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Speaking of finishing -- the game's now playable from start to finish The last boss battle has been designed, written, scripted and drawn. I'm probably more surprised than anybody, given how long the previous boss battle rounds took to develop. It's simplier than the former two -- but it's evil and twisted in its own way

There are still quite a few things to be done -- including some final cutscenes, credits a large part of audio editing... And the music! How's that going, Problem? I'm also toying with the idea of a full blown intro. We'll see

Haven't updated in a while -- and took a two-week break from the game, to relax, read a book, play some games -- but it's progressing I'm putting some finishing touches to the penultimate room -- which has some pretty awesome cutscenes and is by far the trickiest level, with the meanest, most unfair puzzles . After that, the last round should be a piece of cake!

And here's the final boss -- disguised as a well-known game karakter...

Hahaha!!! I'm a terrible singer so I think I just might have to gum up the works by giving this a shot!

You think you're bad? My version turned out even worse than I'd have imagined -- so much so that both Kodiak and Problem are probably still looking for the right words to tell me I'm the only dropout in the whole casting

[erotic]

Yes, there are AGS games about dinosaurs but I don't believe we've had any erotic games involving dinosaurs yet.

The guy who did music for one of my games was actually making one, a couple of years ago -- but that was long ago, and then he went on to do something else, and that was long ago, too.

As for games about cavemen, you might like UNGA NEEDS MUMBA

Loved Ilyich's work for Technobabylon -- so I'm glad to see him involved in yet another promising dystopian game With Dustbowl out just yesterday and Dead Synchronicity last month -- and hopefully the Mad Max game from the makers of Just Cause 2 -- 2015 looks pretty exciting for sci-fi/post-apo game fans.

Technocrat: You better! I finished the game yesterday -- and the epilogue made me go: UH-OH...!

Dave: Hm... That was crypitic. If I hadn't listened to the comments (as I'm replaying the game now with comments on), I'd have thought you're suggesting she's a real-life corporate AI, not an actual person. Or did you link this by mistake instead of a picture of Jess Pepper receiving the VO artists' equivalent of an Oscar?

Hope your dad is all well and back on his feet soon!

I haven't finished the game yet (just gotten through the "LAN party" bit) -- but I have to say what I wanted to say from the very start and what still holds true, after quite a few hours in the game: I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! This is my favorite Wadjet Eye game. It has great balance between the dark, serious story and occasional comic relief: be it  Cheffie (somebody give the voice actress an Oscar!!!) or the darkly humorous decadence exhibited by the hedonist youth (can't decide which one was my favorite: the maladist or the nuker). All arcs of the story are equally gripping -- and I think I might have an inkling about how they're all going to come together in the end. Can't wait -- and at the same time I'm taking it slow, a chapter per sitting, tops, because I want to savor the experience. Also, I really like how intuitive and logical the puzzles are. There were only a few instances where I resorted to a walkthrough to nudge me in the right direction.

Congrats on a great, GREAT game!

Congrats! Noticed it on GOG this morning -- and of course rushed to buy it. Sadly, GOG messed up my transaction and now I have to wait before I retry lest I should get double-billed if the first one actually went through.

Still, it's a good day for retro adventure gamers on GOG -- considering this retro adventure game give-away

EDIT: Got it! Downloading!

Looks great -- and sound great, too. One thing, though: might just be me, but the walking speed seems a bit too slow compared to how fast the legs move.

I really like the character design - the general style, the lineart and the choice of colors.

Oh, I'm in, I just didn't want to give you empty promises before I got anything to show. I'll get back to you sometime next week.

Oh yes, I remember seeing arcades as early as 1987, in some holiday resort. Can't remember what the games were, though, for the life of me. Later on, in mid-90's, they were still a thing, and I saw some pretty awesome games in the smallest of sea-side towns, such as Tekken or Soul Calibur.
I see Crimson Wizard's experiences were pretty similar to mine. There was a very lively illegal trade between our countries going on well into the 90's -- especially contraband VHS with Russian overdubs Oh, the memories! I imagine how bizarre all of this must sound to you, Mandle. Trust me, that's not even half of it We could probably go on and oooon about various ways of "getting by" in the merry times of Uncle Misha and then the early years of our very own version of savage capitalism.
And yeah, those tentacles were tricky. I thought I'd been a clumsy kid -- but when I tried the game last year, I couldn't even get near the 1300 points that I scored at the age of 8.

If I remember correctly, you've discussed impostor syndrome only recently, around ep. 70 or so. This podcast was a nice follow-up. Other than the basic question of "when are you ready?", the issue of specialisation vs. expanding and experimenting is one that's on my mind a lot. I dabble in so many things at once that I don't have the kind of time -- or maybe the ability to focus -- to really master one. I'm ok-ish, and willing to experiment, too look for new ways expression -- but as soon as the thought of going commercial pops up in my head, I freeze in panic. I briefly considered fully fleshing out and extending my current project in order to go commercial. I applied myself to animations to give them more polish, improved my background style... But then I decided the background art is just not good enough, no matter how hard I try. And then, eventually, the complexity -- and clunkiness -- of the code made me think it's just too much to handle. No matter how much I try, it won't be perfect -- and not because I'm a bad coder, but because I'm trying to do something AGS doesn't allow. I love my project, and I'm having tons of fun with it, adding new things as I go along to make it even better -- but I keep thinking it's just not good ENOUGH for a commercial product. I might also be fully consciously shooting myself in the foot with my artistic choices, such as the 16 color palette -- which puts certain limitations on me that I end up resenting. Not to mention I'd probably have a heart attack if a player/buyer reported a game-crashing bug.

