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Yes, and also thank you for that one game that had me rage-quit way more than either of the Hotline Miamis And for that outro song that made all of that pain and anger just wash away

Oops, my bad. It seems I got something really mixed up here. I realized I meant San Andreas. Then I checked back and it turns out you're right, it never was on GOG. OH well, I'm getting old, and that was long ago.

So anyway, I was thinking... Tales could really become AGS's Kyrandia. You've kind of set up a possible beginning for a sequel, and in part three you could twist it around and make the villain the protagonist!

One of the problems people have with Steam is that it's like you don't OWN the game you bought, you're just sort of borrowing them -- and if one day Valve decides to take them down for whatever reason, they're just gone from your library and that's it. I haven't heard of that many titles that this happened to, but I did have my eye on certain Marvel Comic games, and they were taken down over some licensing issues between the developer and Marvel. But none of the games I owned got ever taken down. Meanwhile, one day I decided I'd love to give GTA4 a whirl after a long break, and logged onto my GOG library only to find it gone because reasons. My bad for not backing the installation file up somewhere -- but still, not nice to throw my toys away just because I haven't played them in a while.

So yeah, I don't trust either of them. I do tend to favor GOG, but if Steam is the only way I can get the game, then Steam it is.

Well, your favorite character better be the one I'm thinking

I can echo your sentiments. My experience of the actual game in its full splendor was just a few days, but it did feel special. Like the Little Big Adventure games, it was a world I'd love to stick around in, have another visit to all the places in the epilogue perhaps, check up on all the crazy people and the beautiful locations. Sequel, maybe?

And I was surprised to learn via the credits at the end that Thrym was you. You know, the "it's nice to put a cartoon ice giant voice to an avatar" kinda way I myself have the most fun with doing voices that don't sound like me at all, and especially creepy monster voices -- so Oblivion was a ton of fun to record. Sore throat for a couple of days, but totally worth it!

I've just finished it -- and what a crazy ride it was! It was an epic fairytale adventure, fun and whimsical in places, and dark and existential in others. I'd go as far as comparing it to Fate of Atlantis (an academic on a grand and dangerous quest, solving wicked logical puzzles with symbols and twisting stuff around), Little Big Adventure (with its vast world, beautiful landscapes and oddball characters), and The Whispered World (for the theme of a world falling apart and succumbing to negativity). Beautiful work all around.

I was perhaps a little disappointed that we didn't get to visit the more modern stories listed, such as Alice or The Wizard of Oz -- but what I appreciate more than that is that we get to learn a bit about the more obscure and older stories. It was a grand, beautiful journey -- beautifully drawn by Andrea.

The graphics were gorgeous, even in lo-res (though I would totally throw my money at you if you decide to make a hi-res redux sometime!). The music was another thing that reminded me of LBA -- which is one of my favorite soundtracks EVER. Beautiful job, definitely putting it on my chillout playlist!

The voice acting was a real treat. My complimens to Ali especially, I was totally immersed thanks to him in particular. Nice to hear some AGS friends. Recognized CaptainD instantly, Grundislav I didn't at first, and I was surprised to learn who Mandle played. BTW, great job on the translation! The one thing that amused me was everyone saying "dude" (or "man" in Enkidu's case, though that might've been his nickname for Gilgamesh, perhaps?) like they're surfer dudes But hey, they're fairytales, so if you can have a Mayan woman speaking with an Irish (I think) accent, a ruggedly Slavic pelota champion, or an English-sounding mother with an American-sounding kid, anything goes Voice-over was especially dear to me in this game, since I had my part in it. At first I thought that I did an absolutely terrible job, since I based my performances on lower registers and quiet nuances, and most of it got lost in the music -- but then came the Utnapishtim scene, and that I consider my tour de force .

The puzzles... Well, I did spam the help thread yesterday -- but aside from the puzzle in question, most of them were very intuitive. Though honestly, some did cause me some trouble, either because I didn't notice something or my reasoning was off (spent half an hour looking for a book about a winged creature) -- and sometimes the famed adventure game logic got me completely stumped (like the time when Alfred saw no way and no point whatsoever in filling a bottle with water). So what we get is a classic 90's adventure game: an epic story that doesn't take it easy on the player.

Again, congrats to everyone involved! It was a pleasure and an honor to be a part of it

Drat! Turns out I had it all along -- except...

Spoiler

...I wrongly assumed 1 is the "zero" position and I didn't think of returning to it at the end of the sequence. I did try that later on, albeit with a different sequence, so that didn't work.

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OK, you're really and desperately trying not to tell me the actual soulution - which is all I've asking these past few posts Don't tiptoe around it, gimme the damn code and lemme go to Wonderland already

The more input you provide, the more confused and sick of this puzzle I am. At this point anything but the final code spelled out to me in bold letters is useless to me

OK, I see it now...

Spoiler

...but I tried it every which way, forwards and backwards, and still nothing. Either I'm so confused I'm not thinking straight or just too tired and slipping up. At this point I could really use a step by step guide easing me into it.

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Yup.

Spoiler

The one next to the book, right? Yeah, I saw the pattern in the reflection. Still got nothing! Can't figure out in what way these numbers relate to the arrows written down on the sheet in the drawer. Tried a bunch of things but nothing worked.[/url]

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No, I do see the dots all right.

