[justice] Murder Dog IV: Trial Of The Murder Dog [DONE]

[thecatamites]

Trying to release a quick AGS game..! only started quite recently but it's coming along ok i think.



the objective is to guide Murder Dog through his trial for crimes against humanity. there are Many Ending's..! It is partially inspired by the awkward, unbelievably dense GUI from the old DOS game Psychic War: Cosmic Soldier... I like the idea of trying to navigate between all these fragmented representations and pieces of information being dumped on you all at once & thought there was maybe a similarity between this and the way the legal system must attempt to reconstruct what ~really happened~ via evidence and witnesses and so forth, although i'm not really sure how well this idea will end up being represented in the gameplay!

but my real goal is to just make a goofy, barfy game and get it out there so we shall see. . . .


EDIT: Game is up http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/adventure/murder-dog-iv-trial-of-the-murder-dog/5807/

[Erenan]

!

I've never been so excited! This looks great! Please finish it so I can play!

Seriously, I love the premise of this game. Are there already Murder Dog I-III, are you starting with IV for humor value, or is it a Star Wars kinda thing?

Also, I've never played that Psychic War: Cosmic Soldier game, but now I kind of want to.

[thecatamites]

Thanks!
There actually were some previous games in the Murder Dog Franchise [Merchandise Dog]: the first "Murder Dog" was a collab project with Tales Of Game's Studios based ona jokepost i made once, it was a nes-style sidescrolling beat-em-up that unfortunately never got off the ground... "Murder Dog II" was an AGS game I was tinkering with a few months ago in which Murder Dog must navigate the treacherous webs of memory & desire in order to "put the bite on crime" in his own brutal way, but I never followed through on it. And I decided to skip Murder Dog III because I thought IV sounded funnier! Really I've just been meaning to use the name in some form or other for a while now...

[Jasper]

I was hoping we'd be joined by the catamites. Look forward to this one... Still dying to see you do some more pixel art, but murder dog there gets me going too - his unibrow is amazing.

[Darien]

Is that a unibrow? I was viewing it as sunglasses.

[ThreeOhFour]

Aw man, super neat to see another AGS dev around, especially one I recognize. This looks as bizarre an entertaining as I've come to expect from your stuff, hope you finish it :D

[thecatamites]

Hope to have this done by tomorrow, by the way. It would have been sooner but there were some unexpectedly sunny days over here which I spent sprawled outside like a big lizard... Irresponsible... That kind of situation is lose-lose...



the eyes move & twitch depending on the "question" you ask

[thecatamites]

gamelink added to the OP

[Jasper]

Downloading, but a Mac user, so will have to get onto Windows to play it... I'm a bit frazzled by the sun myself right now, so I'm a bit worried what it might do to me in this state.

[Stephen L (inactive)]

I was able to get this to work on my mac (though in windowed mode only) with playonmac. Had a good time.


Wasn't sure what to do on this screen, I tried clicking everything, read the text, then just clicked on a bunch of more things over and over again until stuff started happening. From your comment I learn that there are tells I should have been looking out for.

I liked eating the jurists. I tried to eat them by clicking on the image before I thought to click on their word.

[SaintOfPenguins]

Played through it today and linked it to a friend. Both of us rather enjoyed it!

Incredibly outlandish, quite humorous, mysterious underlying logic, and rife with social commentary.... what's not to like?

Like your style, cheers!

[nihilocrat]

This game is amazing, an ode to adventure games and their "the player should just try all options until they get something that works" approach.

The black-and-white drawings and text descriptions are a great way to cut down on having to actually draw everything decently, and is totally in groove with the game.

[Jasper]

Spent about 30 minutes typing up why this is one of the most inspiring and murderously brilliant gems of the year, was auto-timed out and lost it. :(

In short:

- First playthrough, I pleaded guily. Excellent verdict.
- Second playthrough, I used the EAT option before even giving my plea. I don't think I've ever laughed so loud at a videogame before.
- Final playthrough I proved the Machiavellian Mutt innocent, and despite loving the Monkey-Island-type-puzzle-with-the-plank, I felt it lacked some of the spark of the other two playthroughs. Was it too long? Not enough murdering and eating? Perhaps that was it... the other options provided in-court murder, but I wanted my cake and to murder and eat it, to let the Murder Dog go free, and to have murdered / eaten some of the obstacles in his way.

All in all, another great game from you man, thanks for making it.

[Jonas]

Now on Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

[jamus28]

Murdered everyone in the whole city, escaped free, and received "best canonical ending" award.

Don't think I'll use that email though.