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It's Chromium 17.0.963.83 (Developer Build 127885 Linux) Debian wheezy/sid with default settings + AdBlock Plus 1.2


There was no problem with Iceweasel.

In 2007 I had to much time in my hands and while learning Python, in an effort to make it easier to play AGS games in Linux, I wrote a mess of spaghetti code that I called Adventure Game Goddess (see my signature), apparently a few people found it useful and it's even mentioned in the AGS' Wikipedia page.  I abandoned my Goddess when EvilTypeGuy abandoned  the Linux engine project and right now it would need some changes to be usable again.

Recently I have discovered that not only Electroshokker refloated the Linux engine project but also that CJ has gone Open Source (Thanks!!!), so I've been wondering if I should dedicate a couple of weekends to fix the Goddess, but I have 2 doubts.

1) The license change has given new life to the Linux engine, but the official thread by Electroshokker is silent since April the 1st, and RedDwarf abruptly stopped updating his gitorous repository in May 23rd, so is anyone working on the Linux engine? (I don't have the knowledge to do it myself, sorry)

2) I have read that there are some talks with ScummVM. That would be an infinitely better solution than my crappy script, what's the status of this?

Thanks everyone,

Tartalo

I tried today to play another AGS game, but AGS 2.72 for linux seems unable to find liballeg.so.42 and ags-setup can't find libxml.so.1.

Both seem to be correctly installed.

This is the first time I try it since I upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04. Anyone else experiences this problem?

[AGS 3 editor]

I decided to open a new thread instead of adding more unrelated things to the 2.7 sticky thread. if this is not the right forum please move

I've been searching the forums and didn't really find my answers, please help me to get the facts right:

AGS 3 editor
Ok, it looks like it doesn't work using MONO, but some answers I saw point to lacks in MONO project itself and some others talk about native Windows code in a DLL used by AGS. So, what's really the matter?

And if it's the second case, can we expect a future effort to make AGS editor work on other platforms than Windows natively or better if I kill my hopes right now and forever?

(Please save WINE recommendations, I know it works for most of you, but I've had some issues, I must try again anyway)

EDIT: Reading through the suggestions for AGS 3.0.1 I've found a mention to a Linux port... is this what I think? Were more info?

AGS 3 engine
Is EvilTypeGuy still active?
Is someone working on the AGS 3 engine for Linux?

Thank You

Tartalo

[A better rating system]

EDITED and removed a lot of useless crap I wrote based on a plain wrong idea:

A better rating system

I remember an old message by CJ that said something like "Ratings are not working well because most users rate without having played many games so they are not comparable" Maybe he didn't say exactly that, but that's where I think the problem lies.

So what about making the number of games you rated count?

((rate by user A* ratings by user A) + (rate by user B* ratings by user B)+...) / total ratings

Tartalo

[This thread is for adults only.]

This thread is for adults only.
(just in case)

I'm old enough to remember the "Winners don't use drugs" in Arcades, and there are lots of games where the bad ones are Narcos. But unless you understand the arcade "pow"s as a metaphor, usage of drugs appear very few times in games as part of the story compared to other popular culture expressions like comics or music.

In Adventure Games The Dead City is a shocking example, as taking Heroin is essential in the story.

Do you remember any other example? And what do you think about this apparent difference between amateur adventure games and other popular culture forms? I am curious (About your opinions, not Heroin).

Edited to add another example

I hope this goes here.

Problem:
There are almost 300 games in AGS database that can't be blessed now by Goddess because none of the mirror links points directly to a file.

This can be because:
- The link is dead.
- It points to the game's website.
- It point's to a file hosting service with an odd method to serve files.

Sometimes linking to the website is necessary because AGS database doesn't fit. Soviet U...dorf is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. King Quest saga goes in separated downloads: game, voice and music

Proposals to AGS:

- Test regularly AGS database for dead links. If you are interested I could extract part of Goddess code to make a standalone link checker, but there are probably better tools for this already.
- Allow 4 basic mirrors: DOS, Windows, Mac OS X or GNU/Linux.
- Add 2 extra mirrors: Voice or Music.

Edited: another proposal later

I think this would fit for all.

Proposals to Game Makers:
- Use the mirror for the last version of the game and include all the translations in the file.
- Unless you do want to stop users with tools like Goddess, avoid hosting your game in places with countdowns, "copy this text here", and similar obstacles.

Does it make sense to you?

I enjoyed Emily Enough and Principles of Evil, in both you have to be a "bad girl".

Do you know of any other in the same line?

Stencyl will be a game maker with platform games in mind and a BSD license.

In May they will release some games and Stencyl itself won't be out until end of summer but the expectation is so high they had to open the forums:
http://www.stencyl.com/

Let's face it, nobody likes adventure games, not even you.

How do you explain otherwise that the only game with 100% Enjoyment in AGS database is a shooter game?

