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Here be a blog full of Helmy comics!

I may not be active in this forum anymore, but since I was led out of my cave on the promise of MANLINESS I might as well horrifically pimp my latest endeavor in your collective faces! If interested, do take care to read the blog from the beginning up because a lot of information might initially escape you (about how for example these comics are 3 years old!)

I will be around for a while, so if you want to give me feedback, I'm all mustaches. You can also leave comments in the blog if you miss my brief stay on this forum!

Following on from the picture thread, is it right for a man of 25 to date a girl of 16?

I must admit that I don't know a lot of young girls that are mature to the point where I wouldn't feel it creepy to try to have my way with them (as a 23 year old), but I'm sure some exist. We've all heard of tales of 'dude, she totally looked 3 years older than she was!' and I am prepared to admit that this can happen.

Remember the rule: take your age, divide it by two (round up), add seven = minimum ethical age of courtship!!1

Yes yes, you know how this works! There's no longer a winner or anything, and I will try to comment on all of them, and at the end show the original text version. You can edit bubble shapes and whatever else about the comic, but try to do only text versions before it all degenerates into slapping penises on grandpa's face or whatnot.



Funny is appreciated. Well-done is appreciated. Well-done and funny will make me hug my cat!

http://home.comcast.net/~ervind/digstuff/digbm1.html

Image size warning for dial-up users.

The Dig has been remarkably different once, though the core design seems to have remained the same. Another character died and resurrected and all that? Strange.

Full of spoilers, so probably more for people who have played and finished The Dig.

It's that time of whenever again. Here be a comic I inked just today, it's sent to the paper.



I only post my version first because I need to justify the white blanks in the centerpiece for the empty version below.



As usual, there will be no winner of anything besides extra positive karma, I will translate my version at the end, and discuss all the entries.

I believe the posibities for both hilarity and storytelling are good for this piece, but then again, last time around I thought there wasn't much room for variation and look what happened! Maybe this time the compo will suck and I will cry. We'll see.

You all know what to do.

Discuss.

Hello. We used to do this back in the old days, now we are going to do this again. Here's a comic page I drew:



You guys write in the dialogue, anything you want, feel free to add or substract from the number of balloons, or change their sizes or whatever. The entries will be judged either on hilarity (if such an effect is attempted, intentionally or not) or all-around awesomity.

Maybe in the end I'll post my original version too if you guys are interested. There is no reward for the winner besides everybody else thinking they're swell guys. If this goes well, we might do it again in a week, god knows, I have too many comics I could upload.

Let's go!

www.locustleaves.com/music/suddenstillpart7.ogg


This is a song that I've been recording for a month now. It's 12 minutes, no macrostructural repetition of parts (a theme may be repeated in a row, but once evolved or abandoned for a new theme, there may be no return to it later on. no versebridgechorus stuff here) and is currently instrumental all the way. It's a remake of an old track, named 'Sudden' which in turn was a remake of an even older track named 'Still' so there you go. The original was played (badly) by a full band, two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums. The middle version was recorded as guitar tracks to teach a then new guitarist the song, and now that there is no more live band, this has been all done at home. No real amps were used, guitar to distortion pedal, signal to sound card, Sonar for mixing. There's a string quartet in the background, a full pipe organ, a bassoon and a flute, courtesy of Garritan, and the drums are an extensively equalized and tweaked verson of the free NS Kit.

For people with such weird kinks, you can listen to the old sudden here to check how far it's come since it's two-years-ago-incarnation. The 'still' version isn't even online, it's that bad. The song was mostly composed 3 years ago or so, although it's fair to say that there's been extensive reworking of parts along the way.

There's going to be vocals eventually, but it'll take a few months more to work up to this, so this is a mix to critique and comment on for the time being.

Known issues are this strange crackling at 2:00ish and 3:00ish... I'm not sure where it's coming from. I think it's the result of my CPU struggling when I mix down without having frozen all the tracks, so hopefully on the final mix that'll be delt with. Otherwise, fire away! Nitpicks, major blunders, ideas and opinions are all welcome.

[Horrible Quest, Hi Colour and a few Blancs Era (1999-2000):]

I was looking through my private message outbox for the first time and found this pm I had sent to Andail back in 2003 for whatever reason. Seriously do not remember what produced this retrospective mood, but I think it's an interesting read still



Horrible Quest, Hi Colour and a few Blancs Era (1999-2000):

Noted Games: House Quest, Lassi's Quest, Rob Blanc 1.


