The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Community Forums/Showcase/The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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| I'm proud to showcase The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This game was written in BlitzMax using the Grey Alien BlitzMax Game Framework. http://www.injoygames.com/oz/play_oz.htm (~20Mb) http://www.injoygames.com/oz/ (find out more and BUY it here) I was the programmer of the game and it was produced by Alex Ahlund who is based in the US (it was his idea, he contacted me in March). Two associates of his did the art, one did the painted backgrounds and one did the 3D rendering. I did the particles :-) A classical musician was also hired to do the rather lush music.     You can see that the graphics are rather nice and combined with the smooth programming and special effects (particles, fades, sliding UI etc), plus the very popular Oz theme, we are hoping that this will be a big success. It's already been accepted by 3 major portals (going live tonight on one) with more in the pipeline. The game has me taken 7 months in total. However 3 months were just making the framework, which is reuseable, and learning BMax (I used BPlus for 16 months before so it wasn't too hard). And 4 months making the actual game. However, I wasn't working entirely full time, although it was my main focus - I had many other things going on at the same time. As a matter of interest, the team that the producer put together is an Internet-based team. I live in the UK and he and the artists live in the US. I think the musician lives in the US but neither of us met him, we just heard his stuff and went "Wow, we must use him!". I have never even *spoken* to the producer - in fact I don't even know what he looks like! Everything was done via email and MSN (despite me trying to get him on skype, haha). I feel that this is proof that distributed teams *can* work if you choose the right people as he did (although I was doubtless a thorn in his side a few times ;-)) Anyway, please let me know what you think. If you find any bugs, we'll fix them, but we can't really make any big changes now because it's been released but I'd still be interested in hearing any suggestions that you may have. There's plenty of stuff that we didn't have time to add in and finalise and there are things that I'd have done differently given a choice - but overall I'm extremely happy with the end result. I hope you like it! Also, thanks to BRL for BMax, it's really good. |
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| The title concerns me - do you (or anybody) have permission to use the name? It looks OK but underneath the graphics its just another match 3/Bejewelled clone. That's the impression I get from the screenshots and it isn't enough to make me want to download it since I'm a bit tired of the genre now. Good luck with it anyway. |
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| My friend google told me the book and the characters entered the public domain in 1956. My friend wikipedia was even more verbose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz . |
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| Oooh, 'Wizard of Oz' stuff. Shame it is not a 3D game - like Half-Life - whereby you go on the adventure as in the film. |
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| Looks very nice, Grey. The graphics look professional and polished, and it's a nice choice of a theme, too. Can't wait to play it! |
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| The title concerns me - do you (or anybody) have permission to use the name? Gosh we never thought of that all this time, haha ;-) Yeah Koriolis has it correct. Thanks for the good luck, you may be interested in seeing it just to see how the polish worked out...Yeah I know it's a match-3, sorry about that (it's a very good one though!). However, it has some innovations that I forgot to mention like releasing trapped munchkins and using diagonal moves and lots of bonus items, and a story book etc. Puki: yeah it would have only taken a few years, but at least you could steal/license the media ;-) Torrente: Thanks! Injoy it. |
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| You can release trapped munchkins - And it only costs the same as Medieval II Total War - wow ! |
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| I'll give this a go...looks pretty neat and it might inspire me! :) |
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| First impression is VERY nice and well polished. But, the tick sound that's made when you click on a tile is very annoying and shrill...drove me bonkers. EDIT: Ok, maybe I had the sound up too high. :-) I must say Mr. Grey Alien that you've done quite a stupendous job. This is on par with anything from popcap. I really dislike match 3 games, but you've done something a bit different here that I think is very well done. It certainly is diverse and fun. My kudos are hard to earn. You definitely deserve them. Excellent job. |
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| I can't run the demo on my system. I am getting a dialog error after the press of PLAY DEMO button "Error: Access violation at 0x004ECA7E (tried to read from 0x00000040), program terminated" |
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| Arrgh, Man why did you keep the sounds from the previous 2 games? all that hard work and you neglected to update them :( Oh well, nice game - great theme - I'm sure it'll sell a copy or two. |
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| Chroma: Many thanks, glad you liked it! Moraldi: Sorry to hear that. Can you please post your system specs? (Does your PC run other BlitzMax games?) Also can you tell me what's on the title bar of the error please. Indiepath: well some of the sounds are kept and others are new. The producer didn't really spend a long time finding new sounds so I had to go with what we had. They are GOOD sounds which work however :-) |
