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I think it'd be more interesting to come up with some new system... But then I ALWAYS say that...

So far I think I'm going to avoid the combat issue... I don't want to just tack it onto the game, and would rather it was an intedgral part of my design from the start...

Doesn't need combat to be an RPG!

I'm working on a project with RPG elements... It's not Baldur's Gate grade stat-core, but It's not difficult to drop in a few statistics and things. The only think I think is tricky with AGS is combat, which is something I've still not worked out how anyone would do...

I guess "TheCourtJester" is "Moneurto the Vampyre"
Or some other new guy...

the idea is that you set your story against this backdrop.

If you've got a lot going on in your game world, and if you've thought it all out, then the personal story of your main character will be that much more interesting.

It's just like you want a depth of characterisation to make the main player character interesting and compelling. You need a depth of history and activity in your game-world to make it more interesting.

If you've got poitical up-heaval and have to solve a murder mystery while the society around you is shifting and tearing itself apart, the game will be that much more interesting.

It's like the lord of the rings. Contrary to what Las Oranges keeps on saying, it's a well documented fact that Tolkien had an enormous sprawling history and back story for his setting. Most of the things he thought through were never touched upon in the books, but because there was so much of it, he was able to send his characters right into the heart of this imaginary world where LOADS was going on.

You needn't spend a lot of time in your game telling us about the specific details of each group of peoples ideas, but if you know what these ideas are, you'll be able to give the characters more interesting and convincing roles in the game. If you imagine what might happen in a complex setting, then plot the player's route through the game to witness the most interesting bits, your game will be exciting and interesting, and because you'll have things going on off screen, your plot will have a depth and compexity to make it convincing and compelling...

trust me!

EDIT:
ALSO: Why would you not make a game just because it would be hard? How can you expect to get ANYONE interested in playing your game when you're only going to work on projects that are easy. If Gaspop hadn't had the ambition to do something hard, we would have no Pleughburg. I don't think anyone who's made any of the AGS classics would say that their game was EASY to make. Even Rob Blanc 1 would have been a challange for Yahtzee to make at the time. And the reason the games didn't get stale was because he continually pushed himself with each sequil! Come on, give yourself a challenge!

I too feel it doesn't quite sit that when sitting around their table, the cyborg developers would have said "what's the best way to make the cyborgs want to look after the humans as best as they can?"

"Hey I've got it! We'll tell them THEY'RE human as well!!!"

I mean, it's not the most logical decision in the world, PLUS there's a lot of history to suggest that just because people share a species, they're still happy to going to kill each other. PARTICULARLY if the cyborgs-who-think-they're-human know that when they release the humans, the humans will be in charge (even though these cyborgs are aparently physically superior in many ways, so as to be able to survive the terra-forming process...)

but WHY is it better if the cyborgs think they're human?!?!?!?

I think it's good right up to "The player character is one of the cyborgs (But he is programed to think he is a human)"

This (and the subsequent "suddenly things start to go wrong") is a bit of an over-used idea, and while this isn't neccessarily a bad thing (the last few humans on a terra formed planet far away is a bit over used too) I don't think there's any need to introduce this as a plot device.

Why can't the cyborg be just a cyborg who's got to come to turms with the fact it's only reason to exist is to look after frozen people, who's homeworld is gone, and thus who have no real purpose (they can't report back... so the experiment is pointless, so what are they for?) from it's point of view.

Why not have the cyborgs just leave the people frozen forever in storage just in case they come in handy? Or have the game look at the debate the cyborg society would need to face regarding what action to take over the now redundant people.

They would presumably know that if they de-frost the people, the humans would start to assume some sort of higher status than the cyborgs.

Some might want to simply destroy the humans, and embrace this as an oppertunity for cyborgs to develop their own society without it being tied to this now redundant purpose of providing a base for human experiments in habitation.

Others might say that if their existance is now pointless (since there's no point looking after the humans, if the humans are pointless) all the cyborgs should just de-activate themselves.

Others might say that if it's ok to start a new, un-directed cyborg society, why shouldn't they give the humans the oppertunity to live with them, even if their purpose of reporting on their progress is vanished.

There could be a hue number of different opinions flying around, thus providing you with a suitably historicle-esque setting for you to set a game during. A volatile pivotal moment in a history yet to be written?! Isn't that much more interesting than a murder mystery with a fairly standard "He was a robot all along" plot twist?

