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Two great episodes! Obviously a huge honor hearing you not only mention but actually playing TSP while pod casting

I definitely didn't want best puzzle to go, since that's one of the fundaments upon which our games rest! So in case I wasn't clear - keep best puzzle!

Hehe, my paintover did turn out awfully dark, didn't it
I painted it in the middle of the light and with my desktop monitor, so now in daylight and on my ipad I can hardly see it... Might return to it later, hope some points came across still!

Right, let's see.

Just a few things really.
* highlights are a precious commodity, so use them sparsely. They give your image focus points. Even in broad daylight, you'll always get really dark areas. Brightness only exists in contrast to something - that's why we don't think of a completely blank paper as a really bright scene; we just see whiteness.
* Google trees or forest and sample the colour of the trunks - 90% of the samples won't have brown in them. They'll have shades of grey and green.
* Squint your eyes and look at a picture - it needs a clear focus. We both have the same focal points in our pictures - where the light hits that center tree - but in your image it's distracted by many other bright fragments of light.
* Adjacent objects that are hit by light equally shouldn't have vastly different lighting. Look at the roots to the bottom left in your image - the roots are dark but the grass really bright. That's highly disturbing for your eye! Your eyes need rest. Rest and guidance!

[IMGzoom]http://www.esseb.com/andail/graphics/snarkyforest.png[/IMGzoom]

Pixel control gone haywire here, but I just wanted to illustrate my points. Still really impressed by your original painting!

Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Ha ha, thanks... I think.

It was meant as a sincere compliment! Maybe I haven't paying attention lately, but I haven't seen this kind of art from you before. Of course, it's not technically pixel art, but it's at least down to a level of detail where every pixel has its function and place.

If you put this on the critics lounge, I'd only have a couple of suggestions.

Looking cool! Getting some PQ4 vibes

Congrats, Dave, and good luck with the launch!

Unfortunately my Inventory bar at the bottom is always visible :/ and when I hover over it it slides up well over the screen? Anyone know how to fix this?

Never got this reported to me and never experienced it either, so I have no idea I'm afraid. Simply restarting the game won't help? Otherwise you'll just have to toy around with settings and drivers and stuff. But I'll note it down for further bug fixing, thanks!

Ben:

Spoiler

You're quite right that Sara probably knew darn well what the book was all about, but that she hoped there'd be a reward in there as well. She wouldn't be so hesitant to read it otherwise, and she would have questioned Ord's decision to rewrite it. Now they just agreed that Jonatan's own ending sucked, without going into specifics.

[close]

Hehe, thanks everyone for your... bug reports!
And also some kind words

Grundislav:
(This contains massive spoilers, so only read if you've finished the game)

Spoiler

Thanks, your c&c about the ending is very valid. Lots of people have reacted on it, with mixed feelings. The current ending is the result of some compromising, so it might come across as a bit unconventional.

Initially, I wanted the ending to be even more abrupt, with Ord either dying, or simply going back to his previous life with nothing altered; no closure, no changes at all.

I wanted there to be a tangible difference between the dramatic showdown ending of the fairy-tale, and how the real world works - mundane and anti-climactic. My very first idea was that Ord should die, but live on in the book world, in the way literary characters become immortalized in the text (referencing Shakespeare and the sonnet Shall I compare thou[...]). But then the game became gradually more oriented toward guilt and sin, and less about mortality, so that ending wouldn't make sense.

However, testers didn't want a sad/non-climax ending, so I had to put something good there. At least now Ord gets to sacrifice himself, preventing Sara from learning the truth. And we get a glimpse of a better future - going away with Sara, the rain stopping...

A realistic ending is one where there isn't a perfect closure - you don't always get all questions answered. That's why I deliberately threw in plot elements that never get addressed properly, like Magnus and his dinner date, and what's in the cellar, and if Jonatan would have killed himself anyway, and is suppressing childhood memories really the way to deal with your past, will Sara even feel better for it?

At one point Ord says "I feel like I'm just being given more questions", when he's supposed to attain some sort of clarity.

I wanted to foreshadow the ending a bit by repeatedly have Sara ask if Ord found anything weird about the book, and she even said she was afraid of what it might contain. I know the revelation is still so abrupt it borders on the absurd (soap opera-ish, even), but hey, that's how well I managed to write it into the story It turned out harder than I thought, handling such delicate and mature themes...

[close]

Nice one, Snarky!
Who knew you'd suddenly produce this kind of pixel art

Thanks everyone for your kind words! It means everything.
Ben, seems you (and grundislav) were the first to beat it (outside of testers)

Will note bugs for future fixing, cheers.

[Those who pre-ordered, you can use the Steam/Desura code you got for £5 off the single DVD rom copy. Please remove the dashes from your code and it'll work.]

Hello everyone, my game is now released for your playing pleasure.

