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It's still WIP hence the rough look, but I'd like to keep the grittiness and overall feel of it.

What do you guys think? Grateful for suggestions.

I was really attached to the cup-themed original domain. Why hasn't it been renewed? Was it left to rot intentionally?

Beautiful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

Here's the original from 69:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67kmFzSh_o

My friend and adamant indie dev meetups organizer Tomasz Kaczmarek - who some of you may have personally met (or even listened to his talk) at the recent AdventureX - needs survey data for research papers. Big thanks to anyone that participates!

Why: Research materials and variety of perspectives for mine final essay “How does ‘Indie Game: The Movie' represent games and game culture” on Theory at Brunel University West London - Digital Games Theory and Design MA.
How: Survey monkey with 9 comment questions and 1 graded.
How long: Till Mid April
Rewards: My gratitude, putting your nicknames/names in my Final Work, interest in collaboration on some game projects
Who: Tomasz “Fanotherpg” Kaczmarek, indie trying to find himself in academia world. Organizing indie and gamedev related talks and events in Poland.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DTD8J9X

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=32062.0

As I know there are many fans of Scandinavian folklore here (Snarky?), I thought this new adventure game in production might interest you:

http://nemoria.net/oknytt/index.php

Looks nicely made and the unusual creature that is the player character is another highlight.

I signed up my new project - The Thought Saved for Last - as one of the candidates to the Indie Dev Grant. I'd be grateful to anyone who'd vote for it in the poll.

The IDG will be about 600-700$ to take in total by the looks of it. Here is what I'd use it for:

http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=150

To be able to vote you need to actually get a copy of the new pay-what-you-want Bundle-in-a-Box - the IDG is taken from a part of the bundle's profits:

http://bundle-in-a-box.com/

And the bundle is worth having a look at in itself. It has some truly niche, underground titles (compared to the Humble Bundle), a deep space theme and is supervised by Gnome of Gnome's Lair who most of you should know, as he regularly covers AGS games (also on the Indie Games blog).

There's also another AGS game in the competition (though of course I can't deny I would prefer you'd vote for mine). It's Christopher Columbus is an Idiot by Kurt Kalata - the guy who runs Hardcoregaming101.net and released that cool book guide to adventure games a while ago:

http://blog.bundle-in-a-box.com/?p=56

Oh, and the vote ends the coming Friday!

An interesting series of GDC talks fom Schafer & Co that might be educational for people looking for rapid game making strategies:

http://www.gdcvault.com/search.php#&category=free&firstfocus=ype%5B1%5D=1ype%5B2%5D=2ype%5B3%5D=3&keyword=double+fine&conference_id=

How do I remove the mark of Satan from my account!? Guys, please advise!

A wonderful trip by, with and about the creator of the Get Lamp doco and textfiles.com - Jason Scott:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLe_n4xN9vw

EDIT: mods, please move this thread to General. Sorry for mistake.

BTDT - the famous precursor to TGP! got the George Lucas treatment! Including some very cool bonus material in the extras folder!

Here are some details: http://www.sizefivegames.com/2011/09/23/announcing-ben-there-dan-that-special-edition/

The most controversial change to me is the removal of all references to the infamous Zombie Cow. The poor animal's involvement isn't mentioned even in the credits.

If you've got the game on Steam, the update is applied automatically. If you own it "off the database", you need to pay what you want for the SE.

a really cool Adventure Gamers article/interview:

http://adventuregamers.com/article/id,1370

Stolen the news from mixnmojo.com.

Someone has started posting scans of the wonderful Lucasarts Adventurer magazine that was put in the boxes of all LEC games until the company's financial and creative trouble began in early 2000s.

http://lucasartsadventurer.blogspot.com/

So far there have been posted scans of issues 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, and 12.

Included: Sam&Max comic strips, special adventure game themed cut-out toys, cool interviews with LEC people and behind the scenes articles (+Lucasfilm trying to sell you their stuff in the 90s).

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/04/dont-quit-how-to-save-adventures-225/

Something to read and discuss.

Clips (both video and audio) from the Blu Ray have started appearing today. What does everyone think of the new additions? There are quite a few already confirmed.

- Why are you a clown?
- What about you?
- Because if I weren't a clown, I'd be a murderer.
- Me too.

http://www.hd-trailers.net/movie/the-last-circus/

Has anyone seen this movie already? It's been making rounds around film festivals since fall last year. I only just found out about it.

An interesting speech Jonathan Blow (of Braid fame) gave on indie games programming.

http://the-witness.net/news/2011/06/how-to-program-independent-games/

This is mostly advice for inexperienced developers about staying as effective as possible with the programming part, when you're making pretty much the whole game on your own.

I've been recently reminded how much exposure "Pick of the month" gives to the game title chosen each month compared to the ones that aren't so lucky. It's obvious that many of the more casual adventuregamestudio.co.uk visitors download only the "Pick of the month" game from the newest releases. That includes game journalists that potentially cover those games later on. And with the very strong first half of 2011 in particular I feel many cool games get a bit left behind.

So I wanted to propose adding a 2nd "pick of the month" to the database page (if it's easy enough to code in). That 2nd pick would be different - it would focus on past games that perhaps weren't given their due at the time of release. My idea is that every month one (preferably volunteer) AGS forumite would be allowed to pick an older AGS underdog - one of his personal favorites - that in his opinion seems to be underrated or forgotten. A short note about his pick would be required too.

Anyone else would like to see a 2n pick like this added? Or a modification of this concept?

Join Tim Schafer on his epic journey to glory as he walks us through his rise to fame and fortune in this Video Game History Month special.

http://uk.gamespot.com/special_feature/game-history-month-2011/people/index.html?page=1ag=topslot;title;2

You can never have enough of Rutger Hauer films. Here's a new Polish-Swedish CGI fest about characters from Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting The Way to Calvary and the process that went into painting it.

Rutger Hauer plays the central role of Pieter Bruegel. That bit with him and the spider in the trailer seems especially lovely:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzbbYinuTWc

Overall looks good and seems to be getting great reviews.

..."the throng of generic point-and-click adventure games"?

Here, the last paragraph:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/04/gemini-rue-review/