Unity adds a lot of overhead. Looking at the graphics, this game probably would've come out to a handful of disks at the most, if it was actually made in the 90's. They would've used C, wrote their own engine specifically for the target platform, and the graphics would've been stored as paletted indexed formats instead of RGB (so, for a 16 colour game, 1/2 a byte per pixel, instead of 3 bytes per pixel).
I say a handful of disks, because games like Monkey Island came on a couple of disks, but this game has much larger sprites than those games did on average!
In their day these games actually had their art data stored as vectors, so could be even smaller than 4 bits per pixel! Plus audio would be midi, so just enough info for the computer to be able to roughly recreate the music. None of this ogg/MP3 stuff!
Oh yes I read about the original Kings Quest games, they did store the art as vectors, because they had to, it was the only way to fit it in RAM on the Apple computer. But Monkey Island etc. the ones your game looks like, they stored them as proper bitmaps.
Yes I completely skipped over mentioning the music :) Just plain note data...
Ah yeah, I'm totally going for the Sierra style, around the KQ4, Hero's Quest, Conquests of Camelot era, they still used vectors, but with all these dither patterns too- This kinda stuff :)
I played this a little over a year ago, and I keep coming back to see if there would be an eventual "Book Two". I am in absolute love with this small indi project. You guys are awesome!
I'm getting stuck even if I follow the instructions in the walkthrough exactly. No errors in the output_log.txt so it seems like some weird glitch in the game logic. Let me know if you want more details.
Hmm, yeah let me know where you're up to. The walkthrough might be missing something... You could watch a YouTube walkthrough to see if you missed something
I'll check a walkthrough just in case then to see if I did something wrong, but this is what happened:
After waking up, I went to the right, saw Drissa, talk to her and when I tried to go back to the camp, the screen fades out but then fades in back in the room to the right. When I then go to the camp, it works but Witt doesn't return.
Absolutely loved it ! Great atmoshpere and story. One of my favorite game out there... and the good news is that now i can jump into chapter 2 :-) Well done, bravo !
Hands down the best story-telling I've seen in an adventure game in a long time! I was audibly gasping at parts, and met the ending with applause. Such a gem, this game.
The graphics are a beautiful blast from the past. The sound design is subtle but effective; exactly what it should be. The story is captivating and genuinely interesting. The only reason I hate the cliffhanger ending is because part two isn't out yet!
Overall, I'd highly recommend this one. It took me around an hour and a half to completely play through it, and left me desperate for more.
I hope you'll make Telwynium into a series, or at least have a part two. This kind of production quality, game design, and story writing definitely has the potential for a big commercial release once the series becomes more developed.
This is one of those indie games that delivers an infinitely better experience than anything produced by large game companies in the last decade or so. This is the first game from you guys that I've played so far, and I look forward to seeing everything Powerhoof has to offer both at present and in the future!
Gosh that is great news lol, "Ask and you shall receive". As for playing the others, I absolutely will do that, and if they're anything like Telwynium in production quality and general intrigue, I know I'll love those too.
yo this absolutely ROCKS - great plot, fun puzzles, the small design of the game mixes well with the challenge level of the puzzles, I never felt like I was wasting too much time as I figured out puzzles. It just plays very smoothly. Really loved it. Great art and music!
Just finished playing... It was so awesome I love it, I would just wish the next chapters to be released... Music and visuals and the story is gripping... the best
This is one of the best "modern" P&C I have played in a while. The story is so intricate. It would be wonderful to have a full game like this set in this universe!
Loved it!! As always, your adventure games are some of the best. I especially loved how the graphics reminded me of Quest for Glory. I’d love to see some small rpg elements in one of your adventure games like QfG! That would be awesome. But back to this gem, it’s really really good for a small introduction to a story which will hopefully be built on!
Every time a Powerhoof game pops up in my notifications I get a tingle of anticipation. Because every single game I've played from them has been amazing.
Thankfully (and unsurprisingly), The Telwynium is no exception. It's a wonderfully crafted, brilliantly written tale with awesome point and click puzzles galore and a whole swathe of great characters.
