Messages

I'm glad, and a bit surprised, to have helped!

This is a probably-wrong-guess, but is your character's speech colour black? Then it might be invisible against the default dialogue backdrop until you moved the cursor over it.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. In adventure game terms, backgrounds are what I was talking about. I've seen some atmospheric locations in your work, but usually framing a character. I'd be interested to see how you'd bring character and energy to something like a still-life or a landscape.

Mightn't it be cheaper to get smaller eyes?

As long as he meets historical figures in every episode, I'd be happy.

Actually, I don't think it's a great idea to use the character of Gabriel Knight. If GK had a background in the paranormal, his cavelier attitude towards voodoo in the first game wouldn't make sense. I think the plot has potential though.

Instead of being assigned to write about the paranormal, which sounds unlikely and a bit convenient, if you see what I mean.

Perhaps he could be a history student investigating the college chapel or some other campus building with a murky past. If the character remains a budding writer, he could be investigaiting the school for an article in the college paper, or studying a document written by its founder which describes arcane rituals.

Yeah, and science was wrong about the earth being flat

Off topic, Terry Jones the comedio-historian argues that science never thought the world was flat and I've often suspected the same. The Ancient Greeks knew the world was round, and in the Inferno Dante travels through the centre of the globe. Apparently Irving Washington started the myth.

This image looks a lot of fun, but I would make a few observations.

The camera should be lower for a first person view, unless the player character is very very tall.

Ther is a noteable distortion on the sky and moon. Better results could be achieved by mapping the sky to a flat plane in the background, or by using a much larger texture for the sky.

The tree image looks suited to a winter environment, to the extent that I saw those stars as snowflakes, however your image is full of warm colours. Experiment with tinting the texture red, orange or even purple, and use smaller less blotchy points of light for stars.

There's very little I could suggest with regard to improving your character designs. I particularly love the looseness of the sketches.

What I'd like to see is how you could bring character to a scene without characters, if you see what I mean. These are great character studies, but I'd love to see how you deal with composition and mis-en-scene.

I disagree, I knew I wanted to make amateur adventure before I realised I wanted to play amateur adventures. I'd been using AGS for around year before I really sat down to play an AGS game. I don't think you can rely on people coming to the software having played the best examples of what it can produce.

[nostalgia]

Steve's pros and cons make a lot of sense. It's also worth remembering that nostalgia means nothing to someone who's new to AGS, and that the introdution of Roger Mark II wouldn't necessarily mean the death of Mark I for those who feel nostalgic towards the little fella.

[EDIT:]

I guess that reclassifying celestial bodies probably isn't these scientists' main job. I also suspect that they are far from morons.

EDIT: Though, I do agree with you about renaming streets. Round the corner from me 'Mad Alice Lane' has been renamed 'Three Cranes Lane. That's much worse!

Helm is right. I don't think there is any way in which the old Roger encourages better game making.

I don't imagine many AGSers were inspired to make adventures by playing poor games. Most people seem to have been inspired by very good adventure games.

On a slightly related note, why is it that fans have no legal rights, yet those wishing to crack a joke are protected (fan-based materials including copyrighted material are illegal, parodies including copyrighted materials are not)?

I believe there is legislation to protect direct parody and satire, at least in the UK. I think this is a good thing, because it's important that people are able to make fun of things.

This looks muchly fun! I love the grass on the first screenshot.

[EDIT:]

I was just thinking the other day, "I wonder if they'll ever be able to project something on the moon"

I heard Pepsi were considering it.

EDIT: I was reminded of the Red Dwarf thing when I first read about Pepsi as well. I guessed that this was what the book was satirising. Also, Coke Adds Life!

I myself am currently trying to improve my sprite skills, and I can learn a lot more by studying ProgZmax's new sprite than the current one.

I think this is an interesting point. Why shouldn't new AGS users learn about effective walkcycles at the same time as they get to grips with scripting? ProgXMax's sprite set would provide them with an good introduction to adventure game animation.

I don't think the old Roger needs to be scrapped altogether, but I do think Roger Mark II would do well as part of the basic AGS package.

I would strongly support the inclusion of a ProgZMax's Roger Mark II in the default template. A more polished default graphic would be more inspiring. I don't think it would lead to more people depending upon Roger II as a player character, I think it would encourage people by showing them what can be achieved.

I don't think that should be seen as disrespectful towards Mr Jones's Roger, but I do feel the original distinctly lags behind the quality of the AGS software.

[Genre]

I think the rigidity of you're suggesting will limit the contributions you'll get. I also think a thread, while it's a potentially good place to collect recommendations will not be a good place to browse recommendations.

I also think that you should be careful with the term Genre. If it's going to mean anything at all, 'adventure' and 'cyber-punk' can't both be genres. They are of different kinds, one describes form and the other content, like 'comedy' and 'western'.

I think Thomas VoàŸ was joking, Drew Blank was the name of Lloyd's character in Toonstruck. Great game through.

Having typed that last message, I opened up AGS and realised that my essential concept was flawed. I saw that pointers were the way to go and I've begun re-working the idea from the ground up.

Thanks for the offer of help Besh, I may take you up on that if I get stuck. Which I inevitably will.

Thanks again!