I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt you, but yes, you better cancel that "Yet another Sierra Remake".  In Doom you have to pick up keys, so it can be considered an adventure, maybe you can convert it to "Yet another Doom remake".

This was another advise by: Lies based on numbers (TM)

Tartalo

GNU/Linux users!

I am announcing AGT Adventure Game Goddess 0.04 for GNU/Linux as the first "usable" version.


Features:
- Database of adventure games (currently replica of AGS website) with search, filter and sort functions
- NEW: One step to download and install the game, and one step to play.
- NEW: Engine guesser (Thanks for the hint Blashyrkh!)
- Ugly text Interface (ahem)

Supports:
- AGS games with ACI version 2.5x, 2.6x, 2.7x
- Compression: zip, rar, tar, gz, bz2 and occasionally ace
- Handle Windows installers from the application

I would sincerely appreciate if someone would test it and shared with me bugs, improvements ideas and other thoughts

Web: http://agt.paranoiagames.uk.to

Tartalo

[Edited to add:]

I have written a small python script that creates automagically a Linux version of any(*) AGS game. This script can be distributed with the game as a "Linux installer".

(*) Requirements: AGS engine must be at least 2.50 and no incompatible plugins can be used.

http://agt.paranoiagames.uk.to/friendly.html

linuxInstaller.py does the following.

- Read INSTALLATION.txt
- Duplicate the game folder as game-linux
- Check if appropiate AGS engine files are available, if not download them from mindshadow.
- Copy and rename necessary files in Linux folder.


Rather than encouraging you to include the installer in all your games right now, I would like to hear your opinion about creating a "Any OS Friendly" format to distribute AGS games.

And... someone would like to make a Windows installer for games in Friendly Format? It's task would be to copy the game files to the appropriate folder and create the "Start" menu entries.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that the Installer script should run in any OS, so you can test if it's working for your game even if you don't have Linux, just install python if you don't have it already.

I have been working in a frontend for AGS (inspired in MAME frontends, basically a games database with extra features). It will have a GPL License. I'm writing it for Linux but it's written in Python so it can easily be ported to other OSs. Now it's on stand-by until I get a book from Amazon about GUI creation, so I decided to advance in another sense.

As you might know, in Linux you don't execute the game directly, you need to copy the right game engine to the folder first. If the game doesn't use external incompatible plugins it will work. The Frontend should make the repetitive tasks and allow "one click to download, one click to play"

To make this real I need your help:

AUTHORS
- Would you like to prepare a Linux and Mac friendly version of you games?

PYTHON DEVELOPERS
- Do you want to join in the Frontend development? I am veeery interested on you if you know about wxPython.

USERS IN GENERAL
- Even if you don't use Linux, I might port the frontend to your platform in the future,  which features would you like to see?

Edited.

Tartalo

Did you ever ask yourself what is people looking at when they decide whether they download a game or not?

With a script I made some stats and these are the results.

What do the numbers mean? First I look the percentage of games that fall in each category, then at the percentage of downloads in each category, and finally I calculate the proportion between percentage of downloads and percentage of games of each category.

CATEGORY
Full length games: 357%
Plugins: 200%
Medium length games: 147%
Short games: 88%
Joke games: 60%
MAGS games: 54%
Non-adventure games: 37%
Demos: 26%
Dummy entries: 0%

BAD LANGUAGE
Mild: 150%
Strong: 133%
Unrated: 118%
Occasional, mild: 105%
Frequent, strong: 100%
None: 85%

SEX
Sex scenes: 400%
Frontal nudity: 150%
Suggestive dialog: 125%
Unrated: 100%-118% (My script distinguished explicit unrated and no info at all)
None: 88%

VIOLENCE
Rare, mild: 125%
Strong: 114%
Mild: 116%
Unrated: 118%
None: 75%
Frequent, strong: 50%

CONCLUSION FOR AUTHORS
The magic formula for a succesfull game seems to be (In order of importance):
- Put as much sex as possible. Internet is 4 pr0n
- Make a long game. Size matters.
- Too much violence scares people.
- Do use bad language. The best is to keep a balance, but it's better too much than none. (It has been suggested that the variation is to small to be considered)



Tartalo
PS: As usual I belong to a minority, I prefer bloody games.

Hi all,

AGS and it's community made me rediscover the pleasure of Adventure games so I feel I should give back something.

There are now almost 900 games in this site and, in my opinion, there are too few options to filter or sort this huge list. I would like to use rating, advisories, ... to find more easily the games I will probably like.

I know a bit of PHP and have some spare time now, so I offer myself to give a try if site owners think it can be good.

(I have seen the digest, it's good and can still be improved by adding fields. Anyway I would prefer to have filtering or sorting options in the regular games list too because it gives more information of the game.)

The admins can see my email, contact directly if you prefer so.

Ah, and thanks for AGS and the games!

Tartalo