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2014

The history

The dawning of ages

The history of the game starts in 1997, when I first started working on it. However, my programming experience were then not so big, and I had only Windows 95 and MS-DOS, on which there already were many adventure games, installed on my PC. So I got an idea to create a similar game myself. I chose the least resistance's path - to create the game using text (ASCII) mode in a programming language Turbo Pascal. The first version of the game was made, which was then named "Help as much as possible". The game was, in 1999, looking like this:

It was controlled using arrow keys and it has limited possibilities. The goal was to escape the old man's cottage, but first you had to complete some tricky quests.

The first "graphical" attempt

My early effort to make the game graphical didn't end well. The only thing I was able to draw, was this 16-colors picture, which I historically consider the version 1.5:

First playable demo?

After successfully completing the demo version, which still contained some technical problems, I let the game be for some time. I returned to it in 2000 with new desire and better programming skills. I decided to continue in retro text-mode design, but enhanced with mouse support, and playing sounds, music, and video!

Those times, I even created a graphic editor, where it was possible to draw game screens or other objects. In 2003, the game looked like this:

Unfortunately, this all had depleted all my energy, so the game was left unfinished... (it was possible to launch, a super intro and the main menu was shown, the character selection and settings followed, but the main game didn't)

Moving to MS Windows

The next turn came in 2006, when I've again decided to work on the game. I chose to enhance the game more, and so I started to draw the graphics (with MS Paint) in "pixel-art" style. The engine was programmed in BOrland Delphi, to allow the game to start on Windows without the need to emulate MS-DOS. It looked like this:

Unfortunately, this was also the wrong way - it failed because I didn't have enough time and energy to program all this from the beginning. The game was abandoned in the alfa-beta-gamma version.

Adventure Game Studio

Finally, at the end of 2006, I decided to again ressurect the game, I've learn about Adventure Game Studio, an adventure game editor, which solves all technical problems. The programmer only makes the game script, but doesn't have to make character movement, control etc. At last I've found the right way, I've been able to focus on the graphics and the very game's creation, so the game was expanding more than in the previous ways.

I've stayed with Adventure Game Studio and now I am not going to migrate on another platforms, because AGS supports porting the games on another systems, including mobile ones. The only thing I haven't been able to solve, is the problem with time, so the game is still not completed. I hope I will be able to finish it some time and you will be finally able to play it.