As for "thingamajig" -- The first time I heard the word was from my Australian friend, so I actually thought it might be Australian slang.

And Francisco, I sent you that pm prior to listening to the podcast. Didn't think you'd actually remember. Nevertheless, what I said in the message still stands

Commie gaming history? Let me throw my two cents, too (or should I say kopeikas?) The first thing you need to see as far as gaming behind the Iron Curtain is concerned is this:



This was the commie gameboy. Each of those had one simple arcade game: juggling pancakes, catching eggs falling from hens' nests, racing games, etc. I got the one you see above in 1988, when I was 8 (I was born the same year as Kasander -- and I'm Polish, too). I still have it -- and, 27 years later, that thing still works! See, we might've lived 50 years under Stalin's boot -- but that way we've never been exposed to the joys of the so-called planned obsolescence. Things were built to last, not go kaputt after a year so you could get yourself a new one.

My first computer was a Commodore 64, which we brought from West Germany in 1988 (along with a VCR). The way I remember it, at the time the game market was booming -- but not in the way you'd imagine. Other than the Pewex stores, there was no official distribution of western media. Still, you could get RIDICULOUS amounts of games. Anything! I spent many hours playing Bruce Lee, International Karate, Skate or Die, Turbo Outrun... Sport games, soccer... But my favorite was Hammerfist. A lot of times you could get up to 30 games on a single tape. A sort of 80's game bundle, if you will. All of it pirated. See, back in the 80's -- and well into the 90's -- copyright was a strange and foreign idea in our neck of the woods. Censorship -- which was a large part of official media -- including press, music and movies -- didn't apply. We got whatever snuck through the border. If you had a tape recorder, you could copy the cassette -- and distribute it among your friends for free OR put up a small stand in the town bazaar and sell them there. It's actually how some of the greatest carreers in Polish game distribution/gamedev started -- including Adrian Chmielarz, former Metropolis Software/People Can Fly CEO, currently CEO of The Astronauts, and the man behind Teenagent, Painkiller, Bulletstorm and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. In a recent interview for Polygon, he mentioned feeling deeply embarrassed by how he had to make money -- not so much because he stole someone's work but because someone he knew might've seen him peddling games in the bazaar. The ending of the 80's was crazy, we got all sort of computers all at once -- Commodores, Amigas, ZX Spectrums, Ataris, and maybe even Apples. Not to mention obscure computers such as MSX and Acorn (which was actually fully officially distributed by the state!). It was a weird mix of being far behind technology-wise -- and then catching up in one big leap. In 1993, when the market was already open, we also got NES. Well, sort of. What we got was this Taiwanian (I think) rip-off of Famicon called Pegasus -- which had a full-blown advertising campaign, including tv commercials! What's noteworthy -- and relevant to one of your question -- it was marketed as fun for the whole family (as reflected by the full name: PEGASUS FAMILY GAME). Carts were easily available in stores. Can't remember the price, but it wasn't exorbitant. I mostly played the 168 in 1 bundle that came with the console, which included Mario, Pacman, Contra, Donkey Kong, but I also owned some casino game, Robocop -- and my favorite, Solbrain.

We didn't have magazines dedicated to games specifically. The first one, called Top Secret, was first released in 1990. Before that, we had computer mags such as Bajtek or Komputer:



I distinctly remember some game-related special, with reviews of 40 Atari games. Atari was a cult thing, and not just in the 90's. And yes, there were 8-bit games made in Poland, in Polish (and hence, probably never got smuggled abroad). Mozgprocessor, Seksmisja (you might know its remake, A.D. 2044), Hans Kloss -- the latter two based on beloved cinematic franchises (with complete disregard for copyright, as you might expect). I got my first PC in 1995 -- and started reading game mags only shortly before that -- so I was completely oblivious about what was going on in the market before that time. But I'm learning a ton of new things about that time now, 20 years later, bout just now, through PIXEL -- a new paper mag created by veterans from game mags mentioned above, with a significant emphasis on retro (and currently running a series of stories on LucasArts!).

Cap, I took a look and it looks like you can submit your game here by registering -- though the free game distribution service isn't there just yet.

I like the link Mathias posted. A nice read -- even if I don't agree with every argument, on the whole the dude makes a lot of sense. I'm interested in reading more of his other article, the one about the DO's of self-promotion.

Oops, my bad! I've spent most the past 15 hours typing away, so at some point I stopped even watching the screen. Anyway, thanks for fishing it out. Edited my message, too, in case Cat were to copy the original.

"The third installment of the darkly comedic series about Moss -- the universe's most accidentally lucky field agent -- sends him on his most dangerous mission yet. Visitor 3 is bigger, better, funnier -- and scarier. There's lots of green blood, pink goo, black tentacles and other terrifying appendages -- and a head in a jar that's not only quite friendly, but also not at all fazed by its current situation."

Oh yeah, and "Knockin' on Baldur's Gate"!

That's not Ben, that's Slash from Cups'n'Hammers!