Messages

Thanks, well maybe I should clarify.
You come across the code, and it's meant as a secret message to a third person. Before you have cracked the code, you won't contact the intended receiver. There are no computers or passwords involved.

I guess I could still let the player contact the receiver and have the protagonist say "I think I've cracked the code" and then the text box will appear.

Yeah spoiler warning and all that.
Anyways.
You've come across a secret code, just a seemingly random sequence of numbers. But it's sent to someone you know is a chemist, so you suspect it's chemistry-related. 
The solution is that the numbers represent elements, and putting the symbols together gives you the message. Like:
57 10 = Lane (LaNe)

The thing is... how should I best let the player solve this? I could just leave it to the player to obtain a periodic table outside of the game, but s/he still needs to make the game know the code has been deciphered. The only way to do this properly would be to have a text box and a parser, where the player can type the answer and the game will check if it's correct.

The easy-mode version would be that the player finds a sheet with the periodic table in-game, then simply combines it with the code and the solution appears. This takes away some of the detective work, but it does fit better with future Ipad/Smartphone versions of the game (no typing involved). Or use an in-game keyboard?

Thoughts?

Also, do you think it would be enough if the character mentioned that the receiver of the code was a chemist, and that he needs to think of a language chemists know of? Would you think of checking a periodic table, or is it too contrived? Should I mention that the numbers (which are arranged in couples and an occasional single) might represent elements, or is that too easy?

I think you would only publish a mix of poetry and prose if you were an established writer and wanted to make some kind of "best of" volume (like "the collected works of Oscar Wilde" or whatever), but as a debutant, definitely release them separately.

Artistic unity and theme > practical/economical solutions

Good luck, by the way!

I'm suddenly reminded of this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H36C0BLtbUA

The biggest thing to happen in the last century was the abolishment of slavery. Yes there were a lot of technological advances but that's how it's always been. The world will be here long after we are gone, that's how I view global warming. I agree USA won't be a super power at all after this century. I think capitalism is the best economical system to have if the US government wasn't messing it up.

Exactly where on Earth was slavery abolished in the last century? In western Europe slavery has been illegal since the end of the middle ages or something, whereas in some parts of the world there is still slavery, so that statement is only almost correct if you mean the USA, in which case you should probably avoid having a purely American perspective in an international forum.

Also, the 20th century has seen a gazillion improvements all over the world. Penicillin, refrigeration, sanitation, decline in global poverty, etc.

Sure, there will always be ups and downs. We seem to be in a bad spiral of regimes that turn increasingly undemocratic, and in some countries (at least in Scandinavia) we seem to stubbornly destroy our welfare system and become less egalitarian. But in larger perspective I'm pretty optimistic. Save perhaps for the global warming.

What Khris said.
It's a statistical fact that things get better (in a long term perspective), and the only thing that might go against that trend is the global warming.

I'm trying to solve the font issue (avoid using super-pixelated letters which make some people's eyes hurt) in my low-res game, and have experimented with importing some TFFs with the AA turned on in the settings.
Everything would be perfect if it wasn't for the fact that AGS lumps together some letter combinations and make them hard to read. The font type itself is standard Verdana which normally has a really smooth nice legibility. Why are the letters rendered so awkwardly in AGS, and can I tweak it somehow? Or how do people typically circumvent the low-res texts issue (if they do - if they find it an issue)?

A train car from the side like this is hard to make interesting, composition-wise.
I don't really know why you need to ditch a uniform perspective just because it's scrolling, but as someone else said; at least make sure there is a horizon that all perspective lines converge at.
You need some sort of contrast between outside and inside, or it will all just blend together.

A (quick and ugly) sketch:


Lower view-point; less floor (floor isn't pretty), two sets of lighting, to distinguish the interior from the exterior, also drew the seats in perspective (it's sloppy but it's there). Don't know if it's any help, just some thoughts!

What? Whaaaaat? I remember 5DaS to have pretty meh graphics. They were certainly functional and consistent (which is pretty important, I'm not discounting the importance), but no more so than any other two dozen or so full-length games released at that point. There were games with effortful (and better) graphics put into them before 5DaS, that were of comparable length! Permanent Daylight, King's Quest 1 and 2 by Tierra/AGD, bloody hell Apprentice, etc.!

I agree. In terms of graphics, 5DaS did not bring anything new or exciting to the table.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk?

Fight Club might be one of the few times I've found the movie slightly better than the book. I really enojoyed the book, but the movie is one of my absolute all time favourites.

Hopefully the games will be better than last time JUST KIDDING

The only fantasy I've read the last decade is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I really liked it. It was grittier and more mature than the fantasy I read as a teenager, probably similar to Martin's series in that respect. Which I would never read, like AGA lacking the patience to take on that kind of volumes.

No, the coloured version is fine. It's not a bad approach to first set the colour scheme and the shading, and then add details.

Your sprite is fun and full of personality, but I think the posture is a bit too curvy - to me it looks like the poor kid's been twisted and rung like a towel.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19974_the-6-most-absurdly-difficult-video-game-puzzles.html

I guess I kind of managed to forget these abominations, but the more I think of it, the absurdity of it is coming back to me.
How could so many of the big titles get away with this level of ludicrousness? We spend so much time here trying to come up with good puzzles, and we give each other feedback and make damn sure to tell one another when our puzzles get too silly. Nobody here at AGS would get away with designing a puzzle like those on that list, yet the professional developers did it again and again.

Are they to blame for the - sometimes - bad reputation of the genre?

Or are we too hard on ourselves, demanding too much of a game element that most players would just accept for it is?

Do we tend to forget about all the silly puzzles we've faced, and remember only the good ones?

Guys, this isn't the rumpus room, please stay on topic.

Alright, moved all the OT-stuff to the Rumpus thread named "Icey's games thread".

This thread is only for discussing the game itself.

Ok I thought of a more conventional riddle:
"What dish serves three and doesn't ever end?"

I have to say I'm glad I'm not competing this year lots of amazing titles!

My condolences, Peder!

[Loom]

What I really hoped for is that it would be helpful to someone who wants to make an adventure game that pushes the bounds of what an adventure can be, without losing its identity as an adventure game. I would love to help people do ambitious, experimental, new things in their adventure games -- ideally, things that would be as new to us today as the interface in Loom or the Virtual Theatre system in Lure of the Temptress were, 20-odd years ago.

This is probably off-topic, but I think the reason AGS games - and adventure games - work is that we've found a formula that doesn't age that badly. It's simply a concept that works, and that's why most people prefer to stick to it, instead of trying to modernize the genre. After all, even if we do make the games much more advanced, featuring all sorts of advanced scripting and hi-tech GUIs, we only end up with games that look like they are 10 years old instead of 20. It's not like we're ever going to cater to new audiences.

I'm a huge Lure of the Temptress fan, but ojectively I can tell that it sucked.  And it sucked mostly because of the virtual theatre thing, which was just clumsy and unnecessary. I'd much prefer if the characters simply were positioned here and there, maybe with an idle animation or two, like in traditional adventure games, instead of restlessly and aimlessly wandering around in fixed patterns, bumping in to me all the time and causing frustration.

When I'm making my game, I'm reluctant to trying out new languages or engines not because I learn code slowly (although I do) but simply because there's nothing I would like my game to do that can't be done with AGS, and I think most people feel the same.