Topics

Hi,

I'm kicking around the UK from about 25th June until the end of the month, after attending a conference about 'Games in Education' in Nottingham.

Does anyone know of any interesting events / get-togethers / all-night cinema marathons etc. that may be happening around that time?

Cheers,
t

Hi,

I have vague memories of a community of amateur voiceover artistes, some of whom were helping people with their voice work for games.

Where was that again?

t

Does anyone know whether SCUMMVM has been released for Series 60 smartphones? I know that they brought out a UIQ port, but that's no good for me. I fancy playing some Sam & Max on my N-GageQD!

t

Forgive my tardiness, it's been a while since I was last here.

Anyway, I've been beavering away on a new website for creative writers - that is, those of you who write the odd short story, poem or script. Judging by some of the AGS game scripts I've done voice work for, I'm betting there's at least some would-be comedy scriptwriters out there.

Anyway, the site is called Great Writing (www.greatwriting.co.uk) and its a completely free community site (of course!). You can post your epics, and have others offer their reviews. Not exactly a forum like this one, although we do have those as well.

We're currently in a public beta phase, so I'm appealing to the more generous of you to come along, sign up and submit (and/or review) some work.

Go on - pretty, pretty, pretty please?

Oh, and we're also running a free writing contest where you can win a holiday in France.

Cheers,
tamper

Hi,

I've got 6 CDs of Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within (dontya love the compactness of FMV games?).

Anyway, I thought it mught be a good idea to burn them to 1 DVD.  Has anyone tried this? If so, would I just copy all the files and sub directories into one master directory and burn from that?

Just thought I'd ask before wasting a DVD trying....

t

Hi,

I've been replaying Sam & Max recently, which despite it's 2D cartoon style art, actually features some 3D pre-rendered animation in some backgrounds - most notably the tram/cable-car at the Ball of Twine, or the helicopter at the World of Fish. I suppose the point is not that its 3D, but that it constitutes quite intense background animation.

I got to wondering how this could be best done in AGS (if at all). These types of animation (well the tram at least) are animated while characters are controllable, so its couldn't be an inserted video-scene.

I guess that leaves having either an animated background (which would be a LOT of frames) or else a really large sprite pasted in place.

Has anyone had experience of implementing something like this?

t

Quick game design opinion time!

I've noticed that in a number of AGS games that background items are often 'named', even when they don't actually play any part in the game. I've seen various examples, but strangely the only one that comes to mind as I write this is the water leak in Apocalypse:Vel.

It's something that doesn't seem to happen in commercial games. I replayed FoA recently and noticed that while the backgrounds were full of details, only 'workable' items had names. I found it a timesaver in solving puzzles, as you aren't wasting time trying to use every object in your inventory with a non-functional background item.

Perhaps it happens in AGS games due to the way it works (in defining hotspots etc.) or maybe people like to explain just what the object is that they've drawn in the background.

So the question is, do we like this practice of assigning names to apparent objects that are never used, or not?

t

PS - I'm excluding deliberate 'red herring' items in this - they're fine in moderation!

Hi all,

I've lurked around these groups awhile - even made the odd post now and then - and by reading the posts of my fellow AGSers I've picked up some tips on adventure game design which I'd like to run by you.

1. Adventure game plots should generally be based on time travel, dystopian sci-fi futures, pirates, Atlantis, cops, toilet humour, or some combination of the above

2. Despite the plot or setting, adventure games should be littered with filmic references and obscure in-jokes

3. Graphics are important in adventure games

4. Graphics are not important in adventure games

5. Most Lucasarts adventures are great and funny, while most Sierra adventures are twee and cloying (or is that just KQ?)

6. Nobody likes pixel-hunting puzzles

7. Use item A+B+C puzzles are tired and unoriginal

8. Conversation-based puzzles are long-winded and boring

9. This doesn't leave a lot of puzzle-types to use

10. Adventure games need neither graphics, sound, text, adventure, nor game, to create an immersive experience.

Is this about right, or do I have more to learn?

Cheers,
t

Hi,

I thought I may be able to get a critique of this image - my first attempt at aiming for the Lucasarts MI / DOTT / Sam & Max kind of style.

Ultimately some of the items would be objects (rather than part of the background image), but I thought it would look better for now to put them into the scene.

Here's the pic:



and if you want to see a bigger one, it's here:
http://www.bigtrak.com/images/diner6.jpg

BTW - it's supposed to be a scrolling screen.

What do you guys think?

Cheers,
t

 

Hi,

I recently downloaded AGS2.56d and I'm working my way through the included tutorial.

I've created and sucessfully saved a sample room, but when I try to select 'Setup Game' (or then 'Test Game'), rather than getting the game setup screen, I get a quick flash of a DOS window stating that 'an Extended Memory Manager is not installed' and sometimes 'too many parameters'.

This is despite the fact that the options are set to compile a Windows executable (not a DOS one). The error also occurs if I try to run my game directly from within the project's 'Compiled' folder.

Interestingly, if I do a 'Test Game' on one of the SCUMM templates (e.g. DOTT) available on this forum, the template compiles just fine.

Anyone else had these problems and found a solution?

Cheers,
t

I was browsing the forums earlier today and briefly there was an ALT tag on the AGS banner (like the one at the top of this page) which listed all the games shown in the banner.

Now it's gone. Is anyone up to the challenge of listing the games (L to R) shown in the banner?

Sorry - very first post to this board, and it's deathly-dull and n00bish...

Must do better,
t