The fantasy style is wondrous and the sprinkles of humour that are laid around the gameplay help to lighten the atmosphere somewhat.
Amazing work as always, and I certainly hope this isn't all we hear of these characters and this world! =)
I really hope to see more, I would love to buy a full game in this style. Really great storytelling, world building and puzzles. I really want to see more with these characters!
So cool! The visual style is beautiful and the story was also great (really captures the vibe of the beginning of something like LOTR or the Wheel of Time series). Would pay top-dollar for a full-game version!
Thanks! Yeah my idea was to make it feel like the first encounter after leaving the shire/two rivers... Except see what happens if Gandalf/Moraine character is murdered ;)
This was absolutely fantastic. Great story well told such a perfect short experience for people who loved the old adventure games. Hope to see another chapter ! :D
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Imagining the pile of floppies needed for 29Mb....
29 MB between 1,44 HD floppy disk...like 20,13 disks! But with some compression It will occupy between 15 and 20 disks...(Insert Disk 17, please).
Unity adds a lot of overhead. Looking at the graphics, this game probably would've come out to a handful of disks at the most, if it was actually made in the 90's. They would've used C, wrote their own engine specifically for the target platform, and the graphics would've been stored as paletted indexed formats instead of RGB (so, for a 16 colour game, 1/2 a byte per pixel, instead of 3 bytes per pixel).
I say a handful of disks, because games like Monkey Island came on a couple of disks, but this game has much larger sprites than those games did on average!
In their day these games actually had their art data stored as vectors, so could be even smaller than 4 bits per pixel! Plus audio would be midi, so just enough info for the computer to be able to roughly recreate the music. None of this ogg/MP3 stuff!
Oh yes I read about the original Kings Quest games, they did store the art as vectors, because they had to, it was the only way to fit it in RAM on the Apple computer. But Monkey Island etc. the ones your game looks like, they stored them as proper bitmaps.
Yes I completely skipped over mentioning the music :) Just plain note data...
Ah yeah, I'm totally going for the Sierra style, around the KQ4, Hero's Quest, Conquests of Camelot era, they still used vectors, but with all these dither patterns too- This kinda stuff :)
What a charming game. Well-written, interesting characters, solid world-building. There was only one riddle that really stumped me.
While I love pixel art, the 16-color graphics did take a bit of getting used to. However, the palette is used very well, including the dithering.
What a beautiful example of what a jam game can be at its very finest. I'll be checking out Book 2 next.
Fantastic! Powerhood and adventure games seem like a match made in heaven.
I played this a little over a year ago, and I keep coming back to see if there would be an eventual "Book Two". I am in absolute love with this small indi project. You guys are awesome!
Thanks! I'm planning to get book 2 done by Christmas
holy crap. this starts out a slow burn, but good grief is it worth it.
I cannot fathom how one person wrote this, never mind put it together in two weeks.
I'm getting stuck even if I follow the instructions in the walkthrough exactly. No errors in the output_log.txt so it seems like some weird glitch in the game logic. Let me know if you want more details.
Hmm, yeah let me know where you're up to. The walkthrough might be missing something... You could watch a YouTube walkthrough to see if you missed something
I'll check a walkthrough just in case then to see if I did something wrong, but this is what happened:
After waking up, I went to the right, saw Drissa, talk to her and when I tried to go back to the camp, the screen fades out but then fades in back in the room to the right. When I then go to the camp, it works but Witt doesn't return.
Ok, it was my bad, I never found the graveyard, maybe add a mention of that to the walkthrough to be a bit clearer.
Absolutely loved it ! Great atmoshpere and story. One of my favorite game out there... and the good news is that now i can jump into chapter 2 :-) Well done, bravo !
Hands down the best story-telling I've seen in an adventure game in a long time! I was audibly gasping at parts, and met the ending with applause. Such a gem, this game.
Wow, thanks! The next part is aaalmost ready. Just waiting on music and testing ;)
The graphics are a beautiful blast from the past. The sound design is subtle but effective; exactly what it should be. The story is captivating and genuinely interesting. The only reason I hate the cliffhanger ending is because part two isn't out yet!
