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Assuming you're using a recent version of AGS, you should place them in the "Music" subfolder (e.g. C:\Users\Darren\FL\Music). When the game is compiled, the file music.vox should then be generated in the compiled folder.

I never thought of Carnby as weaing glasses. To me, the character select screen from the first game is probably the closest we come to a detailed portrait.

I like the overall style of the character - reminds me a bit of Shadow of the Comet. One thing I would change is the moustache - to something wider/droopier, and definitely less Hitler-like. And I don't think the blue suit works that well either, at least it doesn't remind me of Carnby at all. I think the green suit and red/purple waistcoat  from the first game is the most iconographic, but even the bluish suit in AitD2 had a green tint to it. Green also works well as a contrast to his red hair.

I quite liked that puzzle (programming the robot to retrieve the lens). The basic puzzle was figuring out what the buttons did, once you had done that, the rest was a bit tedious though. First time around, putting your idea of how the machine worked into action was brilliant. On the second playthrough it's quite annoying.

One puzzle that DID stump me, on both my playthroughs of The Dig, was the lightbridges at the spires. I had turned the crystals as they should be, but whenever I clicked the button to activate it, there was a brief sound and nothing happened. I wasted a lot of time walking back and forth and watching tram sequences because I didn't get the bridges activated early in the game. Then, near the point of frustration, I tried holding down the mouse button over the in-game button instead of just clicking, and lo-and-behold a lightbridge extended across the pit - and unless I kept holding down the mouse button until it reached the other side, it would disappear. As far as I know, this is the only time in the game you have to hold-down instead of clicking the buttons. Strangely nobody else seems to have had problems with this as none of the walkthroughs I consulted mention this interface inconsistency.

Actually it IS Ken Allen, who was also composer on several late Sierra games and some of the VGA remakes. Not sure why anyone would think a composer made for a good game director though.

I never played the sequel, but considering Alarconte's description, their tagline "The Ultimate Game of Hide and Seek" is pretty funny.

EDIT: Like returning Strings from functions.... 

Just declare the function as a "String" rather than as "function" (which always returns int values), and this is already possible. Like so:

Code: ags

String MyFunction(String text1, String text2) {
  String text = String.Format("%s %s", text1, text2);
  return text;
  }

I never got that far in the Last Crusade, but that reminds me of a very scary moment in The Fate of Atlantis

You just reminded me of Bishop Mandible's bloody demise in Loom. Not that scary, but definitely unsettling.

Also, boxed games you can sell if you don't like them - I don't think there's any legal way of transferring digital downloads.

As for the old Sierra games, some collections were released recently that were supposed to be XP compatible - no promises about Vista I think. But, as far as I understand they pretty much just bundled the old games with DosBox, which is Vista compatible. So it should work. If you can get/have the original versions, you can also easily make them run yourself using DosBox and fan-made patches.

Infocom games are all in the same format, called Z-Machine, and can be run in newer implementations of the interpreter, such as Frotz which has been ported to almost every operating system in existance. So I assume it works on Vista.

I'd recommend to add some roots extending behind the tree and not just in front. I'm not sure if it's visible in the edit I did earlier, but I tried to add some to make the tree feel more grounded. Also, the steps/ramp (if they're steps, they're very small) to the front door look weird. Are they cut into the larger "step" or do they extend from it? They have no perspective. If they are indeed steps, I think you should reduce them to a single one in-between the ground and the door plateau. Otherwise they are tiny compared to everything else.

BTW, I love the work you did on the bush. I look forward to see the background after you fix the lighting.

Edit: For the lighting, don't use photoshop filters and avoid effects such as lens flare like the plague. But photoshop itself should be fine, since it allows you to use a different layer just for lightning. Use only a few different tones for the lighting (maybe even reduce/dither the colors by indexing them) and it shouldn't look out of place. Avoid gradient fill unless you reduce the number of tones afterwards.
And as for pslim's comment on the lamp over the door, of course it needs to cast some light, but I figured that was part of the lighting you were going to add later.

