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I've always liked the way plot developments evolve as different authors add to them, though. I think it would be a shame to lose that with an 'everything back to normal' rule.

It's a little known fact that I have been making some: http://tastefulcomics.tumblr.com

Don't tell anyone about them, though. They're a secret.

Freakazoid did a really funny adventure game piss-take, once.

No references to specific games but it did have a hooded figure making him solve a complex riddle before saying saying nothing more than "Take this chalk" and the line "Yeah! Yeah!  I got a bowl! Yay me!!" which is... about right.

I'm also positive The Venture Brothers has mentioned Zork once... I mean... they must have right?

A sidescrolling platformer where you play as a piece of graffiti running across the city; it came to me thinking about how nice 3D engines do brick walls with all the nice bumps and crevices and slippery rain effects and how cool animated 2D graffiti art would look juxtaposed with it.

You could slide down drain pipes, dodge council cleaners, run onto the pavement to get to different walls and the way your character would fade and chip as he takes more damage would negate the need for a health-bar.

Oh, just lovely.

And just for the record; prefer the original to the paintover. It seems somehow more iconic, important for images this size.

Those look gorgeous; they'll really put Dage on the map.

And this contest sounds great, just like all the TIGsource ones do.

I personally think there's so little good fan-fiction because it's HARD writing for pre-established settings and characters.
The writers of your favourite TV show or movie have been intimately involved in the story's conception, they're privy to all sorts of background details about the characters to aid their writing than a viewer can only guess at. It's probably why most fanfic authors just forget about accurately recreating the characters and just stick them in leather pants.

I'm positive there's good stuff out there. And with video games showing what a useful tool for making ideas last it can be to get the fans to create their own derivative content (and with Star Trek seemingly being in on this secret since the beginning) and with recent technological trends decreasing the gap between viewers and creators; I wouldn't be surprised if old, unrespected fan-fiction's in for a bit of a golden age.

But I don't read it.
Sorry. I don't have the mental strength...

I'm happy about this.
Might get a little bit choked up in fact.
I'm drunk.

Here's my no-shades-of-grey Rorschach-from-Watchmen style base viewpoint:

Adventure Gaming is not roleplaying; Adventure protagonists are in character and they're working towards ONE, SPECIFIC goal and the dialogue options you give them to say need to reflect that because seeing a protagonist without a goal is boring and, in gameplay terms, will lead to a lot of red herrings.

Obviously that's a rule made to be broken; it could very well be interesting and entertaining to hear how the mummy-powered spaceship generator works or why the gangster loves that toy bunny he keeps under his hat so much or where the snake does his hair. It's a matter of using one's discretion.

Personally I'm a fan of getting superfluous information across to the player for the author's self indulgence but not so they know it's slowing down their gameplay. I guess that means expressing stuff by any means but a direct question and answer; clues in the background, character's going off topic while you're trying to get them to tell you what you need to know, just a general 'feeling' in how a character talks of their personal story even if it's not explicitly stated.
Of course; all that takes hella-good writing to pull off so if you're not up to the challenge; we'll understand...

(Coward)

Let's give this terrifying looking thing a go then...

*clicks through to system check page*


What the... I swear The Doctor in this thing's going to give kids more nightmares than the Daleks...

Why did no-one pick up how funny THIS is?

Hmmn, well it's obviously someone cantankerous and witty...

House without the limp?

That one! That one! That one! That one! That one! That one! That one! That one! That one!
I'll enter it!

What an amazing thread; I haven't played any of these. Now I know what to do if I'm ever at a loose end for a day.

I'd kind of like to see a fan-fiction one actually. It's interesting to see how different talented authors handle stories and characters created by other talented authors; but most talented authors feel the need to create their own stuff so this would be a good excuse for those guys to try it out.

I know there's legal issues an' that but people wanting to avoid them could always chose a public domain property.

I love the elegance of the CMI verb coin but I really think there's something truly special about selecting a purpose-built verb from a big ol' selection.

But yeah, as it's been said, keep it logical and useful: move instead of push and pull, consume instead of eat and drink, operate instead of turn on and turn off, no 'rub left elbow on' option if its only used once etc etc

A better question is what the hell is the dude in that quote talking about? Did he just have a top-hat full of random technical/animation terms or something?

Anyway, I imagine the animation was made by hand-inking the frames as cleanly as possible, scanning them in black and white and cleaning them up by hand; pixel by pixel until they'd got rid off all the artefacts but I could be wrong.

Yeah, you're right of course. And I'm a big fan of comedians like Sarah Silverman who make the irony an integral part of their act. But I'm not talking about humour ABOUT prejudice, there are jokes out there that are genuinely designed to put down and humiliate a group of people; stuff with no redeeming social value that might still  have entertainment (or at least academic value) and certain things will expect to get away with telling such jokes scott-free by simply playing the "Satire/I didn't mean it" card.

Well of course you didn't mean it, you're obviously not a terrible, ignorant person but you still said it, it still came out of your mouth. Take some responsibility; you said it because you thought it was funny.

I'm offended when racist jokes are hidden behind a flimsy veil of tacked-on irony.

I'm against censorship, if a racist joke is funny then it deserves to be heard no matter how reprehensible; I'm an adult, I know the difference between right and wrong, I can decide for myself how vile something is, I can handle it.
Hiding behind an ill-conceived 'just kidding' doesn't make you politically correct; it just makes you a coward. If something's funny it's funny, it's not your fault; put it out there and accept the consequences or don't put it out there; don't try and have it both ways... you're just cheapening whatever plight makes the joke offensive in the first place.

So yeah, that's my pet peeve.

Just saying; it would be a lot better if there was an actual solution for it ingame. It just doesn't make sense to me these guys walk around solving the obscure problems in their way for a living but they can't deal with the ones they create themselves.
Plus, it's tedious to go through the game again, especially if you become a walking dead early on and then the game lets you progress, blissfully unaware, to a certain point anyway... it feels like a punishment; the game is punishing me for... playing it... for doing stuff the designers PUT THERE for me to do... it's like I've been thrown out of the garden of Eden without even being told not to eat the apple in the first place. Argh, I can't deal with that. I'm just not that much of a masochist...

Anyway so... um... remakes: Um... Bubble Bobble, right, but with SALAMANDERS!