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Well, it just strikes me that if you're not willing to approach the situation with civility yourself, it doesn't make sense for you to pretend like it's everyone else who's being uncivil.

Games are part of the great cluster of media for which judgments of quality are subjective. If people didn't enjoy Sierra games, you can't force them to like them. I haven't played many myself, a few Leisure Suit Larries, and a Police Quest. But those didn't provide me with the enthralling experiences that other games did, so I didn't feel the need to return to Sierra myself.

I don't hate you for liking Sierra games, and if anyone is identifying you as a Sierra fanboy, it's because of your frankly over-the-top responses to what is, in the end, subjective criticism. To you, Sierra is the pinnacle. To others, they were lesser games. That doesn't mean you're a horrible person for liking them, any more than it means that others are horrible people for not liking them. It just means we're human beings with different tastes, goals and ideologies when it comes to games.

Maybe you should join forces with the guy who's attempting a King's Quest multiplayer game. Your love of Sierra seems to be matched by him.

I like how if you disagree with the complaints against Sierra, you're a Sierra fanboy. It's like, you can only like one (Sierra) or the other(Lucasarts), but you can't like both. That's complete bullshit.

I don't think anyone has ostracized you for liking Sierra games. Much the opposite, you seem to take umbrage at anyone questioning the quality of Sierra games at all, lumping them into a collective faceless class of "you people" that you don't hate individually, but as a whole. These are game designers questioning the design decisions that led to, in their opinion, sub-par games. They're not attacking your religion (unless your religion is Sierra, which would make Leisure Suit Larry the Pope?).

as once I see the bashing everyone gets clumped together in an "evil Sierra hater" collective, but I bet anything that the things that you people consider flaws I consider great strengths in gameplay

Two quick things:

Change the title of the page (right now it's GQ.zip) for better SEO.

I'd resize the animated gif by the logo frame by frame with...I think 'nearest neighbor' is the best? That will retain the pixelized look better than letting the browser handle image resizing.

He is doing kind of kick steps (by kicking with his heels on the ground inbetween every step).

That probably mostly comes from the fact that those shoes are temporary too, and that I haven't aligned the feet properly. Still, a heel click might not be out of character for this guy so maybe I'll leave it!

As a suggestion you might put an oval down where the bottom of his feet are with lines that go from one end to the other for all the possible walk directions.  Then use this as a guide when placing the feet of your character.  You'll have an easier time of drawing the frames of animation concurrent to the direction he's facing.

Any chance you could provide a graphic example? Do you use the same oval for all views? With the first sprite, I used two parallel lines, slightly offset, to determine where the shoes hit, but didn't formally determine the swing of the foot. That's a good idea though. If you have an image of how you manage it, please share.

I finally got back to this tonight, after spending too much time on competitions and teething baby over the past week or so. I decided to try to start on a front facing view, and in the past hour have knocked out this rough sketch for the Felix character.

EDIT: Took another hour and made an even rougher sketch for the character's back view. Need to improve his posture on that one so it doesn't look like he's gloomy slouching.

Honestly, I was hesitant to issue any commands, because I haven't participated in the previous 30 pages of play, and didn't want to rudely jump in upsetting the boat. So I thought I'd make suggestions and see whether others agreed, but I think that might be too passive.

I'm really fascinated with the mechanics of storytelling you've got going on here. And happy to see Slender Man make a cameo -- a chapter of my dissertation is about him (and the community that created/is creating him). I'm also scared of the possibility of death, because it seems like there'd be no replay available, and you've created a compelling set of circumstances suggesting a narrative that I want to see through to the end.

[Hamlet]

I recently revisited one of my favorite plays, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard, and Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Both works utilize minor characters from more widely known works (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and 'the madwoman in the attic' from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, respectively), offering new stories that add to, or even subvert the meanings of the original works.

Your mission this month, should you choose to accept it, is to tell a new short piece featuring a pre-existing minor or supporting character. Bonus points if your own tale contributes new meaning to the stories those characters come from.

As this is a mere forum competition, I won't limit you to public domain works, so feel free to write stories about anyone from Planchet in the Three Musketeers, to Victor Tourjansky (the drunk tourist whose vacations James Bond always interrupts), to Wally from Monkey Island.

Sinitrena has called to my attention that I've apparently won this thing! Thanks so much, folks.

To my esteemed competition, Sane Co., I thank you for the grace in giving me an extra day. I hope you'll enter (and win!) the competition that I'm about to start.

