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I'll second Beyond Good and Evil. I've praised the game before at this forum, and I'll prolly do it again. For lovers of european comics, this is a must. The storytelling is well executed and the game has a good diversity of difficulties. I tried it at a friends house, borrowed it home, and put it down about 14 hours later - finished. No game has ever had that effect on me.

Another great game is Shining Force. When I first bought it, I hoped for a Zelda for the Megadrive/Genesis, only to find a strategy RPG. But the disappointment was cured when I realised the games full potential. That happened amost a year afterwards. The storytelling is blunt, as usual in a japanese game, but there's alot of thought put down into the characters - something that influenced my gaming even though I suspect this "flavour" did not have an ingame effect. And the strategy is simple and unrealistic - much like DnD4e, and that's a good thing in my book! 

..the sequel wasn't as good. It seemed to much of everything.

The first version reminds me of Medusa, but with a beard of serpents instead of hair. If you would do animated, wriggling serpents as an idle animation, I would have your child 

I was clearly drunk when writing that. To clarify:

Be inventive in the gameplay - not the story.

You are ofcourse free to be inventive in both.

What is this notion of making original and inventive stories all of a sudden? Back in '02 we where happy if you had a verb coin to play with.

No, really, one could say that everything has been made, or that there's still room for invention in this world - but in the end, do we really care? Telling a story and making a game is not necessarily two combinable options, and as a couple of games already mentioned, we are used to getting our story served in cutscenes, sadly. If you make an adventure game that gameplay that adresses storytelling in a different way, who cares if it's Die Hard. A good game is a good game. Invent where the medium is, not in it's spices. 

Raising controversy, no matter with what medium, is always fun. Must one respect everyone else's feelings? Well.. no. Putting up the finger to something you believe is wrong is never wrong by itself. But you see, both you and Andail has a valid point:

1: honor murders is a fact. Heck, there's a new way of killing them off here in Sweden, where actual murder is hard to prove as the girls are forced to jump to their death from balconies. Sly fu**ers indeed.

2: honor murders are an act most muslim leaders, both political and religious, disdaine. To portray a "backwater" community where women are stoned by western arab stereotypes is racist and not helping the cause.

So who or what are you going to attack? The fundamentalists? The law of the Koran? The abusing husbands and fathers? Remember too, that you (judging how you portrayed modern contemporary western life) are as brainwashed as any of us. We grow up with the dogmas of 60's humanism and hypocrisy, where religion is reserved for nutters in sects.

But isn't murder wrong? Isn't this an act of evil if there ever was one?
In our eyes, yes, but in theirs? Here's the punchline. They do not perceive the act as evil or wrong - but as salvation from sin and shunned honor. I'm certain a father loves his daughter no matter what religious faith, so think about this: You are completely convinced that to live as a pure muslim and accordance with Allah, you must murder your own child. Abraham did that too, but his sacrifice was hindered. These one's aren't.

Make the game. Raise hell. But think about WHO and WHAT you want to attack.

That's as logical as making English remakes of European movies. We can't have our western minds taken into consideration in everything. What about complete Fantasy names as elven Methiviel or Helkaathiel? Should they be named Steve and Helen?

Also, there's a nice touch to place the game in Turkey without making it a journey abroad for the protagonist. It's his home and this morbid nightmare is within it. To enhance this, I'd love a super deluxe version with Turkish voice acting. *hint hint* 

I played through the game yesterday night, and I have mixed feelings about it. First off, you capture a surreal and horrific ambience through out the game - it is like you tread along a dark dream even when awake - and this I like. However, the game plays as an fixed story, just making you click your way to proceed without any actual gameplay. Using the game as a medium for telling stories is a double edged sword, where playability and storytelling compete for your attention. Instead, don't fear the explorative medium adventure gaming can be, to deliver the horror . The music, the ambience, the story - it all works together to thrust you headlong into a nightmare, but the limited gameplay makes for frustration and this is not good. You do play a detective but are not allowed to detect much of anything apart from the interviews.

Don't get me wrong, the project is greatly appreciated, even if I'm a fan of subtler horror, but game mechanics are crucial to a game. Keep experimenting, keep playing and keep struggling. There's potential here.

