This page was set up to document how The Winter Rose was made. The first step was to download the game making software Adventure Game Studio (AGS). I first downloaded version 2.54 in the fall of 2003. Since them I've made several games with various upgraded versions, including AL-QUEST 1, TURNIP 21 and INVASION OF THE FLOATING DEATH ORBS. Through these projects I learned how to render half-decent computer graphics (using mostly MS Paint, but also a program called Photo Studio 5 for some of the more advanced features it offers), how to use the AGS scripting language and how to organize and assemble an adventure game.
Painting the Backgrounds
In organizing the game I would go "room" by "room", which means virtually completing a given screen and all its interaction before moving on to the next screen. I would invariably start with the background, which in The Winter Rose meant sketching and painting the backgrounds by hand. Then I would scan in the picture and polish it a bit with either Photo Studio 5 or MS Paint. This was a time consuming process but the texture and feeling it gave the game made it well worth while.
Polishing the Backgrounds Sometimes I wasn't quite sure how to paint the backgrounds so I left some sections blank and filled them in later on the computer. The trick to making the end result seemless is to use the PICK COLOUR tool (it looks like an eyedropper) which allows you to mimic hues that are already in the picture. I would use a similar process for drawing the objects that would eventually occupy the foreground in the game.
Characters
In creating characters I would usually begin by sketching. Usually I would get a good concept on paper and then duplicate it on the computer, but occassionally it was more efficient to scan the picture in and trace over it on a different layer in a program like Photo Studio.
Animation
Once I had drawn the character on the computer I would animate it by drawing multiple pictures in slightly different poses. You can usually cheat by copying the previous image and only altering it slightly, which speeds the process up hugely. It was rare that I would attempt to draw a character completely from scratch for an animation. I found that using "guide frames" really helped later in the process when I was trying to get the animation to stay stable, as they provide a constant reference point. Note the imported snippets from my ice scene painting: these allowed me to match the colours in the animation to those in the background so that the whole scene would look integrated during the game.
The Finished Product
After adding objects to the background and programming the character interactions in AGS the "room" is ready to play. After all the rooms were strung together I added in more universal interactions and functions and, presto! The game is pretty much done.
Well, that's pretty much how I did it. Sure there was a lot of sophistimicated programming, but that's pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The vast majority of the programming side of the game could probably be done using AGS's simple "point and click" interface, although I find the programming language more flexible and easy to use.