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A great looking sprite! To address some of your questions:

- His left hand seems to have a "floating" finger.
- I don't play guitar, but shouldn't his right hand be closed, with thumb and index finger extended to stroke the strings? Or is he plucking at them? I don't know, I could be totally off.
- I think his left upper arm is too short, especially if you compare it with his other upper arm. I think his elbow should come down almost to his lap, with his lower arm angling back up to the guitar.

I just found this with some pictures of holding a guitar. Might be useful as a reference.

Hmmm ... isn't coming out in the U.S. until 29 December!? We're the last ones to get it. Kind of unusual, isn't it? Have to try and remember this one.

Okay, I'll bite.

Fight: Cuppit (ceramic vs. flesh? come on!)
Kiss: Cuppit (so I wouldn't have to kiss another man)
Veterinarian: Ben Jordan (I don't think Cuppit would ever actually get around to doing anything)

Next up(?): Alexander Zale from Cirque de Zale -vs- Baron von Düsseldorf from Jessica Plunkenstein.

Also, despite there being only one death situation in the game (and it fitting with the world I created for the story) people still complained about being killed.Ã,  I think the important thing to weigh in any of these discussions is the fact that you can't possibly hope to please everyone, not even with the most clever design.

Yes, I finished this just recently. A nice game! (Off-topic noob question: Is it ok to dig up old threads in the Completed Games forum to comment on older games? Darth Mandarb has me scared ...Ã,  :'()

WRT dying, I suspect the issue from the perspective of game play is: if you aren't successful, then you have to
- Watch the death cutscene
- Reload an old game
- If you didn't save just before dying, then you need to replay from your last save point (and in adventure games, this typically means rotely solving puzzles you've already solved) and save again right before the death point.
- Try again.
- Repeat until you succeed.

I don't know, is this better than if the character gives you a warning and doesn't move so he won't die (in effect, leaving you stuck in the hallway until you get it right)? I don't know. I personally didn't have any problems with the player dying (you had obviously set the stage for it, and it gave me an excuse to knock off for the night), but I think it's an interesting question from a design perspective.

but 99.99% of all games that have save and load abilities are like this. What is the point in dying in Half Life 2 when I can just quickload and keep trying until you get it right.

Good point. Maybe these games would be better if you could only save in between levels? I'll confess that I found some of the combat in Half-Life (and FPS games in general) rather tedious, exactly for this reason. Probably why I never got around to finishing Duke Nukem 3D. Half-Life was unique because of it's atmosphere and it's story. More than slaughtering a bunch of aliens and soldiers, I wanted to find out what was going to happen. I found the demo level from Half-Life 2 (the one with the reverend and all the zombies) extremely tedious. (It didn't help that half-way through, the guy tells you you're going the wrong way, thus setting you up to fight your way back out. _I_ knew the right way to go, but don't force me to go the wrong way because that was the only way to advance the level.) Perhaps if it was set in the context of a progressing storyline (which I realize you can't really get from a demo), I wouldn't have minded so much.

The abolishment of risk in adventure games, I never understood.

Because risk - at least as traditionally realized in games - is basically pointless in adventure games. Is there really any point in killing the player when you can just restore immediately beforehand and keep trying again (I'm reminded specifically of Beneath A Steel Sky, trying to get by the giant spider in the subway)? Unless you allow the player to get into a "walking dead" situation, or kill without warning (hoping the player hasn't saved recently). Not really solutions in my opinion.

I think the best way of implementing "risk" is alternate endings, or alternate paths, based on what you do during the game. But would this necessarily eliminate the problem of being "stuck, stuck, stuck, oh! that worked!"?

In the Secret of Monkey Island, Elaine is at risk of a forced marriage. Though the game is light-hearted this is still something the player doesn't want to see happen - so it adds to the drama of the narrative.

I don't think it's essentisl that the player can fail - as long as the consequences of failure are understood. In many linear artforms, particularly cinema, a sense of risk can be created without there being such a thing as an optional bad end.

But if there's no chance of the bad outcome ever being actualized, then it's not really risk. It can provide motivation within the context of the story ("the MacGuffin"), but not risk.

Deus Ex is a good example where you can kill whoever you want, excpet you can't kill certain main characters. And that's totally understandable. To do that, you'd need adaptable AI to cope with the loss of key characters that were integral to the plot. Or you might end up with a game where there's nobody left alive and theres nothing left to do in the game!

Or you can do it like Half-Life, where the game just ends when you kill a key character. Thoughts about going this route?

eagermind: Why do you find it dangerous? I told that i searched both Cristianity and Spiritualism/White Magic. But you know, if someone is Christian, then he can't be at the same time a White mage. And vice-versa. So, if i believe in White Magic, i won't be a Christian any more, because Christianity doesn't believe in White Magic. So simple as that. If there is any physical explanation, then it's ok, but when i talk about White Magic/Spiritualism, i talk about the aspect that they are supernatural activities.

