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Well, the blocky flatness doesn't lend itself too well to animation, but it's okay for a static background prop or somesuch.

However, I'd suggest losing most of those lines along the arms and legs.  They don't add a lot to the design and they're very distracting from the rest of the body, which isn't very busy.

Well, aside from that module that bicilotti mentioned, the standard way is to use a custom GUI with controls to handle all of the functions that such windows need.

Then, you'll need to go to your "on key press" area of the global script and set about changing all of the code so that it makes your GUI visible instead of calling the default windows.

The only thing I know of that could cause a character to get stuck is to enter at a point that isn't a walkable area.  If you're using set coordinates, though, I don't see how this could be a problem sometimes and not a problem other times.

Are you using the room edges to determine whether the character has left?

Wow, that one came quite a long way.  Personally, I don't feel that any more frames are necessary.  The way it's drawn has a Saturday Morning Cartoon feel and the slightly choppy animation adds to that.  You'd sacrifice character if you smoothed it.

That's just my opinion, though.

Either way, Zyndikate's template was really great!

Or do you mean using eAnywhere to force them along a scripted path?

Yup, that.  It was probably obvious, but worth mentioning.

You use the character.ChangeRoom(); function just as if said character were the PC.  You can also set x and y coordinates as parameters to have your player start offscreen and walk on if you so desire.

A point and click adventure for a console?  Getting killer reviews?  What is this, ten years ago?

I picked up Zack & Wiki last night and despite the fact that you play a pirate with a monkey as an assistant, the game is derivative of nothing.

It's comprised of large areas which are further comprised of smaller levels.  Each of these levels has a treasure chest which you must gain access to by solving some very well-crafted and fresh environmental puzzles.

There are various animals and creatures roaming the levels, and these can be turned into items by using the monkey (Wiki) as a bell.  Sometimes you'll need to use these items to solve part of the overarching puzzle for that level, sometimes you'll simply need to transport the item so that you can change it back into the animal when you've gotten it where you need it.

Graphically, the game is very appealing.  Cel shaders are used to an unusually good effect.  The characters are full of detail and personality.  The levels are dense and colorful.  Everything is also very pleasantly round... none of those pointy polygon angles found in most Wii games.

Is there character death?  Oh, you betcha.  Most of the "enemies" you encounter are really just factors of the environment.  Part of the puzzle is always finding a way to do things without catching their attention... or finding a way to do things that leads to their demise.  I once got crushed by a big red ball with a frowny-face, but that was due to my failure to learn from Indiana Jones' mistakes... I stepped on a funny panel.  There are also boss fights which can be accessed after you've cleared enough of the levels in the area you're exploring.

The good news is that since the venues are so small, you can just restart that level from the top and, having already figured your way, whip through it back to the point of your demise.  Or, you can trade in a special purchasable ticket to reset time to the point right before you made your fatal mistake... but you'll suffer a point penalty after you've gotten the treasure and thereby cleared the level.

If you haven't yet guessed, I reccommend the game highly.  It's one of the few games I've played in a long time that made me realize that I'd made the right decision at the store and stumbled onto something special.  If you have a Wii, it's worth a look.

Could your elusive second book possibly be The Tale of Samuel Whiskers?

I'll put more effort in my next render

That's great!  It really is, but from what I've seen here it's not just about effort.  You should also study up on some design theory.  There are no hard-set rules, but for a good guideline I'd reccommend that you look into "the rule of thirds" and ponder the concept of assymetry as well.

[heave]

Awww...no throwing things?  C'mon, if I fell far enough to injure my leg but not to die, I could probably still chuck something hard enough to at least make it to the lip of the hole.

Well, my thought was that you couldn't shift your weight into a good heave if you couldn't stand up.  If you're all arm, though, I cannot argue with your well-earned defeat over gravity.  And you could probably hurt me.  As you will!

...I'd wait for a passer-by to grab the wallet, upon which I'd forcefully drag the whole thing down into the hole.

I like it.  It's an effective alternative and it has a built-in moral.  Don't go grabbing strange money near gaping holes!

How do I make his eyes more cat-like, and how can you draw whiskers on such a small size?

Personally, for the eyes I'd go with a more cat-specific color such as amber.  I know that cats can have eyes of that color you're using, but so can humans.  That's one reason they don't come off as cat-like.  Another thing you'll want to do is suggest a slit pupil.  Maybe lay in a darker value of the eye color on the inside edge of each?  I don't know... that might make him look cross-eyed.

For whiskers, maybe try a couple of white pixels on the outside of the head where the whiskers would end.  If that isn't convincing enough, I'd connect those white pixels to the snout by just using the shadow color of the gray.

