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 An epic horror/thriller adventure game series with a
story
that spans
centuries, Prodigal is the tale of two estranged
brothers thrown into a
world of darkness and deceit beyond anything they could
have ever
conceived. Will they reconcile their shadowed and
twisted past and
survive the night? Or will the darkness that threatens
them consume
them as it hungrily reaches outwards toward an
unsuspecting world? Then, as darkness engulfs the world, Jacob and his
fiancee
Ashley must stand up as the sole remaining light and
attempt to defeat
a foe so dark and twisted and evil he will stop at
nothing to gain
dominion over all the universe, even if it means killing
every last
person on the planet. Welcome to the world of Prodigal! THIS GAME IS
FREEWARE! It has come to my attention that some
jagoff is trying to sell the game on itch.io.
Prodigal is a freeware game, and he has no right
or permission to be selling it! If you paid for
it, DEMAND YOUR MONEY BACK! Drop
me an email and let me know what you think about
my opinions and
thoughts in these news articles and topics
featured below, and if you
have some good points to make
and offer a perspective that makes me sit back and
say, "Good point!"
I'll
send you pre-release goodies from Prodigal 2,
either screenshots,
music, sounds, or whatever is relevant to what I'm
currently working on
in P2! My contact info is over there in the "About
Me" section! 4/10/2012 - A bunch of New Classic DOS Music in
the
Music Section! In other
news, I've
played around some with Reason 6 and recorded a
bunch of new songs from
old DOS games, including Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow
Warrior, Rise of the
Triad, and even the arcade game After Burner II! Go
check them out, I
think you'll like them! I have more completed which
I will upload
later, as I am still not happy with my mixing job on
the rest of them. 5/17/2011 - Well,
I
have finished the refilming of the first set of
animations! I
recorded Ashley, Jacob, and their together scenes,
and the results are
worlds better than my first attempt. All of them are
much better
greenscreened, which means I am much more easily
able to strip the
backgrounds out of the images and making smooth,
clean animation. They
were also filmed in hi-def, so I could do extreme
close-ups, if I so
desired. I rented
some stage
lights, too. Those made beautiful, color neutral
light and eliminated
shadow problems that plagued the original
animations. They were
incredibly reasonable, and came with everything I
needed and more. I
was very happy! I feel bad
having
to throw out the animations that we did several
years ago, as the
people who volunteered worked really hard to help me
on the project,
but the resulting video was simply too dark, too
grainy, too
inconsistent, and the costumes sucked. I'd never
filmed before and
really had no idea what I would need to do, so I
came to the shoot
totally unprepared. So, what
does all
this mean for Prodigal 2? It is FINALLY, FINALLY
back into production!
Yes folks, I have BEGUN BUILDING THE GAME! I have
enough 3D scenery,
enough 3D models, enough actors, enough sound,
enough music... It is at
last time to officially announce the game! Look for
the official
announcement on the AGS website within the next few
weeks! -Useless
fact for
you: The original Prodigal had over 3100 frames of
animation for the
entire game. That's for Jacob, Mike, Demelza,
monsters, videos,
everything. Prodigal 2 already has over 450 frames
of animation for
Ashley alone, and I still have lots of her
animations to do! Oh yeah,
the animation is gonna be SMOOOOTH. 1/18/2011 - I
continue to work on Prodigal 2. I've been rendering
a constant stream
of 3D lately, in rediculous detail that will never
be visible on
screen. Specifically, I've been carefully building
the kitchen to
Jacob's apartment. Take a moment and go look through
your kitchen. Look
at the staggering amount of crap in every door,
drawer and shelf. Look
at the appliances and their little details, both
inside and out.
Imagine trying to render all this, and you'll
understand why I've been
working on it for many months. I hope this
spring
to refilm the animations. As I've mentioned, the
original concept was
to turn all the animation into cartoons, and as such
I wasn't worried
about lighting conditions on the actors, just on
getting the actions.
When I resolved to shift to live action animations,
I found that we
hadn't lit our footage properly, and even worse,
some of the lights
were burning out in the Iowa summer heat, making
animations
inconsistent from one cycle to the next. For
instance, having Ashley
turn 180 degrees put her through no fewer than 3
strikingly different
lighting levels, an unfixable mess. It stinks
because I
won't be able to get the same actors again, which
means their work will
never see the light of day, which I feel really bad
about. I tried for
months to use color matching and even fixing
lighting by hand, but
nothing worked. I've also
noted a
huge shift in the way AGS works, hopefully for the
better, but at least
very different from before, so I have opted to throw
out what I had
assembled of the game already and start over using
the new features of
the engine, many of which fixes limitations I was
harshly feeling in
Prodigal 2. Don't fret though, I'm not pulling a
"Duke Nukem Forever"
here, I only had at most a week of work on building
the game, all the
rest of what I've been working on has been content;
music, 3D renders,
animations, sound. I will
admit,
Prodigal 2 hasn't been my only focus, as I've been
working a ton on a
new GZDoom level pack to end all GZDoom level
packs...go see
screenshots in the GZDoom section. I also have a
couple new songs up in
the music section, my own recompositions of some
classic game music.
