Any Tips for A Point and click adventure game?

I've gotten the inspiration recently to try and make a video game. It's been circling my mind for months on end but nothing really good would come to mind. Either my ideas where to ambitious for me to possibly make or flat-out
b o r i n g
So I've decided to stick to a point and click adventure game, Since I love the genre so much, And some of my favorite games are POC games.
So. Any suggestions? I was thinking of going with a notebook paper-sketch style. (So I have an excuse for having art done with a mouse. When I'm left handed)
So..What should the story be about? I'm good with using Fancy words and details, But not really putting them into a paragraph. As a reference, Here's alil example of my doodles on paper and when Im restricted to a mouse and my right hand.

 

Are point and click games coming back? You aren't the first person recently to say they wanted to make one.

Designing with pen and paper, how nice and old school.

I don't know what you are asking us for, you seem to have very visually interesting characters, do those characters have...well.. character? Like, does each one have a personality and a back story and a motivation and what have you?

If you have a bunch of good characters, you have a good start. Once your characters are good enough that you know what they would do in any situation, put a bunch of them in a situation. If that situation makes them all react in ways that achieve your desired effect (Comedy, Drama, something in between), then you've got something cooking. From that, give it some structure, and you then have a story.

You don't need paragraphs of dialog for a point and click game, do you? I figure maybe a few lines for each interaction is sufficient. Once you have a story, you then have to squeeze that story into the shape of a point and click game. So you'll have to express that story not only though dialog, but interactions as well. What items you find and where you find them can tell a story.

Also, are you aware pen tablets exist? My friend (who is left handed) loves hers.

 

Yea, I'm aware they exist. The problem is that I'm 14 and my extent with digital art is Crappy MS paint animations.
And as far as the character personalities go, I've thought of them, But never really written any of them down. They're sort of Placeholder characters as they're cute and simple to draw. I'm still working on it.
The bunny is named Finn and the King character I've appropriately titled "The King"
And thank you for the friendly response. I was nervous that someone would shoot down my Idea, Or tell me Im posting the wrong subject in the wrong fourm lmao

 

I would say worry about the art later, just make a simple prototype first and see how your idea's play into a game. I really like the idea and have also been thinking about a point and click adventurish type game as my next project.

Also welcome to the forums if you have any questions just ask!

The best thing to do is just be mature (at least somewhat) and people will generally be very positive. doNT TrYand TYPe LiKEThis LOL LMAO XD /*insert more bad comedy*/ and people will generally take you seriously!

 

Well, if you have the means to save up money, there are tablets out there that go for under a hundred dollars, which seems like a lot, but if you can manage it, it can become a useful investment that will save you a lot of time (and likely a lot of wrist pain) and allow you to really show off your art skills more and improve. But that is for when you can manage it, in the meantime, you got what you got, so thats what you work with. Greatness can flourish in the face of lack. But it is nice to have gear when you can.

Well, what you should do is figure out their stories. What are their personalities? What is the king the king of, and why is he talking to a bunny? It's really great once you know a character well enough that you can know what they would say and do in any situation. It makes writing a story so much easier, because you sit and think "What would [x character] do if this happened?" and it just becomes this fun chain reaction. You can then use that to tweak the characters even more to give them more faceted personalities and great dynamics between characters

Additional viewing on the subject, spesifically for animation:

I like the fact that at such a young age you already have something of a sense of scope. You can acknowledge when an idea is too ambitious, something a lot of the kids who come in here just don't have and just ask "Hi, I wanna make the next CS:GO mixed with Dead Rising with a detailed crafting system, super realistic graphics, and open world, how do I do that by myself with no money in 4 months? Also, I don't know how to program or do art. Thx! ^^"

It's like they don't understand that those dozens of names in the credits that roll at the end of these huge games all belong to people.

Really though, these characters look more like the roots for possible a web comic or something? I feel like that would allow you to explore their characters a little, and perhaps allow you to develop more characters as well.

 

Not a bad idea either, at least in terms of getting the framework of the game running. I think the best way of developing a story based game like this would be to have at least parts of the story together first though, because then you know what you want the characters to do, and you can make sure the framework for the game allows you to do those things, rather than having to build in features later once your code is already messy and harder to modify, ha ha

If you kinda work on a little bit of both at the same time, they will grow together and theres less of a chance that anything will feel shoehorned in.