Community: The era I arrived in, although there was a Obscuritly Obscure Era of Obscureness before that, but everybody's reluctant to talk about that... However I have a strong impression of those times. The community was very small, replies to the forum threads counted at one every day -if at all-, rather than one every other second like now. Many people who became prestigious members later on were just making their humble -or not so humble- begginings now, such as Spyros, Phil Reed, Rode... Back then, there weren't many non-AGS threads, because people didn't see it any point to them, given the number of people around.

Highlights:

*Yahtzee carried himself around as not only a member of the Have Finished A Full Game club, but also the president.

*Greg Hurst was Master Coder. He practically dominated the tech forum along with Gilbot.

*I suspect Chris at that time, not only couldn't forsee how successful AGS would be, but also was just a bit sad to how people used his engine...

*About then, Chris made the General forum, which I dubbed General General. Not many people would give me credit for that name, simply because once I mentioned it, everybody started using it because it made absolute -in a sorta idiot savant- sense. Ags Technical, Ags General, General General.

*On said General General, the very first few threads included a "What kind of music do you listen to?" by Sylpher, who also for extra points mentioned Cannibal Corpse. That was a thread we're doomed to replay all over again every other month.  A "pizza or burritos" thread by some incarnation of the user, Gravity, later creator of the basic idea of Reality on the Norm.

Civil War, Public Unrest and some Great Games Era(~2001 and maybe the first half of 2002)

Noted Games: Larry Vales, Larry Vales, Larry Vales. Rodekill, Permanent Daylight.

Community: With LV and Rob Blanc 2 and 3, we suddenly had quite a few more users joining. Those games were something of a 'test' for AGS. When people played them, they understood it wasn't as limited as they'd like to think, and thus not as easily dismissable. Also because GLUMOL and more notably SCRAMM weren't an option, they all turned to AGS which was free, fully functional and constantly updated. Some other users of the past have matured into members of said club, which Yahtzee continued to pioneer. Spyros, Shawn, tomato, where all members with stature, and a few games under their belts at the time, much to Yahtzees dismay, which led to his departure. Other users simply left, like Abstauber or Bionic Bill. The ags general general had become the most frequented board at the time, with lots of -in retrospect- quite interesting threads, and a few fights.


Highlights:

*The wonderful AGS zine.

*The Whiteboard, made by eric was a consistent outlet of communal creativity. Some people created friendships there that endure to this day. It was one of the more enjoyable spects of the AGS scene, at the time.

*Joke games, and characters. DGM and me are to blame for them, I think. Snail Quest was the first 'joke' game, if memory serves. Andy Penish remains the original joke character, may his soul rest in a paradise made of slippery treats.

*Andail left, came back, left and came back. It was a silly time.

*National AGS Teams. A product of Spyros and me, the first national ags team was GAC, shortly followed by the (now defunct?) DNA. Partly joke, partly distribution novelty, it added a competition flair to the AGS community.

*MAGS



Newbie Counterstrike from the Norm Era (~2002)


Noted Games: first few RONs, SOL, 6 Day Assassin, PLEUGHBRUDUGFDHTG, Tulle's World III, the Bucher games...

Community: RON was, on retrospect, a blessing for the community. Many members appeared after descovering RON, and a few of them grew to be asteemed creators. The engine flourished under the constant attention and application and the quality of talent abound was amazing. The forums changed a bit. Less personal and more utilitarian. Not much else to say. I became slowly but gradualy detached from the scene by then, to concentrate on a number of other things, so there's no highlights of that era besides the games themselves. Oh, Run Hot didn't come out.

Today's a Fine Day to Dream Era

We're living in it, really.



So, in that happy community spirit, I ask people that have been here from 2003 and onwards to comment on the age since then to now, and where we stand today.

[Edited by moderator:]

Hello. This here thread is where you will compose music for me. I require of the participants to compose a theme or configuration of themes, with a single emotion in mind. This emotion can be any 'lower' emotion, nothing too complex. So 'fear' or 'adoration' or 'excitement' goes, but 'the strange empty feeling I felt after I ate a bad hotdog that summer day back in '98' doesn't. The point of the exercise will be the following: after all the entries have been posted, the composers will send pms to me with the emotion they were going for. And everybody has listened to everybody elses music, we (well... everybody else than me) will all guess in ONE word, what emotion the other people were going for. Then, after one or two days of guessing, I will reveal the emotions people have gone for, and this contest will sort of announce it's own winner.

I'll suggest you name your files something inconspicuous like 'file002.mp3' and not 'INTENZFEAR.mp3' for apparent reasons.

Go.