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| Nice game really liked it. Had an issue with null sound a few times while playing as in it just cut of for a few seconds hoping it just a virus on me pc Hope the sales go well |
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| Really nice graphics in those screenshots, I'll take a look at this when I get home. |
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| Duckstab[o]: Thanks. Strange to hear about the sound cutting out. Was that music AND sound cutting out so it was totally silent? Never heard of that before. It's on Big Fish Games today. |
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| Looks good. I'll comment more when I get a chance to try it out. One quick heads-up. In the games description on the website you misspelled majestic as "magestic". |
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| SculptureOfSoul: Thanks, I'll tell the producer. |
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| Congrats Grey - it looks *really* good. Grey - The Wizard of Match 3 :p |
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| Ashmantle: Cheerz. Actually jokingly (and semi-seriously) I refered to myself as the "King of Match-3" in my blog (perhaps that is what you are referring to). So next up, in about a month is Holiday Bonus, it should have a similar level of quality and have some new innovations to do with how the power ups work hehe :-) |
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The intro/outro splash screens were a bit funky for me... Very polished overall. It's interesting to see how much your game's presentation has improved throughout it's various incarnations. If I can be *extremely* picky however, there are a couple of things which you may want to address: The 'Play' image, which zooms out at the start of a game, is quite pixelated and lets the side down a bit. Perhaps you could use a higher res version? I'm not really a fan of the 'sawtooth fades' (were one image fades out and the next image doesn't fade in, but instead, just appears) you've used on the menus. I realise that it's probably just me, but I thought I'd mention anyway (even though I've done this myself, in the past) as I think it detracts from the general 'slickness'. ...I did say *extremely* picky... ;o) Anyway, damned fine job you've done there. |
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| Yan. Thanks dude. I've told the producer about the weirdness on the intro/outro screens. Play image: yep, I know what you mean but it's pretty quick ;-) Know what you mean about fade out, instant in. Considered adding it, but never got round to it. May add it to a future version of the framework. Thanks for trying it and thanks for all your help with code. |
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| very polished. good job. love the look of the trapped munchkins. My friend google told me the book and the characters entered the public domain in 1956. My friend wikipedia was even more verbose en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Wizard_of_Oz . So any book in the public domain can be used in a game, including the characters without a lawsuit? |
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| So any book in the public domain can be used in a game, including the characters without a lawsuit? yes unless some special case applies I guess. |
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| This is very impressive. The presentation is top notch and the gameplay is sooooo fluid. It oozes quality. The only thing that I find annoying is the "Click Anywhere" screen after you receive your level stats. Why is it there? I don't see the purpose of having to click in an empty screen. That's just a minor niggle/annoyance though, in what is an otherwise quality production. |
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| Has anyone made something other than a match-3 with the framework? I'm tempted to pick it up but if this is what it's optimized to do I might not be so interested. |
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| Hi Bobby: Yeah, that Click Anywhere thing is so you can get a proper look at the background without anything on it. It's useful the first time, but on each of the subsequent levels, there is not much point until the background changes (on level 6). A friend of mine noted the same thing. The Click Anywhere thing was good in a couple of other pro match-3 games which showed the picture, then zoomed into it and showed a new one but this happened every level...but in hindsight, less useful in Oz. Warren: Thanks for you interest. The framework isn't optimised to make match-3s, in fact there is no match-3 code in it. The framework has been used to make AOTMG demo (a shoot em up), Sudoku Maya Gold, and Oz (a match-3), plus plenty of other people are making all sorts of games with it. The framework gives you tons of useful stuff to use with *any* game like menu systems, sprites, particle effects etc. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask them in the new framework thread. Thanks! :-) |
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| Alrighty, thanks! |
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| I am not running other BlitzMax apps. The title bar says "Error" I am getting Yan's splash screen (I mean the Play Demo, Enter Key, Buy Now buttons are misplaced) My system specs are: Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI CPU: AMD 64 Athlon 3700+ Video graphics Card: ATI RADEON X1800XT OS: Windows XP Home |
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| Looks very impressive, congratulations! Love the painted backgrounds. Downloading now. |
