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Cool retro graphics!  Looks very interesting.

Very good points Snarky.

As a reviewer, there are games I might not have bothered continuing to play from a purely personal point of view (well, there are definitely a few!) but felt I had to continue to be able to offer a complete opinion in my review.  Some turned out to be well worth persevering with, others not so much.

Also - yeah, the oft-repeated "kids these days" motto might have about as much truth to is as the also oft-repeated "adventure games are dead" saying.

[but]

Games always needed to make a good first impression, it's a form of art, isn't it? The first few minutes matter because they set the tone for the rest of the game. They can be slower, the game can take time before things start happening, but it has to interesting? You know?

On a related subject, do you think that most trailers for adventure games manage to capture the interest well enough?

I think adventure games can maybe get away with not completely drawing you into the game world until you've played the game for a while, even the plot can take a while to build up, but the main character (playable character) absolutely has to get you feeling involved basically straight away.  If I don't care what my character is doing or why he / she is doing it, I'm unlikely to care about continuing to play the game.

I'll say E.T. as an example, just because that game has such a rocky relationship with video games.

You mean you didn't like the Atari 2600 version?!?!? 

Inception. I'd love to see that.

Me too!  Especially the idea of swapping between dream levels and your actions on one level producing an effect in the next etc.

On a similar(ish) theme, what about Enemy Mine?  That could make a good adventure game.

[A Princess Bride]

Not sure why it popper into my head, but it occurred to me that A Princess Bride could make an awesome adventure game.  Any other films you'd love to see converted to our favourite genre?

CMI probably isn't a good example since the vast majority of players will "know" the character and game world from the first two Monkey Island games.

Most adventure games I've played (and I have played... rather a lot of them) feature a cut-scene introduction, then you start playing the game.  To me the immersion is usually there and increases as the game progresses.  I think characters and storyline are very important for this, although in adventure games having a good interface is perhaps almost as important.

I think you're probably right about the 2 methodologies - the "safe" slow build-up and the immediate throwing you into a situation.  I've seen both done, usually adventure games take the safer route but this is also a more logical route for the genre most of the time.  If the adventure game in question is one where you can never die or get a "game over" scenario, it's probably much harder to get the immediate adrenaline buzz going than other game genres where speed of reaction is an important factor.

I'm curious about which AGS games you've played already?  The King's Quest remakes by AGDI and A Tale of Two Kingdoms, for instance (among many others) have really good cut scenes that immerse you into the game world. 

[two]

One day left! Two entries, three trophies. That means that there's still one more trophy up for grabs! 

Which means that I might get a trophy?!? 

Since I've been lurking around the forums for a long time but never actually entered one of these competitions, I thought I should probably give it a go.  I don't remember seeing a length limit, I hope this isn't too long!




“The Paradenishko dragon is a very unusual species”, said G’nashtu in her well-practiced sardonic drawl that she reserved for use with particularly unpromising sets of students, “in that the pregnant female lays an unusually high quantity of eggs â€" normally 20-30 per batch.”  She stifled a yawn.  “Even stranger is the fact that there is usually only one male hatchling per batch, sometimes none at all.  This combined with the comparative rarity of the species in general, and the long gestation period of 26 months, makes male Paradenishko dragons extremely valuable.” 

‘Just another half hour and I can get out of this place…’ she thought.  ‘Then off to matters more interesting… and profitable…’


K’lun met her and gave his customary greeting of a kiss on the cheek and a pat on the head.  G’nashtu had always hoped their relationship would become something more than just friends, but it seemed that K’lun had never even considered the possibility.  If only she’d been born into the Ullat clan, she could have made the first move... but as it was, such an action would be shameful for her and her entire family.  She had dropped subtle hints, of course, but subtlety was something K’lun understood about as much as dragons understood “no smoking” signs.

“You have them?” she asked, a little breathlessly.