So I decided I would ask them if they wanted to help
work on
Prodigal 2, as I thought that many of their criticisms
of Prodigal were
very good points. I felt that this person "got" Prodigal
more than any
other person ever had, and I would have valued their
thoughts on a beta
playthrough of Prodigal 2, when I get that far. Well, after a month I finally got a response to my
email. That
is pretty unimpressive in itself and would make me worry
about paying
this person for work, but the reply was something along
the lines of an
arrogant "I love my games and am too busy playing them
right now to
bother with you. I'll read your email sometime in the
next year and
reply." In a word, "Wow." OK, I'm certainly not Activision or
Ubisoft,
and because I'm funding Prodigal 2 out of my own pocket,
I can't pay a
whole lot for employing people, but c'mon...If I offer
to pay you to
play through a beta of
Prodigal 2 and give me opinions and insites, doesn't
that warrant at
least the courtesy of a response? I'll grant you I have no idea about this person's
situation in
life other than a screen name. This could be anyone from
Ivana Trump to
a homeless bum out on the street, I just don't know.
Maybe they have
some legitimate reason that they can't read an email and
respond with
either a 'sure' or a 'no thanks,' but Bologna Fudge and
Mustard! If you
play and review games as a hobby for fun, FOR FREE yet,
why would you
just flip your middle finger in the face of someone
complementing your
review work, offering to PAY YOU MONEY to play a
friggin' game? I'd kill for an opportunity like that from any game
designer,
and I think most of you would too! And it isn't like
people are beating
on this person's door trying to get help, this person's
average views
of articles and other things they'd done were getting
something like,
120 visitors. Woo. How could you leave all that and get
paid a bit to
beta test for a couple weeks? Needless to say, even when this person does DEIGN to
come down
from thair golden throne and read my email, I'm no
longer interested in
hiring, reguardless of if they're excited about it or
not when they
finally read what I was asking them. And that's another thing here. I bleed every cent this
game
costs me
to make out of my own pocket,
but I try to pay a reasonable compensation for the work
I'm asking out
of people I hire. I have learned that people with
attitudes like this
are NEVER going to pay off. I've hired arrogant pricks
like this, and
I've ended up loosing all the money I spend on them.
(Don't get me
started on those stories.) This tells me that this
person is a looser
and a flake, and I'll get burned no matter what if I try
to contract
work out to them. So my final point to all you videogame fans out
there...for
GODSAKE, if you get offered work in videogames, no
matter how small the
job, you NEED to be all over it like a fly in stuff!
Employers are
always going to be looking for someone with drive and
passion who are
willing to go the extra mile, not someone who is more
interested in
themselves and what they'll get out of it and can't even
read an email. There are thousands of passionate game players and
programmers
and artists out there who would do ANYTHING to get a job
in the hobby
they love, get their name in the credits, and get things
to add to a
resume in hopes of greater opportunities in the future.
You've just got
to do whatever it takes if that
time ever comes for you, no matter how large or small or
you'll never
break into this business! Beta testers will be easy to find when the time comes,
and the
people who've taken the time to write and express
opinions and offer
constructive critisism are always going to be my first
choices for that
job, but I feel bad about this because I really think
this person had
the talent and attention to detail that would have
really been
invaluable to making Prodigal 2 an better game for all
of us to play. But sorry Mrs Trump or Bob the Bum or whoever you are,
your
attitude stinks and that makes you a liability, not an
aid, and I don't
want or need you anymore.
