Along the last couple of weeks, we lost our illustrator. No, he's not dead, just unable to work on the game. It delayed things for a while, and soon you'll understand why, but now we're back on track. So...

What you shouldn't expect in The Labyrinth

We're not explaining what is the underground from The Dark. Yes, there is an explanation, but if we say it straight it just sounds lame. Anyway, you'll have enough clues to figure it out for yourselves. Or to imagine crazy theories. Whatever happens, we're not saying anything.

Mr. Bubbles isn't there. He should be, but it wasn't that important and it would need more time than we have. So he's been cut out. Apparently, he only appeared in the series to poop.

And you shouldn't expect every little detail explained, even if we have an explanation for each of them. Blame the things I read if you must, but I think that part of the fun is figuring things out for yourselves, and a complete explanation usually sounds like an anticlimax.

What you should expect in The Labyrinth

David's hands.

Well, that's it. Cheers.

The images are below. Click to enlarge them.

First of all, allow me to explain what's an engine and what it does, since a lot of you may not be familiar with the term. If you wish, you can just skip to the engine features. For every game we make, we need to create the story, puzzles, dialogs, layout, everything that defines it as unique. But there are a lot of things going on in the background. For instance, if you take a key and click it on a door, the character will walk to that door and say "it doesn't fit", or "it's unlocked". The engine is what teaches the character how to walk on the ground, instead of passing through the objects and walls, and where he needs to walk to after the click, and how he can handle the fact that you used that single object (the key) with that other one (the door), and decide that he's got to say something, and show that dialog on the screen. But before that, the engine has already created the room, put the objects where they belong, placed the character where it should be... This is all happening and the played does not notice, as it should be, and it doesn't need to be rebuilt for each new game. That's the engine, and the game is only some kind of skin to cover it and give it some sense.

So, when The White Rabbit started, I had built an engine. And if I tell you it was a good one, it would be a big fat lie. Things were fuzzy back then, and I didn't have much of a plan, I just thought that "we'll need this, and we'll need that, and some of that too". Turns out we needed a lot more. We fixed and mended it every time we discovered we needed a new feature. But the ability to fix and mend something that wasn't really planned from the beginning has some limits, and soon our engine looked like a monster. It was like "we need to let the player put the coins in any order," and I would get back to that messy pile of code frightened that it would bite my left nut off. And then "people are complaining about the size of the game screen," but we couldn't simply resize it because the scene design would fall apart. Other than that, every room needed to be mapped in a really dumb way, that would take a lot of time to do. Game files were getting heavier and heavier. There were a lot of bugs that I was trying just to hide, because it was already impossible to go back and solve them properly.

We decided to reuse it only for the Trapped trilogy, and then rewrite the whole thing when The Labyrinth was over. After all, at least the scenes were ready, the characters already designed, the puzzles were working properly... well, at least that was the plan. And then Matt Sandorf showed up and everything just fell apart.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really like Matt Sandorf. The game was really cool to plan and design and it was fun and it had a lot of jokes... but developing it was like chewing my own intestines covered in pepper with one rotten tooth. Seriously, it was a nightmare. Lots of bugs, lots of things that we wanted to do and were just impossible, lots of scary things happening everywhere. And by the half of it I had a huge file that would take about fifteen minutes to compile every time I had to test anything. Let's say that, for every minute of actual work, there was a 15 minute delay just to check if I'd done it right - and half of the times finding out that no, it was wrong.

It was clear that we had reached some limits there and that there was no hope anymore. When it was finished I was exhausted and swore that we would never use that thing again (kinda like '...gone with the wind', but the dress didn't look good on me).

So the new engine, called Agent 2.0, started to be built, just like we planned last year. But a good one, this time. And that's what you'll see with The Labyrinth. I won't tell you every single change right now, but here's a few things that might interest you:

Proper resizing - No more scenes broken. Now we can have any kind of zoom we want, and we took the chance to create a full screen option for those of you who aren't playing at work.

