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Gosh - this is shaping up to be marvellous, and seamlessly classic and Loom-esque! I just played the demo and I'm very impressed by the clever gauntlets system. I can see how that's going to follow on from Loom's creative puzzling. The backgrounds and the bit of new story you gave away in the preview are spot-on and really have that grand fantasy feel...

I also enjoyed the tutorial dialogue, there's even the gentle sense of humour that I was hoping for.

This is the good kind of fan sequel. Looking forward!

I like the writing, it has Yahtzee's stamp despite not being as story-heavy as his adventure games. And good to see him stretching AGS like with that Galaxy game he did. My favourite thing about it so far is the music.

Not sure how far in I am now, but I did a big chunk of the game today, and it's a lot of fun. I think I'll echo Helm's comments about space combat - for how much of it there is at times, it is pretty samey and simple. But as an experiment in combining different types of gameplay it's just part of a very cool bigger picture. You have to make cash, which you can do in several different ways (most obviously in exploiting lucrative trade routes) and the game diverges into neat little minigames, some optional, some part of the main storyline. It becomes a very different flavour of AGS game, which is good to see.

Also, quite funny at times. The stupid Redshirt deaths are great! Nicely referential (Star Trek/Sierra).

Another hit from Yahtzee, it seems. Nice one.

No, I don't think it's wrong or undermining Yahtzee to let people know he has a new game, once he's published it on his website.

I thought it was important to repeat what he said about it possibly being a little buggy, but he's put it out on the Internet because he wants people to play it. Is it meant to be a secret?

Someone here would have drawn our attention to it at some point if it wasn't me. Maybe this particular forum wasn't the best place to post in hindsight, as I was 'announcing by proxy', which is a bit iffy, but the effect is the same - AGS people see there's a new Yahtzee game, and check it out.

I have no idea how high-traffic that website is, or how many of you visit it regularly, but a large amount of the people who'd enjoy a new Yahtzee game visit these very forums, so I just thought I'd point it out. If Yahtzee says he hates his games being announced here for whatever reason, my sincere apologies of course, and I certainly wouldn't do it again. But I would have guessed he'd be happy for people who like this kind of game to download and play it.

Okay, there is probably something to be said for the satisfaction of really having to make your brain work to solve the trickier puzzles, then finally cracking it, which was pretty much the only way to do it back then - short of calling a hint line or ordering a hint book.

But personally, I don't think it was always like that when I spent a long time stuck.

Rather than puzzling it out, more often than not I'd just be scouring each and every room I'd visited for a previously-unnoticed hotspot, or maybe exhausting all the conversation topics with everyone in the game so far. It's not really playing a game anymore once you start to do that - it's just a frustrated approach of bulldozing your way through to the next bit.

I've thought about this in the past, and decided that what I like about adventure games is not so much the process of solving it or a sense of achievement. Frankly, for me, the actual puzzling is a tiny part of the enjoyment, next to the way the best games allow you to immerse yourself in a world and its characters through interaction. Sometimes I think that in good game design, the player should never be stuck for more than a few minutes (controversial?).

So I don't get too nostalgic about not having walkthroughs easily available. I'm more interested in getting on with the story, even if I did have the time to be stuck.

[Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment]

I haven't seen this mentioned here yet, but Yahtzee (of Rob Blanc, Odysseus Kent and 'X Days an X' series fame) has unleashed another AGS game, Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment.

As far as I know he still doesn't come here, but I thought his last few adventure games were awesome, and I know many here have enjoyed them. So I thought I'd announce it for him, with his own proviso: "Please note that, at time of writing, this is a largely untested version of GFW (at least, untested by anyone other than me). Play it now by all means, I'm just saying that later versions may have less bugs."

I've only played a few minutes so far, but it seems very interesting. He marks this one out as an attempt to push AGS's potential, adding space trading, free-roaming exploration, side quests etc. to the typical adventure formula.

Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment info & download
Home page of Yahtzee's website - latest post (25/7/05) talks about the game and some inspirations for it

Awesome! Yep, this looks like just about the best thing ever. Wallace & Gromit finally back, and on the big screen, feature-length. Can't wait!

The entirety of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. My favourite music of any game ever. Great layered MIDI scoring that always fits with what's happening in the game beautifully. I think it was quite innovative too, the first use of iMuse.

Yeah, I really like the Flight stuff. Volume One is well worth checking out, and the even-bigger-and-better Volume Two is out next month.

A lot of my favourites have already been covered by some good choices from you guys, but here's mix of gag strips, ongoing story strips, and random bonkers favourites of mine that haven't already been mentioned.

Double Fine Action Comics - already known to most of you I'm sure, but certainly one of my most-checked bookmarks.
Copper - the excellent Kazu Kibuishi's beautiful full-colour tales of Copper and his dog Fred. Check out his print stuff (Daisy Kutter, the Flight anthologies) too.
Beneath The Leaves - just started, Rad Sechrist's monthly each-one-is-stand-alone-but-part-of-a-story-too comic.
Nedroid
Boy On A Stick And Slither
Cat And Girl
The New Adventures Of Death
Johnny Crossbones - Les McClaine's ongoing Tintinesque adventure story.
Captain August - Rodi from the Idle Thumbs and Adventure Gamers started this strip last year. Rather madcap stuff, some good episodes so far. I think it might hit its stride sometime soon.

That's enough, I should get back to work. As for the proliferation of bad webcomics, anyone with some webspace can create them, so inevitably the medium sees a lot of shoddy art and writing. But it's also a medium with lots of great potential, and I'm always stumbling across stuff that I like, in the world of the funny gag strip and beyond.

Whoa, awesome! Which type/size did you get? I want to buy an Intuos2 A5 sometime soon, it's one of those things I keep putting off, but it's holding back what I want to do with art/animation.

