And so it Begins...

Before I get into the meat of where I currently am at the game development process and what I'm using and all that, but I think now is the time to get into the reason for the medium and genre of the game. Protocol 001 is an adventure game. Old School text parser mixed with point and click action. While that seems confusing now, it will make sense during the game. (At least I hope!)

I think it goes without saying that I'm a huge geek. At a very young age, my mother would make me watch Start Trek, Star Wars and any other sci fi show that was on one season and canceled the next. (I have fond memories of Earth 2). To this day, I will watch any show created by Rockne O'Bannon just because Farscape and Alien Nation was such an inspiration to me.

My love of adventure games is a bit more hard to track down. Back in 1993 or so, we had a 386 Tandy computer fro Radio Shack. My sister's boyfriend at the time gave us several stacks of floppy disks and a pile of photocopied manuals... and when I got to Sam & Max Hit the Road, I was hooked. I think it was the insane comedy throughout the game that I fell in love with. It also helped that the game didn't involve fast reflexes or being able to jump just right. The story took up the main focus but there were several ways to deviate from the main and not be stuck or bored. Fast forward several years to 2008 when I decided to load Adventure Game Studio and try my hand at this game design thing.

I have to admit, that Protocol 001 isn't my first game. And even my first game wasn't even my first attempt, but that's a different story. Murphy's Salvage was a good try, but I know I did several things wrong that I'd like to fix now.

It all comes down to planning though; Murphy didn't have any. I had a few characters but no story and I got ideas in the middle and no real way to go back and fix everything from the beginning. So, with encouragement from some friends, I've decided to once more dive into the sci fi genre and make a game. Protocol 001 is set in Murphy's universe, in fact, I had planned a sequel right when I was finishing up Murphy, but I didn't know how to write it. Protocol is not a sequel. In fact, if this project goes over well, I want to rewrite Wombat's story into something playable... but that's another blog.

This game is inspired by several things, including but not limited to, Max Headroom, working as a phone support technician, the infamous AGS game Trilby's Notes, Farscape, Blake's 7, Red Dwarf and Sam & Max. So, while more serious than vacuuming rats out of an air duct, Protocol 001 should have its share of giggles.

At the very least, I'll have fun.