 

The story I've been brainstorming for a few weeks goes like this.
Finn is a citizen in an odd, Modern castle, Surrounded by a village.
The time is still around today. So everything is a mixture between Medieval and current-Day tech and beliefs.
Everything used to be happy, Until a mysterious string of events took place, Taking the village from a happy Utopia to a somewhat depressing and poor Dystopia. The Queen disappeared without a trace, All the gold in the world vanished overnight, And the king locked himself up in the castle, Closing the gates to any of the other citizens. Finn is the king's Butler, Even though he lives in a crappy apartment in the village. He's one of the few only people ever allowed into the castle anymore, And is dismissed as soon as the King falls asleep.
Some more events take place, And Finn is set on a quest to try to solve and Fix these problems in a Humorous adventure.
And..That's all I have. It's pretty sloppy and, Well..Confusing. I'm taking some inspiration from the King's quest series. But I'm kinda scared that It seems a little too..Similar.
I actually have made a prototype of the game. If you wanna call this prototype a "Game" Anyways.
If I seem incoherent, It's because I'm tired af.

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/118900563/
On a site I've had an account for since I was nine. A game creator for Very dumb little kids who live Five Nights At Freddy's a little too much.

 

OK....so what's your concern? It seems like you've got enough to get started. I mean, it needs to be polished up a little, but you have a start. What is the dynamic between The King and Finn? Yeah, he's a butler, but he must obviously be important to the king if he's the only one the king trusts in this difficult time. In that case, they must have some sort of backstory, some relationship that causes The King to trust Finn so completely. You would write their backstories as seperate documents, known in screenwriting as "character bibles". There you invent the character's life story, and what motivates them to do everything they do.

Also, if Finn is a butler, why doesn't Finn dress like a butler?

Also, if the world has fallen apart, who else is there? Is there no one guarding the castle? Is there no one guarding the king's only servant? Is there no one panicking in the streets about everything going wrong? Perhaps you need a knight who protects Finn outside of the castle, and serves as the captain of the palace guards? Now Finn has a buddy besides the king.

This is how you get started building up your cast of characters and their relationships. Think about your character's whole life. It seems like you;ve thought about some of these things, but I think you can possibly go deeper.

OK...thats definitely what I would call a prototype. What is that written in? It's obviously baby steps, but it's much farther than most scrubs who come in here have.

I would definitely say practice more on the art, and spell check your dialogue boxes. Also, see what you can do about sounds. I think smart phones can record sound, can't they? It's no Zoom recorder, but it could do the job. Theres also royalty free sounds on the internet. Just don't ignore sound, the only thing worse than bad graphics in a game is bad graphics AND bad audio in a game. A lot of newbies forget sound, (including me when I got started) and it's something that can really do a TON to make a game feel more polished.

Have you used Unity before?

 

Yeah, Sorry I was so vauge.
All the bad events have happened 5 months prior to the game. Everyone who Is still in the village learned to live with their difficult life, And yes there are still workers in the castle, But Finn is the only servant to the King.
This world is odd as there are no other major civilizations Anywhere in the world. Villages, Towns and cities Still scatter the world, And all have their sort of theme. The most popular one being this modernized almost Las Vegas type of city. With big buildings and neon lights. (Basically everything is run by magic. Dunno what magic but Magic)
Finn has been a butler for 5 months and a day. The King trusts Finn with some special things, But he's also a little dumb. Which can help and hurt Finn at the same time. I haven't decided Finns full story. Other than Him having a few friends, Whom I haven't thought up yet.
Finn's a special sort of creature, Because there are no other bunnies that can walk or talk. He Soommeewhaaattt remembers someone watching after him when he was little, But he can't remember who they where. So maybe one of his motivations could be to find Any other bunnies, Or atleast uncover more about himself he doesn't know.
The king's interactions with Finn Apart from the intro would be somewhat minimal. Occasionally Finn would recive a letter or anything of that sort on his adventure, And maybe the king could become a more important character, But I really don't know.

About the prototype, You're probably gonna have to find out yourself, Because I know what you're asking, I just dont know the answer. Scratch gives you drag and drop scripts to use, Making projects Simplistic, (As simplistic as coding gets) But also someone Linear and minimal.
Also, I have a friend who dabbles in digital music, And I know some ways of downloading music onto my laptop.


And.. About my experience with Unity..
It's still installing on my computer.
I tried scratch a long time ago and a while back I tried a free trial for RPG maker XP,
None of them worked out. I was assuming Unity could be the one that works for me.

 

Best advice? Use Adventure Creator, it's pretty great.

