Author Archives: GabuEx

A few words

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Hi, all!

Now that the dust has settled a little bit following the release of case 1, we’ll be opening up recruitment for case 2 very soon – so be on the lookout for that! However, before that goes live, I wanted to just say a few things in reflection before we move forward.

As of this writing, the first case of MLI has been downloaded over 14,000 times. The soundtrack has been downloaded over 2,000 times, and a number of contributions from multiple people have been made in our GitHub source repository to date. It’s been reviewed well by both Equestria Daily and Equestria Gaming, and have received countless amounts of feedback from fans, the vast majority of it overwhelmingly positive. It’s safe to say that people are really enjoying MLI, and that’s really been awesome to see.

Being able to work on MLI has been a dream come true for me. That’s not something I say lightly; being able to work on a video game has been a dream of mine since I was basically six years old. So, I’d really like to thank several people for this wonderful opportunity before we carry on.

First, I’d like to thank ZeusAssassin, who’s been my wingman on this project for years now. It’s safe to say that this project wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for everything he’s done for it. He’s always an awesome sounding board with whom I can always reliably bounce ideas off of; he keeps the team running smoothly like a well-oiled machine; and he’s always a great motivating factor no matter what.

Second, I’d like to thank Equestria Daily, who’ve supported this project since day 1. It’s safe to say that this project also wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for that support, either – without the exposure that they’ve graciously provided to MLI, it almost certainly would’ve just faded away, as I never expected it to grow to the scale that it is today when I initially started work on it.

Third, I’d like to thank dawnmew, who was a huge technical help early on in the project. She made it pretty clear that I didn’t really have much of an idea what I was doing, and was instrumental in helping getting both the coding framework and the case storage to a sane state of affairs. MLI might’ve existed without her, but it certainly would’ve been way worse.

Fourth, I’d like to thank the team of incredibly talented individuals who helped turn this project from just an idea written down in text into what it is today. From the visual side, that’s WarpOut, HallowGazer, TehJadeh, Abion47, Pony Tim, PonyArtist, and Rautakoura; from the audio side, that’s Trot Pilgrim and X-Trav; and from the voice acting side, that’s PrincessRil, LoveKiku, BreeFaith, DivinexRose, Flootershai, ThatCanadianDude, and HoodedYellowPony. Every one of you should be so proud of what you’ve done for this project.

And fifth, I’d like to thank you – you, reading this post. Without an audience to play this game and enjoy it, it’d be really hard to keep going. Seeing people enjoying this game so much makes it really easy to know 100% that all the effort put into it was completely and totally worthwhile.

Thank you, all of you. You’re all amazing, and I love you all. 🙂

OK, that’s it for my spiel. Thanks for reading. See you all when we kick off our case 2 recruitment!

Regarding translations

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We’ve had a number of people ask about the possibility of translating MLI into languages other than English, so I thought that it might be good to make an official post on the matter rather than individually replying to each person.

Basically, the blanket response to the concept of localization is, “Certainly! But not yet.”

The primary reason for this is that the game needs work before it can be properly localized. There are a number of barriers between where we are right now and where we’d need to be to be able to call the game localizable. For example, one of the biggest problems with localizability is the fact that the game doesn’t presently properly separate the core stuff that every version of the game is going to want and the specific text that should exist on a per-language basis. That’s a definite design flaw, and one that I would certainly like to fix, but until we do, any localization would be logistically difficult at best. There’s also the issue as well that the default fonts in the game don’t support any non-Latin alphabets, which would make translations into languages such as Russian, Arabic, or the like impossible without fixing that, too.

We do have a plan for fixing this, one that basically involves updating things such that files such as common.dat contain a core part and a localized part that can be updated independently. And we’re intending to make the case creator, when it’s done, support localization by splitting the text and associated dialog files apart from the show-dialog conversation actions themselves. So, basically, hang tight. We will definitely eventually support localization of the game – it’s just not feasible right now. Apologizes to those who are raring to go in terms of wanting to get started. Your enthusiasm is certainly appreciated. 🙂

IT’S HERE

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That’s right! After almost three years in development, the first case in My Little Investigations is finally ready to be released to the public!

I’m sure the first thing that you’re looking for is a download link, so you can find that here:

http://www.equestriandreamers.com/downloads/

At that link, you can find four things:

  1. The game executable itself plus case 1
  2. The soundtrack to case 1, composed by Trot Pilgrim
  3. Source code for the game executable
  4. Source code for the (now-defunct) Java case compiler (+ game implementation)

If you just want to play the game, the first item is what you want. Highly recommended as well is the second option, as Trot Pilgrim did an awfully fine job scoring the game, and his music is great to listen to on its own. If you’re interested in exactly how the game works or are interested in any specific functionality therein, the third option will give you that. And if you’re academically curious, the fourth option contains the source code both for the initial Java demo of the game, and of the case compiler in Java that I’ve been using to compile the first case. It’s very bare-bones and is really not very good, and is entirely unsupported – now that case 1 is released, work on a proper case creator is underway in earnest – so only the most curious and adventurous will find anything there. Still, we included it for the sake of completeness.

