Messages

http://frictionalgames.com/?q=penumbra

 Creating games in AGS isn't done via programming, it's done via scripting. Don't mistake the two. Programming requires you to create your game from the ground up, taking care of every single detail. Interfacing a game engine through scripting language is a piece of cake when compared to that.

  Andwii: I'd suggest you to use data structures to describe positions of bullets and/or enemies, and - as others said - raw draw functions for rendering. You'd have to create a custom rendering loop using the script commands. In the "Player enters screen (after fadein)" method add RawSaveScreen() command, then use RawRestoreScreen() in the "Repeteadly execute" function to clear the screen after each rendering cycle. The rest is up to you.

  Scripting in AGS is a piece of cake, believe me. Once you overcome the initial anxiety it becomes a walk in the park.

Another screenshot... This one comes from a fighting sequence.

To put it short: games like "The Shivah" remind me why I'm playing adventure games at all. 

 The two things I usually take into accunt when evaluating an adventure game are the storyline and the design. Though the storyline here is a bit cliched, the setting compensates for it. The design, on the other hand, is outstanding, and - in my opinion - outshines the worthless little game I'm working on at the moment. I'm already afraid of how bad and unfavourable the reviews for "Sar" will be... But let's stay on topic.

I actually had CHANCE to watch the Henson's classic, as it was aired - if I'm not mistaken - two or three years ago on the public TV, but - haven't having heard of the movie before - I dismissed it. And it wasn't before two or three years that I realised I made a grave mistake. Anyway, congratulations for both the game and for actually having seen the movie - as, from what I know, it's very hard to get.

Just got one of these.

The game lacks both polish and sense of closure, not to mention that most of the people here are not familiar with the political context and will most propably fail in comprehending all the thinly-veiled allusions to current political situation in Poland contained within. Other than that - being a Pole myself I found all the references to what's happening in the country quite amusing. The puzzles were so-so, but logical enough to easily figure them out. In my opinion - good for a first attempt, despite all its shortcomings.

PS. The sound rocked. 

Three musical tracks I did for the game:

http://rapidshare.de/files/21410089/sarost.zip.html

Excellent. 

I'm using Modplug Tracker (www.modplug.com). Skale Tracker (www.skale.org) is also an option. Both are free, Skale is Open Source.

Just two words: Crystal space.

I've only seen Soderbergh adaptation of Solaris and all I can say is that he missed the point entirely. Anyway, Soderbergh's adaptation has very little to do with the actual novel. You pointed out that "Solaris" is about confronting the unknown, and that the theme itself is a cliche... Well, confronation with non-human reality plays a major part in all novels written by Lem. What he liked to do was to collide our own way of thinking, which is - after all - a product of circumstances that we as a species are accomodated to, with reality that cannot be comprehended in human terms. The theme of confronting the unknown - even if it's cliche - is used very sparsely both in literature and movies, mostly because it's the one most difficult to implement. There are very few artists who can do it well, and the only one that comes to my mind at the moment is Peter Weir, specifically his "Last wave" and "Picnic under the hanging rock". The hardest part of this fare is not to create the mystery, but to sustain it.

Note as well that in "Solaris" Lem managed to avoid many cliches that plagued and still plague the sci-fi genre: first and foremost, the encounter between human and alien is pictured as non-confrontational. In most stories you have the proverbial "little green men" arriving to Earth either to conquer, or to befriend mankind. In other words, whether they're our friends or foes, the aliens are envisioned as bigger and smarter versions of ourselves. The Ocean in "Solaris" is completely non-human; its actions don't make any sense in the human eyes. If someone else was behind the story, the ocean would turn out either to be a benevolent sage, or a giant predator. Here's where "Solaris" masterfully avoids cliches.

Read the book, please! Cinema adaptations don't do this novel justice.

Finished the game... Good puzzles, nice atmosphere, ONE BUG:

Spoiler

when I put the mirror on the stump, it's still in my inventory

[close]

Overall, I enjoyed it - especially the colour puzzle.  It was challenging, but not frustrating.

when the player/reader/audience can't project their own emotions onto it, they will fail to understand it.