10/19/07 - We continue working on Prodigal 2, even though the webpage hasn't been updated in many months. Right now the game is stuck in a constant grind of rendering animation frames. But bit by bit, frame by frame, it is coming along. At the beginning of production here it is obviously the worst as new frames have to be rendered for all the basic movements and animations. Things like picking up an item off the ground, the same animation can be recycled and used over and over, but it must all be rendered the first time it is needed, and that takes a while. On a happy note, I'm throwing a couple of screenshots up for a couple areas, so go check them out and let me know what you think! These are, of course, work in progress pictures, so expect the actual game to look different, blah blah blah. 3/17/07 - Well, it has been a while, but finally I'm announcing that Prodigal part two is in the works! I'm buried in work on the 3D renderings for all the locations in the game, and am very pleased at the results so far! Just one area of Prodigal 2 has more polygons than all the areas of Prodigal combined! I'm working on real world reference material as much as I possibly can, rather than just rendering off the top of my head like I did for Prodigal. The results are evident! Andrew Edmark and I are also working on developing a new form of animation for the game. We have a theory we'll be working out in the coming weeks to see if it is feasible. If it works, expect smooth, expressive sprites that far surpass my efforts from the first game! As I've said before, the story for this sequel was written before the first game even came out, but it has been worked on a bit by Nathan and I. Once I've got some backgrounds and sprites together, we'll begin storyboarding out the game. Shadowplay's music will be returning for the sequel! They have just finished mastering their debut CD, and have given me permission to use two of their songs for Prodigal 2! I've always felt that the song "Alone" is the heart and soul of Prodigal, and I took alot of my inspiration for the look and feel of the game from the song. I'm overjoyed that I'll be able to use their music again! Folks in Europe/Australia, you owe it to yourself to pick up their CD! Help support an amazingly talented indy group! Anyway, look for screenshots in the coming months, as well as more news on development! Later all! 3/13/2006 - Abandonia Reloaded Interviews Trisk: Head on over to the interview page and check out DeathDude's interview on all things Prodigal! Learn how the Prodigal team formed, and all about Prodigal's humble beginnings! Learn what the influences were in game design, and a bit about creating the game's rich audio environment! It's all there, waiting for you to check it out! 1/26/06 - Reloaded.org has posted a review of Prodigal on their website! You can check it out here. They really liked the game! "With Prodigal it is very clear how much effort and time went into developing this very excellent adventure game, in such things as the different graphic styles seen in the game." -reloaded.org "The story itself really drew me into the game and really made me want to keep playing." -reloaded.org They close the review saying: "If you are looking for a lengthy adventure title, that really has had a lot of effort put into development, look no farther than Prodigal, a worthy adventure game that you should definitely check out." -reloaded.org Sounds great guys! My thanks go out to the Reloaded team. They were fun to work with and easy to communicate with! Want to see what the buzz is about? Why not check out Prodigal today? Just click on "Download" over to the left, and start your adventure today! 11/08/05 - Prodigal Shooter released. Look for it on the download page! 11/08/05 - Prodigal version 1.1 is released. Now with 50% less fat! 11/08/05 - Prodigal version 1.0 released! At long last, the game is done! Go download it now from the downloads section of the website! Just run the file, and uncompress to the directory of your choice. I suggest C:\Prodigal. I already have the game configured to the way it should be, so you shouldn't need to run WinSetup, unless you have a less than 2.0 GHZ Pentium, in which case I recommend dropping the resolution to 320x240. If you like the game, spread the word! Feel free to drop me a line with your thoughts, or to report any bugs. Trisk 7/25/05 - After slowdown for a few weeks due to RL conflicts, Prodigal has resumed production! We are entering the home stretch to an alpha build! With only one area left to render in the game, things are coming together! I also took a time out and went back and inserted all the cutscenes that I hadn't done yet, and added some game logic to places that didn't have it yet. So what is left? Well, I need to render the final room, then put it into the game, add all the sprites for it (with the help of the incredibly talented Edgar), render the end cutscene, and put in the credits! Not much left at all! The game now stands at:
The compile is over 60 megabytes of gaming goodness! Yeeha! I probably won't update again till we hit alpha...which shouldn't be longer than a couple of weeks! In the meantime, I've added some juicy screenshots of areas in the game! Go take a peek! 6/23/05 - Work is continuing at a feverish pace! It won’t be long before Prodigal hits alpha state! The biggest thing I’m missing now is animation sprites. If you’ve played Prodigal 0, and think you could draw sprites in the same style, please drop me a line! I need a plethora of monster sprites. You must, however, have at least worked on a project that WAS completed, and NOT have quit the project before it was completed. I’ve gotten burned several times already by people who have NO drive to work on a project. Edgar has all but finished with drawing the multitude of close-up artwork for the game! His work has improved this game’s quality incredibly, and I just can’t possibly thank him enough for all his work! He is a really great guy! :) Now I’m hoping he can transfer over and help me with sprites. :) I also decided to convert over to 16bit color for the main game. There were a multitude of special effects that I just couldn’t do with 8bit color…plus light plays such an important role in the game, and 8bit color can hardly cope with it. The downside is the game will be much larger because of it…but most people seem to have broadband these days. Am I the last one on the planet who can’t get broadband in any way, shape, or form? I’ve already converted a large number of sprites over to 16bit color, and have reinserted some of Edgar’s beautiful artwork in full 16bit, making the colors much smoother and more striking. I have, however, decided to leave the vast majority of the game’s areas 8bit color. For one thing, unless a room uses a wide variety of colors and subtle shading, 16bit just won’t look that much, if any, better than 8bit. Not only that, 16bit color rooms take up a VAST amount of storage space, and I feel this just isn’t really worth it for many of the game’s areas. Finally, the game would more than double in size if I convert everything over. If Prodigal ends up being incredibly popular, I may decide to release a special edition high color version, but for now, it’s an 8bit core. :b |