Heheh, I was hoping, but I didn't know it for sure.  Begging would have been my next natural course of action.

My original goal was to chain a few emulators together until I could run it on the DS, but attempting to port the code to .nds would be the more stable and elegant method (or, in my case, looking at the code, getting frustrated, and then trying to find someone else to do it).

Thanks for looking, I'll see if I have any more luck.

[just]

Hey, guys.  Sorry for the late response.  Life performed some kung-fu on my appendix Tuesday night and I've been laid out a bit.

Did anyone here use that? Oops sorry hijacking your thread!

Not at all!  It's fun reading about those older programs.  Consider me educated!

As to the question, no, software isn't really interchangeable between dos and amiga/c64.

I suspected as much, but I figured it woulnd't hurt to ask.  Oh, well.  Thanks for the definitive answer!

But of course, you may use the AC code for educational purpose and for reference, to get ideas on how stuff can be implemented.

Okay... is that just hypothetical or are you saying that the source for AC really is out there somewhere awaiting my perusal?

What I really want when I get compatibility issues sorted out in my own head is to be able to run non-commercial adventure games on my DS.  It sounds as if the more plausible options would require too much overhead before the game itself got around to running.

On the other hand, if the source for just the AC runtime could be ported to nds format (not an impossible job since there are devkits for programming .nds in C++), those games should have no problem running with the DS's four megs of RAM.

Well, the documents in AC_100 say that it was 1995-1997, so I was thinking '97.  I wasn't really part of the computing world in those days (I didn't get my first computer 'til I was 18 in 1999) so I didn't know how long the C64 stuck around after its commercial life.

I'd guess that a mere 64kb of RAM would be the deal-breaker, but I thought that the C64's later variants had moved on to extended RAM.

I'm curious about the interchangeability of software on those old beasts and it's AC that got me wondering.

Hiya.  I've been playing with the Adventure Creator builds for kicks today and I got to wondering about what was around that it was compatible with back in the day.  IBM/PC is pretty obvious, but what about other systems like the later C64?  Wasn't it just finishing up its run back then?

I guess the real question concerns the interchangeability of DOS systems.  Is there enough similarity between C64 and IBM, or is there simply no chance?

Well, the question is why you'd scrunch the title of the page in that out-of-the-way corner up there.  Shouldn't it be the main feature of the banner?

Also, that black angled bar right above the gray links is bothering me.  It's way too eye-catching amonngst the low-contrast stuff comprising the rest of the image, especially being set within that white outline.

Well, it would provide more motivation for people to falsely boost their own scores.

That would be a problem.

[not]

Whoah, RickJ... hang on a second.  I didn't make the nature of my position completely clear.

I don't have any children yet, and I have most definitely not signed any documents.  That was the responsibility of my wife.  Since I have no particular problem with Catholicism as a faith, I did not protest her signing said document.

As for my mother, of course she'd want to show off her grandchild.  Beyond that, why should she be expected to go to a Catholic service when her own personal beliefs do not hold with some of Catholocism's?  It's not an evil plot to reprogram the child's mind.  It's about being in the church that you love surrounded by the people that you love.  I'm sorry if there's no room for that in Catholic doctrine, but neither me nor my wife would dream of robbing my mother of that experience.  The question is what the Catholic Church would expect my wife to do.  Your suggestion that we haven't talked about what we're going to do when faced with this situation was a bit unfair, I feel.  We have most certainly discussed it... one thing about the Catholic Church that I do appreciate is their insistence that anyone wishing to wed under their roof be subjected to counseling.  Note that we had already talked about it even before that.

The most important point that I have to make here above all others is that I am not comparing Catholicism to Islam.  My original post was in response to someone's remark about what the Catholic Church "forces" people to do.  I even prefaced my input with the phrase "'force' is a strong word."

I absolutely do not appreciate the Catholic Church's methods of gaining the dominant hand in Catholic/Non-Catholic marriages.  I have no intention of deliberately offending any Catholics, but I won't sit on my opinion, either.

But but... where is the typo there???  :'(

Heehee, it's because "logical" is an adjective, not a noun.  The noun form is "logic."  8)

[two people]

Don't you think that when two people from different religions plan marriage that they ought to agree under which religious tradition they will raise their children before they get married?

It all seems reasonable on paper, but being in that situation sucks.  Just look at the very quote that you wrote:  "...when two people plan marriage..." This particular bit of dogma really makes if feel like "A couple billion people vs. one."  I realize that they have the right to impose that condition since their religion is officiating, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it.

I'm a non-Catholic.  My wife is Catholic.  If my mother should wish to take her grandchild to her own church one Sunday, is my wife obligated to protest?  Is she obligated to explain to our child what's "wrong" about our doctrines beforehand?