reminding my forgetful self that I’m dead lol.
- I arrive at the caves to find no Orges (or lawyers ;) ) after me. Very pleased to hear the old eerie music inside the dark passageways. No evil Kobald to use to my awesome lack of magical abilities on, guess he’s on holiday too!
- Try to head back down to town before heading east but once again can’t seem to enter the farm from the north. AAAUUUGHGGH another goblin has found me. Since I’m trapped I literally run a circle around him (so badass mwahaha) and leg it north around the castle to the east.
- Decide to lose the goblin while visiting Erasmus up in the snowy mountains. Dear god was that his ‘castle’ in Hero Quest??? A friggin pink house?? Gross.. I guess my mind blocked out the memory as his castle in the VGA version is 100x better! No wonder the goblin didn’t chase me up here! And no wonder Erasmus & fenrus are missing too, who wanna be seen here lol!
- I run down (goblin was waiting for me again grrr) to the snow giants hole to find he’s on holiday too.
- I think that’s it, I’ve been everywhere! I walk back to town and my goblin stalker ambushes me on the road (hmm pretty sure you can’t be attacked on the road in QFG1) and I quit before he can have his minus health badass way with me.

Well that was a fun 4 hours! I had a lot of fun returning to all my old favourite places from all those years ago and experimenting with the limits of your game. You and your team have put a lot of work into this clearly, I’m very impressed! :) But obviously there’s much to be done! Especially if you’re to make it into a successful multiplayer game. Apologies for my not so serious style of beta testing but it kept me motivated lol. I know you haven’t been happy about the lack of feedback so now you’ve got over 2000 words of it lol! Enjoy! ;)

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