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One of the most interesting uses of lighting overlays was in Sam and Max.

There was a part where you had to flick different switches to create different colours in the Vortex building.

However, this was moreso used as a puzzle (the diferent coloured doors) rather than a cinematic/background effect.

The result was very effective, though -- it made a very interesting puzzle.

Perhaps there could be a greater bond than we realise in the relationship between puzzles, background, and meaning in games?

You can most certainly vote for your own game.

Masters need not even think about the rules, they can operate on instinct alone.

But you forget: Most masters had to learn the rules first before they could break them.

For example:

Picasso first mastered basic rules of painting in his earlier life before breaking them in his later years -- He broke most of the rules he learnt and began painting like a child again, and some say his later masterpieces are his best work.

The Beatles started playing bubblegum pop songs before they branched out with experimental styles.

Also, The Beach Boys did the same thing before refining their techniques for Pet Sounds.

Churchill had a stutter, but refined his public speaking ability by following basic English rules -- In later years, he was able to bend such rules because people regarded him as a fluent speaker.

Woody Allen started his film career making screwball comedies, like Bananas and What's Up, Tigerlily?, before he ventured into more artistic ventures like Annie Hall and Manhattan -- He even admits that most of his filmmaking experience came from learning basic rules from his cinematograpers, such as Gordon Willis.

Even Gordon Willis had to learn the rules first: " As a youth, he worked in summer stock theater, both onstage and backstage, then served in the air force and gained experience as a cameraman. Upon his return to civilian life, he decided to pursue that career and spent a number of years filming documentaries and commercials before breaking into mainstream movies." (From Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia).

Willis later went on to creating the dark look of The Godfather movies, plus other classics such as All The President's Men, Klute, and The Parallax View.

You think Godard just atuomatically decide to become experiemental in his films? -- No way!

He learnt the basic filmmaking rules just like anyone else.

Then he took the conventional and reversed it on it's arse, thus making classics like Week End and Alphaville.

You see, you seem to think that masters need not think about rules, when the opposite is true.

Masters need to learn the rules as much as anyone and keep them constantly in mind so they know how to break them the right way.

Any master who thinks they need not be aware of rules will end up like Ed Wood (who is a master in his own right, but a master of making unintentionally shithouse films -- and who wants to be known like that?)

In Brisbane, if you put your feet on the seat across from you, the guards just tell you to get your feet off it.

By the way, I just came back from Melbourne -- Loved it!

Get your butts to #agsawards on QuakeNet's IRC server!

P.S. Welcome to the forum.

You saw the caption contest in this forum.

I started it.

I shut it down immediately afterwards.

Pessi: Oh yes, I forgot about colour -- Good point there!

I often wonder why certain characters/objects/backgrounds are painted with certain colours.

For example, Glottis -- He's a demon, but demons are normally red.

His orange complexion gives him a friendlier look to an angry red.

Barcik: You are right that games don't utilise composition as much as film does.

However, I do remember MI did challenge perspective in many ways.

For example, on Monkey Island there is a canyon containing a set of oars at the bottom -- the perspective looks from above down to below and we even see Guybrush from above.

Some adventures do utilise perspective in that way.

So, there's perspective, colour, composition, lighting, etc.

Can people see these techniques played with in adventure games?

What other "mise en scene" techniques can people see in adventures?

['Apprentice' leads the pack with 14 nominations!]

'Apprentice' leads the pack with 14 nominations!

Herculean Effort Productions (HEP) walked away with 14 AGS Award  nominations today for their game 'Apprentice'!

The game scored a Best AGS Game nomination and swept the Story and Character categories.

'Apprentice' also achieved nominations in all technical categories except Best Documentation.

Past AGS Award winner Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of FullyRamblomatic trailed closely behind HEP with 11 nominations, including Best AGS Game, for 'Five Days a Stranger'.

Wintermute Studios followed with 10 nominations for their game 'Grr! Bearly Sane'.

'Grr! Bearly Sane' surprisingly did not score a nod for Best AGS Game despite a higher number of nominations than other Best Game nominees.

SOCKO! Entertainment's 'The Adventures of Fatman' made history as the first commercial project nominated for Best AGS Game.

'Fatman' scored a total of 7 nominations.

The AGS Community also honoured another past award winner, Dave Gilbert, with a Best Game nomination for 'Bestowers of Eternity.