Multiple files - We always had the whole game in one single file, that could take forever to load. Add that to our server issues and some thousands of people trying to load it at the same time and we had those cases of people who couldn't even play the games because they were unable to fully load it. Now we divided the game in multiple small files that can be downloaded in the background while you're playing. Which means a faster game and a serious reduction of server crashes. The danger of it is if some file in the middle of the game crashes and you're unable to go on after some point. So we enabled:

Autosave - We always allowed you to save your games to continue later, so we just added an autosave feature that will trigger everytime you need a new file. So if some of them couldn't be downloaded right in the middle of the game, you can just reload the page and continue exactly where you stopped.

Infinite inventory - That was never an issue because we never put items enough in one game to totally fill the game's inventory, but now it won't be an issue, period.

Improved item handling - The previous games only allowed you to use items with scene objects or, sometimes, to display some cut scene. Now you can combine items, use them alone, examine them, as you will.

Dialog trees - Ah, the good old days of adventure games, where you could actually choose what to ask to any given character, instead of only sitting behind and reading ready dialogs. I guess that is the one thing we missed the most in Matt Sandorf, with all those characters and funny lines.

Improved multilanguage support - We just changed the way to deal with fonts, so we can have the game translated to languages like japanese or russian - as long as we have translators, of course. (personal note: Marcin, you'll finally be able to use the polish special characters in the game)

95% less programming - For us, it means we'll have a lot less work to create new games from now on. For you, it means less waiting between one game and the other.

Is that it? No, but there are a few things we'd like you to see for yourselves. As soon as we finish The Labyrinth.

Ok, now I gotta go back and worry about David again. He's still trapped, you know?

Cheers.

There are some lines missing in it, of course. Like the one labeled "tease the hell out of the gamers". That will keep happening. But anyway, this is our status. So please, remember we also have dayjobs and we're working our asses out to deliver you a great game, and e-mails like "Where is trapped 3? I have no patience to wait. Tell me the exact date or else I will stop browsing your site" just make us feel like quitting it all and moving to some beach after a sixteen-hours work day.

Next post will explain exactly (or almost) why did we decide to rebuild the engine (the one that was used for both Trapped games and Matt Sandorf) from scratch.

UPDATE: meanwhile, you can check our updates in our brand new twitter acount (in english), yell at us in our orkut community (in portuguese) or try and kick our asses at La Brute (in french).

Out of fear, or maybe madness,
the Queen chooses to live nowhere else but in her lair;

The King by her side is not. He thinks of himself alone,
and between eat and play, he pretends to care for his people;

In bed and ill, nothing is left for the prince but to wait for death
he cannot move, all is left is his dying breath;

Meanwhile, the glutton is where it is most obvious
after all, what else is there to do but satisfy hunger?

And the poor dog, one might think, never to be
allowed to come inside and play.

But poor he is not, since the Peasant is his
eternal and only friend, as is the dog to the Peasant;

Silent and resilient, the Maid works,
always keeping things tidy and preparing
food for the eternally hungry;

Shall we not forget the Buffoon, since he
cannot remember where he must go;

And when all is done
when nothing else there is to wait for
the Servant will be at the door
for they all need to leave;

But this is the end, indeed,
or lies there beyond something
you cannot see?

First of all, there was Matt Sandorf. It was a really consuming project, and we had to work around the clock a few times. But when it was ready, there was a delay to release it. We didn't wanted to release The Labyrinth before the new game was out, and we were tired, and I really needed my vacations. So The Labyrinth was postponed.

Also, Matt Sandorf proved that it was impossible to keep working with the Trapped engine. It has a lot of limitations and it takes a lot more time to develop a game then it should. Considering what we were planning to do for The Labyrinth, we couldn't go on with that. And we decided to go back to scratch and remake the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Bruno was approved for his Master degree in U.S.A. He had to worry about the trip, and moving out, and when he went there our communication became really difficult for some weeks.

We had started to work on the new engine, but slowly, when my vacations happened. It was a great relief, because I needed to get away from the computer for a while. But this meant another delay, as if there weren't enough of them.

When I got back, and Bruno was all set to start again, my girlfriend's Doctor degree in France was confirmed. And I decided to spend as much time as I could with her before she was gone. I just couldn't, and didn't want to, think about games by the time.

Now we're finally back on track, and things are moving again. I know we are terribly late, but it was a long year and too many things happened (good things, actually) and it couldn't be otherwise.

