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Keelut is an honest Eskimo with a problem.  Someone has been poisoning the waters, and destroying the peaceful whaling community where he lives.  Step into his showshoes as you lead him across the Aleut coast to find the one responsible, and discover a shocking secret.



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It's interesting to compare the Howard of this year to the one of last year.  Last year, despite how ridiculous the con was, he seemed really excited about it.  His mailing list emails were full of buzz and hype and infectious joy.  He posted on all the adventure game forums and really tried to drum up publicity for the convention.  It was kind of cute, in a train wreck kind of way. 

This year, there's none of that.  If he couldn't make it work last year (with all the hype), I don't see it working this year (with all the bitterness). 

Still, the convention is 6 months away.  Most conventions don't really get their act together until 2-3 months before it begins.  The website for the I-CON convention (where I am speaking next weekend. plug plug) is chock full o' stuff, but 3 months ago it was pretty sparse.  Not as sparse as adventurecon, true, but still sparse.

I like this quote too, M0ds.

Every time a VIP confirms they will attend, the tab to run this shindig goes up by $3,500. That's because we pick up all of the VIP's travel expenses and put them up in a top-of-the-line room at The Water Club.  That's on top of wining and dining them all weekend.  Please realize that the legends of the adventure game world will not ride in to town on a Greyhound and stay in a Holiday Inn with food vouchers for Denny's.  We tried!

In other words, they aren't doing it for love of the adventure genre, or out of a sense of loyalty, but rather for an all-expense-paid holiday to a top-of-the-line room in a luxury hotel?  I'd hardly call this a good thing.  In fact, it's a bit sad.

Impressive for 10-15 years ago, perhaps.  Today?  Maybe not so much.  With all due respect to them, getting guests who haven't been in the spotlight for over 10 years aren't so hard to snag.

[WILL]

I admit to being a bit disappointed when this fell through last year.  It's known that I have no love of Malinche or Mr. Sherman, but it would have been nice to see something like this work.  I don't think it'll work this year, if only because the date of the con is during a major American holiday weekend where most people are doing other things.

That said, the tone on the FAQ seems strangely... vitriolic.  Saying outright that adventure game companies and producers are flaky and unreliable is a huge insult.  So the reason for Adventurecon failing last year was due to the flakiness of the companies/developers and not of the coordinator?  I'm sorry, but that's a lie.  Last year, I asked about speaking at the con or being an exhibitor.  The price of an exhibition table was astronomical - nearly a grand for a table, plus the cost of travel and hotel.  As for being a speaker/panelist, I was still expected to pay full price to get into the con.  So yes, I bailed out.  If that's being unreliable, call me Flaky McFlakerson.  If Mr. Sherman learned from his mistake and doesn't want to repeat it, fine.  But don't blame the developers. 

Because if there isn't enough response from the adventure game community, the event will be canceled.

Fair enough, except then later...

The event WILL take place on August 29th-31st at The Water Club in Atlantic City.

Hm.

I will watch the development this year with interest.

Best rendering of Joey and Rosangela ever.

Speaking from experience, Monkey, I'd suggest saving that money any way you can.   The day might come when you want to quit working at McD's and want to dedicate all of your time to finding a new career or direction in your life.  Having a 3-4 month financial cushion will help immensely.

I get a similar error as rui.  I have two rooms in my game.  I create a third blank room and can compile the game fine.  Whenever I make any changes to the new room, I get this message:

Error: An item with the same key has already been added.
Version: AGS 3.0.1.28

System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added. ---> System.ArgumentException: An item with the same key has already been added.
   at System.ThrowHelper.ThrowArgumentException(ExceptionResource resource)
   at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2.Insert(TKey key, TValue value, Boolean add)
   at AGS.CScript.Compiler.Preprocessor.PreProcessDirective(String line)
   at AGS.CScript.Compiler.Preprocessor.Preprocess(String script, String scriptName)
   at AGS.Editor.AGSEditor.CompileScript(Script script, List`1 headers, CompileMessages errors, Boolean isRoomScript)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.SaveRoomOnThread(Object parameter)
   at AGS.Editor.BusyDialog.RunHandlerOnThread()
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at AGS.Editor.BusyDialog.Show(String message, ProcessingHandler handler, Object parameter)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.SaveRoomButDoNotShowAnyErrors(Room room, CompileMessages errors, String pleaseWaitText)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.SaveRoomAndShowAnyErrors(Room room)
   at AGS.Editor.Components.RoomsComponent.AGSEditor_PreSaveGame(PreSaveGameEventArgs evArgs)
   at AGS.Editor.AGSEditor.PreSaveGameHandler.Invoke(PreSaveGameEventArgs evArgs)
   at AGS.Editor.AGSEditor.SaveGameFiles()
   at AGS.Editor.Components.FileCommandsComponent.CommandClick(String controlID)
   at AGS.Editor.ToolBarManager.ToolbarEventHandler(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.RaiseEvent(Object key, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripButton.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.HandleMouseUp(MouseEventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEventInteractive(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem.FireEvent(EventArgs e, ToolStripItemEventType met)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mea)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ToolStrip.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

I'll just chime in with my experience here.  75% of my game purchases are from online sales.  The remaining percentage who want it on CD are a minority, but significant enough to make the option worthwhile.

