Topics

I'm a week late with this, but I was wondering if anybody caught (or will catch when it's on in your region) the Mythbusters moon landing episode.

If so, what are your thoughts?  I'll withhold mine for now so as not to color the discussion right away.

A point and click adventure for a console?  Getting killer reviews?  What is this, ten years ago?

I picked up Zack & Wiki last night and despite the fact that you play a pirate with a monkey as an assistant, the game is derivative of nothing.

It's comprised of large areas which are further comprised of smaller levels.  Each of these levels has a treasure chest which you must gain access to by solving some very well-crafted and fresh environmental puzzles.

There are various animals and creatures roaming the levels, and these can be turned into items by using the monkey (Wiki) as a bell.  Sometimes you'll need to use these items to solve part of the overarching puzzle for that level, sometimes you'll simply need to transport the item so that you can change it back into the animal when you've gotten it where you need it.

Graphically, the game is very appealing.  Cel shaders are used to an unusually good effect.  The characters are full of detail and personality.  The levels are dense and colorful.  Everything is also very pleasantly round... none of those pointy polygon angles found in most Wii games.

Is there character death?  Oh, you betcha.  Most of the "enemies" you encounter are really just factors of the environment.  Part of the puzzle is always finding a way to do things without catching their attention... or finding a way to do things that leads to their demise.  I once got crushed by a big red ball with a frowny-face, but that was due to my failure to learn from Indiana Jones' mistakes... I stepped on a funny panel.  There are also boss fights which can be accessed after you've cleared enough of the levels in the area you're exploring.

The good news is that since the venues are so small, you can just restart that level from the top and, having already figured your way, whip through it back to the point of your demise.  Or, you can trade in a special purchasable ticket to reset time to the point right before you made your fatal mistake... but you'll suffer a point penalty after you've gotten the treasure and thereby cleared the level.

If you haven't yet guessed, I reccommend the game highly.  It's one of the few games I've played in a long time that made me realize that I'd made the right decision at the store and stumbled onto something special.  If you have a Wii, it's worth a look.

Hiya.  I've been playing with the Adventure Creator builds for kicks today and I got to wondering about what was around that it was compatible with back in the day.  IBM/PC is pretty obvious, but what about other systems like the later C64?  Wasn't it just finishing up its run back then?

I guess the real question concerns the interchangeability of DOS systems.  Is there enough similarity between C64 and IBM, or is there simply no chance?

Here's the situation: You were walking home from the electronics store and strangely enough, you stepped on an unknown piece of hollow earth.  The ground gave way beneath you and you toppled several feet to the bottom of an underground cavern chamber.  You fear that your leg is badly injured.

You shout for help until you're hoarse, but there is nobody around.  The hole that you fell through is in a residential area so there is little to no midday traffic, not that anyone in a car could hear you anyway.  An hour passes.  Another hour passes.  Pretty soon, the dry cave air has robbed you of your voice entirely.

You had purchased a new CD-ROM drive for your little brother's computer, but it was smashed open in the impact when you landed.  You also purchased a set of screwdrivers.  You always keep a roll of duct tape and a flashlight (the thin type with two AA batteries) in your backpack because frankly, you're a nerd.  Unfortunately, the flashlight was jarred when you landed and the glass plate and the bulb have both shattered.

Your left pocket contains $3.42, a receipt, and an inkpen.  Your right pocket contains your house key, a pair of nail clippers, and a few still-wrapped toothpicks you grabbed from the register counter when you had a deli lunch.  In your wallet is a business card, your license and a twenty dollar bill.

At last, 5:00 PM arrives and you can hear the sounds of automobiles through the open hole yawning so near and yet impossibly far above you.  You have about an hour before the last of the daily commuters has settled in and left you behind.  It's time to act now or spend the night in a dusty cave with an injured leg and no chance of being found until 8:00 AM.

What do you do?  If you want to ask questions about any of the items you have, I will try to answer efficiently, but please forgive me if I'm unable.  I have a specific solution in mind, but since this is puzzle is in a very organic format, I'm sure there are others that I'd be interested to hear.

The Discovery Channel is currently featuring a documentary about video games titled "Rise of the Video Game."

Level One was the first of the series and featured the true original video game... "Tennis for Two" (as played on oscilloscope!) and rounded out with a look at Tetris and Pac-Man.  It originally aired on November 21st.

Level Two will feature the 8-16 bit generations with some Playstation for good measure.

What is of note and (more importantly) what makes this fit the forum's topic is that Level Two will feature interviews with both Al Lowe (Liesure Suit Larry) and Tim Schafer, who likely needs no parenthetical explanation.

Check it out Wednesday, November 28th at 8:00 ET on Discovery Channel.

I've been attempting to implement a function in which my player character can inquire about a computer file (complete with extension) by way of the text parser.

When I enter the word in the parser list as "filename.ext" I get problems.  The code works perfectly if I simply use "filename".

I'm certain that I'm updating both the parser list and the calling function.

So is the problem that periods can't be used as regular characters in the text parser?  If so, is there a known workaround?

Has anyone picked this up and played through yet?  I have to give major props to Capcom this time around.  The overarching story was incredibly good; the best of the series so far.  They've certainly topped themselves which was no easy task after the first two.

If you've already played through,

Spoiler

What did you think of Phoenix handing over his badge to Edgeworth?  I thought it was a stroke of genius.  It was nice being able to see how his mind works.

[close]

Hiya.  I'm working on a special project at the moment that calls for a pregnant character.  Here you can see that I've done some work toward a walk cycle, but it's such an unusual animation that I'm afraid I might have overlooked something in my quest for a sort of a brisk waddle.