[embed=640,400] <iframe width="640" height="400" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WUoo2y-NIPA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> [/embed]

Get it here (will be updated with new links):
http://www.samaritanparadox.co.uk/
http://www.screen7.co.uk/
http://www.gog.com/game/the_samaritan_paradox
http://store.steampowered.com/app/283180
http://fireflowergames.com/shop/the-samaritan-paradox/
http://www.zodiac-store.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=811

and should be live on Desura later

YOU CAN USE DISCOUNT CODE CHRISJONESAGS FOR £1 OFF THE DRM-FREE (ON IT'S OWN) VERSION FROM THE OFFICIAL SITE OR SCREEN7.CO.UK

Those who pre-ordered, you can use the Steam/Desura code you got for £5 off the single DVD rom copy. Please remove the dashes from your code and it'll work.

Thanks AGS for all your support and encouragement! Seeing it finally announced here is a huge relief. I hope it will bring you joy and excitement, and a fair amount of puzzlement!

Okay, going to be a bit picky here, so it all depends on how much you're willing to change.

There are still some issues here, especially in terms of anatomy, but also when it comes to postures and composition.

Her legs are still far too short for a non-midget human, but if you're not willing to give her a properly sized lower body I'll assume it's a part of the style (it's common for cartoon characters to have shorter legs, for instance).

Her pose also… poses… problems. I don't know what she's meant to express, but when I first saw the picture in its entirety, I sensed a degree of urgency - maybe they've broken into an office somewhere and are about the hack their hardware? Why else would she have a gun close at hand like that, and why else would the sword dude have that weapons-ready watching-out pose? That makes her current position a bit too leisurely. She's basically sitting like a child, completely off guard. And if this is just their own office, safe within their head quarters, why not give the poor girl a proper chair?

Thus, my suggestion is to make her squat instead, and look more focused. So instead of appearing like a child surrounded by toys that fail to interest her, she would look professional and on her toes, ready for action.

And again, the sword dude still isn't balanced I think it would help tons if his sword arm would also rest on his knee, or if it was at least hanging more directly in front of him.

I wouldn't be into game making without AGS, since I can't script otherwise. I wouldn't even know where to start if someone asked me to make a game without AGS.

Also I've got to see more of the world, via the various Mittens and Wintermeets, and I've made lots of friends abroad. There are AGSers whom I definitely count among my top… 20 best friends.

And I've improved my drawing skills, after years and years at the critics' lounge. And my writing skills. And after a decade of globally moderating this place, I might even have developed as a teacher (which is my day job).

Jesus, I would probably suck without AGS...

[+1]

Make a game you want to make, not one you think people will play. If you conform it will just be average and boring.

+1
Of course can be good to know what people like, but I'm sure your game will be greater if you'll do it just the way you want...

+2

What kind of plots are you good at writing? What kind of dialogue? What kind of art do you like to look at? What type of puzzles do you think you can cleverly devise?

When you close your eyes and think of your dream game that's yet to be made, what do you see? Make that game.

No, but you can always control any dialog option from anywhere, via standard code. Remember to indent with a space when you insert normal code in the dialog editor.
For instance:

ego: nevermind!
dChitchat.SetOptionState ();
goto-dialog X

So this is some kind of trial page so that SE can see if there's any support for the idea?
http://collective.square-enix.com/projects

And if there's any support, the game will go on to a crowdfunding site, where again it will be funded only if there's (more) adequate support for it?

Seems like Square Enix is doing some sort of vanity press thing here - basically zero risk, zero money invested, just a logotype and some royalties once the game gets released.

Not to take away anything from your game, Icey, just speculating about what kind of business SE is running.

Why won't you set the viewport to the object's position directly?
So under repeatedly_execute_always you put
SetViewport (oCart.X, oCart.Y);
You just need to adjust the coordinates so that the object appears in the middle, obviously.

Yeah, the first demo "game". He didn't make the graphics, though.

That was long!

I agree with the general sentiment, but I think the same kind of defense can be used against any criticism that focuses on just one area - too bad graphics (but the story weighs up for it! Would you rather have lots of eye candy and no real substance??) no voice overs (why focus on voices, the music is brilliant so just use your inner voices for the dialogues!) too basic and unchallenging puzzles (we have a real story to tell so we don't want to interrupt the flow and the narrative etc etc), so every time a critic brings up one single area that is lacking, it's easy to find good counter arguments.

Time length obviously isn't everything, but then again quality is hard to measure, whereas quantity is more objective, so it's an easy thing to complain about. Surely a good story can be short, but a good story that is longer will give you more pleasure, so by all standards that must mean more bang for your buck, right? Your main argument seems to be that playing something boring for a hundred hours sucks, whereas playing a brilliant 10 minutes game can be a wonderful experience, but that argument isn't valid for obvious reasons.

Thirdly, comparing media and their relative costs isn't always applicable. Going to the movies costs (at least where I live) more than a standard budget game, but it gives me down to 1 hour 40 minutes of entertainment. A couple of beers result in less than an hour of joy, for the prize of Civilization III at a used games outlet, and the latter has potentially thousands of hours play time (and no subsequent hangover).

Lastly, adventure games differ from most other genres in that they're rarely re-playable, which makes the play length more definitive. You don't hear that Icy Tower is "too short" even though it might contain much less material than an average AGS game, but that's the price we have to pay - one play-through of our game must match a hundred rounds of Candy Crush, or the buyer won't think it's worth it.