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Code: ags

function hHotspot1_Look()
{
  cKryten.Say("That's the door to the main coridoor""); // <--- double quotation marks
}

(also "corridor" is misspelled, but not the source of the error )

Great to hear! Must admit I had missed this project first time around, so it's nice that the thread was bumped. Looking forward to the demo. So I take it the Cross of Coronado that Indy retrieved in The Last Crusade, two years before this game is set, will play some role in the plot?  (Nazis trying to steal it from the college museum perhaps...)?

I cant change the title of the 20 PMQ games that are already planed out

Why not?

Maybe try PM'ing LUniqueDan, he was using the C64 style GUI for Zak McKraken and the lonely Sea Monster.

I'm not sure the Bioshock book was ever in bookstores. As I remember, they printed a limited run of the book as a gift to people who had bought the collector's edition of the game and found that their Big Daddy figurine had broken during transport, then some time later they released it in PDF format for everyone to download.

Not adventure related, but if you enjoy production artwork, I recommend the digital art-book Bioshock: Breaking the Mold. Also, there's a really nice Half-Life series art-book titled Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar, but to my knowledge there are no *ahem* legal  e-book versions for download.

Personally I'm crazy about these things - for a brief moment I considered buying the collector's edition of Alan Wake even though I don't own an Xbox 360 (nor was I very impressed by the story and gameplay after watching a playthrough), just to get the lovely looking Alan Wake: Illuminated art-book.

Edit: And if you're into LucasArts in general and not only the games, From Star Wars to Indiana Jones: The Best of the Lucasfilm Archives is awesome - in fact I'm pretty sure I stole the art style for my game from the set design sketches for Indy 3.

I'm so happy you liked it, Dual - and overjoyed that you found it rewarding on a personal level. I too experienced a few existential epiphanies (can't think of a better word - but I don't really mind the religious connotations) while watching the film. Some of the themes hit surprisingly close to home, at times to an unpleasant degree. I found it to be quite the emotional rollercoaster, but in the end it was all for the better.

I don't even remember the exact moments that did it for me, which seems silly considering how powerful they were, but somehow by the time the credits rolled I felt a clarity of mind and a sense of direction that I hadn't experienced in a very, very long time. So, no worries about crazy talk - I can out-crazy you any day of the week

Edit: Rereading your post I'm unsure if you mean solving the mystery of the movie rather than an unrelated mystery of your own (as I had read it). In which case my ramblings may indeed sound crazy - nevertheless I stand by them, Synecdoche, New York was to me one of those rare and precious works of art that changes your perception of the world and yourself permanently.

Edit 2: And you posted while I was writing that edit - You shouldn't expect the same kind of experience from The Fountain, mainly because it's structured around more classical themes, but please do approach it with the same openness and I think you'll enjoy it a lot.

This code, along with the "fixed" script you posted before (where you had put the "else" part inside the brackets) make me think you should re-read the scripting tutorials in the manual. Get a good understanding of brackets, "if" statements and the use of conditional symbols like && and || before going into proper scripting - it'll save you a bunch of troubleshooting.

Edit: Sorry, didn't realize what you were trying to do - I thought you meant a third response. Now I see what you want, and for that you need an extra set of brackets after the if-statement:

Code: ags

function cMystMan_AnyClick() {
  if (Game.DoOnceOnly("TalkedMystMan")) {
    cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "That's far enough. The car's open. Put the cash inside and we'll count it.");
    cEgo.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "Half now, half after -- right?");
  }
  else cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "The money in the car, then we'll talk.");
}

Below is the first code I had written, based on my erroneous impression of what you were trying to do.
Just keeping it in case you need a reference for multiple replies.
******************************************************************************
To add another response, just use Game.DoOnceOnly again with a new identifier String. Like so:

Code: ags

function cMystMan_AnyClick() {
  if (Game.DoOnceOnly("TalkedMystMan")) cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "That's far enough. The car's open. Put the cash inside and we'll count it.");
  else if (Game.DoOnceOnly("TalkedMystManAgain")) cEgo.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "Half now, half after -- right?");
  else cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "The money in the car, then we'll talk.");
}

Sorry, my bad - I forgot a closing parenthesis on the if-line:

Code: ags

function cMystMan_AnyClick() {
  if (Game.DoOnceOnly("TalkedMystMan")) cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "Blah Blah Blah.");
  else cMystMan.SayAt(20, 360, 600, "I already told you: Blah!");
  }

Edit: As for the MultiResponse module, I have zero experience with it. You'd be better off posting questions in the module's own thread.

Damn, it sucks not to be 11 again. 

Make your wish...

I doubt you'll see any difference in Direct3D mode since modern graphic cards are optimized to render thousands of alpha particles every frame. Theoretically speaking non-alpha sprites (or alpha sprites with only 100% opaque and 100% transparent pixels) should render faster since the drawing function won't need to calculate any color blending, but I don't know if there would be any noticeable difference even in DirectX 5 mode.

[Synecdoche, New York]

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) is one of the most strangely beautiful movies I've seen in recent years. It's the directing debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed other films he wrote like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation or Being John Malkovich.
It's quite slow-paced and at times hard to follow, but stick with it for half an hour or so, and you'll know if it's your kind of movie. Yes, the film does seem a tad too 'intellectual' and self-conscious at first, but don't overthink it - at least not until afterward - just enjoy the journey while it lasts. Also one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's finest performances - and that's saying a lot.