Mr Gilbert's game achieved six nominations.

Finally, Ratracer Adventure Games scored eight nominations, including Best Game, for 'The Uncertaintly Machine'.

Other categories provided surprises as well.

The AGS Community re-nominated last year's winning 'Snow Plug-in' for Best Utility or Plug-in.

'Snow plug-in' Author Scorpiorus competes against other plug-in such as the 'Credits plug-in' and the 'TCP/IP plug-in'.

Captain Mostly and Squinky face-off against themselves as both are nominated across all three games in the Best Non-Adventure category.

Their co-project 'Vegetable Patch Extreem Turbo 2' battles against Squinky's 'AGS Mittens Shooter' and Captain Mostly's 'Vegetable Patch Extreem Turbo 1'.

Voting for the winners will run from 18-31 January 2004.

The ceremony date will be announced later in the month, along with the Lifetime Achievement winner.

All the nominees can be found here:
http://www.sylpher.com/AGSAwards/2003.htm



Anyway guys and gals, voting will start on the 18th.

Use the time until then to play the nominated games and decide the winner in each catehory.

Until then, see ya!

I don't see why people moan that puzzles get in the way of the story.

Puzzles are meant to get in the way of the story -- that what makes an adventure game playable and what makes the player want to continue witht he story.

Without puzzles, you have no game.

You may as well just watch a movie if you think puzzles aren't important.

Puzzles are what makes me want to play, just as much as a good story.

In film theory, "mise en scene"  translates roughly from French to English as "scene arrangement".

That is the ability to design and arrange a frame (props, lighting, characters, etc) to create meaning.

On basic level, a framed image can demonstrate time, place, etc.

On a deeper level, it can also create mood and convey subtextual meanings of characters or plot.

Here are two example from Citizen Kane:

Scene 1:

This frame is from the first scene in Citizen Kane -- It already tells quite a lot about the story i.e. a large,  far-away mansion -- it looks very uninviting and even has signs (seen previously) upon its gate that say "KEEP OUT".

This sets up the story in part for the next scene, which is Kane on his deathbed -- We begin to wonder, "Who was that man who owned such a large house? Why does it look so uninviting?"

In other words, this scene becomes a reflection on Kane -- His house demonstrates how he shut himself off from the rest of the world.


Scene 2:

Notice how the smallest figure (Kane) seems to look the most powerful in this scene -- We get a clear sense of relationships in this scene i.e. Kane is the boss.


Such arrangement of scenes is particularly used in film noir, which bring me to adventure games.

Grim Fandango -- very film noirish game.

Certain framed scenes tell a lot about characters and story.

For example:

We learn a lot about Manny in this scene, such as the impression of the messy pile of books on his desk, and the dark decor and lighting.

I'm sure there are tons of other scenes from countless other adventure games, which is what this GTD is about.

Discuss your ideas on background construction and it's relevance to creating meaning in the game.

Think about questions like these:

* What does the foreground tell you? What about the background? How do both contrast?

* How is the scene lit? What kind of atmosphere does it give? How does this contribute to the game?

* What about certain motifs (reoccuring patterns or symbols)? i.e. the closets in Pleurghburg (as a symbol of Jake's fear)

* Does the frame offer some odd camera perspective? How does think create meaning?

* How does the background, characters and objects work together in a room?

These are just basic questions to get you started, but I'm sure people can expand upon this topic.

Here's an good article to give you some ideas too:
http://members.tripod.com/~aarrrggghhh/misnscn.html

Cheers!

Mind if I have a try?

URL not found either.

You got that right I didn't expect it!

The bit where the reviewer says "It is a remarkable experience to play this game" gives me goosebumps!

Whoa -- that's awesome! :o :o :o

Thanks jaz!

QUIT TRYING TO STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT!!!!  

j/k

EDIT: I can't load the page.

And the other review?  

Can you spot the difference?

And since we don't have ads on this board, we can keep our money! (SUCKED IN CHRIS!)  

Seriously though, CJ has said once or twice that he doesn't like accepting money for AGS because it's more like a hobby to him (at least, I think that's what he once said) -- and any financial contributions wold probably change all that.

This is all in Harry Potter too!

Course people in the US wouldn't know about that since they changed it to the "Sorcerer's Stone".