Here's why this is dangerous. Your argument, as best as I can make, goes something like this:

- You're a Christian, and thus believe that Christianity is good.
- White Magic appears to be in conflict with Christianity.
- Therefore, White Magic must actually be a "dark force," which I take to mean as "bad," "evil," or "wrong."

Wow! That was easy! No fanaticism there, but we certainly left the door open. Now let's see what Christianity says about homosexuality, birth control, or Muslims, etc., etc.

Not only is this flawed logic, but have you asked yourself what it means to you personally to be a Christian?

Sure, the church may have an official line on ghosts, magic, the supernatural, etc, but what's the reasoning behind it? Do you agree with it? And what church are you even talking about? One of the countless variations of Protestantism, or the "original" church - and even then you get to choose between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy? Certainly "the church" has no monopoly on what the "right" answer is.

You've been asking people what they think about reconciling Christianity with White Magic. Well, people have either been saying that White Magic is a bunch of baloney (in which case, what's the problem?), or that you need to make your own decision. Religion is (or should be) a deeply personal thing.

So what does it mean to you to be a Christian? An what about White Magic conflicts with that, other than the fact that the church (or even the bible) says it does? And if magic, ghosts, and the supernatural do exist, does it necessarily mean they're evil, or do you need to re-evaluate your faith? Personally, I'd have a hard time subscribing to any interpretation of religion that would require me to perfunctorily label a group of people as being "evil".

Watch out people! I was sniping on Halo!

Stay the f- away from me. Like a tea kettle on the stove, you're a maniac waiting to blow.

Same goes for any other of you godless, murderers-in-training Halo players ....

Hmmm, now that I think about it ... since games obviously lead to violent behavior, which means you're just a walking time bomb, I wonder if I can pre-emptively sue you for causing (among other things) psychological stress. Anyone got Jack's number?

Hey, don't dismiss Christianity because some Christians dismiss evolution...

No, I wasn't trying to. Mostly I was being a smart-ass, and I apologize if I offended.

But what I do find dangerous about where SilverWizard is going with this is: his discomfort with the belief in or existence of something he doesn't understand because it might conflict with his religion.

Certainly religion is useful as a means to try and lead a moral and ethical life, but using it as an end in itself is where I get uncomfortable. To use his example, if communication with the dead is possible, then there must be some physical explanation for it, whether we call it "magic" or whatever. But are we going to dismiss it outright as "evil" because of a passage in the bible? Sadly, history (heck, current events) suggest that those who cling blindly to religion will do a lot more than just "dismiss" it.

In some obscure, non-intelligible way, that's what my little quip about evolution was getting at. MashPotato, I appreciate you posting that excerpt, as I wholeheartedly agree with it.

Jack Thompson strikes again.

All I can say is ... how ...  utterly ... ridiculous ....

Does anyone else find it amusing(?) that the murderer (already convicted and in jail) is included in the suit? As if getting him for murder wasn't enough, now they want him for playing video games.

* shakes head in disgust *

... science can offer an explanation, and Christianity doesn't dismiss these.

Like, for example, evolution? :

Can someone give me an example of a "good" puzzle that "fits in with the story"?

For me, the puzzle that stands in my mind as "The Great Puzzle" is the final puzzle of Monkey Island 2 where

Spoiler

you make a voodoo doll to destroy LeChuck.

[close]

Why did/do I love it?
- It was "hard" (at least for me), but completely logical.
- The clues were all around you, but not obvious (and if I remember, required a little lateral thinking).
- It incorporated knowledge that you learned earlier in the game.
- The solution (that is, gathering the items you needed) wasn't linear.

I can still remember when the solution came to me (after roaming the tunnels wondering what the f- I was supposed to do next), it was literally like a light turned on in my head (yeah, I'm a geek).

1.  Remain wholly transparent.

I might use the world "consistent" instead - consistent with the needs of the story, and consistent with real-world logic (or if not, consistent with some game logic that has been made clear to the player). I don't mind knowing that I'm dealing with a puzzle - even if it's a hard one - as long as the puzzle and its solution flows naturally from the story and is logically consistent. Maybe we're talking about the same things, just using different words.

I actually think more games suffer from the opposite problem of "The Ridiculous Puzzle": namely, "The Gratutious Easy Puzzle". That is, a bunch of simple puzzles that are thrown in just for the sake of having puzzles and don't really have anything to do with the story. These just grow tedious to me, and I'll lose interest just as quickly as I would with some crazy puzzle that has a non-sensical solution.

... these days I reach for a walkthru whenever I feel myself stuck for more than 20-30 minutes.