If you’d like to discuss the game, don’t forget to check out our forum! Talk about MLI, about MLP:FiM in general, or about general things with other fans is all welcome!

Finally, I’d like to mention that we also now have a Twitter account, @EqDreamers! We’ll be using that account both to alert fans to new posts here, news about MLI, or just general communication with others. So, following us is definitely encouraged. 🙂

We’ll have more to post about in the coming days, but that’s probably more than enough for right now. Enjoy!

Everfree Northwest panels posted!

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(UPDATE: The Games Ponies Play video has been reposted; the previous version was taken down.)

Hi all,

As indicated in a previous post, MLI had representation at two panels at Everfree Northwest earlier this month. Both panels have now been posted to Everfree Network‘s YouTube channel, so we’re now able to post them for you to enjoy. The first one is Games Ponies Play, a general gaming panel that I attended, and the second is the My Little Investigations panel that occurred later that day. Enjoy!

MLI at Everfree Northwest this Saturday!

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Oh, hi! It’s been a while!

The good news, which a lot of you have been asking about, is that we’re still hard at work – it’s just that for a few reasons (not the least of which being that we just didn’t have much to show that wouldn’t be a spoiler of some sort) we haven’t had much to say. However, we are getting there, and a final release is starting to come into view in the not too distant future. So, watch this space! We’ve got a number of posts lined up before that to hopefully tide you over until then, too, that will start up once Everfree Northwest is done.

Speaking of Everfree Northwest, I’d like to take this opportunity to say that MLI will be at Everfree Northwest! In two panels, even! We’ll be taking part in Games Ponies Play: Making Games that Players Enjoy at 1 PM, and then we have our own panel at 5 PM on the same day. If you’ll be attending, stop on by! We’ll be happy to see you!

Catch you later!

Happy new year!

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…Well, a belated new year, at least. Hi all! GabuEx here. I hope you all had a great winter holiday season, a great new year’s celebration, and a great 2012 in general.

We’re still hard at work behind the scenes, but to keep you interested and your appetites whetted, I thought we’d release a few teaser screenshots from sections not seen before from case 1. Nothing spoiler-y; we’re still keeping the story itself under wraps to ensure that you aren’t bored when case 1 is released – but, hopefully, these should intrigue you enough for now while we work on getting case 1 completed.

(And no, please don’t ask about release dates – we’ll let you know when we’re prepared to commit to something that won’t result in us working 39-hour days to get things completed. :P)

Find the screenshots after the break! Continue reading →

A glimpse at progress!

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Hi all! GabuEx here.

We’ve all been hard at work behind the scenes on the first case, and we can’t thank you enough for being patient with us while you wait. A game like My Little Investigations is always a bit tricky to give public exposure, since we can’t show you anything that would give people an inkling regarding the way in which the story goes – but by this time, I think it’s safe to say that we owe you at least a little something to whet your appetites and reassure any of you out there who might be worried that we most certainly are still going strong. So, I’d like to take a little bit to highlight just a few of the things that our wonderful team has been up to. You can find that after the break! Continue reading →

OC contest results!

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All right, fillies and gentlecolts… it’s the time you’ve all been waiting for! It’s time to announce the results of our OC contest! The three winners will have their OCs put into case 1 of MLI for an interaction with Twilight, and the thirty-seven runners-up in the top forty will get an honorable mention in this post.

Before I get to the results, I’d like to thank everyone for such a phenomenal turnout for this contest! In total, we received a total of 501 OCs entered from 370 creators. Those are not small numbers! As such, we’ve taken a little while to ensure everyone gets their fair consideration, so we’d like to thank everyone for their patience. There were all kinds of ponies, and it was an absolute treat to see all of your imaginations at work here. The creativity of this community never ceases to amaze me.

I’d just like to make one more statement before we get to our winners and runners-up. We had a number of criteria that we judged OCs on, which include their suitability to the Ponyville setting, how interesting we felt they were, how confident we were that we could write an interesting interaction between them and Twilight, and so on. These are all criteria for the OCs’ appropriateness within MLI. These are categorically not judgment calls that should be taken as fundamental statements about the quality or “goodness” of the OCs in a general or objective sense. If one has an OC that contains several cliches, and which doesn’t have a very fleshed-out backstory, but which nonetheless makes that person very happy even so, then that is a good thing, and nothing here should cause that person to consider discarding that OC. At the end of the day, you ought to be your own judge for whether or not you like your OC; if you don’t, then it doesn’t matter how many other people do.

So, without further ado, you may find the winners and the runners up after the break! Continue reading →