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| Moraldi: Thanks for the info. Was it you who sent the producer a screenshot? In the screenshot it showed the error you described only the title bar was in Greek (I see you are from Greece). My game should show a proper title bar on all errors due to it's error protection code, so I'm wondering if the problem is with the wrapper. That splash screen misalignment has been fixed now. I may see if the producer can provide you with a special version for testing, if you can spare a little time to run a different version and see what happens? Thanks Steve, have fun! |
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| No I didn't send any screenshot to the producer but you have right my XP are in Greek language. Of course I can spend time for you to test. I have not a Web site but you can use my e-mail to send a different version. |
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| This looks really nice graphically and the theme is popular, I think you'll have a lot of success with it and I can see it appealing well to a lot of people. |
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| Moraldi: That's very kind, I'll see what the producer says. Do you have any other development environments running like VisualC++ as the wrapper may think it's being hacked and shut down... AngelDaniel: Thanks. Yeah I hope the theme and graphics will combine to be a big success so I can carry on making games in 2007! |
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| Nice work, very polished. Like others mentioned, its still a match-3 ala bejeweled and there are tons out there, but yours does distinguish itself with the amazing graphics and theme. Now if i can only find an artist as good as that. |
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| a) Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition b) Dev-C++ |
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| Moraldi: Thanks. OK so were they actually running when you ran the game? Anyway, I'm emailing you a special .exe which is unwrapped but limited to 8 levels for you to test. Please check your mail soon, and thanks very much for your help. |
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| Grey, Really great work - well done dude! Looks great, plays beautifully smoothly here, music really good, story idea is nice, match game itself very slick indeed, sounds great too, love the "Wahey Im free!" munchkin speech - lol, particles not too much, balanced nicely. You have obviously spent a lot of time looking and deciding what to do with the game, how to make it slightly different than previous match 3's. The diagonal works well, although I did find it hard to figure out how I was building up to a point when the diagonal would be available. The book/story unveiling idea is very good too, it adds another dimension for some of the younger players. Love the way the framework allows jumping into windowed mode and pause modes so slickly, when I get a phone call or a skype call I can simply pause and pick it right up after the call. There is a slight re-draw/refresh issue when you move the window up on my pc, but it corrects itself immediately you let fgo the window title bar, so not really an issue. Just got the tornado powerup - great stuff! Jake you can be proud of another great title, I hope it sells well for you, and more power to you! Best regards, Peter. |
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| Any sales yet? |
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| I got your e-mail and replied. All tests have done without running any other program. I disabled also my firewall, WindowBlinds (I was afraid of this) and Windows Live Messenger but nothing changed I am suspecting the Greek Windows XP. |
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| So Big Fish Games charges 19.95 for the game PLUS 9.95 for a CD to be shipped?!!? Dude what is up with that BS? Where else do you have that game for sale GA...cuz I'm not buying it from BigFish. |
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| although I did find it hard to figure out how I was building up to a point when the diagonal would be available. Yeah the gauge could maybe be a bit clearer. it adds another dimension for some of the younger players. heh, and older players. My mum loves the book. She's going to buy it. There is a slight re-draw/refresh issue when you move the window up on my pc, but it corrects itself immediately you let fgo the window title bar, so not really an issue. Yeah that's a BMax issue that I couldn't find an adequate workaround, lots of other games do it too...Ipete2: Thanks for the good wishes. Chroma: I don't know yet as the producer has all that info. BFG always tick that CD option and you can untick it!! However, please don't buy from them as we don't get very much %. Buy from www.injoygames.com/oz which is the publisher. THANKS! :-D |
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| looking good Grey... |
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| Yeah that's a BMax issue that I couldn't find an adequate workaround, lots of other games do it too... There is a simple workaround but it does involve changing the official module (I suppose it's official, do BRL still exist?)Chroma: I don't know yet as the producer has all that info. BFG always tick that CD option and you can untick it!! However, please don't buy from them as we don't get very much %. Buy from www.injoygames.com/oz which is the publisher. THANKS! :-D Do BFG not have an exclusive? I've not seen it elsewhere. |