As long as you are experimenting, game creation is joyous wonder. But when routine strikes and the development is an endless supply of tasks needing to be done - you know exactly how to do it and there's no creative challenge - interest wither and the project dies. I made games as long as I tried to abuse the system as much as possible. Just making a generic stereotype adventure game for the third time was simply.. worth nothing. I long to make games again, but the sheer workload scares me. I try to abuse the system once again, but fail.

Very subjective views on the matter, but perhaps someone will recognize my dilemma.

Walking and aiming with the pad is smooooooth in Morrowind for the Xbox. But it is perhaps not as actionpacked as Halo. But I remember Halo being smoooooth aswell. You eventually get the hang of those sticks.

Being a Genesis ho, I rely on right hand resting on the arrow keys, and left hand on A S D. Shooters are made for playing WASD and mouse. Joypads are supreme for fighting galore.

..I have yet to tried the Wii controller though. Perhaps not a revolution, but amusing it seems. Hum hum.

I believe that if you are looking for general feedback and a communitylike belonging, there is nothing apparent fault with DA. Most people pick up the pen and pencil not to usher masterpieces into this world, but to have fun.

If you do however strife to improve your art with every new doodle, you should attend art classes. Yes, communities such as ConceptArt.org may be a richer flora, but I find it mostly useful for inspiration and the odd tutorial. In the end, as in most communties, there is a group within the group, more 1337 than you, never bothering to post criticism because quite frankly, they're to busy improving their own art. And there is just too many people posting "That Rulez!11!" like a village mentality horde whenever a professional artist makes an artdump. Only difference is that the amount of photography is close to zip.

I starve myself to happiness. Not really, but my eating habits are dispeccable. I've jumped from 60 to 80kg and back to whatever it is now. Being on drugs (legal but psychofarmaceutical none the less) I gain weight and muscles without exercising at all. It is a bit like eating steroids I guess. All this within a year (institutionalized in spring 2006, last weighcheck in spring 2007).  But I eat in odd ways, start my day eating nothing, then lunch with perhaps something, and then more at nightfall. I am constantly hungry, but can't eat more than I do.

Also, a sure way to drop kilos after kilos is aquiring a nice derangement, such as obsessive/compulsive behaviour, or manodepression. Make sure they involve a healthy dose of anxiety, because laying still, eating nothing and worrying about the state of existance really slays away those unecessary pounds.

Or just take care of yourself. Eat healthy, ie. more vegetables, fruits. More fibre means a sense of satiation without an excess of carbonhydrates, fats and protein, aswell as distributing the level of risen blood sugar over a longer period of time, making the satiation last longer. Fast carbs will give you a short boost, a slump of less energy and a greater hunger quicker.

Sweden Rock might be worthy of my appearance and money this summer. I'm especially looking forward to see Dimmu Borgir, Tiamat and Amon Amarth.

I get creative by not eating. Yup, the starving artist stereotype is definatly real. Real artist should appreciate their lack of substance other than noodles boiled in the kettle. In the middle of the night, when the stomach rumbles more than Amon Amarth. Nighttime is also a very inspiring time, but I try to work until sundown, which makes winter very unproductive and summer the opposite.

Remake of the remake perhaps? It's like making a remake of Apprentice 1 Deluxe edition.

Personally, I do not understand the strange urge to remake a golden game from the past. Why not try to steal the raisins of that cake and make a new game in its spirit. Why make a game where everyone allready knows the plot, puzzles and predicament (ok, I needed another word beginning with 'p'.. so shoot me..)? Is it strange that the adventure genre is regarded dead when so many prospect developers are stuck dreaming of the eighties? Not that I blaim anyone of you, but the Kings Quest VGA took home a obscene amount of awards, when it is far from original in gaming experience. It has pretty VGA graphics, and lenght. Same as with the Apprentice series. Pretty, but a highly strained puzzle design, and quite frankly, not that good of a game.

Renew the genre! Evolve adventure gaming!

- Linus  who hasn't done anything original at all. Talk about hypocrite.

I dunno, the sideways animation do make me expect his to wear a swastika and raise his arm repeatedly. It is very "marchy".. perhaps soften the joints a bit.