I would have to disagree with this mindset. I completed MI2 without a walkthrough, and it's probably one of the reasons I have such a fond memory of that game. Certainly there were times when I was stuck, but it was all the more satisfying when I figured out the solution. But the caveat is: if I'm going to spend a lot of time working out the solution, the solution better make sense. In MI2, for the most part, they did. Sure there were a couple dubious ones:

Spoiler

"Pulling" the shovel off the sign at the beginning, while "picking it up" wouldn't work. And as you mentioned earlier, using the monkey as a wrench to turn off the waterfall.

[close]

But I think there were enough clues to figure out the solution.

Spoiler

For the monkey in particular, the shape of it in the inventory tipped me off.

[close]

Definitely it's a fine line, and of course everyone is different in what they enjoy and what they find difficult. But I'm beginning to think that identifying a bad puzzle is a lot like identifying porn: "I can't define it, but I know when I see it!"

Finally found a program to unzip an ACE file. Really, who's ever heard of ACE?

I didn't play very far into this, but I really enjoyed what I saw. I was having my doubts about the plot from the descriptions you posted, but after playing it, I did like it. The animations are quite well done, and I thought you did a pretty good job of capturing the personality of the Doctor.

I would have to agree with ProgZmax about the Doctor's talk animation. It's a little too much. But a minor comment so far.

Nice job!

- From the red lines, you can see that various things don't line up across the different views (in this case, the feet, bottom of the hands, and hair line). You'll want to make sure everything is consistent among the different views.

I also did some edits to the front view:

- Removed the whites around the eyes
- Added a nose
- Changed the left hand (his right) to make it look less "Lego-esque". Still doesn't look great, but hopefully you get the idea. The arms could probably also be a little longer.
- I noticed the skin color of his hands was different from his face. I changed the hands so skin color is the same everywhere. You'll want to check the rest of your sprite to make sure your colors are consistent

Not bad for a first effort. I'd also recommend going through the Critics Lounge and looking at comments for previously posted sprites. You can learn a lot by studying what others have done what improvements have been suggested.

Perhaps you could outline the title using the purple color from your buttons? That would clearly distinguish it from the background but keep your color scheme. You may still have to fool with the font a little to make it clearer.

I felt like doing this evil edit mhuhahahah!! 

Killer Klowns from Outer Space? Anyone? Anyone ...? 

Seriously though, he does seem have a little bit of a freaky vibe going. Maybe get rid of the red in his eyes and smooth the face out a little. It looks a bit too wrinkly to me, like he's got a rubber mask pulled over his face. I might even go so far as to remove the "butt chin" and make it more rounded.

For the most part it looks good, but the arms seem a little narrow and the waist too high. I imagine you're trying to capture some of the MI3 look (although, personally I'm not a fan of how they made Guybrush look in MI3), but with the big pirate coat on, I don't think the arms would look so "tailored".

I'm not sure this is an issue ...

Yeah, it's just a minor comment. If you leave it the way it is I think it will be fine. Either way ....

I think ProgZmax nailed it. Nice work! (I'm sure you're tired of hearing how great you are! )

You still might want to work on the "pick up" icon a little. Right now it looks more like "hold". My first thought is to rotate the hand 90 degrees (so it's reaching down from the top) and add a floor. You could have the hand just about to pick up the object (which is still sitting on the floor).

Is that anything like the warnings on a bag of salted peanuts that state: This product contains peanuts.

In fairness, I've seen this on products that don't contain peanuts in them. I think it means that the same equipment was used to prepare products with peanuts (kind of like cooking a vegatarian meal on the same grill that cooked a bunch of meat). But I agree it seems like a stupid warning on, say, a bag of peanuts. "Uhhh ... are there peanuts in these peanuts?"

They should put the warnings on the floor, then they might be of some use.

Maybe a sign that says "Look up!"? 

For some reason this reminds me of the crosswalks I saw in Australia that say "Look right!" with a big arrow. Seems like a lot of work to prevent a few(?) tourists from stepping out in front of cars. I guess I pictured that same tourist, still stepping in front of the car, thinking "Look right?!" *BAM*

"Pick up" was the only I couldn't get. At first I also confused "open" and "close" with "put in" and "take out". You might want to do what Captain Binky suggested about changing the arrows for "open" and "close." I also agree with Ali that you probably don't need these as separate actions, but one action that toggles (if it's already open, you close it, and vice versa). I think people will figure out what these do pretty quickly if they're actually playing the game, but you may want to include a readme that tells people beforehand.

As for the middle, I'm not 100% sure what you mean by @overhotspot@. But how about a large picture of whatever the player is examining or has currently selected in their inventory? If this is a detective game, you could provide some visual clues besides just relying on what the player tells you about the item.

I'd have believed it for the americans, but this is just weird.

No, no, we just sue. Then after the company loses, you'd see warnings added to the mat. Something like: "Warning: May present a tripping hazard."

It's too late for me now, I'll spend the rest of the day worrying about immigrants stealing my inheritance tax.

Too bad you can't just build a big fence like us.  :