Definitely - there must be some kind of umbilical cord between our reality and the fictional creation. What I disagree with, however, is that your opinion seems to be emotion-centric: the task of storyteller, in my own humble opinion, is not only to stir emotions,  but also to make his/hers audience think, to broaden its horizons, to show it possibilities it never thought existed. Good sci-fi, I believe, operates in the realm of possible, in the magical Between: it doesn't describe reality that is immediately present, but it doesn't spin fairy-tales either; rather, it is trying to envision what could happen if certain conditions were fulfilled. That's where the best authors (Lem, Dick, Asimov, and even LeGuin) excel.

 Let me remind you of one title that I consider exemplary - "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem. What makes "Solaris" exceptional is that it gives us a glimpse of reality that can really be labelled as "alien". Why's that? In my opinion Lem was one of the few sci-fi writers who made actual use of his imagination. Although both sci-fi and fantasy offer relative freedom for the writer/director/designer, what most of them do with this freedom is take elements from realistic literature/cinema and put them in context of imaginary world. Take "Star Wars", for example: what it in fact is - is a melange of themes taken straight from western, war films (Lucas is said to be fond of cinematic dogfights, and so X-Wings and Tie-fighers behave exactly like German and British fighters in the battle of Midway), samurai movies (the whole Jedi affair) etc. There's an excellent online paper written by Elana Gomel on the subject of fantasy - especially Tolkienised fantasy - which contains an excellent line: "What is peculiar about fantasy as a genre is how little fantasy it actually requires." It's retelling of the same story over and over, in different settings.

But then Lem proved that it is in fact possible to imagine something that transcends our ordinary experience. "Solaris" is the proof. And the basis of the entire process of imagination is - mind me - analysis. They are often thought to contradict each other, but in my opinion imagination works only if it is supported by analysis. It's intellectual discipline that gives the imagination strenght to break through the barriers of ordinary experience and envision something new. Why? Because analysis is - speaking in the terms of computer programming - the reverse engineering of reality. Once you had disassembled the surrounding world into smaller components, you are free to reasemble them into completlely new and original structure. It's a bit like difference between "mythos" and "logos". "Mythos" is greek for "repeating without understanding". What most fantasy and sci-fi writers of today are doing falls into the cathegory of "mythos". "Logos", on the other hand, means "to understand". I consider "logos" the pinnacle of creativity, and "mythos" merely a form of creative stagnation.

EDIT: Here's link to Elana Gomels article:

http://www.lord-of-the-rings.org/books/tolkien_elana_gomel.html

Ali: According to my humble knowledge, Homer was the first to come up with these ideas (assuming there really was a guy named Homer, some researchers argue there was none)... or was he? Perhaps in his times they were already cliches.

IDEA: Let's stop calling them cliches, and call them ARCHETYPES instead. Sounds better, doesn't it? From now on every time we copy and paste some cliche into our game, we'll be able to explain ourselves by claming that it's an ARCHETYPE. Read: something universal. Timeless. Mythical. Our story doesn't simply rip off stories told before, oh no. It simply reflects the universal and timeless ARCHETYPES. And every time we do it, let us thank Eliade and Jung for having invented this oh so handy term.

 Let's face it - it's extremely hard to tell a story that's 100% original - in the games we make with AGS we all include at least one common/cliched element. I confess I thought "Sar" and "Ambers of Dream" to be based on totally original concepts - till I found THIS list of fantasy cliches:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/8584/stuff/cliche.html

  Now, I shamefully admit "Sar" to be guilty of incorporating following themes from the list:

  - Retelling of Arthurian legends or the Robin Hood story (although in a setting that's not quite typical for this type of story)

  - Fantasy names with too many vowels (Lee-yan-day).

  - Warrior cultures based off of the Samurai or Spartans.

  - Churches based on the medieval Catholic Church but that have a history totally unlike the Catholic Church: 

   
   

  - True feudal societies where the king holds absolute power.

  - No such thing as an atheist in the world; everybody believes in a god/gods

   That would be all for "Sar". Is there anyone else who'd like to admit what cliches he/she had used in their own games?

"C++ language" by Bjorne Stroustrup, the very creator of the language.

"Treasure island" was one of the favorite books of my childhood and I wish you best of luck with this project.

I finished the game today... Its beautiful graphics, awesome atmosphere and excellent gameplay bring to mind all-time adventure game classics. What the game lacks is sound and music, but still manages without them - for all its other assets.
Is there a chance for us to see any more games of your making in the future?