Do we get some valuable exposition from this dream sequence?

Does it advance the story?

Rule Number One of fiction writing is never write a scene that doesn't advance the story.

This rule is infinitely more important for an Adventure Game because a player would be pretty cross if he came to the end of a puzzle--a maze, no less--and found out all his work had been for naught.

It might suite as character development. Or a beginning tutorial on how the game plays such as in "Escape from Butcher Bay"

Digging or not, the notion of making an RPG in AGS raises alot of questions. Perhaps not in the common mind,  but atleast in mine. And these are:

What is an RPG?

Is it the excapades so commonly associated with japanese franchises such as FF or Mana, interrupted by endless battles for XP? Or is it the more grim dungeon crawlers from gaming youth where more and more bloody goblins kept appearing, to provide XP for your party. Or is it something else? Roleplaying can be much more than simple killing for loot and level, but are computer gaming the right medium to explore these possebilities? I'd say yes. Like the mentioning of AC: Why on God's earth would we want another D&D-clone 'cause quite frankly, a) the system sucks and b) the system do suck. The notion of levelbased life is stupid to the very core, only useful for balancing battles against eachother. But enough rant about how D&D sucks. Did I mention it sucks? D&D suck. Oh well, onward..

How about throwing that Str, Dex and Sta out the door and focus on matters such as Faith, Respect or Determination. Make a system balancing out social interractions with a random element rather than kick undead ass by equipping Teh Sword of Beheading People Just Like In That Movie (yes, I play Munchkin and yes, I find it very amusing..)

Or screw all that. RPG is about making up a party and venture on moronic quests and slay first blobs and then red blobs, and then perhaps a scantily clad wood nymph. I've said this before, and I say it again; the inventory system is an inbuilt way of making simple character related stats to each presented character. Ofcourse, since AGS has evolved through the roof nowadays, there might even be ways to assign an own array to the characters, but as it is, character

• .inv[y] are excellent ways of maintaining stats, HP, MP and easily refer to them scriptwise.
  
  Just my .02

Morrowind.. now that is classic.

I got a gift certificate on a movie, some candy and a tie. I need ties, so that was nice. It was rather Christmassy though. Hard to have at a funeral, but what the hey! I also got alot of money. About a thousand SEK which is.. 100 euro? Something like that. The rest of the family got to the sale today, me myself stayed at home and kickstarted the ol' comp to buy dvds and a game. Blissfully, owning an "old" system means very cheap games now when everybody crave 360's and Wii's. I bought three animes and two games for about 50 euros total, packaging and delivery included.

2006 was, as the asians say, interesting times. I started out working for a french RPG, whilst I slowly spiralled down into bedlam. Yes, I was rather lost there, or rather, sharper than ever. It may be the beginnings of serious schizophrenia or just a nosedive from my funny-pills, but I was locked into the nut house for a couple of weeks. Very educational experience. Thought "One flew over the cuckoos nest" to be outdated? Not at all. Ok, I didn't receive a lobotomy, but did however lose my right to decide over my life and my freedom, and all due to a single doctors judgement. The nut house is like prison, only with less cavity searches and I didn't become anyones bitch. Ok, so I wanted out. And I got out. But hey, interesting times it was.

I spent the summer in a haze, didn't do much. Met friends. Roleplayed alot. No summer larp this season.. either. But a lot of larp-action going on in spring and autumn. I even started my own saga along with two good friends, one which currently reside in China, the other in Kloster, which has about the same technical advancement only the second being a dump in Sweden.

But the Autumn was salvation. I finally got my inspiration back. Or rather, forced myself to produce. I have been on a dry slope more than a year, but I started making comics again. And it felt good. Got a position as an assistant for a established swedish cartoonist, but it has run into the sand. Started up Vampires Suck, made a month worth of strips I will push upon unwilling publishers. Feels really good!

AGS then. No Mittens this year. Started up two projects, the second being the first evolved. But I have come to the rash conclusion that adventure games is not the medium I prefer telling my stories in. Will ILB ever release another game? I really don't know. Right now, I wouldnt count on it.

Still unemployed, but I do the occasional hours as a art teacher in my old school. Want to kill the little critters! Oh well, can't win them all.