[winner (by the tiniest of noses): Le Woltaire.]

Guys, this was a close competition, so much so that I've had to take an extra day to gather my thoughts.

m0ds -- I love the simple but effective melody, over the driving drum beat, especially when that melody is played through the second time with the echoing violin. It manages to evoke the best of John Williams and Elmer Bernstein's Magnificent Seven score with a few economically used notes. If I'm guessing correctly from the title, it also suits well a pre-battle mood, the girding of loins, the deep focused breathing and concentrated stare as man summons his courage for the task ahead of him. Well done!

Le Woltaire -- It's sometimes more difficult to identify a piece as a march without the beat-setting snares, but yours got my toe tapping at circa 120bpm, so I had no trouble there. Something strikes me as Oriental about the first part of the tune recalls the Turkish roots of the genre, but where your tune really caught me was in the softer B section. I would love to hear this melody more fully orchestrated. I can imagine booming brass for the opening, and a soft woodwind section before everything melds together for the thundering conclusion. Well done as well!

It's incredibly hard to choose. I liked both of these tunes quite a bit, but I keep returning to the dynamic of that softer B section in Le Woltaire's composition as the thing that stands out the most for me. And so, winner (by the tiniest of noses): Le Woltaire.

Thanks for your entries!

>PUSH EVACUATION ALARM, LEAVE, DOWN, USE KEYCARD WITH S.BAY, (ENTER?)

As per my original intention of having only one simple daily action, I will probably shorten this to just "> PUSH EVACUATION ALARM".

Fine by me! I thought I'd give you some extra commands since you seemed to be eager to move things along!

>PUSH EVACUATION ALARM, LEAVE, DOWN, USE KEYCARD WITH S.BAY, (ENTER?)

Horray for yet another regression of technology.

Well, I did say it would be tricky to pull off. It shouldn't be the only extra-game element, for one.

What if there was a way to make an adventure game with some degree of immersive verisimilitude. For instance, what if there was a way to make only parts of the game available per a period of days, such that the game seemed to be happening in real time. The imagery of the game might look as though you're communicating with someone via a webcam and helping them solve puzzles that way. Automated phone calls and email communication could add story in different ways in intervening days, and players would be notified when more gameplay was available.

This is probably well beyond the scope of AGS, and could easily be hacked by changing the system time most likely, but it would be more of an interesting and immersive avenue of storytelling than, "Look it up in the accompanying book."

But why?

I could see this being used as part of a multimedia story that had an adventure game as one of the storytelling components, and a smartphone game as another. An ARG that was partially told through an adventure game, in other words. Would be tricky, but might be interesting....

Perhaps more suited to mostly self-contained adventure games, because it would be more accessible to everyone, is a phone number that, when called, gave some sort of valuable clue in a pre-recorded message. It's relatively easy to set up a fake number with a voicemail box (thanks to Google Voice and some VOIP programs), and it would add a nice bit of realism to the game, especially if you carried over voiceover work from the game to the voicemail greeting.

can't we use evacuation alarm to open the doors

Well, I figure everyone else already knows to try to get out, but pushing "Evacuation Alarm" seems like a nice thing to do, in case anyone is napping somewhere, and not getting shot yet. If it also unlocked all of the doors, that would be a nice side effect.

However, it might also reveal our location to whomever just shot these two folks.

There's also Al Lowe's design docs. Any others floating around?

Hey, that's weird!

I wonder if there's some sort of anti-spam thing because Kconan only typed one word? Maybe that's holding the rest of our posts up?

And in turn, my vote goes to Sane, because when I first read it, it literally made me laugh out loud, and when I just read it again, you guessed it, more out-loud laughing!

Just a reminder that the deadline is quickly approaching!

However your...darker hair and distinct lack of a cool ponytail might hinder any such attempt.

This poor man has already had his thumb cut off, and now you want us to scalp him too? How horrific!

Are you implying that the dead woman isn't sexy enough?

You know what they say about assumptions. They make an ass out of you, me, and the dead woman, when it's actually Klugman I've had my eye on all along. I can't help it -- it's the ponytail.

Besides, the woman is covered in vomit. I do have my standards.

Is this a command or are we just discussing possibilities?

Oh, no! Sorry. Should have commented that one out. Just discussing possibilities.

No adventure-game pockets in this game, I'm afraid.

NOOOOOOOO!