 

OK, well, the world is starting to get big now

For point and click, this might start to become a challenge, because now you are starting to get into RPG territory. Maybe thats a better fit, maybe not. Thats something you'll have to decide. I mean Myst was pretty big, so I guess it isn't like it hasn't been done before.

But if you want to go Point and Click, maybe start with a smaller story, OR do it small and episodic? Sorta like a fusion of web comics and a flash game? That would be a pretty cool and unique approach. Each episode is just a simple scenario inside a room or limited area that allows you to advance the story in each area. Kinda run it like the old Pokemon show "Our heros are here in [blah blah blah] where they need to do [blah blah blah] in order to help them in their quest to save the queen!" or whatever. And just over time build the game up episodically so each level is like an episode of a saturday morning cartoon show or something (you being a youngin, you might not remember the golden days of waking up early on saturdays to watch Batman and Superman)

OK, so drag and drop

Please tell me the others didn't work out because you didn't like how you couldn't write your own code in them? *fingers crossed*

- Something tells me this won't be the answer.....

 

No, None of them worked for me just because they wouldn't let me do anything. Either it drops me into the creator with no introduction or tutorial, With no good tutorials on YouTube for the things I needed to do. So I dunno if it's worse or not, But I've never really..Wrote my own code before. I've just animated goofy YouTube videos and filled three sketchbooks with nothing but doodles. I chose the "Point and click" Genre because I thought it would be a very simple nod in the right direction for me, Knowing almost nothing about game development. Also to try and practice my story telling.

 

I've came across that earlier in another post, And if unity doesn't work, I'll try Adventure Creator next.

 

Well, it's a Unity tool so that is a bit contradictory.

 

The big issue with point-and-click games is that they are about 90% content. More gameplay-focused titles are closer to a 50-50 balance between content and mechanics. If you are trying to create an adventure game, the majority of your time will be spent on actually producing content for the game, as opposed to working on the engine or mechanics.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. For some people it is what they would prefer. You should just be prepared for it.

Also, the average adventure game requires significantly more content than most people realize. Even older adventure games that could be beaten in less than 10 hours still accounted for a considerable amount of effort to produce all of the art, writing, and animation that they required. It would be a good idea to start planning some of your initial design around reducing the need for custom animations. (animation is a huge time-hog) Keep your animations basic and simple, especially for an initial pass. Look for any method you can use to reduce the time it takes to create them.

I like the art style you're going for. It's simple, but effective at conveying the emotions of the characters. That's what is important. If you're going to go for the stick-figure look, it would be a good idea to keep your backgrounds as painted blocks of colors, as opposed to line drawings. You can use line drawings to flesh them out initially, but replace them with painted color blocks. Stick figures don't do well when placed on top of line-drawing backgrounds. Their limbs can get lost in the lines of the backgrounds. Backgrounds composed of just colors without hard lines will help line-drawing characters to "pop" out from them well.

Looking at your initial sketches, it might actually be a good idea to add a notebook-paper style effect to your final game. This is more of a late-development addition, so I wouldn't worry about it now. But it would look cool if there was a subtle notebook-paper effect layered over the drawings, possibly as a post-processing effect.

 

Well, thats where you will be at a great advantage. Unlike those other engines, Unity has a metric crapton of tutorials on Youtube. Anything you could ever want to learn how to do in Unity, you can learn how to do it pretty much. Especially with Unity's 2D system.

Writing code isn't actually as bad as people make it out to be. It looks intimidating, but it's just a matter of having patience and learning the rules. Once you know what you can and can't do, it's not bad at all. Just do some basic Unity tutorials, and you should be fine. Especially with Point and Click, you won't be writing nearly as much complicated code as you would be with something like an RPG or something. I mean, you COULD if you wanted to make it super fancy. It just takes practice and patience. Those drag and drop systems are good for beginners, but once you want to do something more custom or advanced, they won't let you, and it just becomes restrictive. In Unity, you can effectively make any kind of game you want.

It's not a bad choice for you, if you stick with it, I think you can do it. It might be a good learning experience

Adventure Creator is a plugin for Unity, so it's gives Unity some extra tools to do that kind of thing.

Thats another nice thing about Unity, it's modular like that so you can make it more specialized if you want it to be

 

Thats a cool idea. I think it would fit the aesthetic really well. I mean yeah, you just got done saying that stick figures don't come out well with lines in the background, but if the lines were REALLY subtle, it just might work.

