While down the pub one night (about 18 months ago!) a friend, Adam, and I came up with an idea to make a game in the style of the old Lucas Arts Graphic Adventure games. Like Monkey Island. Need I say more?
I work as an Actionscript Developer, so my first thoughts always lean towards writing it in AS, and with the dawn on AS3 it seams anything is possible. So I tinkered around for a while and created a test scene. Overall, it didn't seem to complicated a task. Adam had previously introduced me to AGI Studio, so I decided to take a look at how they handled the complexities of storing the data, handling items, and interacting with the environment. It soon became blindingly aware that the task at hand was far greater than I had anticipated. This and an ever increasing workload made me put things off.
I'm now working for an interactive agency in Copenhagen where a few of the guys keep talking about getting together to make a game. So it got me thinking again. It's too much of a task to create the engine alone, so why not start an open source project to create a graphic adventure engine. I banded the idea around a few forums but got no real response. So I decided to give it a go myself. Maybe people would be more enthusiastic about it if I could get something up and running.
A few years ago, Revolution Games released the source of one of their graphic adventure games, Beneath a Steel Sky, to the SCUMMVM developers to help them better build their SCUMM interpreter. Since all the source is available for both of those, I thought that would be a good place to start. So I had a look through the SCUMMVM Subversion tree. The more I looked, the more I realised that it could be done with AS3. Just look at the great work that Max Herkender has done with Doomed Online, and what Scott Peterson has done with his C/C++ to Actionscript converter. Actionscript isn't as limiting as it used to be.
So I've changed my mind. I think it's time to take SCUMMVM and port it to AS3. Not a direct port though. AS3 offers a new environment for games, with both advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages would put most people off. Running games in a browser plugin is not an easy task, so the code has to be tight and optimised for speed. But it's the advantages that got the thinking.
My original thoughts on online possibilities are to completely redesign the Load/Save game interface and create a login with a back-end system. This would almost make downloads redundant. So games like Beneath a Steel Sky could be played directly from their website. Anytime you want to play the game, you just login and continue from where you left off.
So I hope you see that there are possibilities in this. Check out some of the links below to see the current progress, and if you would like to offer a hand or just some encouragement then just send my an email!
Links
The project home is here:
GAAS Engine on Google Code
Any discussions can be had here:
GAAS Engine on Google Groups
Beneath a Steel Sky and SCUMMVM can be downloaded here:
SCUMMVM's download page
Doomed Online
Doomed Online project home
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