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[What's an Hoursong competition?]

Hi
Sorry, i couldnt make it for hoursong Saturday, so for this weekend its sunday ^^
(note to self: 6 pm gmt is 19:00 where i live - germany)

So i copy and pate from the other thread, with the slightly corrected dates for this hoursong tomorrow:

"What's an Hoursong competition?
The purpose of Hoursong is to encourage composers and test them under a trial of fire. In this activity your task is to make a song within a strict and very short deadline (i.e. one hour).

When will it take place?
This Hoursong session will take place on Sunday (but usually Saturday) at 6pm GMT. Participants will have an hour to make their song + 15 minutes to put in finishing touches (maybe mix) / upload.

How do I participate?
A theme is set by the previous hoursong's winner (that's me). It will be announced on IRC and here on Sunday. You can also contact me on IRC and partake earlier, if you can't make it on Saturday.

Why should I participate?
Because it's FUN!
The more the merrier, and it's great pactice for the ol' music-making skills.

Additional info:
- While it is not forbidden for the theme-setters to participate in the activity, their songs cannot be voted for (to prevent accusations of cheating and to discourage regular participation).
- Instead, theme-setters are encouraged to draw trophies for the contest's winners.
- Making your song from scratch is strongly encouraged. Cover songs will not be accepted. However, participants are allowed to use one (1) element maximum that has been used already by other artists (like a riff). Just don't steal a whole chorus or something like that.
- You cannot use stuff you've made earlier, because this competition is about making something new.

Camwhoring:
If you have Camtasia or Camtasia-esque software, it would be great to see your "Making of"! Or blog about it, or just open Notepad, do something! No twittering.

Uploading:

TerranRich's ShutUpload

Song formats:
Please use .ogg, .mp3 or MIDI. If a participant doesn't have time to convert the tune in either ogg or mp3, they are allowed to post it in whatever format they have, just make sure that the format can be played with either Windows Media Player or Winamp. This is to ensure that absolutely anyone can hear the tune.

Voting:
Just tell us your favourite tune. You don't have to enter to vote!
(If you want to tell us what you liked and disliked about all the entries, that would be super nice of you!)
The voting will end after a week.
Again, you don't have to enter to vote!

Please post here if you want to participate, if you´d like to start an hour sooner/later ect."


Ok so i hope nobody kills me for hosting it on Sunday, and i hope i did everything right ^^

Hi,
i want to make an japanese style Adventure like Policenauts. Is that possible with AGS?

If you dont know what that means, here is the deal:

You dont have a sprite to walk around. What you see is sometimes a picture of what the charakter sees, and sometimes a picture of the scene that can include the charakter too. It is a little bit like if you progress through a comic book, and has a very cinematic feel to it if done right.

You dont have a menu bar with general options like "look, take, push" or stuff like that. If you click on the picture, and you found something you can interact with, a context menu appears. That menu has options that are made for exactly that object you clicked on only. For example you click on your phone and then a menu comes up saying "look" (which gives a description of the phone) and "call Freddy" (where you call Freddy, then talk to him via multiple choice). If i have done something, maybe options dissapear, or new options for certain objects appear.
Basically it is just getting rid of "normal" options that adventures usually have, and making the game nothing else then multiple choice dialogues - where the dialogues also can trigger every stuff you need to run an adventure (changing room and inventory, ... everything), and are not dialogues, but actions you do. Would also be nice if those dialogue options could appear right next to the clicked objects and not just at the bottom of the screen.

What i also want to include would be the simple shooting game that is also in Policenauts. Basically it is just some sprite running around that you can click on to shoot it. Over time the sprite will shoot back and can kill you if you are not fast enough. And you have to reaload.
Dont know if it is possible to assign some scripting action to the second mouse button, but if that is not possible i think that could be solved by making an interactive object that just says "reaload" if you click on it.

If you still dont know what i am talking about, here is a youtube link that spoilers basically nothing from Policenauts in case you want to play it some time. In the beginning you can see the player clicking aroudn because he searches some guy, and most of the time "look" is the only option. At 0.27 he gets a multiple choice box, and around 0.48 the shooting game begins.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jbR_XfAd2A&feature=PlayList&p=A3EBB748FDB80698&index=3

So what is important to me is the following:
- Is it just overall possible to do this, including the shooting minigame?
- If i can just make my game using multiple choice dialogue all the time, is it possible to show a box with those options next to the object?
- Can i assign commands to the second mouse button?
- Can i change the cursor appearence via script (when i call the shooting minigame)?

Ok my little question of "is it possible?" just got much more detailed than i inteded it to be, dont kill me for that.