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Ghost 'n' goblins ending: You must play through the game again..yeah because that game was soooo easy to beat the first time. Maybe I suck but that was one of the hardest games ever IMO

Oh man, blast from the past. Now I have to go and play that. Been ages since I tried, don't think I ever finished it. Wish me luck

Remember the old days. A black screen and "Thank you for playing" talk about putting energy into that ending

At least they had an excuse back then

Playing QFG4: Shadows of Darkness now, always loved that ending and John Rhys-Davies as narrator works so well

I don't know but I hope not. That's pretty much what the EU politicians are after, 'one Europe'. The countries in Europe have a lot in common with each other but still a lot differences too. I wouldn't say there's a general Western culture, there is a lot of overlap because of Europe's history, Christianity for example. I'm not religious myself but I know what to expect when it's made part of a story in the sense that I'm familiar with it. I'm not sure how much Americans know about Europe's Medieval period, Hollywood's depiction of that time isn't always the best but yeah, a game set there could appeal to US consumers but I think it's more down to your game itself rather than the setting. The Witcher series seems to have no trouble selling over there

I agree with Crimson Wizard about Morrowind, I don't know if you've ever played it but the world Bethesda built is incredible and completely alien. I can talk for hours about it so if you need more, just say so.

Wow it really must've been a horrible ending then XD

It was for me Just glad there's plenty of games with good endings to offset this monstrosity

Space Marine(s)?

Any PC game. The topic of the conference is publishing games on Steam.

In that case, I'd say universal culture in this sense is more 'mainstream' culture than it is US culture. True universal culture comes from people though, not a country. We all have the same basic needs driving us and when those are used to build the story, it can appeal to anyone who can identify with it.

So the story and the world / setting play a major role in deciding the cultural background a game is going to have. Fiction based in non-fiction also tends to steer it in a certain direction because of the need to incorporate real events and locations (Metal Gear Solid games come to mind). It's also possible to throw everything out the window and create a world for your story by picking elements from all sorts of cultures (Morrowind and Albion both do this very well). Those games usually take some time / effort to get into as you need to learn about their world and how it works but can be more compelling because of it.

A game like Mario Bros is universal in it's appeal because there aren't any ties to specific cultures in there, it's accessible to pretty much anyone who can understand that the princess is in another castle. This is a very simple example ofcourse but even huge story driven games can sport a culture on their own.

Games that are pure fantasy or are based on mythology, be it eastern or western can have a huge appeal in both parts of the world too, in the end the main question will always be if the gameplay is good. I love Dynasty Warriors, mindless as it may be, it's fun to play and the setting is awesome. Same with the God of War and Prince of Persia series.

One of the reasons US culture is deemed 'popular' for games is just because of the size of the country, the amount of games being produced there and exported to pretty much every western country and the majority of other countries as well. It's everywhere and because of that, it feels 'familiar' and a lot of people like familiar stuff, they trust it. The same goes for American cinema, 9 out of 10 times it's dead easy to tell an American production apart from a production done in another country. Games are no different most of the time.

Another thing that comes to mind for me is: what do you expect to get out of the game you publish and what do you want buyers to get out of it? In the end, it's a product you create for profit (wether material or spiritual), because even if it is a labour of love, there are always concessions to be made. You can make a game that's interesting to a very small target audience, hoping to truely inspire them in one way or another. While there's not much material gain to be had there, the personal payoff for you as a creator may still be worth it.

On the other hand, if your goal is to get filthy rich, you'll probably say screw that small audience, I need something that almost anyone can identify with and build a completely different game.

I'll leave it at that and sum it up below

TLDR: It depends

It would be an interesting topic but it depends on a lot of factors in my opinion, in particular the target audience and game genre. What kind of games are we talking about?

Finished Tumbleweed Park last night and I don't care for the ending one bit. It's hollow, insulting and very, very cheap. Ron Gilbert is probably laughing his ass off but wth was he thinking. If he puts out another adventure game, I'll pass and stick to his 'classic' stuff.