“Yes”, he replied.  Never one to waste words, he said nothing more.  If she hadn’t know him better, G’nasthu would have felt he was completely impassive about the whole business â€" but there was a gleam in his eye, a certain change in his bearing, a slight tremor to the timbre of his voice… K’lun was about as excited as he could be, just far too much in control of himself to let on.  He intonated for her to enter the cave; she went in with him following.  It had taken weeks of searching to find such a secluded spot, but it had been worth it.

“Here”, he said, nodding towards the huge nest.  It took two parent dragons a few days to build; it had taken K’lun and G’nashtu several months to construct.  She looked at the nest then did a double-take â€" there were not one, not two but three eggs with the telltale black spots on the shell.  “Three male eggs?  I thought there was only one!  Three in a single batch is practically unheard of!”  K’Lun smiled.  “We really struck gold with this… I have a buyer coming to look at them tonight.  Can you make it?”  G’nashtu laughed.  “Is there anything in the world that could make me miss this?  I’ll be here!”  This was going to be the sale of a lifetime…


However, the sale of a lifetime didn’t go quite as smoothly as they’d hoped.  Their buyer, a shady character who wouldn’t give them a name or let them see his face, wanted to buy only the male eggs â€" something very unusual, as normally the batch needed to remain together to have much chance of all the hatchlings being born safely.  He told them that he had his reasons, but wouldn’t elaborate further.  Neither G’nashtu or K’lun were convinced that they could trust him, but the amount of gold he offered was very convincing â€" more than they could accumulate in several lifetimes of honest endeavour.  They asked him to come back the next day to finalise the deal.

“I don’t like that guy”, muttered G’nashtu.  “Whatever or whoever he is, and however rich he is, a glorious creature like a male Paradenishko dragon shouldn’t end up with him.” 

“Agreed”, said K’lun.  “Which is why I’ve come up with a plan: we’ll paint some female eggs to look like male eggs.”

“That wouldn’t fool an expert”, she said, “there are other signs to look for â€" weight, reaction to water, light reflection.  As you well know.”

“Of course, but he performed all of these tests tonight, so he knows they’re genuine.  I doubt if he’ll perform them again tomorrow, if he sees the same batch.  I kept some female eggs back from another batch -we can use those, the difference in appearance is so small that he’ll never notice in the light from our small fire.  We’ll take out the male eggs and replace them with the fakes.  We can use identical bags â€" since we use sand to safeguard the eggs in transit, we can just use slightly more in bag with the fakes.”

“Well, if you’re sure we can pull it off...  you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this.” 

That night went very quickly, with first one then the other having to go back and make sure no-one suspected anything, and that things appeared normal at home.  With so little sleep it was difficult for either of them to make it through the day without feeling very sluggish, but some Julkana tea every now and then kept them going.  Then it was evening, and time for their meeting with the mysterious buyer…

All went well; he brought them the gold coins in three large sacks, and they in turn gave him the fake eggs in a sack.  Just as they G’nashtu was drifting off into a lovely dream about how she’d spend all of her money, and how being a wealthy woman she could forget all about her tribal traditions and just tell K’lun how she felt about him, she felt him roughly shaking her shoulders.

“What?  I haven’t slept for two days!” she protested.

He ignored her and pointed at two sacks that he’d dragged up against the nearby cave wall.  “Why exactly do we have two sacks with what appear to be male dragon eggs in them?”

She stared at them, trying to focus, not entirely sure if they were both suffering with hallucinations or double vision due to excessive sleep deprivation.  But no, there were definitely two sacks there.  Then realisation slowly dawned.  “Did you paint some female eggs and replace them in the nest?”

“Yes, of course” he said, ”that’s what we agreed.”

“Not exactly… we said that we needed to do it, but we didn’t actually specific who was going to do it.”

He buried his face in his hands.  “You mean… we both did it?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“So we may have given our buyer the male eggs?”

“Well, possibly…”

They sat dejectedly for a moment, trying to go through the flurry of activity of the previous night and piece together exactly what had happened.  Unbeknownst to them, their buyer had stealthily crept back up to the cave entrance in the meantime, and when they did realise, he was pointing a rather nasty-looking crossbow at G’nashtu.  Other shadowy figures lurked menacingly in the background.