How are you finding it to get to grips with?

Thanks for listing all those. I've never stumbled across Trap's 'Monkey Brain Soup For The Soul' before, that's great. Some neat transitions and crazy goofy stylings (0:53 - 1:39 is so awesome). The ending is funny.

There's something about hearing these classic game tunes changed around and blended that is really satisfying. If you love Monkey Island music (who doesn't) then of course the SCUMM Bar's fan music page is a page to check out. Insofox's jazzy LeChuck theme there is pretty cool.

It's an interesting eye-opener, and goes some way to explaining why 2D adventure in its commercial aspect isn't exactly thriving. It doesn't really apply to AGS, as most of these games are made as freeware, by individuals or small groups of people in their spare time. Every so often a game comes along made in AGS that feels surprisingly polished, all things considered. When you approach it on a professional level though, it's another kettle of fish.

So I'm pretty happy for these games to persist almost solely 'underground'. I still think exciting things are happening in games today, and whilst developers should be learning from the game design and storytelling of the classic 2D adventures, I'm not desperate for them to get back to making them, and potentially bankrupting themselves in the process.

I still love 2D artwork and gameplay, and AGS has always been more than a nostalgia trip for me. There's some brilliantly put-together games. It's just that, on balance, I can accept that there won't really be many more professionally-produced 2D adventures in the shops. Articles like this show how unlikely they are to resurface. As has been said, all the more reason to be grateful for the AGS community.

A lot of people have this sort of thing happen with the AMD Athlon XP processors, it is usually a matter of changing a FSB multiplier switch position on the motherboard. I don't know how a laptop's motherboard would be different but hopefully you have a switch somewhere if there's nothing you can do to the BIOS.

This page may be of some help, there's a sticky about this and several other threads. I have a similar thing in that my 2600+ is only running at 1.14 GHz, not the 1.9 or whatever it's supposed to, but I hope to fix that soon.

I got 134 points, I missed the map and talking tree, also I didn't throw the baby to get the soda. Not sure what else, I wondered if there was an alternate ending. Very cool stuff, I love the 'internal speaker' music.

Grim Fandango, following Lola's clues to find the photo, so that you can blackmail Nick. Several logical stages to the puzzle and the final payoff for working out the date you need to request a photo-finish for, from all the clues, is just satisfying.

Also most of the stuff in Monkey Island 2, which is near-perfection in puzzles I think. You can't beat Part II: Four Map Pieces for tight, clear puzzle structures, blended with the all-important freedom to move between islands/puzzles.

Overall I think 5 Days A Stranger has the edge, but Yahtzee's extended the story very inventively. I thought it was pretty neat how several days in he linked Trilby and DaFoe to what was going on.

Both games were pretty linear, you could generally only solve one puzzle at a time to move on the story, but that restriction of the player's freedom might be said to be crucial to the feel of the game., and a kind of tight focus on what you have to do next (which was always very clear).

Generally, it's bad adventure game design to have only one puzzle to follow on more than a few occasions, but Yahtzee made sure the linearity wasn't frustrating. Basically every few actions you were getting a nice cutscene, and rewards as you play are what it's all about. I found the plot interesting and dramatic.

Simple but great creation of atmosphere too - music, breathing/walking sound effects, nice dialogue.

I always look forward to Yahtzee unleashing a new game on us, since Odysseus Kent they've always been pleasant surprises. The two horror games have been superb, I think he now needs to get back to comedy.

In my experience, there's some cheaper ones like 'Trust' tablets but don't be tempted by them. Wacom are definitely the tops, they have the best pressure sensitivity levels that are really essential in a good tablet. The stylus dynamics work really well, and also you've got the fantastic customisable grip-pen and 4D mouse to play with. I think it's very much value for money, however steep they seem when you're shopping for them, which you seem to have already noticed.

I've been playing with my dad's Intuos A4 recently and I'm convinced enough that soon I plan to get my own Intuos2 A5 (I find I don't really need the wide spread of the A4 tablet for the stuff I draw).

I can't really grow a beard but I often try. I do have long hair though. Ideally I'd have both, like Guybrush in MI2, 'Let It Be' era McCartney, and Gandalf. All very cool people.

The South Park episode is called 'Free Hat', it's from Season 6, and it's one of my favourite ever! Definitely try and catch then whenever it's on.

As for director's cuts, I'm generally not a big fan of them but I can tolerate them if they're the alternative. Lucas is actually being very revisionist, trying to erase his old films from memory and replace them with his new, 'better' versions, which is wrong. The original Star Wars trilogy were classics as released and seen in theatres, and you can't buy them legitimately anymore, which is just plain wrong.

Some good examples of the use of director's cuts are Peter Jackson's Extended Edition 'Lord Of The Rings' films. He always says these are neither better nor worse than the shorter theatrical edits but are just designed for home viewing, where you can watch a DVD over a few nights. The longer length allows for more stuff from the books, more character and non-crucial scenes. And, importantly, you can still buy the theatrical cuts if you so wish (I don't, but it's good they're there).  This is a good approach to alternate cuts and has been the plan from the start.

Also the recent 'Alien' series DVDs, I've got the first two films and they both have the choice of watching the Theatrical or Directors' Cuts, which is really great, and I wish more would do that when a Director's Cut has been made. When it's your only choice you're sort of being deprived of the genuine article from film history, which I find a bit frustrating. 'Director's Cut' isn't a selling-point for me, unless I have the original too.

I think Lucas genuinely does think he's improving these films but in reality he's meddling with proven much-loved classics, and damaging his legacy. He just looks like a fussy, misguided perfectionist who could put that effort into making his new films better.