Or maybe not...

I think I liked the elf best. Even though I REALLY don't like Harry Potter...

This game captured my imagination and ran around with it in a cage, until the end (which came shockingly soon!)

I think it's safe to say that people are going to want to know more about what game you plan to make...

Are you asking to start a team, then work on developing a game from scratch with the artist? Or do you have a project planned that you want to do, which you need someone to do the art for?

I would like to make a multi-player VPXT game, and have always dismissed the use of two-at-one-pc because you'd need two mice to work at the same time (which is how you'd want to be able to play...)

Perhaps using the plugin it would be possible, but I don't know enough about the mechanics, and I don't have an example network I could use... sniffle sniffle oh well...

Still, I think the problem with jumping into plot-based multi-player games is that multi-player and plot-based are two very disprate eXtreems of the game spectrum. People would need to get into the mind set of both before they could bring them together, which would probably mean taking the time to make specifically multi-player non-adventure games, then slowly introducing plot and adventure elements to them, one game at a time. Obviously this would take AGES, but I think that trying to skip a few steps and dice in at the deep end is asking for trouble (or fairly un-memorable games...)

Or you could take adventure games and strip the mechanics down further and further, until multi-play makes proper sense...

I finished the game last night! It's brilliant! yahoosie!

Hey!

HURRAH FOR SQUINKY! I'm downloading it now!

I'm concerned by your comment that you're going traditional just to please people 'round here. If you want to make a high-concept game that pulls away from traditional adventure game standards, you do it.

I think there has been a lot of "a game that's not a game" type games like your previous one, which might explain why it didn't get a great reaction (even though yours had an interesting twist, and certainly looked the biz). But that doesn't mean you should give up on making things a little different.

It frustrates me when people do threads like this one, as it seems that people are making what they think other people want to play, when they ought to be making something THEY would want to play. There's no point making something, because we voted for a plot snippet, when you should know better than anyone else what you'd feel happyer making first!

If you don't know what you want at the level of choosing a plot, how can you know what you want at the more detailed level of what goes on IN the plot? You surly won't keep posting threads asking "how should I start my game A, B, or C", "What should my character say at this point...", "how should my game end..."

And why take these three plots, and force them seperate? They're only stories that haven't been written yet! Why not take the elements you like from them all and mix them together? This way you can take the GOOD ideas from three stories you've dreamed up, and lose the large boring areas.

Why not have a drug addled detective, living in an orwellian nightmare, investigating a girl who's caught in a dream world with her mud-friend? This would give you a well thought out main character, a well thought out key supporting character, and a rich background to set it all against... With all this depth of thought that'll have gone into your game-world, fascinating different approaches to how the player will interact with it will efortlessly present themselves won't they? And even if they don't, it'll still be more interesting than...

I'm sorry I've written a lot, and it probably sounds aggressive and self-important. But I really feel you COULD do amazing things, instead of crowd pleasing things.

EVERYONE here could do amazing things!

Ahhh! I was just about to ask why 'tis that when I say "StrCopy(pupu[3].s,"Tra la la") the contents of pupu[3+].s (i.e. everything after 3) is blanked! I'll re-set my MAX_STRING_LEN as soon as I get home! Hurrah!

ahh! Thankyou! It works!!! HURRAH! AND I understand how it works!!! EVEN BETTER!

You have been jolly jolly helpful!  

are strcuts in the readme, as I'm going to need to understand them better before I can use them...

When you say the script header, you presumably mean along side all the "import function..." gubbins?

Ans what's the "s" for in "char s[MAX_STRING_LENGTH]" ?

Tell me if any of this is an RTFM jobby!

you can't have an array of strings?!?!?! blahh!

What's AFAIK?

If memory serves, it recognises the command, but sais type mis-match. I'm SURE that I declared them both as strings!

One of them is in an array i.e.

StrCopy(juju,pupu[1]);

should that make a difference?

I've got two strings in variables (saddly they have to be in variables) and I want to swap them round.

I've been trying to use strCopy, but that doesn't seem to like having both strings represented with variables
i.e. it wants:
strCopy(juju,"pupu");
not
strCopy(juju,pupu);

Can anyone suggest ways to juggle strings in variables?

Thankyou!

P.S. I "RTFM"'d already, but couldn't see anything!