Messages

I endorse the distinction between look and examine and between talk and interrogate. Bravo!

The only buttons I'm not sure about are open and close. They appear on many GUIs, not just this one, but they seem unnecessary to me. You can rarely open something that's open, nor can you close something that's closed. To my mind in most circumstances you'd just need an open/closed icon.

I think this thread should contain a warning about an unlabled link to a right-wing middle-class newspaper. I unwittingly found myself reading the Daily Mail. It's too late for me now, I'll spend the rest of the day worrying about immigrants stealing my inheritance tax.

monkey: The hat is flat, it's that kind of hat! The sprite isn't my work, so don't be offended that I'm not addressing your crits.

alimpo: I can't see your edit, but thanks for the positive feedback.

Sir B: Wow post? You will be sorry... I mean, thanks!

Steve: Your edit has some very useful elements. I like the larger, more ludicrous sun, but I like your rock on the horizon. I see what you mean about the floating station, you've tightened that up nicely. I'm also not sure about the path, but the bushes look much better. I was very reluctant to add highlights to the bushes because the style-guide allows for no shading beyond drop shadows. Your bushes look much more dynamic though - I think I need to bend the rules!

2ma2: I'm not too worried about the composition based on your observations. The metal object is a sign for the city that is the main character's destination. The ditch is also relevant to an early puzzle, so it could be useful to have the player's attention drawn to it. I'm glad you like the sky.

Thanks again!

Hooray!

I've been dying to know what happens next, best of luck with this project.

[Update:]

Thanks for the crits guys!

2ma2: I can't take credit for the colour scheme (see style guide), but you're right, it's pretty! I'll put Snarky's obelisk road sign in the bottom right. That should tighten that up a bit.

Snarky: It certainly is a Work in Progress. I'll try to take on board everything you've said. I see I misunderstood you with regard to "dull, empty", a few signs of agriculture and settlement should sort that out. As for the telegraph poles, you should have said 'those three telegraph poles in the foreground look like trees'! I meant them as telegraph poles, but trees might suit your vision of the scene better. I'll add a wee obelisk and hide some of the station. I was also worried about it looking noisy, but without many focal points, it was hard to stop the station looking like a lego builing a few meters behind the hedge. I'll try to be a little more subtle!

Mad: I knew I was cheating a bit with the sun's position and I couldn't find a way of drawing it that fit the style. The thing I most liked was a deep crimson, but that looked like sunset. I'll get rid of it unless I can think of anything better.

Update:


I made a few changes based on your feedback. I had a last ditch attempt at keeping the sun, but I don't know if it looks like morning. I tried to clean up a bit of the noise, and make the location a little less desolate. I also added BigBrother's Sprite to check the consistency of the style.

[Update 02/11]

I keep hearing people describe the Sphinx project as 'dead', but I think it's too good an idea not to contribute to.

Here's a backdrop for the first location in the game, a road near a train station. It's been drawn within the style guide set out by Big Brother:
http://www.americangirlscouts.org/snarkywiki/index.php/Style_Guide. But I find it particularly difficult to draw bushes that fit the style. The character needs to hide behind a bush so I can't cheat and get rid of them. There are many unfinished areas, particularly the rocks on the horizon.



I'd appreciate any feedback.

Update 02/11

Heliopolis Skyline:


Updated Road:


Railway Platform (WIP):


Updated Railway Platform:

*Feedback wanted on this one particularly - see last post*

[Third:]

Thanks for the entries, I enjoyed them all. Since exhibition was all about invention, I made my decision based on how inventive I felt the style or subject matter was.

Here are my top three:

Third: Mister Frisby

Second: Neil Dnuma

First: Sir Buloght

I'm afraid there are no trophies, I didn't have time. Feel free to make your own out of bottle caps and bubblegum. Congratulations to Messrs Frisby & Dnuma, Sir Buloght and to everyone else!

-Ali

You could be confusing Dialogue Options with Dialogues themselves. That code doesn't change any of the options in Dialogue 16, which I guess is what you wanted to do. I think it would switch off the first topic from dialogues 6, 7 and 8. You could try this instead. I think it might do the trick:

SetDialogOption(16 ,6, eOptionOffForever);
SetDialogOption(16 ,7, eOptionOffForever);
SetDialogOption(16 ,8, eOptionOffForever);

Though it might be better to try and code this using the new style scripting along these lines:

dTheDialogueName.SetOptionState (6, eOptionOffForever);
dTheDialogueName.SetOptionState (7, eOptionOffForever);
dTheDialogueName.SetOptionState (8, eOptionOffForever);

I hope I haven't misunderstood your problem. If I have, I'm sure someone who knows more than me will be help.