Overall, I'd highly recommend this one. It took me around an hour and a half to completely play through it, and left me desperate for more.
I hope you'll make Telwynium into a series, or at least have a part two. This kind of production quality, game design, and story writing definitely has the potential for a big commercial release once the series becomes more developed.
This is one of those indie games that delivers an infinitely better experience than anything produced by large game companies in the last decade or so. This is the first game from you guys that I've played so far, and I look forward to seeing everything Powerhoof has to offer both at present and in the future!
Thanks! Really appreciate it :D
Book 2 is almost ready, you shouldn't have to wait *that* long. Let me know what you think of the others on our itch page if you play them too ;)
Gosh that is great news lol, "Ask and you shall receive". As for playing the others, I absolutely will do that, and if they're anything like Telwynium in production quality and general intrigue, I know I'll love those too.
i really loved this and wish it was longer! great classic point and click adventure!
yo this absolutely ROCKS - great plot, fun puzzles, the small design of the game mixes well with the challenge level of the puzzles, I never felt like I was wasting too much time as I figured out puzzles. It just plays very smoothly. Really loved it. Great art and music!
Just finished playing... It was so awesome I love it, I would just wish the next chapters to be released... Music and visuals and the story is gripping... the best
I don't usually like this game genre, but this was just fantastic
That was awesome! The end was kinda obvious but ; it was super interesting, I really want to see new chapters in the future.
This was great. I would love to see more chapters
Wow. This game is soooo good.
Just wonderful.
This is one of the best "modern" P&C I have played in a while. The story is so intricate. It would be wonderful to have a full game like this set in this universe!
Really wonderful; gave me a specific joy I haven't had since I was a child and resuscitated a mania for adventure games
Aww thanks, been so nice getting comments like this. It was really nice making a game that's all about the stuff I liked as a kid too.
Loved it!! As always, your adventure games are some of the best. I especially loved how the graphics reminded me of Quest for Glory. I’d love to see some small rpg elements in one of your adventure games like QfG! That would be awesome. But back to this gem, it’s really really good for a small introduction to a story which will hopefully be built on!
Thank you, I quite enjoyed the game. Full review here
This was Fantastic!
Felt like playing a Raymond E. Feist novel with many hints of Loom.
Damn you guys know how to make me uncomfortable. 10/10, would yell out "NO PEN NOOOOOOO" again.
Every time a Powerhoof game pops up in my notifications I get a tingle of anticipation. Because every single game I've played from them has been amazing.
Thankfully (and unsurprisingly), The Telwynium is no exception. It's a wonderfully crafted, brilliantly written tale with awesome point and click puzzles galore and a whole swathe of great characters.
The fantasy style is wondrous and the sprinkles of humour that are laid around the gameplay help to lighten the atmosphere somewhat.
Amazing work as always, and I certainly hope this isn't all we hear of these characters and this world! =)
Thanks Mikey! Great to have people like you that come back for more after playing these little games!
I really hope to see more, I would love to buy a full game in this style. Really great storytelling, world building and puzzles. I really want to see more with these characters!
The game was terrific, the lore was excellent, remind me to send PowerHoof a note!
Incredible!
This was so good! Takes me back to the old Kings Quest games and the like! Cant wait for book two!
This is one of the best things I've played this year. Please say there will be a book two!
beautiful game!
Great stuff! Anyone who's stuck, here's a full playthrough:
So cool! The visual style is beautiful and the story was also great (really captures the vibe of the beginning of something like LOTR or the Wheel of Time series). Would pay top-dollar for a full-game version!
Thanks! Yeah my idea was to make it feel like the first encounter after leaving the shire/two rivers... Except see what happens if Gandalf/Moraine character is murdered ;)
I gasped!
So good. Please make this a full game :<
This was absolutely fantastic. Great story well told such a perfect short experience for people who loved the old adventure games. Hope to see another chapter ! :D
Great worldbuilding, great story! Parts of it reminded me of Loom. Hope there'll be a second chapter! :)
Fantastic stuff! Incredible atmosphere and just all-round great writing. Looking forward to the next entry!
This is so good!
Awesome!!
This is terrific! A+ atmosphere!