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Good point, Babar, walking is absolutely redundant, but still most of our games have a little character walking around (except those that feature a 1st person perspective) so minimalism hasn't completely taken over the genre.

Donation made

Alright... I think this whole "players today don't understand this and that" is getting a bit, I don't know, presumptuous. The trend now is that everything should be as quick as simple as possible, because apparently people can't learn new rules anymore.

If people can learn how to play games like Dwarf Fortress, or memorize all the gazillion skills in any given mmorpg, I think they can handle an extra click or two on a set of icons. If a game is good, people will learn how to control it.

I think Vince's manifesto has a lot of merit, but a game world isn't an operating system - sometimes it makes sense that the same type of object/character/hotspot should be manipulated/interacted with differently, and in a number of ways. Sure, we can get by with an interact/look GUI, but that's because we've adapted our games so that everything can be interacted with just like that, but that also makes our games increasingly similar. We mainly look at things, pick them up and then combine them with other things.

I have the standard RM/LM for The Ssmaritan Paradox, but there have definitely been moments when I would've prefered a wider assortment of actions - situations I've solved by having an extra GUI pop up (turn the handle clockwise or counterclockwise? things like that).

Mind that I'm not advocating a static set of verbs, like the MI-bar, but a dynamic set, just to give an extra depth to the player-world interaction.

Cracked just published a pretty fun article on the subject:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-16-most-wildly-misleading-video-game-covers-ever/

I've always been a bit unimpressed by the verbcoin, mainly because they've felt clunky and like an unnecessary extra step between me and my verb, but lately I've been swayed a bit.
I think a simple, well-implemented verb-coin is actually pretty nice as long as it's dynamic and updates according to what I'm clicking at. The ability to customize the verbs is pretty cool - I can both look at a document but also read it, or pick it up. I can talk to a person, or push him, or pick his pocket, or look at him, etc etc.

And when it comes to porting, the benefit of a one-click GUI is pretty obvious.

Mine is Mandrake the magician, cultured man of mystery...

...in case you couldn't tell.

Well, I don't mind postponing the deadline, if you think it will help.
Is it enough with Friday?

In Ancient Aliens, which, I admit, is the only game I've encountered this bug in - there are some objects on a table. In DirectDraw, they're drawn properly behind the main character when he passes in front of the table.

If I switch to Direct3d and try the same scene, the objects will inexplicably end up in front of the character, and he can walk several pixels up and down (along the Z axis) with the problem persisting, so it's not a matter of just one pixel.


There's plenty of space between the near edge of the table and the bottom of the screen for the character to walk, but he will never end up in front of the objects.

Ok, completed it, a nice little horror story
The heavy symbolism and fateful tone of voice made me think of Eternally Us.

Especially background and character art was gorgeous (apart from maybe the bending down animation, ahem...), however a tad too much walking back and forth those corridors, for my taste.

So would the same issue happen if an object has a baseline of Y=100, and the player character happens to walk on that same coordinate?

No, because the character's baseline is not set to 100. If the character is at Y coordinate 100, that's just the character location - NOT the baseline. By default, the baseline is 0.

This I don't get. Surely the baseline of the character is where it stands, and updated accordingly? That's how the game knows if the character should be rendered behind or in front of stuff.

Miguel, could you take a look at your game with switched drivers, and confirm that the objects in the intro (backstage the club) have baselines that somehow coincide with the position of the character (granted you can replicate the bug)? Maybe it would be useful to know exactly when this occurs.

Looking good.
Could you please clarify in your post that a registration (with full name and email address) is needed in order to download the game?

At least make sure the "Goodbye" option is first, so you can add topics indefinitely!

Ancient Aliens - I can only play this using direct, but it will cause some objects to "forget" their baselines and be rendered in front of the character when he passes by. It looks completely awful.

Does it have to do with the default driver setting?
I never have problems with my own game - it has direct3d as default driver and I never get objects appearing in front of characters, but recently I played a game where I had to change driver to direct3d (default was directdraw) and I got just that problem.

I really hope people won't have that problem when they play my game, because it looks disastrous and is an immediate game breaker.

Excellent idea about the backdrop, Snarky, and Waheela, excellent new version
As Snarky pointed out, having the character lean out of the center circle probably isn't ideal. Composition-wise, it does make sense to have the elements sort of grow out like that, but being human figures they end up with really weird poses.

Since this workshop seems to be slowly dying, I thought maybe it should be transformed into a general activity without a deadline or a winner, and I'll take it upon myself to provide feedback and paintovers to whomever wants to stay in it.

Of course, we still have until Tuesday to see if there are enough finished pictures to make this a proper competition, warranting a vote. Thoughts?

Waheela, looking really good

I've suggested a couple of adjustments here:


* Made the main character stand out better by lowering contrast and saturation of the rest
* Centered the evil shape
* Added more lighting to make it more dramatic - increased glowing effect of the object in his hand
* Turned him more towards the "camera", so we can see him better
* Turned the colour scheme a bit more homogenous - I think there were too many strong colours competing in your version

I definitely want separate buttons for Look at and Interact with. I like the fact that Look at is mostly "harmless" and won't trigger reactions. I can always look at the lever before I know whether to pull it. I can look at a character without necessarily initiate a dialogue. I can look at things just to be reminded of their functions. Also, how else would you de-select an inventory item?

I can understand the reductionist approach to GUIs, and it's become a trend to do away with everything that isn't 100 percent necessary, but I also think there's a risk of streamlining things too far, especially when the result is that all games have identical GUIs.

There's a whole genre of minimalist point-n-click games (that tend to be oddly popular) where all you do is click stuff and watch something random happening, and the task is simply to click at stuff in the correct order. I want proper adventure games to be more than that.

People mention iPads and tablets as a reason to ditch left/right clicks, but so far at least the Android port does a great job of simulating right-click with a two finger touch - I've tried this myself and it's really easy to learn.

Too much in gaming business is about about making stuff easier and quicker and more accessible for a casual smart-phone-app-player, but let's not forget that a lot of people still own proper computers.

I enjoyed the part about the need of doing something moderately - like in Christminster, when you need the sleeping man to roll away so you can grab the key, and only the feather will do because simply pushing him would wake him up completely - that's a really good way to force you to use a certain inventory item. I enjoyed it until I played Christminster myself, and found out that you could very much attempt to push him, but he still wouldn't wake up. Using the feather just happened to be the right way.
So I guess the article writer remembers a better version of this game than the one I played

[Cat]

Just two pieces of c&c now:

Cat, your first sketch was a killer, it felt immediately right. This version less so - the super-strong contrast don't work that well imho. I think you should step back and soften it up. Strong yellow, orange and then pitch black... something has to give!

Miez, Really promising, but the scene lacks a focus point. My eyes are just searching for something to land on. The main character is turned away, the attacking shadow is far down in a corner, the objects are small and partially buried... it's like everything is just trying to escape your attention.
What if the character (Ben) looked over his shoulder? That would let us viewers actually see him, and it would also allow him to convey some really strong emotion, which would add to the scene.
Or the objects he's looking for are much more interesting, maybe he sees the entire ship in the distance, or something more spectacular is semi-buried just in front of him. Just something!