Please keep in mind that this is only an animation test... I'm aware of all of the issues with jaggies and facial oddness and whatnot.  I just want to make sure the movements are okay before I begin the arduous detail work.

 

Merv Griffin has died of prostate cancer at age 82.

I think he deserves a bit of the credit for the mainstreaming of non-sport games in media, right?

[Sprite]

This is actually TheJBurger's honor by all rights, but life has called him away, so he's passed the torch to me.

That said, I present to you... a new Sprite Jam for the week of Sunday, April 15 - Saturday, April 21.

FOOTWEAR

That's right!  Let's see some legwork this week.  First and foremost, be creative.  Think of the footwear as more of a starting point than anything.  Think shoes, boots, sandals, flip-flops, or even bunny slippers, and then run with it.

You can even make up your own types of footwear.  Prosthetics are not out of the question... think Sligs from the Oddworld series.

Edit:  Yeah... I just realized that I didn't put any restrictions.  It wouldn't really be fair of me to impose them now that this has been posted for awhile and some of you may already be at work, but for those of you who like guidelines, the ideal image is no more than 128*128, using no more than 256 colors.  Pretty daggone big for a sprite.  Scale it down as you wish.

Nobody will lose any points for falling outside of those parameters, but this is a Sprite Jam nonetheless... so it does have to be functional as a sprite.  We all know the difference.

Confusing topic, maybe... but here's what I'm up to.

I have a character who constantly idles, and this is accomplished using the SetIdle(n, 0) command.  Works fine.

However, I need to have this character occasionally run a different idle loop... just once through, and then resume the standard idle.

I can set up a function that gets a Random(99) passed to it and sets the Idle Animation based on that number (say, for example, to make the secondary idle animation run 5% of the time), but I'm just not experienced enough with programming to have it work out so that the animation will run in its entirety and then resume with the old.  I get some sort of odd seizure-like clash of animations competing with one another to play out.

Help?

Hello again, folks.

This time it's a running-in-place animation.  I actually downloaded a video of someone running in place and based this animation upon that footage... folks, this version is MORE animated than the fitness instructor in the video.



Now, I think this animation is pretty good... but I'm not in the business of pretty good

Anybody got a suggestion to make it great?  I should mention that this character is a ball of perpetual motion... running in place is just its default state.

Heya... I'm making a game which features robotic characters, and I'd very much like to handle their speech by using text while random mechanical-sounding syllables play in the background.  Is this possible?  I've tried the following...

Code: ags

//Repeatedly Execute Always function
function repeatedly_execute_always()
{
  while (cThirtysix.Speaking)
  {
   PlaySound(Random(2)+12);
  }
}

...to no avail.  I even tried commenting out everything but the PlaySound command, and that actually worked... so I suspect that there's something I don't understand about the .Speaking deal.  Can anyone help me out?

This is a walkloop for a heavy in my WIP titled Prototypical.  I like the overall design, and I actually like the walk, too... but I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for making it look a bit more... dynamic.  I was thinking... and my wife confirmed... that it almost looks as if the 'bot is manipulating an unseen wheelchair.  Any thoughts?

I've decided to leave the leapfrog-ish walk for now and try out a knuckle walk instead.  I even looked up a video of a walking gorilla for reference.  It's not exactly dead-on due to anatomical differences between the 'bot and a real gorilla, but I think it's much smoother and more natural than my previous attempt.

[Updated Monday, June 11]

The demo still lives here:
Prototypical Demo!

Before I forget, you will need the XviD codec.

Prototypical is the tale of an experimental robot.  A prototype, in point of fact.  This particular robot was blessed by his creators with a highly sophisticated set of problem-solving algorithms.  Meant to be the next step toward hightened artificial intelligence, it was cold-booted in front of many cameras and blank robotic eyes, submitted to a brief series of intelligence examinations, and finally carted off to a trash compactor to be unceremoniously destroyed so as not to be unlawfully lifted by its creators' rivals.

You take on the role of that robot.  Your first task is to escape your imminent doom.  From there, get ready to be tossed headfirst into a bizarre world inhabited by fellow machines who follow only their own logic.  Work your way through the system and team up with a resistance bent on eventually taking down the company that created you.

Surprisingly enough, progress continues on the  Prototypical front.  There are various and sundry rooms in production as well as a character or two.  Or three.

The story is pretty much fleshed out from start to finish, and it turns out that in order to fit everything in that we want to fit in, we're going to have to break it up into chapters.  Five are planned, with the "prologue" which currently exists as the demo tacked to the beginning of the first... and slightly modified.  Augmented, if you will.

Updated Monday, June 11.  Major work on backgrounds, major overhaul to dialogue system.



Chattin' it up at the hotel... Copperwell...

This is a preview of the direction we're taking with dialogue.  I have made the somewhat painful decision to go with the Sierra-style dialogue system in what I believe to be a more LucasArts-style game.  I just think that it looks cleaner and fits the aesthetics of the game better.  Agree?



The lights are much brighter there, of course.  This room is one of two hubs, which are directly connected to one another.  I like to keep my world design simple.



Raiding peoples' garages is a traditional undertaking, the importance of which cannot be understated.  It's like a rite of passage.  You are not a true adventure gamer until you've done it.

**updated**

Now with 100% more flow.  Some lines were added, some were removed.  Fixed the reversed arm issue.  Fixed the crazy spaz-bob.  There are some flyaway pixels but I almost kinda like 'em.