 

Additional viewing:

Design concepts

SUPER basic Unity 2D tutorial, not a point and click, but should give you the basics of Unity's 2D system

 

Yeah, you wouldn't want the notebook lines to interfere with the drawing lines. I'm thinking either have them light grey, or light blue. (as some notebooks have them) But then again, this is just an option, and would be more of an aesthetic choice by the creator. And it's more of a post-processing shader effect, which could and perhaps should be added after-the-fact, so not really something that has to be worried about at this juncture.

While Unity is not designed to accommodate point-and-click adventure games from the get-go, it does have just about all of the tools you would need to create a successful point-and-click game. It has picking, for using the mouse or touchpad to select objects and test for depth. It has a decent pathfinding tool, for directing your character around an environment. And the updates to the 5.0 edition include a much better 2D interface for building scalable menus and text-style boxes. So while Unity may not be custom-designed for point-and-clicks, it does have all the basic building blocks.

 

That first video is perfect. It's all the things I need to know when designing a point and click game,
Just not how to make one. I'm gonna do all the 2d tutorials and maybe come back with a tiny project finished.
The story I've been thinking off is a little..Too much like a professionally made game.
I have been writing down a comic style-Story board to keep all my thoughts from going everywhere, And I'm keeping it so it could be in a Point and click style, With not everything thrown your way at once.
The world I'm making in my head is always changing, So I've been getting a ton of really good ideas to use.
Also, Is adventure creator free?

 

Yeah, design is important, and is often forgotton in games, people just program a game without thinking about the design of the actual game part of the game. That video does a good job of condensing those ideas concisely.

Thats definitely the way to go, start small just to get your practice in, and get a feel for the kind of game you're trying to make. You could definitely use that pen and paper storyboard to map out your interactions. Like thinking about what each clickable piece of a room does, or just have the different scenes mapped with arrows or something, whatever workflow you're comfortable with. That should allow you to have a comfortable roadmap for what you are trying to do.

Just practice getting comfortable with the way Unity works and programming a little bit. There are tutorials on menu like stuff that could probably help you too in terms of buttons and such.

Unfortunately, no, thats $40 right now it looks like. If you practice with Unity though, you might find that you don't even need it

Just stick with it, and I'd definitely like to see what you come up with

 

Jesus..The UFO tutorial was going great just until It got to the actual coding. I don't think I've ever been so confused in my life because I copied the commands as best as I could, Then Unity said there where errors in the script, Then A bunch of other total nonsense until my computer actually shut off by itself.
Is it this hard for everyone their first time around? Because Bloody hell this is going to be annoying trying to learn.

 

It takes alot of time to learn, I spent the last year just trying to learn unity and I think I'm now at the state were I could actually make a game that others would play.

Try the Roll a ball tutorial first, its the easiest and very well explained, it will give you some basics on how to code. It really helped me alot with the very basics.

 

Welcome to Dark Souls!

I'm kidding.

Just relax, take a deep breath, and realize that it's no big deal if you get errors in your code. Everyone does. It's totally normal.

More than likely, you forgot a semicolon somewhere or something. You pretty much can't hurt anything on your computer writing Unity code unless you are trying to do so, and you probably need to know what you're doing to do that. The worst thing that can happen is you cause Unity to hang with an infinite loop. Just close it with the Task Manager, open it again, and all is well again.

It is at this point I should inform you that I barely passed my college Java programming courses. It was after that that I leanred C# and got to a point that I felt comfortable and confident with my code enough to start experimenting and getting better.

The main things you gotta realize are you shouldn't be intimidated by it, and the computer is dumber than you. Programming is like instructing a 3 year old to do something, you need to tell it exactly what you want it to do, or it'll get confused really easily, and start crying. And thats what you just saw. In your case, it was probably a full on temper tantrum. But either way, it's no big deal.

Basic programming is one of those things that just clicks. A bool as we call it in Unity. Once it clicks, it's no big deal, but before that, it feels like a massive mountain of super serious looking computer gibberish. You just gotta stick with it, and make it click. Theres just a moment where you say "OH! Thats it!" and that feeling makes it all worth it.

 

I wasn't getting angry just because it was hard. I was getting angry because my computer crashed and I lost an hour of progress. >3<

 

Oh yeah, that's like, day 2 of programming class, and a lesson almost EVERYONE learns the hard way.

Save. Often.

Seriously.

I've just gotten into the habit of just hitting Crtl-S whenever I do something pretty much.

The nice thing about being a beginner is, now you get double the practice, and the code you'll write this time will be twice as good, and take half as long.

 

Is there any tutorials that are JUST about point and click adventure games?
Most of these tutorials so far don't seem very useful for the one thing I'm striving for.
It's good practice, Yeah. But Really I just wanna make a couple of poc games and see how it goes from there.