“Well don’t look so surprised, of course I didn’t trust you for a moment!  I’ll just be taking all the eggs, thanks very much.  The gold too.  That, at least, was genuine, although you were never going to get your grubby little hands on any of it.”  He motioned to his accomplices, who carried out the sacks and carefully put the remaining eggs into even more sacks.

“Now I’ll be saying goodbye.  I’m not going to kill you, it would only lead to messy questions when people found you â€" but as it is, you’re hardly likely to go to the authorities about this, are you?  You see, crime really doesn’t pay â€" at least, not unless you do it properly.” 

With that he departed, leaving K’lun and G’nashtu looking glumly at one another.  Finally G’nashtu spoke.  “I’m guessing this wouldn’t be a good time to tell you that I’ve been in love with you for years, but you’ve never noticed?”

K’lun laughed harshly.  “Since you mention it, perhaps it’s also not a good time for me to tell you that I’ve been in love with you for years too, but that I wanted to have enough money for us to leave this place together.”

Much to his surprise, she laughed. 

“Erm… I was expecting a coy smile, or a sad smile, or a sigh… but a laugh when I bare my soul to you like that?!”

She moved closer and kissed him.  When they were both needing to come up for air, she smiled at him fondly.  “Oh K’lun, darling, you’re so unobservant.”

“Eh?”

“Look over there.  What do you see?”

He squinted for a while until he could make out a shape.  “Um… a pair of sandals?”

“Yes.  And do you noticed anything different about me?”

He looked her up and down, eventually following her own gaze.  “You’ve got… bigger shoes?”

“Yes darling.  And why is it that you think I might have bigger shoes on?”

He thought about this.  “I’m guessing that the answer isn’t going to be that your feet have swelled.”

She shook her head and started taking off her shoes.  Her feet were, in fact, exactly the same size as they’d always been; the shoes themselves, several times too big for her but previously hidden from view by her long tunic, contained quite a number of gold coins.

“I also have some coins hidden in my underwear,” she said, “but I’ll keep those in reserve for later.”




 

First time drawing on a computer?!?  Those backgrounds are really not at all bad.  Looking forward to the finished game! 

Sorry I'm late to the party, only just played this.  I'm really impressed by the whole style of it, of course the beautiful graphics and animation, but the whole thing was great.  Can't wait for the full game to come out!

http://crystalshard.net/

We've recently redesigned our website, and I'd like to have some feedback or criticism on its layout, color scheme, and general clarity. The old site looks like this. Thank you for your time!

Much better than the old site - text is clearer, more contrast makes things stand out more, just looks a lot sharper overall.

Only two things I'd personally change - not keen on the font for "Featured Game", and I'd make the blue for the Welcome and Latest News headings a touch darker.  But that's just me.

Pity about the Red Dwarf game (you might want to change your sig btw), but at least you've now joined an elite list of people who've been told to stop making their game!  :

New game looks interesting, hope development goes well.

I love the lighting in that scene!  You've somehow managed to make modern-retro graphics.  8)

Looks fun, I'll try to find some time to play it (the fact that it's a one-room game should make that easier!  8))

Can't say it looks very interesting from the trailers and the bit I played, but that's what I thought about the Sam & Max episodes once and they turned out really good. Nevertheless, I'll probably buy BTTF when it's really cheap - too much cool freeware adventure games around.

Just so you know - the BttF episodes don't even begin to compare to Sam & Max.  Still fun though.

Downloaded it, haven't had a chance to play it yet.  I'm interested to see what they do with the two Doc Browns...

"Somewhat twisted"?!?!?  :

The player character seems to have a gift for understatement...

EEE! This looks great, I can't wait for the Demo =)

You should see him walking around Daniel's amazing backgrounds... (pity you'll have to put up with my writing, but you can't have everything!!  )

Didn't want to let this go uncommented...

I think it's very good, though I'm not really sure about the hair.  I like the heavy contrast you've used on the lines of the face but not on the rest.


Edit by ProgZ:

There's no need to quote the entire post just above yours, especially the image.

Personally I'd expect to use it on the object.