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AGS Games in Production / Project Devonia: ‘Manticore‘ [NEW DEMO]
Thu 23/02/2023 23:00:22
Weltenberg Entertainment


is happy to announce the development of



a point-and-click sci-fi adventure game
Game Trailer + End Credits


Room 0: Game intro screen
Development blog content
  • Story
  • Description
  • Features
  • Progress
  • Issues
  • 'Making of' & resources
  • FAQ
  • Demo available on itch.io [Windows/Linux] [English/German]
1. Story
Being only two months on the job Corporal Lucia Torres' first assignment by private security company KBA goes horribly wrong. After her aircraft crashes she finds herself all alone and with almost no memory on a deserted oil rig owned by the powerful Tallywater Oil Corporation.
Strange things seem to have happened but the orders of Lucia's superiors are cold, efficient and ruthless.
Refusing is not an option. Lucia has to use all her wits to navigate the deserted installation and to find a way out.


Room 1: Main Hall (with main GUI and caption)
2. Description
Project Devonia: 'Manticore' (PD:M) is a short sci-fi adventure game. The player has to explore the decks of a mysteriously deserted oil rig and find a way out.
Based on the fictional universe of 'Project Devonia / Das Devonia Projekt' by @ChristophCrane_.


Camera overlay
3. Features
  • point-and-click exploration adventure game
  • health state and point reward system
  • 952 x 536 pixel graphics
  • new GUI graphics
  • Lucas Arts style-interface
  • will be available in English and German and R.U.D.E (rough unladylike derogatory English) [1]
  • music by Karl Casey (White Bat Audio) and Nicolas 'Myuu' Gasparini
[1] R.U.D.E. can only be enabled in-game in the second room (radio room)


Options GUI

Difficulty: Easy to medium
Rating: Generally about PG 13 in the standard version but because of a particular scene it would probably still get an R
Developer: @ChristophCrane_ (Twitter)
Publisher: Weltenberg Entertainment (itch.io) / in association with Tomsk Books (Goodreads)
4. Development progress
The final game will have about a dozen rooms. Most of them are more or less ready but need polishing while two need literally some furniture. The dialog is mostly written but will likely be rewritten again (... welcome to writing).


East corridor, with dialog options

The player's path, interactions and tasks are generally scripted although some minor changes will probably still be made.
Player walking animations have been made but will be redone a little smaller and with less frames. Presently a walk cycle has eight frames (plus one talking and an idle frame) which I suspect to be a drag on RAM since every frame is 144x256 pixels at roughly 150 kb each. Having four additional diagonal walk cycles exacerbates that problem even more although the lag is really noticable only with the idle animation. Consequently walking areas and go-to points haven't been optimized as this is more properly done when final player sprite size and animation length have been determined.
Some specialized animations (like pick up or firing) still need to be done as well. This is on hold, however, until aforementioned issues are solved.
There is a point system rewarding interactions/exploring but it's not entirely balanced out as of now.
A rudimentary health bar system exists but there's no consequence so far if health drops to zero. Not that this is easy to achieve anyways in the game but I just thought I should mention.
Finally, the game would likely profit from being proof-read by someone who speaks English as mother language.:smiley: ...

... and for whatever it's worth, here are some stats:

  • two dozen views (game and player animations)
  • seventy different quality sounds
  • approx. 250 sprites
  • three dozen usable items
  • development start: late Oct 2022


3D asset to final item sprite pipeline
5. Things I'm not completely happy with
As stated above the player animations need to be redone. In the process the textures, shading and shadows will be improved. Also a small existing asymmetry in the walk cycle needs to be adressed.

Player character PMC Corporal Lucia Torres (walk view/cycle: frame 5)

The animations being based on human motion captures gives real results but a slight natural imbalance in most people while walking makes it difficult to avoid a sliding effect when using extrapolated real data for a walk cycle.
The transition between the intro ambient sound to the first room is a bit too abrupt for my liking. Not sure if this will break immersion, however, so fixing the issue will be a matter of user feedback.
Originally it was planned to feature a highscore list using Rocco's highscore module but it proved to be too troublesome so I removed it altogether. The highscore can be seen to the left of the main GUI now but it won't be saved.
Synchronisation of music. That's actually just an issue with the end credits but one that bothers me.
6. 'Making of' & resources
In the beginning I contemplated a lot what visual style I should (and feasably could) choose. Considering time and skills I decided against the beloved pixel art and on something akin to the classic comic style. Nothing overtly complex or artistic, no pronounced 3D effects and use of only the two dozen basic colors which were used in print as well.
Scenes were to be created from low-poly assets with 3D modeling software for easy pipe-lined production and quick manipulation.

Earlier drafts designs of PD:M's main character Lucia Torres

The puzzles aren't super fancy and, in fact, that's rather intentional. Despite being sci-fi the game should feel kind of real and the aim was to have the player encounter and solve problems like in the real world (if in a MacGyveresque sense, that is). Unfortunately that means that you won't find any wicked puzzles like 'use sea cow spittle with parrot beak-shaped rubber snake' or something like that. My apologies.
Some people might be interested what software and resources were used, so here is the list (yes, all the amazing software below is free and open source).

7. FAQ
a) Is Project Devonia: 'Manticore' (PD:M) going to be a full-fledged game?
What can a man do when he loves writing and making games? He must do both! :smiley: But being an author primarily doesn't allow me to devote enough time to develop a (bigger) game.
So while still made with professional aspirations I consider PD:M more as a proof of concept to get acquainted with the game engine and visual story-telling.
All things considered the game should take you about an hour to play through, maybe half of that if you're speed running with no regard to exploring anything. (I haven't actually clocked that, though, so I might be wrong here.)

b) When will PD:M be on sale?
It won't. Making an adventure game is since the days of MI and Indy a longheld dream of me and it's going to be free, though I certainly wouldn't mind if someone were to support me by buying a book of mine. :smiley:

c) Why is PD:M categorized as sci-fi? There's nothing really obvious going on in that regard, no?
The Devonia book trilogy, the game is based on, has a science fiction / horror setting. So while PD:M follows that world's canon the events there are mostly just alluded to in the game. Game and books are storywise completely separated and you don't need either to understand the other.

d) Is the R.U.D.E. mode NSFW and how is it enabled?
- Please note that R.U.D.E. has been abandoned. -
Regarding graphical violence and sex the game is pretty tame either way (not sure if I should be saying that actually but oh well ... too late). Nonetheless the game would probably be rated R if it were a movie.
The difference between English and R.U.D.E. would've been mostly just stronger language, more cynism and some occasional jokes typical of the adventure game genre. Something which I felt were out of place in a game more in line with the mood of the books.
How you would have activated R.U.D.E.
Spoiler
R.U.D.E. was to be activated by using the knife on the book in the trash basket in the second room (the radio room). Reverting back to either English or German is only possible in the options menu.
[close]

8. DEMO
A demo in English and German for Windows and Linux is available on my new itch.io account.
https://weltenberg.itch.io/project-devonia-manticore

Thanks so much for reading. Hope to see you playing the game one day.
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