Messages

Man, I've heard about these HOECS games. Apparently, online paedophiles use special gloves to feel and palpate the child's face, and they can actually make your keyboard release toxic vapours that make you suggestible!

and it is once again the people who get caught in the middle.

The people who are getting vaccinated against a particularly nasty form of cancer? Why is this bad again?

I don't see anyone complaining that they had vaccinations against Meningitis, TB, Measeles, Mumps, Rubella, Tetanus... etc etc etc. Why is this such a big deal?

Lets get this straight - the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people, under the supervision of the reverse vampires, are forcing mathmagicians within the NSA to use chaos magic in a bid to decrypt google searches through a backdoor in MS-DOS to cover up 9/11 and any references to Hitler and Stalin being alive and well and owning a small restaurant somewhere near Brighton Pier (much to the dismay of Zombie Arthur Miller who isn't allowed out of the CIA's secret compound after 7pm)?!

We're through the looking glass, people.

£5500? Yowza! Although I think I would pay the price just for the convenience of being able to run the entire VI Instruments cube without having to have use multiple computers, and also insuring that I'd never need to even look at a copy of Windows Vista! When we were selling G4s for £2500 (not including the price of a monitor) a few years ago I thought the price was completely ridiculous, but I guess if you're a professional musician that needs daft amounts of RAM and processing power the price tag becomes trivial. Deferred payment suddenly starts to sound like a good idea too!

If you can't at least match up what I've said, especially the part where I showed how full of shit you are about the "spreading democracy" part, then fuck off!

DG, I really think you should stop with the abusive way you conduct yourself in arguments on the forums. I think you're very firmly in flaming terratory here, and it's not funny or endearing.

Also, we regularly cover topics from the very serious to the very silly, but whatever the issue, if you disagree with someone, calmly explain why you think differently. Name-calling and swearing at people will not be tolerated.

You wrote this yourself in the forum rules thread, maybe you should reflect on it a little.

No, it's not.  If it were outright theft to download mp3 there'd be millions of us in jail.  And yet I am still walking the world free and downloading mp3 on a near daily basis with no intention of stopping.

It is outright theft, dude. You did not pay for it, you have stolen it. It's no different than walking into an unstaffed music shop and picking up anything you want - when there's no risk involved it suddenly doesn't seem like stealing!

Just because you think it's wrong doesn't make it so.  I think paying rediculous prices is wrong.  So I don't pay it.

Yet you will buy hundereds of DVDs, which are arguebly more overpriced than CDs, just because you can't get them from limewire! Just because you think it is right to not pay for music doesn't make it so. You're not trying to prove a point by not paying for stuff that costs over $10, you're stealing something because it is risk free and more convenient. That does not make it right, or justifiable.

Could you please just admit outright that you're happy to steal music from artists because it's easier than getting out your wallet? Because it is outright theft, you know. I can't stand to see people trying to justify stealing music from musicians for the sole reason that it is EASIER TO DO SO THAN PAY FOR IT and pretend that what they are doing is not wrong.

Once we get that water/hydrogen fueled combustion engine sorted and nail down the specifics of fusion power, all this will go away. Come on boffins, get to it! I'll order the pizzas.

Darth, I see where we're getting stuck here. We're concerned about making our own habitat uninhabitable and causing our global civilisation to collapse, not the ultimate destruction of the planet (which is quite a bit more difficult to do).

Darth, I understand that in America certain factions believe that global warming is something that is up for debate, like gay marriage and abortion. It isn't, it's a fact, and it's honestly very alarming to see people bury their head in the sand on this issue. It doesn't matter what you think or not, it doesn't come down to personal opinon, it's not a 'political thing' or a story made up by Al Gore so he can make a quick buck  - this shit is happening and the exhaust pipes that make your car run and supply your electricity are the reason for it. Just because geological evidence suggests we happen to be in for another ice age in the next 10,000 years or so does not suddenly mean that the carbon dioxide and CFCs the whole world is pumping into the air - and North America is one of the biggest contributers - are not harming our planet in any way.

I very much agree with Andail that it is ignorant to brush off global warming as just a bunch of hippie liberals trying to cause alarm. It's a very real problem that is unfortunatly outside most people's little tiny bubbles of existance, which is perhaps why so many are quick to deny that it exists.

I've developed a radical new theory about the ending of monkey island 2.

Such a revelation it seemed when I was a fresh-faced 16 year old on the internet! I've not read that post in ages, but it's kind of shocking how terribly 'noobish' I was back then. And that I instantly believed that an unregistered user with the name 'Ron Gilbert' was actually the real guy and not someone having fun... those rose-tinted Ezboard goggles have just vanished into thin air, hehe.

Ahem.

It nags me more to wonder if Buddhists are right, and I've been frittering away the confoundingly rare oppertunity of being a human which allows one to break out of the cycle of reincarnation to ultimately obtain a higher state of cosmic existance!

Actually, what nags me more is whether or not I'll win the bid for a rare polysynth on eBay. Nirvana can wait, there's a whole load of vintage machines that go 'bloop!' for me to play with first!

Deadlines help. As Geoffkhan has said, it's possible after much practise to switch the "in the zone" mode on and off which is something anyone who wants to be a professional in their chosen field must be able to do. When the deadline is looming there's not much choice other than to get that creativity forcefully sparked!

When it comes to my own personal game where there aren't any deadlines I tend to be inspired when I recieve a new bit of art, or when the people helping me out are busying away creating stuff - some spore of creativity is let out into the air and I find myself unable to do anything but work on new assets or work with the assets other people have gracefully done for me. Other people's input can fire off dormant neutrons in odd directions and give rise to new ideas and usually rejuvanated excitement/interest in what you're doing.

Eric introduced me to Waits too! He had a compilation of tracks at Mittens 04 and since hearing it I've been systematically buying every album. Very much admire his creative scope, and every album is brilliant in it's own right so pick any of them and you won't be disappointed.

Hi, sorry for bumping this but we've come across an asthetical problem with the current implementation of anti-aliasing (having the "smooth-scaled sprites" option checked in setup), namely that the sprites we are using which have no outline seem to develop horrible black outlines when scaled down. We're not using an alpha channel with the sprite, and I assume the black outlines appear because black is the default colour it blends to and not the background. Is there any fix that could be made here? Would updating to AASTR2 help?

I can provide a demo that shows what's going on, but I'd rather not post it in public

I'd love to play both the Moriarty and Falstein versions, both sound a lot less... pedestrian than the version released. I really loved the first two-thirds of game though, it nailed the exploration enjoyment factor and the soundtrack is fantastic. It did have some pretty bad puzzles... or at least poorly implemented puzzles though (geometry sticks! aah!). A bit of a letdown when the core concept would lead to perhaps more interesting gameplay.   

Just so people know now, it probably won't be released until after New Years. We both have a lot of work left to do on it! But there won't be the same hold-up as last time, and if there is you can all officially shout at me. 

Good news on the fatherhoodness, Snake! I still haven't finished Byzantine either, so no worries.

Ah, poobungies, I've only gone and missed the deadline. I was just about to post my entry as well! Nevermind.