Edited by moderator: Since the idea of this particular contest works a bit differently to the otehr turns, I'll stick it temporally to plug it so maybe more people can listen to the entries and give guesses.

Here's another orow game on an individual release.

Made Ghormak and Helm. I did the art and most of the design, Ghormak did the scripting and the awesome SID music. We liked making it almost as much everybody else liked not playing it. This release has more help for people who found it too difficult, as well as some SIKRETS.

blah blah orow game no point to post screenshots blah blah

This was made for the one room one week compo. It lost. If you haven't played, give it a whirl, it's ok. I did everything but some of the writing, which Unilin did. A guy you don't know playtested a little. As it goes, it was made in one week so it's not the epitome of cleanly-made, therefore. Even if I had more time, I'm not very good with scripting, so it's unchanged from the compo version. Read the info before playing, as there's some known bugs.  This was intended to be played in 640x480, windowed with sound on and NO AUTOMATIC AA on the characters, but suit yourself. It looks bad in 320x240.

There will be no screenshots or anything else to lure you to play this. The point of the compo was to make a game in one room, so I won't spoil anything.

Get it here.

Hello again. This is where I tell you about our Greece Mittens options.

It's going to be in Evia, specifically 'Agia Anna' ( stands for Saint Anna ) which is a couple of hours outside Athens. I've been there and it's very nice. When I started trying to organize this a bit, I wanted to avoid camping as much as possible, and get us into houses of friends or whatever, but that fell through completely, so I'm sorry, it's going to have to be tents again. However, all is not lost, as we'll be camping, there:

http://www.clubagiaanna.gr/profile.htm


And I think this looks very nice. You can check out the prices there, although we might get somewhat better ones as we're going as a group, and they told me there's group rates as well. The big issue is WHEN we go, as prices differ before and after 15 of august. So in addition to posting in this thread to tell me that you're coming, I'd like to hear preferences for before, or after 15 of august. We're going to be spending a week there, so each of you should tell me if you'd like the before week, after week, or do not care. When everybody's oppinion is accounted for, we're going to get a definite date, and then people will have to either commit to that, or pass. The monetary difference isn't so vast, really, before or after. What matters is to decide on the date that suits most of the agsers that want to come. Rough calculations show the need of about 50 - 60 euros for the whole stay there. That is, assuming one brings his own tent. Small tents should hold two people, so each of you should be prepared to pair up, get intimate and ultimately do nocturnal massages to at least one other agser, but that's nothing new.

The admission price I've been told, includes some partial nutrition, the usage of the pool, the usage of the minibuses that will take us to the beach and so on, so forth.

What I need is a honest roll-call, so I can call and make a reservation to a specific amount of people. When I called, I discussed a figure around 20ish people, but knowing for sure is better. In the case however that someone bails out, or somebody else decides to come at the last moment, I'm sure we'll be able to work that out. The problem would be to tell them that 20 people are coming, and then only 10 show up. Then we might have to pay the extra reservations, which is not nice. 

Be aware that in addition to the Agia Anna camping money, you'll be spending 30-40 euros on the busses from Athens to there, and of course, flight tickets.

If you guys feel up to it, we could travel back to Athens in the last day of the week and I'll take you guys to see the parthenon and get mugged by junkies or something. Downtown Athens is not beautiful, but if you want to find out for yourself, I'm game. Otherwise, don't expect much in terms of event organizing from silly Helm. I don't do that at all. All I can offer is one week of great weather, a nice beach, spending time with your internet friends and the apportunity to beat as many women as you like. Because in Greece we beat our women.


EDIT: Also, sorry for being late with this information. My computer broke down a week ago, and I've been back online in the last two days.

I have! Twice! Both cases involving a taxi driver. Anyway, this is the shorter, more interesting one:

I get in this cab, driven by the world's most obnoxious cabbie. He's swearing a lot, saying really creepy things to a teenage boy that was in the cab when I entered, and generally being very irritating. At some point, a passing car from the other lane hits his rear view mirror. The mirror part dislodges and falls to the ground outside. The cabbie, swearing profusely, gets out, and hastingly notes the other car's license plate number down on a piece of paper which he then places on the dashboard. He picks up the mirror, places it back to it's place, and it seems ok. He gets back in the car and he's mumbling to himself about how he's going to "fuck that guy" 'cause he's going to call the licence plates in and "find out where he lives" and "I'll show you, you cunt" and "you'll pay 300 euros for that"  and all that. Later on, the kid in front, majorly creeped out directs the cabbie to his house, which is just off the paved road, and on a bit of a difficult gravelly path. The cabbie gets him there anyway, the kid gets out, I move to the front. As he drives off to get me to my place, he starts saying more weird creepy and insulting things about that other kid, how he's afraid to walk a few meters from the paved road so he could have avoided the rubble, and how if he was his father, he'd gladly put him over his knee and spank him good and other such stuff. I have so far said nothing, but I've decided inside that this man should not get his way today. So I tell him to drop me off a road away from my house ( just to be careful ) and tell him if you could, my leg is kinda hurt and I can't carry this big bag I had with me, if he would be so kind to carry it just outside a nearby house. He mumbles a lot, but he does. As he gets out to circle the car over to my side, I quickly pocket the piece of paper with the licence plate number on it. I pay the man, get off and the cabbie leaves. I hear the 'bling!' noise and look up over at my score gui and see I've gotten two points out of 2345504.


So one timed puzzle for me, anything of the like has happened to you?

"Everybody should be calm, and follow rules. That's what communism is about."


I posted that Yufster thread a week ago and then left for a vacation with family. There was a pool. It was nice. I got sunburnt and bored, but I read 2 and a half books. Then I came back here, and decided to track my old thread, so I at least knew what happened because of me.

And then I read this line. And then I felt compelled to post and let you, Yufster, know that I think simply keeping your comments to a tolerable minimum simply won't do. I think you should altogether stop posting. In fact, if that's not a viable option, I suggest cutting out your eyes with a rusty spoon and then start typing with your nose, for that would produce less nonsense than you currently produce, and ultimately less agrivation for anyone with a brain that happens to frequent this forum.  Words cannot express how absolutely moronic that statement was, and I frequent I-mockery.net, so I've heard my share of completely rediculous political statements there, and this one simply ranks up there along with some of the worst of them. Thing is, I go to I-mockery for different reasons than I bother to come here.

In closing, I fervently wish - besides for the immediate and acutely painful accident that would result in your dismemberment - that since such occurance is highly improbable, you in the future take the time to think things over before you in such a blatantly biased way critisize a political system you're obviously completely unfamiliar with. It would also pay if you did that in a thread that had at least something to do with politics. To state that x is bad because it's like communism, so communism is bad simply makes me want to burst out into bitter laughter, and - as an afterthought - just shake my head and want to leave here.

Understand that this is not so much about the validity of your statement (which I would challenge fully if this was the first time I felt the urge to do so) but rather the voicing of a painful understanding of a fact I've for a long time suspected was true: this is not the company I wish for myself. To communicate with this class of person is not what I chose when I first came on to the boards. And thusly I dully leave from the general general and AGS chitchat boards indefinately. My HATE towards you and your extravagant ignorance being the last thing I wish to underline before I go.

I rarely start threads. When I do, I usually either hope they'll actually make for great discussion, or just will compensate by being funny enough

This thread is neither very informative, nor funny at all. It's basically a plea from me (and a few other oldies) to Yufster. The plea says:

Please, stop posting like a madman. You make the forums pretty difficult to follow by people that no longer spend 3 hours on them. Furthermore, please do not use the forums like a chat service. Post less, and include more content in your posts, if you will.

I wouldn't mind, if all those posts were terrific reads, but usually they're more like zany rants by a person that seemingly tries too hard. So, umm... please take my advice and keep it a little cooler with the Post button.

Thank you.

Don't bother clicking here if you weren't part of it. If you don't get what the thread title says, then you weren't part of it. Don't click, don't waste sylpher's bandwidth.

I just couldn't sleep at all.

Pretty happy with it.

Yeah, that's right. Post it here so it may be forever immortalised in the official history of the AGS forums. Oldies, you too dudes. All pictures, funny, informative, effects-ridden or whatever are welcome, with the notable exeption of porn pics, which only I am priviledged to post.

Here we go:





Post your picture and be remembered forever.

The last one got purged, so the Hour Game thread is back with a vengance!!!1

This is mine, http://www.sylpher.com/helm/Pyramid.zip

This is butchers, http://www.geocities.com/kyriakosthebutcher/2000.zip

this is commatoes' http://www.tbns.net/commatoes/terlethour.zip

and this was Grundislav's http://www.agagames.com/grundislav/games/hourgame.zip

The topic was "Humourous and absurd main character deaths". This went alright.

If you want to make a new contest, hop on to #ags and propose. Somebody's guhguhCommatoesguhguh always available for a Hour Game. If you want to add to an existing topic, do so. If you want to tell us something about the Hour Games, this is the thread in which to do it.