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| There is a simple workaround Yeah I think I have this bookmarked but I don't like tweaking the modules for my framework. I want it to run on "pure" BlitzMax. Do BFG not have an exclusive? I've not seen it elsewhere. Strangely they have an exclusive star next to it, it is exclusive I guess until it's up on the other portals which are being a bit slow. It is on the producer's site Injoy games already and soon it'll be on Iwin, Oberon (well their exclusive portals), Reflexive, AOL, Yahoo, and Real and probably a few more too... |
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| Jake congratulations on such a wonderful game. Even though match 3`s aren`t really my thing I can see the appeal in this game. It looks and plays wonderfully, feels smooth and looks very professional. It certainly has lots more going for it than most match 3`s I`ve seen. I hope it does very well for you as you have no doubt put lots of love into its creation. My only slight niggle would be that I would have gone for a completely hand drawn look as the backdrops are full of character and emotion compared to the computer rendered artwork. All in all, a great game and a good advertisement for your framework. I look forward to buying a copy soon. Jason. |
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| Woo, we broke into the top 10 at www.bigfishgames.com ! Party on :-D QuickSilva: Many thanks for your kind words. I said it would be good didn't I ;-) Well, being my third match-3 it ought to be - BlitzMax is definitely the way forward. I think this really has a lot going for it too, and I honestly think that it's one of the best match-3s made to date. The graphics are great but I see what you are saying about hand drawn all the way through - art continuity is important. I think we got this right in Easter Bonus, but there were a few areas in Oz I'd have liked to tweak if there was time (but there wasn't). However, lots of games doing well have 3D rendered stuff and it looks pro and maybe gives an interesting juxtaposition with the hand drawn stuff in-game. My next game (Holiday Bonus) is actually all 3D rendered, although in two different styles. So we'll see if that works. Early signs seem good! Yes, I'm hoping for some more framework sales as a result of this (already made a few), because Oz really does really show it off. Anyway, I look forward to seeing your next game soon as you know I love your artwork :-) |
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| Congrats Grey :) Looks like you'll be making games in 2007 :)) |
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| Your work and public enthusiasm are inspiring, Mr Gray. Thanks for showing us all the kind of success we can all aspire to. |
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| gellyware: Thanks, yeah I hope to continue in 2007. Actually I know I will be as something rather cool has happened, but more about that later when it pans out. AngelDaniel: Thanks (and don't forget that I was part of great team). Basically 2 years ago I got Blitz Plus and now I've got a top 10 game at BFG! It just takes some dedication and the will to succeed, plus a bit of skill thrown in the mix. I'm a very determined person and I like to do what I say I'm going to do. Plus the Universe helps me out every day with little things and big things that all move me towards my goals. I hope that people can see this Oz game and realise that BMax is a totally viable tool for making a top notch game. I realised this when I saw Inca Quest and later on Temple of Tangram - both really polished excellent games. I hope that Oz is in the same league. Anyway, you don't *have* to make a game to sell, it's still damn good fun just programming and creating, that's what got me into this in the first place, I just want to do it for a job now, that's all :-D |
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| congrats on your chosen field of production Grey. :) |
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| Was it already listed on their main page as an "Editor's Top Pick"? http://www.bigfishgames.com/index.html |
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| yeah but it's gone now...I think they change the page at US midnight. |
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| Dude! SuperDuperAwesomeTastic! You're games just keep getting better with each release! |
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| Aha thanks man, glad you got round to playing it. Music's cool isn't it? |
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| Can i have a few £1000 now ya rich? could use it for a sexy laptop ive had my eye on. |
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| Just curious, how much have you made off this game so far? I know that's a personal question, but this has really inspired me :) Edit: Oh, just remembered it was made by more than 1 person. |
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| coffeedotbean: Fraid I gotta take care of myself and my family first. Sorry dude, just keep making your games better and better and I'll come and ask you for some money :-) IKG: Sorry, not allowed to say as I was hired by Injoy games and I am under a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA). But it is doing nicely and I get a healthy chunk :-) |
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| Justluke, I read your last post before it got erased due to BlitzBasic.com mess up. Thanks! :-) |
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| Your game made it across the border - and, in a sense, across the ocean ;) Just saw it (boxed) at a computer store in Ladner, BC, of all places. Nice work, Grey! |
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| Cool, so it's reached Canada! Thanks for the update. I've yet to see a boxed copy myself, the producer is sending me one... Ironicly, the boxed copy is an older version and I've just updated to fix some (tiny) bugs and make it compatible with 98/Me/Vista, plus there's a Mac version coming out soon too. |
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