Spoiler

What I confused about is how exactly the arrows relate to the numbers. Call me stupid but my brain's fried from all the logical puzzles at this point.

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Funny! I didn't get to that part yet. Stuck earlier on.

Spoiler

Right now I can't figure out the pattern of turning the key is. I figured the missing bit is < - a mirror reflection of the second symbol, > - but how these relate to turning the key left and right escapes me. I thought it might signify turning to clockwise/counterclockwise, or steps it takes to turn one arrow into the other (flipping 90 or 180 degrees) but neither works.

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Got it!

Spoiler

See, I thought it was busted from heavy use that afternoon and needed to be opened by force somehow. Oh well, adventure game logic. Similarly, it puzzled me why I couldn't fill the bottle with water to wake the innkeeper. It's one of those things that makes perfectsense in real life but nope, the game character sees no possible use for filling a bottle with water. Didn't help that the passage to the mill is pretty inconspicuous, the hotspot being placed on the river. For a long time I had no idea there was an extra location besides the tavern. And after Pantalone downed the damn wine, I thought I was supposed to spice it or something, because there was no hint that it had any effect on him the first or the second time around. Oh well, it's a classic 90's style adventure game that doesn't make things easy on the player

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Speaking of which, I'm stuck again:

Spoiler

I'm in the Mayan temple, and I'm in the tomato storage room. The two rocks are in place (blocked the other door with the ceremonial staff so I could take the rocks), but the puzzle is confusing. I'm trying things, but I have no idea if the symbols are arranged in the right order, and whether they're supposed to run from top to bottom or bottom to top, and it doesn't help that it's hard to move just one bit without screwing the whole order up.
So basically, my guess is:
1. Sun
2. Land
3. Mountains
4. Woods
5. Beasts
6. Man
7. Man beheaded
8. King
and I arranged these from top to bottom.

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OK, this one's for real, though. I'm stuck on Pantagruel's puzzle.

Spoiler

Been to Merlin's but he only said I need to put Pantomime or what-his-name out of action. I have an empty bottle that I'd love to fill with something to poison the guy or something but I can't use the water from outside the tavern to fill the bottle, and the barrel's tap is busted and, of course, I can't get it fixed nohow. I thought of taking the Swiss knife with me to the fairyland but I can't do that.

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It's live! Already downloaded and played a little bit. Fun fun fun!

My girlfriend and I will be playing through it together this weekend.

What a perfect way to MIRROR the creative process involving a hubby & wife duo I'll try to get my Feyonce to play it with me, too! (though not really counting on it, she's yet to finish any of my own games )

Congrats, Paul!

Ever had one of those dreams where you must be semi conscious because the dream involves you being in bed, when you wake up you're in the exact same position. Your brain takes a couple of seconds to process whether it actually happened or not.

Another variation of this is getting up and going to work/school -- only to wake up and realize it was a dream and you have to do it all over again.

It gets freakier than this, too. Other than the sleep paralysis -- when you're fully awake, but can't move, and you have this haunting sensation of something you can't see sitting on top of you and crushing you -- there's lucid dreams. Dreams in which you can become fully aware that everything around you is just a dream. The sensation is mindblowing. I used to be really into that, but never got really experienced, and would do one of the usual things: flying or walking through walls. Even now I'll have them every once in a while, even without trying.

But somehow, actual dreams tend to be more fun, with their sometimes outlandish plots that a conscious mind could never have thought of, and pretty large in scope sometimes (or so it would seem), involving complex plots, multiple NPC's, travelling large distances, fictional objects (like books that I can actually read -- though words change when you look away and then check back, and end up not making sense), and even false memories of events that never happened in real life. Sure, most of the time my dreams are terribly mundane, with me being back in school, completely unprepared, with no idea what classes I have that day -- but sometimes even the most basic plots take a weird turn, with alien invasions or a zombie apocalypse. Very often I'm not even myself in those dreams -- and sometime there is no "me" at all, and the dream plays out like a movie. My favorite are the sci-fantasy epics of some land/planet far away/long ago. But my favorite has to be one of a frog made of cigarette smoke - in a top-hat, no less -- singing like Barry White.

Hoooly...! This looks amazing, and sounds even better than it looks Looking at the video, I instantly thought of Jay Tholen's upcoming "Hypnospace Outlaw" (though no connection can really be drawn since you've been working on this project for almost ten years). In any case, I'm loving it, very "outside the box" in so many ways.

This brings a lot of nostalgic feelings! When I got my first PC, my Windows 3.1 was set to 16 colors, so all hi-color/true-color images actually displayed like this. There is some charm to that -- and while it looks off in some places, in others the color transitions and neighboring blobs of color look absolutely stunning (especially in the last two pics).

Thanks, guys I really appreciate the great response. I've been toying with the idea of making music videos in AGS for years -- and actually kinda did that before, but it was an outro for a game, and only took me two days to make or so. This one was a stand-alone, and forced me to go a little more hi-tech (including HD), try completely new things, and use AGS mechanics in pretty unconventional ways.

Anas: It is an incredibly catchy tune, isn't it? Over the past few months I listened to every bit of it hundreds of times while planning and testing each scene, and I still love listening to it

Mods: Matrix was obviously a huge inspiration for the video -- but there's also one obscure movie from around that time called The 13th Floor that I drew from. It's a completely different take on the subject, and way more stylish, too. For the same reason I recommend seeing Dark City, another niche classic.