Anyway, good luck with this Alkis!  I'll definitely give it a whirl when I find the time.

Couldn't the in-game setup and the regular WINSETUP.EXE work in tandem?

Well I found a dirty solution but it works.

My display properties allowed me to set my screen resolution to 800 x 600.  When I ran my game at 640 x 480 after that, it looked fine.

This is just a curiosity on my part, CJ, but I'm wondering how challenging it would be for you to allow a toggle for dialogs that would allow (or not allow) action going on in the background while the dialog options are available?  I ask because, as it stands, environmental effects and background animations will just freeze-frame while you're selecting a dialog option and it looks a bit odd.  Would this be something overcomplicated to change, or to at least provide a setting to switch between the current method and a non-blocking one?

If animations could be played while the dialog options are up, that would be a HUGE boon.  It's always looked strange that everything on the screen freezes when the dialog options appear, especially during environmental effects like rain.

Yeah I had this exact same problem, GG.  The GUIs shifted all over the place.

Is there's no possibility of a "widescreen monitor option" where the the playing area shrinks to the proper size and black bars are put  on the left and right side of the screen?

A few Blackwell customers mentioned that their game looked "fuzzy" but played just fine in windowed mode.  I never thought to ask if they had a widescreen monitor.

SSH: Good idea, but the plan was to avoid using windowed mode altogether.

Grrrr.

It's not anything that effects your computer, just the wordpress blogging software.  I have no idea what causes it.  I tried removing some suspicious looking code from a php file but it still comes up.

Anyway, GDC.  Playfirst.  Yeah.

Hi all,

I recently got a new laptop with a nice widescreen monitor.  All my previous games were made in 320 x 240 resolution, and they look all stretched out now.  In looking through the setup options there doesn't seem to be a  way to make it look right, aside from playing it in a window.  The "force alternate letterbox resolution" option is greyed out.

Is there any way to fix this or am I just stupid?

In case anyone is interested, I wrote a little GDC Report over at my blog.  I upgraded my Wordpress files to the latest and (supposedly) most secure version so I think I got that trojan issue sussed as well.

Congrats Dave!!

I will repeat again what another member said.

Will this be an AGS game, I wonder?

Are you allowed to "leak" this kind of information to your fans?

Anyways, Good Luck!
I look forward to both the new blackwell game and this new game we know nothing about!


Peder Johnsen

Hi Peder.

The game will be played from within Playfirst's SDK.  As for what tools we are using to build it, I can't really say yet.

Yar!  Back from GDC and got the bag of free merchandise swag to prove it.

Thanks for the props, folks.  It means a lot that this community is still behind what I'm doing and isn't all "Dude, you've sold out!"  Getting published is like entering a whole other world.  Sat in a big meeting in SF with the Playfirst folks and we all talked about stuff that, unfortunately, I'd be sued if I told you about.  Suffice to say, it was inspiring and intimidating all at the same time!  Inspiring because a substantial company is backing me and has faith in me, but intimidating because for the first time there is so much at stake! 

Anyway, things are weird but exciting.  I'll be sure to divulge anything that I'm contractually allowed to divulge.

I think the p3n1s award is a fun, non-serious idea that worked well in the past.

It got abused last year, and people were right to be upset.  I certainly was.  I nearly withdrew my games from the awards in protest. 

I thought the final decision was to keep the award, but have the award committee step in if it was obviously abused in the same way again?  I was surprised to see the award dropped entirely.

An interesting idea!  And I remember this conversation.  I never did get to meet Matt Hammil, who is a guy who made an AGS game that ended up being an IGF finalist.  I remember talking to Deirdra about the Interactive Fiction forums.  The two big engines were Tads and Inform.  There wasn't a "tads forum" and an "inform forum", there was just an "Interactive Fiction forum" and people discussed both.  Course that was back in the usenet days and maybe people were more tolerant then!

Of course, there are several sites that cater to adventure game fans as a whole - the Adventure Gamers, Gameboomers, and Just Adventure forums spring to mind.  They even talk about development there, too.  I'm not sure a seperate site about AGS dev is necessary.

That said, a little blog or newsletter about "what's happening in the community" would be nice.  I certainly can't be bothered to read the multiple page thread discussions about the meets, but I'd still like to know what's going on with them should I decide to go.  Of course, finding someone active enough to report on everything worthwhile (and who can deem what's worthwhile anyway?) would be difficult.