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[Moresco]

You could "tweak" the way you create your game inside AGS easy enough.  However, this wouldn't take advantage of the DS part of the DS!  I'd want to use both screens.  There's so much opportunity of cool things to do with that.

Ah good point, I forgot it had two screens.  God...I really need to get one of these before it's replaced by a new system :/ Stupid money, why can't you make more of yourself?! *kicks wallet*

Anyway yah, two screen adventure games...that'd be awesome.  My widescreen resolution on the PC is definitely enough to accommodate some kind of dual screen adventure game, 1280x960 resolution or so would work for that.  =] Don't think that's going to happen though

[Snarky]

Yes, it would be awesome!

[Moresco]

Yes, it would be awesome!

Whoa awesomex2!

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

The DS version of Runaway 2 uses both screens, btw.  Granted, the second screen is either always the map or your inventory/save but it's something!

[cyen]

Oh man, I would love to see more NDS adventure games in general.  Hotel Dusk, which is part adventure game, part interactive novel, worked really well in NDS, and some of the puzzles using the NDS features were quite clever.  The system is actually great for that kind of game.  I can imagine the top screen would be used as an inventory or as map while the bottom screen would be where the main action takes place.  I can see using stylus to literally write notes in the DS and stuff.  I actually wouldn't worry about the resolution of the screens because many of the DS games look fantastic partially because the game developers know how to push the limits of the hardware and they also use clever art direction/style.

[Darth Mandarb]

I found hotel dusk VERY boring ... but I really dug it's intent!  It just didn't deliver for me.

But yeah, that's what I was getting at!  There's so many "things" that you can do with the DS that it would really push the adventure game to a new level.

[Evil]

I liked the concept of the DS, with the two interacting screens. And in some situations, like Darth said about Zelda, all aspects of the DS design were used to their full advantage.

Hypothetically, if you took the time to figure out how to produce your game so that it could be played on the DS, and could design your programming around the two screens, who's to say it would even be worth it? Designing games is incredibly complex. Even something as revolutionary as the Wii hasn't been utilized to its full potential. Being able to walk from one screen to another won't impress the DS owner. You've got to find a way to use the features in a way that Adventure games have an advantage, something other games on the DS don't.

And who would play your game? Not many people own a DS. And if I owned a DS, I probably won't feel inclined to play your game other than that there is a connection to the boards.

Give me an example of what amazing things you could do by combining the DS features with Adventure style games, and I'd support you.

And like MessaBlue said, by the time you're done making your game, people will be like "What the hell is a DS? I've got Wii 2.0" or something.

[cyen]

I found hotel dusk VERY boring ... but I really dug it's intent!  It just didn't deliver for me.

But yeah, that's what I was getting at!  There's so many "things" that you can do with the DS that it would really push the adventure game to a new level.

Yeah, I noticed that Hotel Dusk isn't a game for everyone and I can understand why you thought it was boring, considering it required a lot more reading than the average adventure games.  I do think that it needed to be less linear and have more puzzles.  Still, it's better than nothing, and I wonder if there were more adventure games/interactive novels published for the Japanese that we'll never get a chance to see State-side.

Hypothetically, if you took the time to figure out how to produce your game so that it could be played on the DS, and could design your programming around the two screens, who's to say it would even be worth it? Designing games is incredibly complex. Even something as revolutionary as the Wii hasn't been utilized to its full potential. Being able to walk from one screen to another won't impress the DS owner. You've got to find a way to use the features in a way that Adventure games have an advantage, something other games on the DS don't.

And who would play your game? Not many people own a DS. And if I owned a DS, I probably won't feel inclined to play your game other than that there is a connection to the boards.

And like MessaBlue said, by the time you're done making your game, people will be like "What the hell is a DS? I've got Wii 2.0" or something.

Actually, DS is a very popular system (around 54 million units in about three years) and I can't imagine it going out of fashion in the next few years.  Heck, there are people who still play Gameboy Advance even though DS has been out for a few years now so it's not like people will forget or stop plaing older systems immediately when new systems come out. 

I do agree that it would take a lot of time and resource to develop tools to make DS adventure games and to make games in general.  I don't knows if that time spent is worth it, but look at how popular AGS is and how grateful people are to be able to develop their own games using AGS.  I don't know about you, but I always thought that the point of making a game or writing a story or comic is to entertaining yourself--a labor of love and creating something that you personally would enjoy.  Finding audience for your game is totally a bonus.  Even though I haven't started creating a game, I have done other creative projects, and in the end the sense of accomplishment is the best feeling even if no one sees my projects. 

Also, is it really necessary to make games for the latest hardware/software?  Why do many people today make adventure games at fairly low resolution even though today's pc is so much more powerful than pc of 80s, 90s?   My husband spent two years modded Rome: Total War into Lord of the Rings: Total War because he always wanted to play large battles in the LOTR universe.  Even though Medieval 2: Total War came out sometimes during the period he was modding the game, he still continued and finished his mod on R:TW for several reasons.  A lot of people download and play his mod even though it's not for M2:TW because people recognize the quality of the mod.

Anyway, yes, I agree with you that I would love to see people come up with creative use of the NDS controls with adventure games, but even if it's point and click, I would still play it if it looks fun and interesting (just look at how popular Phoenix Wright series is). 

[scotch]

The DS will be one of the best selling systems ever, it has already outsold the NES, and games will be coming out for the next 5 years at least (GBA is still a viable platform as you say). Sadly, that's irrelevant, because what matters is how many people are able to run homebrew content on it. A much smaller number. I know a lot of people with DS flashcarts but then we're mainly computer nerds who would know about these things.

The DS is very simple to develop for, as consoles go, I'd love to make a game for it but sadly not enough people would be able to play it for it to be worth it.

I'm glad to see people agree with me about utilising the system properly. A quick hacky AGS port wouldn't be much more than a curiosity, you'd try one game on it just to see it run and continue to play games on PC.

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[Radiant]

I've actually got a game planned that takes advantage of some of these DS things.

[Candall]

Well, whereas interpretors like AGS might be a bit overkill for the DS's tight memory limits, I'll point out that there is an unofficial devkit out there.  Further utilizing said devkit is a library called "PALib" which handles a lot of the more common functions.

Perhaps a team of savvy AGSers could use the devkit to build a library specifically for adventure games?  I'm sure it could all start with some well-developed classes for characters, rooms, inventory objects, etc, and would not be complete without a pathfinder.

This could be made even better with templates for GUIS and whatnot.

It wouldn't be as user-friendly as AGS, but it would take a lot of the burden off the more competent programmers who want to make an adventure game for the DS but don't want to code themselves to death in the process.

Eventually, who knows... maybe a graphical interface that outputs code which could be run through the devkit's included NDS compiler?

[Cpt Ezz]

the ideas are endless.
We just need a good scripter to make it happen.....i might know someone(DON'T hold me to that). But it is worth looking into.

[Chicky]

The Secret files games on DS are awesome, as is Professor Layton and the Broken Sword re-make is bloody amazing with some good few hours of extra gameplay added!

There are plenty of adventure games already on the DS, you've just got to look hard enough.

[Cpt Ezz]

Well i have found some stuff that does give some hope.......

*I have found that making homebrew programs are easy to make also.....

*the Scummvm isn't that great(i still haven't been able to get it working on my ds, using a Max Media Player....will try on a R4 ultra)

* And finally i'm working on a homebrew app that uses ags on the ds but it might be a while before that happpens.

So that is what i have found hope to get some more info soon