I've never played these games, but the only circumstance in which a map might irritate me would be if it allowed me access to every location in the game. That would destroy any sense of exploration. Usually games only allow you to teleport to locations you've already visited/learned about, and I can't see why that would be bothersome.

On the other hand, I find fans of Sierra tend to enjoy intensely difficult adventures, so perhaps a map feature would be thought too easy.

Thanks Candle, 1&1 does seem pretty friendly and straight forward. I'll check it out.

AGA, the American Girl Scouts deal sounds pretty good, but must my site be AGS-related to qualify?

I say Terry Jones talking about this on the BBC, it is amazing. It makes you wonder what the world would be like if the Romans and other european cultures had been more interested in preserving and developing the knowledge of ancient Greece.

Instead, we spent the middle ages with our fingers up our noses trying to turn pigs into gold.

I don't think your remarks were particularly 'gay' as bunnymilk suggests. I don't think we should be too critical to Louigi Verona even if his remarks may come across as offensive.

Louigi, You are right that a lot of good AGS games have graphics that are functional at best, and confusing at worst. The reason for this is many amateur developers do not have the option of hiring skilled artists full time.

If the plots of the best AGS games were rendered super-great graphically, I suspect they'd exceed the quality of many commercial adventures.

But I suspect you're in the minority with your dislike of the Apprentice interface. I can understand you like the efficiency of Broken Sword, but many gamers enjoy a more flexible process of interaction which allows the player to decide how to deal with objects/characters.

Give Apprentice I or II another go (They do use different interfaces). If you like cheeky humour and an immersive atmosphere you'll be glad you did.

If you download the free RAD video tools, you can load the cutscene files (.SMK, I think) and watch them outside of the game.

Here's a link:
http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

It's also handy for compressing video too.

Thanks for the information guys,

Alynn, I appreciate that code, but it's way beyond my understanding!

m0ds, thanks for that link, I'll check it out!

AGA, please excuse my ignorance. What exactly is the AGS server, and how can I find out more about it?

Thanks again,

Ali.

I'm not certain this will help, but try using:

cMan.Say ("x");

Like this:

cEgo.Walk (x, y, eBlock);

With the new style scripting, you tell AGS what thing you want to act upon (cEgo/cVillain), then tell it what to do(Walk/Animate etc.).

You would probably want to put your introduction cutscene in the 'first time player enters room' in the interactions editor of the room in which the intro takes place.

Prodigal ran perfectly well for me on Windows 98 with a Pentium II 400Ghz processor. I think those requirements are just the conditions under which the makers are sure the game will run.

And I'm with Cameron, Black Dahlia and Blackstone are distinctly underrated games. The Trilby games were all very suspenseful and enjoyable, but I found Pleurgburgh to be more intriguing.

Thanks, Nikolas. I should clarify though, that the .co.uks shouldn't all lead to the same page. One of them would lead to a main index, but the others would lead to their own pages within the domain.

Hi guys, I know many people ask this sort of thing regularly, but I don't now much about web hosting / getting domain names and I could use a little advice.

I'm based in the UK and need a small amount of space, and three .co.uk domains. The idea is that each domain refers to different projects, but they all link to pages within one space.

What I'm uncertain about is how much that would cost (I hope cheap-ish) and how much bandwidth I'd need. To begin in with, the pages would be very simple, with a few small images. At a later date I might want to stream video, or allow people to download video/audio clips. I'm not certain what kind of options I'd need to allow that.

I really don't know anything about this sort of thing. I'd appreciate any information / suggestions you might be able to make.

Radiant's criticisms are all well reasoned, but I do think that a sim game in AGS would be a fun novelty. If you were to attempt something like this I would set aside all notions of a series of games, and choose a small, distinct, manageable project.

Why not a garden or just a vegetable patch?

And if you don't want to rehash old ideas, why not choose an AGS-related concept for your theme? Cyb Christopia, perhaps...?