 

The only ones I've found so far are for 3D point and click, more in the style of Myst, not much like what you are trying to do.

I did however stumble upon this

On the surface, it looks like one of those Fire Emblem esque digital novel/dialog box systems, but around 19 minutes in, it looks like they talk about this thing having features that could possibly be useful for you involving clickable objects. Perhaps this is the right track for you?

The developers actually have their own youtube channel full of tutorials for all the features.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCppb1KXfC0mSx74vjgOBMeA/videos

As far as I can tell, it's a plug in just like Adventure Creator, but free? Perhaps worth a look?

 

You also always have the option of using Adventure Game Studio. This program is far more targeted toward traditional point-and-click games than Unity is. And it requires less coding out of the box.

One of the drawbacks is that it is more limited in the number of platforms it targets, and its editing environment only runs on Windows. But if you just want to wade directly into making a point-and-click game without messing around with behind-the-scenes scripting, it is probably one of your fastest approaches. You will likely still have to do some scripting in AGS sooner or later, but getting your feet wet with an editable scene would be easier.

If you reach the point where you feel a bit more ambitious, I would also recommend looking at Ink. This is a scripting language designed specifically for writing interactive fiction. So you can use it quite easily to make choose-your-own-adventure style stories. This can make it a very effective tool for adding interactive text elements to something like a point-and-click adventure game. And it has a fully supported plug-in for Unity that allows you to tie it into Unity events. I've been seriously considering using it to fuel some of my own Unity-powered adventure games.

 

Alright, I'll give it a look. Sorry it took me so long to respond, School is kicking my ass.

 

This is why Message Board work how they do, so that conversations can extend over longer periods of time.

You gotta do what you gotta do

 

Seeing as I notice nothing in the OP that was asking what a pen tablet is, requesting commentary on your ambition, or even whether point and click games were popular again, I'll start off giving my humble opinion on the questions you did, in fact, ask. By the way, welcome to the forums and congratulations on taking the first steps towards making your game.

If you have an aversion to creating the story at this point in time, skip it. Nay-sayers would probably suggest that this is terrible advice, but I can speak from experience in that there has been more than one occasion in which the new mechanic I was creating on a whim began to write its own story. Focus on the mechanic, the gameplay, and worry about graphics later. Take time as you go to play around with ideas for characters, and yes, doodles in a notebook can absolutely help lead you to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, regardless of whether they are actually used in the game. Given your current art style, I would offer up the following: a children's show that my daughter and I enjoy, whose art-style I have always loved because it quite literally looks like someone was drawing characters in their notebook of graph paper while they were probably supposed to be paying attention to the formulas that they only jotted down amongst the drawings (you can see them faintly scribbled down in various parts of the screen). Already a story could evolve from that particular art-style: a bored teenager in high-school starts doodling in his notebook while his teacher rambles on about irrational numbers and the kid is sucked into this world he created, which is in desperate need of some form of interaction from the player in order to [insert your goal here].

You do not need fancy equipment like a pen tablet or years of experience in Photoshop to create a game. Take it from someone who has had this hobby since childhood and is now raising a child of his own. I created my first games - graphics done with a mouse - using nothing but MS Paint and a cheap piece of software known as Klik & Play. If it is story you seek, then take some pointers from well-established authors: do anything but write the story, and you will eventually have that epiphany that drags you to keyboard full of inspiration and ambition. Just make sure you are programming the game while taking this hiatus from the story, which will help keep you focused.

If you are looking for advice on how to get started developing the game, there are few problems in life that are not easier to handle if broken down into pieces. The genre of point and click already has that division started for you: hit up google and simply ask it 'how do I determine what my mouse is pointing at in Unity'. Move on to 'how do I determine if an object has been clicked'? The best part is that these two answers are applicable to just about any game you make in the future, so you can rest assured that time spent learning is not wasted if this particular project does not work out. That is not to say you do not have a good idea by any means, but any game developer worth their weight has plenty of projects they started that were never completed. There is nothing wrong with building a game for the sole purpose of the enjoyment, knowledge gained and experience.

That's my two cents, take it for what it is worth, but you can rest assured that not one of the above sentences contain my own hang-ups, are said with sarcasm or judgement, and all was offered up merely as sound advice from an experienced and successful game developer. If you ever get stuck, feel free to drop me a message and I would be more than happy to offer up any advice I have for you, which I have obtained via 20+ years experience. I won't do the work for you, but that would take all the fun away from you anyway.

Best of luck!