"He chose... poorly."

Oh yeah, sorry - I missed the part about the dialog system. I never use it myself. But using Character.Say in dialog_request triggered by run-script should work.

Look up "string formatting" in the help file, and the String.Format function. That should tell you what you need.

Basically, you can insert Strings and int's into other strings by using codes like %d and %s. In your case you could do something like this:

Code: ags

String name;
if (Random(1) == 1) name = "Bob";
else name == "Fred";
cMan.Say(String.Format("Hi, my name is %s.", name));

You'll want to declare the String outside the function though, so you can access it throughout the game. And the randomization could be done at game_start or the first time the player enters the room the character's in.

You just gotta love how the back cover of the game describes the graphics as "gorgeous" in quotation marks, as if the copywriter is being ironic:

"Gorgeous" 3D graphics bring the castle and characters to life, transporting you to a mystical world of intrigue and adventure.

There's no realistic fix for this, other than moving to OGG instead.

I see, no problem then, OGG is the superior format anyway. It should be mentioned in the Pamela section of the help file though. I would never have figured it out without trying all formats.

Could it be "The Watchmaker"?

Edit: Yes, I believe so. This is from the walkthrough:

Spoiler

soon you will approach the Greenhouse. As you do, it begins to tremble. Victoria, Raul and Henry run out to see what is going on. The greenhouse explodes!

[close]

Problem solved, or rather, at least it's not at your end. I tried some different audio formats, and while .ogg and .wav works perfectly in-game, whenever you play an .mp3 voice clip the animation framerate gets choppy. I tried copying the .pam file created for the .ogg and .wav files that worked (using same audio just in .mp3 format), and I get the same result. So the problem must be in AGS' mp3 voice playback routine, and I'll mention this to CJ.

So finally, I can now report that the .PAM files generated in your plugin work great!

Edit: CJ clarified the issue:

It's because the MP3 decoder decodes a (for example) 0.25 second chunk of audio and then plays it, so AGS can only get the current position to the nearest 0.25 seconds. There's no realistic fix for this, other than moving to OGG instead.

Perhaps this should be reflected in the plugin. Either just by not accepting mp3s for .pam conversion (and explaining why), or maybe asking if the plugin should convert the file to .ogg. Is the full .ogg codec already in there or just the decoder?

As SSH said, the DrawingSurface routines allow you to draw on objects and characters. If you use an earlier AGS version, you can use the screen as a buffer by RawSaving the screen when the player enters the room, the clearing it with the magical pink (RGB 255,0,255) drawing your stuff and retrieving it to a DynamicSprite with CreateFromBackground and finally do a RawRestoreScreen.

Depending on your art style, it would probably be better to settle for the frog tongue effect since a full tentacle drawn with flat colors would probably look out of place.

The Recruit A Team - need help with your game? thread seems like an appropriate place.

Actually I would prefer double-clicking bringing up the preview and perhaps Shift-Doubleclick opening it for editing. I often forget the new functionality, doubleclick a sprite to see it larger and end up having to wait for Photoshop to load before being able to get back to editing my game.

Sure, go to Control Panel. Switch it to "Classic View" if it isn't already. Doubleclick "System". The "System Properties" window should now open and among the tabs there's one called "System Restore". Tick the box to switch off system restore for all drives.

it's very strange that google doesn't yield any results, it's not even listen on windows process library...

A lot of trojans generate their own file names to avoid you looking them up, sometimes even partly based on file names already on your computer. I just removed a nasty trojan from my girlfriend's computer, and the file name also returned zero results on google.

I'd recommend scheduling a boot time scan since some viruses are hidden while Windows is running. I'm not sure if this is supported in AVG, but you could always download the free version of Avast! to do it. Turn off System Restore before running the check though, because some viruses uses it to restore themselves. You can turn it back on when the computer is clean (and create a clean restore point for future use).