Hope you still have some patience for us. The new engine will allow us to make things faster and better, so the next games shall not take that long. But for now, The Labyrinth can take a little longer yet.

Cheers, and have fun with Matt.

This all started when Trapped - The White Rabbit came out and we had an overwhelming response from the public (yes, you guys). Fortunately, somebody at Sony played the game and loved it and though it would be a good idea to have an advergame for the new 16 GB Memory Stick. We thought "WOW! Sony!". And went out for beers, of course.

Since we were working for WOW! Sony, we thought we'd take things to the next step in terms of graphics and called Diego Flôor to make the illustrations. Diego is a good friend of mine and has some amazing outstanding talent for 3D modeling, animation and illustration. (BTW, the talent runs in the family, his sister is also a great illustrator).

In this game we had the chance to play a lot more with humor and different characters. The game doesn't have a serious and complicated plot, like Trapped. We also inserted TONS of references to lots of every sort of thing we like. I mean, there are so many references that probably I can't even find them all anymore. But you guys can try.

At one point we were asked to use the PSPs music player capabilities in the game. So Rodrigo - an exceptional piano player - composed and executed a song, that is included for download in the game. Ana Bortolotto sang beautifully on the track. And she doesn't like kissing frogs in real life either.

So "what's next?", you might ask. I, as a gamer, always want more and more of something I like. The answer: Trapped part 3 - The Labyrinth. We want to deliver this to you guy as soon as possible. We will have some changes - for better, we hope - in the gameplay and grapics. I will say no more.

We'd like to thank all of you who played Trapped and Matt Sandorf and are helping us continue to make more games for you. If you have any comments, please do let us know. Feedback is really important for us so we know what you guys want and like.

Have fun.

It is ready, and I gotta say we liked this game better than Trapped. But right now it is stuck in some bureaucratic confusion and we don't know when - or if - it's going to be released. There's nothing we can do about it, and until some time ago we were still waiting to release it anytime. Now we're afraid it will become a side note in our portfolio and decided to just let go. If things change we'll let you know.

So now we're finally developing The Labyrinth. It will have some major changes compared to the previous games, and it will be a pilot for a new engine, something we wanted to do since the beginning. No, I won't give you further details right now, but it's meant to be good.

You'll meet David Green again in October 2008, when we're going to end the Trapped trilogy for good. But does this mean we're going to stop creating games?

No way. When The Labyrinth is ready, we will be able to release games faster and better than we did until now. And we have a lot of ideas just waiting to be brought to you. Things envolving angels, snowmen, ghost ships, playing dice with the devil... The list is not small.

For all of you who've been sending us e-mails about part 3, sorry we don't have the time to answer them all. For those who were waiting to find out what were the big news, sorry we can't just forget about this big company and release the game by ourselves. Now we're back on track.

And, by the way, we'll be looking for sponsors soon. If anyone's interested, you can help us to build all those new ideas.

Cheers,

Rodrigo

Update: Sorry all. I had written "October 2009" by mistake. The correct date is actually October 2008. I already corrected it in the post.

I wish I could tell you something's gonna happen really soon, but I already did it and guess what? I was wrong. So i'll keep writing these stupid posts so you can see we're not dead and we didn't stop making things.

The Labyrinth is already in production. I can't say anything else about it, and damn it: The Labyrinth isn't the big news.

So, if you wanna think about something, try these:

- Have you heard the news about Sergey Brin? I gotta say the idea that we're coming closer and closer to be able to travel to space for fun, and that there are a lot of private investors working on it, really exciting. Have you noticed that we are living in the future or am I just getting old?

- I'm a huge fan of myths and legends. And if I were to visit Florida, I'd certainly try to find everythind I could about this.

- Isn't Bhâskara II a great name?

- Frogs are cool.

Yes, you can link these informations. Or, at least, we can, but soon we'll explain it to you. Meanwhile...

Meanwhile I'm taking some short vacations, and I'm going to spend some days travelling through some cold places in Brazil, drinking some wine and having some fun. Yeah, I do that sometimes. I'll let you know when I'm back.

Cheers.