Comparing this game to Technobabylon which I finished a few months ago, I'll be sure to recommend TB to anyone who wants to try a modern adventure game.

On a technical level, TP feels under-executed and / or underutilized. I love the backgrounds, top-notch work there from Mark Ferrari (I actually learnt about the game from watching his GDC video) but then there's the 'lighting' that sometimes shows up over characters but most of the time it just doesn't. Missed chance there in my opinion, same with non-working mirrors (in this age, really?). I really don't see why they would have visual effects in one scene but then in the next, it's as flat the character shading. Overall it just feels very inconsistent, they could've done a lot more interactivity, the CPU power is more than there these days and GPUs are probably left wondering what they should do after finishing rendering a frame in 1ms.

The story wasn't that engaging but it was interesting enough for me to want to see where it would take me, entered the factory with high expectations to only be greeted by one of the biggest disappointments I've had in a game. They have the gall to poke fun at the notorious Sierra deaths talking about how their method 'takes more effort but in the end it pays off', I had more fun following proper procedure in Police Quest and pumping the Death Angel full of lead than I had with this crap ending. If I ever play through TP again, Dolores is gonna push the button on that device for sure.

Spoiler

guess Sierra was right about BOOM! after all

[close]

I have always enjoyed both Sierra and LucasArts games and shit-talking your long-gone competition after all this time just feels freaking childish to me. They both did it back in the days but that was a back-and-forth thing, Epic did the same thing with Duke Nukem but it was always friendly jabs (doomed space marine, not being afraid of no quake), this felt a lot more malicious. Sierra games these days would probably just auto-save and give you the death animations, allowing you to rewind immediately.

I hardly ever make posts like these but TP definitely rubbed me the wrong way and I'd be more than happy to point out on the Ransome doll where it touched me

Congratulations, this looks gorgeous and the premise sounds interesting too. The explicit mention of a modem makes me have to ask, will it scream? In any case, looking forward to this so best of luck

Thanks for letting me know about that bug, I've patched it and have re-uploaded it to Itch.io

You're welcome and that's fast, awesome I'll make sure to grab the updated version tomorrow.

Fun so far but it crashed on me when I tried to PUSH the Water Tank. I haven't finished yet but I'll try again tomorrow and avoid pushing it and save my game

This is the error I got:

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
An internal error has occurred. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, post the details on the AGS Technical Forum.
(ACI version 3.4.0.15)

Error: prepare_script: error -18 (no such function in script) trying to run 'hTank_Mode8'   (Room 1)

---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

I haven't finished the demo yet but it's so good. I'm not a fan of horror games at all but the atmosphere in this is sucking me right in, I want to know what's going on in this game. Take all the time you need for the full game, I'll be here awaiting the release

It looks great, if the story measures up to these graphics we're in for one hell of a treat

Never put the two together but I knew there's a Dutch guy by the name of Miez on the FoY team. In any case, you're welcome

Playing through this atm, cute
My niece is a bit too young to enjoy this but I plan to show her when she's a little older. On that note, would you be interested in a Dutch translation?

I suck at drawing and even more at colouring but decided last week to make a game in Sierra's AGI style graphics using the EGA palette. Not to say that you should do the same, as suggested a text-adventure is fine, so is just finding a style that suits you as Cassie pointed out. As the saying goes, don't bite off more than you can chew and don't be afraid to make literal copies of sprites / art in the beginning. It may feel like cheating but in tracing the work of others, you can discover techniques and tricks you didn't know about. You also see what effect single pixels can have (if you're working on that level).

My choice for AGI is motivated mainly by the fact that I'll be restricted to a palette that I'm very familiar with visually, playing all those great EGA games over and over. The sprites from those games are very simple but for me that's good. Later on, as I learn more, I plan to slowly increase the resolution of my graphics and move towards square pixels.

That's Shadow Of The Comet

Correct

It is The Underground Man: http://store.steampowered.com/app/513230/The_Underground_Man/
Never played it but it looks cool. Will have to pick it up some time.

New one: