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Avoid cliches at all cost! No serial killers in silly outfits, no scary empty houses, etc. In other words, nothing that can relate to the typical teen horror movie. Try new settings, new outfits and new designs. This way, the player won't be able to say "oh, it's so obvious, he's in that closet". The player must not be ready for the scare. Example: Take Mulholland Drive's bum scene. It's daylight, the guy is obviouly a daydreaming lunatic. And *baaam*, it's there.

And, as the others said, atmosphere. The player must constantly be on the edge a mental breakdown. Example: This is not a horror movie, but the atmosphere at one moment was just right. "2001: A Space Odyssey", the scene when the austronauts are out in space. There is no sound but that of the astronauts' (who are slowly drifting in space) breath.

And the Silmarillion isn't tiresome, it's AWEsome. A common typo.

According to my dictionary, one can be both. I can't say I disliked the Silmarillion, but it sure wasn't "fun reading". I can sure see why you like it, and it indeed was a fascinating piece of literature, but it's just so hard to read.

And do you actually remember all these details or do you have a copy of the Silmarillion in your pocket?

Quiet, you silly Spaniard.  


To really answer this question properly requires one to read the long and tiresome "Silmarillion", what is something I did. Basically, the origin of the Elves is an island to the West of Middle Earth called Valinor. On Valinor live the Valar (Gods), and other Elven races.
When Sauron created The One Ring, the fate of the elves became bound to it through their Three Rings. When the ring was destroyed, the Elves lost their eternal life, and had to leave Middle Earth to the West to maintain it. This is why Arwen's choice to stay with Aragorn meant death.
During the time he was carrying the ring, Frodo too became bonded to it. Middle-Earth had to be completely cleansed, what meant that Frodo, who still held the taint of the Ring had to leave (as well as Bilbo).

P.S. Time could have twisted my memory, so I might be wrong in some details.

A bit about lightning now, another overlooked feature.

Lightning can set the atmosphere, the tone and the situation the characters are at. Let's take the following examples from movies:


In "Traffic", all Mexico scenes are lit in a 'yellowish' light, showing us the dusty, wild and untidy land "south of the border". The US scenes are lit with a 'blueissh' light. This way, Steven Soderbergh creates the initial distinction between the two countries.


The Glass Menagerie has this red-based uneven lightning, because it is a "memory play" - it is a story narrated by Tom as he remembers it.

Such "overlay" lightning is another thing games can use for artistic reasons but rarely do. For example, imagine there was a difference in the lightning style between the ending of Monkey Island 2 and all the rest, to represent the distinction between imagination or reality (or whatever it means   ).
Also, lightning can used in puzzles. It can highlight certain objects, as a hint, or even be part of a puzzle (mirror tricks spring to mind).

So, I think lightning is another thing that should be used more artisticly in games. More from me soon.

I saw Lost in Translation yesterday, and enjoyed it a lot.
Sofia Coppola didn't put the family name to shame, and pulled of a masterpiece of melancholy, madness and romance. It's really amazing how she managed to keep the focus on the right things.
The acting is class A as well. Bill Murray is great, but I was even more impressed with Scarlett Johansson. She manages to look depressed and charming at once.
I haven't seen Mystic River and Monster (the movies that will win the acting awards according to most critics), but this is surely Oscar stuff!

uh, Hugo's House of Horrors 3?

anybody with me? Nobody?

Never played 'em, so I can't comment.

Lovely paradox, eh?

Welcome, and enjoy your stay.







Mwahahahhahahahhahahhahahha.

Argh! The controls are too awkward.

Personally, I am disappointed. Two great games released in January, "Just Another Point N' Click Adventure" and "Keptosh I: Search for the Junc", were ignored completely. Both games offered good gameplay, art and music. Heck, Keptosh sure had a better story than the "Apprentice" cliche one (no offense, Herculean, I loved your game). "The Uncertainty Machine", released back on March 10th, was left out on nominations it surely deserved in the music and sound effects departments. I think this shows just how short the memory of the community is. What a pity.

Anyway.... congratulations to all nominated games and their creators, best of luck.

There is never one dominant feature. What really matter is how all of the above merge to create one full piece of gameplay. Sometimes, all seperate aspects of the game can be superb, yet not work well when put together. So, I pick the sum of all parts as what I care about the most.

So... any conclusions?

I suggest poeole just start editing the title of a post, or changing the icon to a "thumbs up". If many people will do it, then it would be easy to implement over the whole community.

Indeed, I think that asking for donations is each and everybody's own business. If somebody wants to do it, then let him set up a PayPal accound and say "GIVE ME MONEY!!111!!!", but there is no reason to start a whole new wave.

I didn't manage to get the nominations from Andail, and the truth is I'm kind of lost. Any suggestions, anyone?

Personally, I think that one of the most overlooked of adventure games is that of point of view, what roughly translates to camerawork in cinematic terms. In movies, unusual shots often help form the atmosphere of a movie. For example, look at the following frame from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas:

The extreme zoom on Johny Depp's face causes it to look very much like a caricature. That, combined with his peculiar outfit, gives us an early first impression of the character as a lunatic and the first tone of the trippy atmosphere.
Another example:

These two trunkshots, one of the trademarks of Quentin Tarantino's works, take the viewer away from his passive position and put him at the heart of the action. Also, it has slight irony - a second ago, the viewer was watching the character, now it's the other way around.

The adventure game genre lacks the variety of the movies.

Most adventure games use the common 2D "sideline" view (as in the screenshot from Secret of Monkey Island above). Nothing is blocking the player's view, and he can clearly see all important elements of the screen. This enables a nice clean view of all objects, but offers hardly any depth or originality.

However, not all games stick to the formula. The recent addition of 3D enviroments to the possibilites of a game designer have opened the door to new and unusual camera positions. The creators of Grim Fandango, for example, put the conventional techniques aside and came up with some interesting ideas.

The above background is largely impractical, but gives the game a more cinematic feeling. It also helps Grim Fandango imitate the film noir greats it is based on.

Overall, I think interesting points of view are very underused in adventure games, and it's a pity. The mostly static environmet is a much more hospitable host to such techniques than other genres. I believe that if these are used more commonly, adventure games in general will have more character, colour, originality and atmosphere.

Well I'm really with Trapezoid on this one. The guy asked a tech question, why start bashing MI4. It's an alright game, anyway.

3) You can minimize the help window and work in the editor.

Is that 13th Aussie Time?

I'm all for. In MI1.5 I had to do a custom Wait1 function to work around it.

As I was cruising the Net, searching for an answer to a question I had about Delphi, I stumbled upon a forum. In there, I saw a little thing I think can be useful in the AGS tech forums. Each thread where the problem was solved had a little 'SOLVED' icon by its name. I think that adding such a thing to out tech forums, if it is possible, will make it easier to search through the heaps of old threads. I think moderators, or perhaps the ones who started the thread, should be able to check a thread as 'solved'.

What do you think?

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