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You're awesome Khris, thanks a lot. There was indeed a blocking event going on.

I have a room for a cutscene, In a game that I use multiple camera angles in one room. There's a scene on this cutscene where the background changes, by SetBackgroundframe, I thought, that since this isn't the only scene where I would put a different camera angle, Instead of calling for all the code needed for the change on the room after fade in (where the cutscene happens) I would put the extra code needed for the camera angle on repeatedly execute. This isn't needed for the scene, I just did it to figure out how I would do later when this would help outside of cutscenes, in other rooms.

So, on the cutscene script I call for the other background, and in the repeatedly execute I put a If statement: If (GetBackgroundFrame == 1) { SetWalkkbehindBaseline (2, 300);} (I don't actually remember if that's the function for setting a walk behind baseline, but in the real script I wrote it properly )


What happened is that the If statement didn't work. When I called for Frame 1 on the cutscene script the frame would change, but the set baseline wouldn't work. I'm sure I didn't make any mistake while writing the code because later I cut and pasted it on the after fade in and it worked (although I took the if statement out). Does setting walk behind baselines on rep_execute doesn't work? I'm sure I didn't do anything wrong. (I tried it several ways, putting else statements, checking the initial state of the baseline...)

Just finished the demo. It's great.
The "Misery" line is a bit too loud though, maybe it was my shitty earphones... My "internet screamer acquired reflex" almost made me press alt+F4. (It definitely scared me, though, but that "immersion breaking" kind of scare).

Can wait to get the full game, also I'm really curious to see the ways Grim used to escape the linearity this kind of interface brings. Now, unfortunately, time to go back to work.

Am I awake? Downloading.

Here's an updated version, with more blacks, in my opinion it looks better, and I'm starting to like the color scheme anyway, nads is right, I should make it so that the characters and interactive objects have more varied color/saturation.

This is a quick mock up I made just to see how the game elements and style go together. It's a Western/Sci-Fi/Dark Comedy game. Well, it's about cowboys on mars. It IS supposed to be a dark, lonesome game, but in my opinion the mock up ended up being TOO DARK in terms of atmosphere... My main concern is with the color scheme, most of the thing will be made of wood, therefore brown, on mars, brown/red. I don't know what to do to add more color.

Does it looks that bad?

Google spoils it all.  You're right, Timothy, your turn. 

Just to fix the lack of Mr.Cave on this forum:

Please post the pic of the same room, but from the opposite side. I'd like to have some idea how the rest of it looks.

Yeah, We both would, but sorry, can't do. :l



I should really stop being lazy and pick up my DVD of the movie so I can grab better shot's.
If no one guesses, the next pic will make the answer just one google search away if you know your music. :b

Should I post anothre pic?

Wow really?  Iceboty talked about Godzilla and I thought about it, but it was just a guess.



From my favorite movie. 

The giant claw?

In portuguese:

"Desculpe, a entrada não é permitida à pedido de meu chefe."

:~

next: The holy cure for boredom.

  And Dual, if I hear Brazil one more time... I might even watch the damn thing at last

Brazil, Brazil, Brazil...

There's quite a few artists in here, so I thought that I should ask.

Like anyone who draws stuff I've been *developing* my style since I was a kid, and at some point of my life I decided that one of the things I want to be is a Graphic Novel artist, and when I decided that it was near my 16 birthday, so I asked my mother to get me India Ink and a Winsor & Newton's Series 7 Kolinsky Sable Brushes.  The first drawing I made with that brush, OH GOD, it was love at first sight. It was absolutely beautiful.
Sometime later I started doing some digital art, mostly because my sisters DESTROYED my incredibly expensive brush in cold blood. I had a tablet once, but it was also slain, and shit, I've worked to pay for that, so I became pretty proficient in drawing with a mouse (eeew).

Anyway, after years of searching for a software that could reproduce the look of the love of my life, that series 7 brush, when drawing with a mouse (No pressure sensitivity). I found Flash. OKay, it's not QUITE the same. It's not even close, but it looks good. It actually looks like a brush, with the width variation and all. But Flash Isn't actually made for digital art.

So what I'm asking is: Do you guys know of any software that has a brush similar to flash? I mean, I just want something that is more art focused. It can be vetorial. I don't mind. And yeah, just remembered, one of the things that makes the flash brush so good is the 'Smoothing' function. I mean, it's great if you have to draw with the mouse.

And here's a quick drawing I've made with flash so you have a better Idea of what I'm looking for:

As a smoker it really bothers me when people can't pretend they're smoking. It's like, when you're British and people do a really bad fake accent.

Life is meaningless, why do I even care?  (:

I think one of the greatest cliches is the relationship between the main character and the NPCs. In adventure games it's always like this:

>The char is in a somewhat strange place, nobody knows him.

>Most of the people don't actually like him.

>He's somehow inferior to the people around him.
( Not a pirate yet, American in france, not a hero yet...)

> He needs to prove himself to the people around him.

>Bubble gum and a paper clip is worth more than gold.

> stealing.

> "A food item. I bet it tastes so good, but for no apparent reason I'll keep it for later."

> Piece of glass

Not sure if this will add anything at all to the discussion, but:

I have a lot more fun playing Choose Your Own Story games than playing Interactive Fiction.
OF COURSE it is hard to write a good CYOS, but when it's done right, I think it's great.
for example:

Light Space


I would develop the point further if I had the time.

To me one of the key paragraphs is this one:

Since those days, our expectations have changed. We expect more of a flow these days, and for our stories to have pace. Your character standing gormlessly on the screen, while you scan a mouse cursor over every pixel in the attempt to find a single nail that can be used to pick a lock, is the equivalent of a roleplaying game expecting you to map a dungeon with a pen and paper. There’s a certain old-school charm in that, perhaps, but we all know our time could be better spent having actual fun.

It's not really about pixel-hunting - it's about getting stuck in adventure games in general. It means that today's mainstream audience is too impatient to play traditional (real?) adventure games, something you could argue with to a point, but it's probably true. Other genres have a more consistent rewarding systems.

So I guess the obvious solution is to speed up the reward system in adventure games.  Eliminating dead-ends is unambitious: let's cut out getting stuck!  Who's going to be the first to set an optional variable at the beginning of their game (easy, medium, hard) that is really just a timer; each puzzle restarts the timer and when it times out, you get a clue, then a hint, and then finally a "this is how you do it, stupid" that advances the game?  Let's idiot-proof this genre, mainstream-style!  Who's with me?

I don't think it's "THE MAINSTREAM AUDIENCE" - something that sounds a lot degrading for we adventure players- but times have changed. It's not that people now are too stupid to play adventures. It's just that, come on, to solve a puzzle the right way takes time. You don't get better at solving puzzles just as you get better at shooting people at the screen. And if you have the illusion of getting better, it's just your brain telling you "I've seen this before, It's just like that other puzzle in that other game...".  Remember the 90's and that time when adventure was the thing? Remember how different it was to play adventure games? I don't know about you, but I was a kid, and playing Broken Sword, Full Throttle or any adventure I played by the time was completely different.
The reasons are:

1. Games were the most amazing experience I could have most of the time. I lived in the country and had no other kids around, and had already explored everywhere I was allowed to go. So pretending to be a Biker doing things I couldn't understand (English isn't my native language) was just incredible. The 'action' that cool bike. Wow. And puzzles were the obstacles I had in the way. But I was a bored kid with nothing else to do most of the time. I HAD to keep trying. It was the only option. Actually no. At the time I had a few other games ( Broken Sword 1, Putt Putt, Freddy Fish, the only shooter I had was Dark Forces Demo, and Cyberia, with the C, Demo) and a day came where I was stuck in all of them. I couldn't figure  out one and I tried the other. Couldn't advance In none of them? I went out and played with action figures. Little by little I advanced.

2. At that time dowloading 7mb was almost an epic accomplishment IF you were lucky enough to have a internet conection. I wasn't.

3. Buying more games? Just for Christmas, if I behaved. They were expensive. Most of the toys I had ranged from 1 to 10 dollars.

So why adventure games the way they are aren't enough for the gamers?

1. Adventure games aren't as awe inducing as they were back then. Now COD and all of those games hold this title.

2.  (probably the most important) Now we have infinite options of things to do besides grinding on a puzzle. Not just because we grew up, but because we have infinite other games just one torrent away. When you got stuck in a Adventure at the time, it was okay, it was awesome, you had to continue. Now, it's not half as cool as it were. If a 'mainstream gamer' gets stuck he'll notice that there's nothing else happening at the game and there's nothing else to do. Your character will stay there, static, as if the world has stoped. All you can do is walk around. And admit it: Walking around in a point and click game isn't fun. At least walking around in a FPS is more entertaining. And the player has more hope to find the solution without quiting the game, because he doesn't expect hard puzzles. So if the mainstream player get's stuck in a puzzle in a adventure game, he'll probably close the game, adventure most of the time leave you hopeless. Most of the time you think you already tried everything. He'll get angry and he'll say "F*** THIS S*** this isn't worth my time I AM NOT HAVING FUN". He won't figure out that the developer wants him to use the Rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle. And if he figures it out, after hours of trying he'll feel cheated. And come on, we can't blame him.

3. So, let's say he downloaded a adventure game, played most of it with a walkthrough because he thinks that he doesn't have hours or even days to spend figuring out a puzzle. Then he sees a fairly attractive adventure game somewhere for 25 dollars. He won't buy because he knows that he's cheating by playing it with a walkthrough and he won't spend the time needed for the puzzle solving. He'll probably buy another 25 dollars game that he actually feels good playing.



In my opinion we have two options:

1. If we want people to buy and play, we change the way adventure games are. I can't see other way.

2. Or we settle for a community of older players who already like adventure games and want
to play more of them. Which is not that bad actually.