The exact same thing (sans Hoffman) can be said about two other titles that I also warmly recommend - the rotoscoped philosophy lesson Waking Life (Richard Linklater, 2001) and Darren Aronofsky's underrated The Fountain (2006).

Use the InvWindow.ItemCount property.

You're all wrong, the Tanners lived with ALF!

- limit inventory, that way player thinks before takes and automatically has a "stop" sign - well my character can't possibly carry that around
- along those lines, an item which you can carry only for while before it has to be put down (like a ladder) so you basically add realism as well

Actually I quite like the limited inventory approach in Dreamweb where pretty much anything can be picked up: Guitar plectrum at your buddy's place? Yoink! Yesterday's microwave dinner? A single green pea? It's all yours, if you want, but you'll never find a need for them. A gun, a credit card and a screwdriver, however, turn out to be quite useful - exactly like you would expect in the real world.
In Still Life 2 on the other hand - absolutely terrible. Picking up any large object like a mattress or a ladder (you know, stuff you would expect the character to hold in their currently visibly empty hands) means you'll have to track down a special storage container, empty your pockets in there to make room for the oversized item, pick it up, carry it to another location, use it, then return to the cupboard and retrieve your stuff. Realistic? Barely, since the character is apparently carrying a ladder in their pockets. Practical? Um, no. Annoying? Fuck yeah!

So, limited inventory... depends on the game, and whether there's enough inventory items carried at a time for it to be relevant (in which case maybe you should consider if that's too many). Oversized items? Always separate from the main inventory, if it's assumed that a character realistically must carry it in their hands it makes no sense to clear up space in the inventory. One solution is the Vampyre Story approach where the character "remembers" the item into his inventory, and once you use the item, the character goes off-screen to fetch it himself before using it.

- limit player actions per item, something that's sort of in BS1 - you can examine an item (like lion tooth) but only after you need it (like you see the rope in the next screen) then you can examine the tooth but can also pick it up (mouse icon changes or similar)

I think this is fair enough, if the initial response hints well enough that you may need it later. But personally my experience with these kind of puzzles have always been to find something, realize that it not being interesting "right now" means I'm gonna use it for a puzzle later. Then once I get to that puzzle, more often than not I straight away think: "Ok, so NOW I can go back and get that item the game wouldn't let me pick up before". Makes me feel even more psychic than if I had picked the damned thing up in the first place.

In my opinion, what this comes down to is that we need to rethink what a puzzle is and why it's there in the first place. We've come to expect most puzzles to be inventory related, often related to using an item in a surprising fashion or combining two seemingly unrelated items. Neither of these are in themselves very interesting acts (click-click-and-click) and anything that's possibly fun or challenging about it happens in the players head rather than on-screen.

One of the reasons I often dislike comedy games is that they ask me to find a single outrageous solution to reach a goal that I could get to by several other, much more logical means if only the game didn't limit my options - yes, apparently there's only place in all of America that Sam & Max could possibly find a piece of string! A comedy puzzle presents itself like the set-up for a joke, and you solving it provides the punchline, but is any joke really good enough to warrant a half hour or longer buildup*? In realistic/serious adventures logic flaws are harder to overlook and the bad ones may ruin immersion entirely, but that doesn't hinder 99% of them from being set in some parallel universe that uses barter economy and doesn't have a single hardware store.

How about, instead of discussing issues like hiding broken game mechanics and flawed logic behind clever player character quips, we started coming up with puzzles that not only make sense in terms of achieving the characters immediate goals and in and by themselves are interesting and fun activities that reflect the unique theme of the game?

I recommend anybody working in the comedy adventure genre to play the third season of Telltale's Sam & Max series - half of the game mechanics sound insane on paper, like they would never work and are the diametrical opposite of what puzzles "are supposed to be". Yet in practice they're not just perfectly logical (within the game's universe), but they're a hell of fun to play around with even when you're not actively trying to solve a puzzle, and they're so topsy-turvy innovative that even someone like me who's been a dedicated adventure gamer since the days of Sierra and LucasArts really has to scratch his head and restructure his framework of causal and chronological thinking.

* Any that doesn't end in the teller exclaiming: "The Aristocrats!", that is

You could tell the player that he has no time for it

If you try to pick it up, the narrator will tell you "there's no time for that, you have to rescue your children" or something to that effect - yet when you look at the flower, the camera zooms in, and the narrator goes on at great length about Graham pondering the flower's species. Tried to pick it up again - "no time" - then I stood passively on the beach, wasting several precious minutes just to spite the narrator.

If you choose that explanation, you'd better back it up (an axe murderer chasing the character or whatnot) - with the amount of time you waste looking for hotspots in any adventure game, the simple act of picking something up is is a drop in the ocean, not to mention the time you spend backtracking to get it later . And no, I really don't expect to find Prince Alexander and Princess Rosella dead at the end of KQIX just because of the time wasted on that beach.

Or if the character outright refuses, let him explain why (and the reason had better be good), and indicate that he could return later if he finds a need for it. For instance, in the flower example, since the developers apparently don't want you to pick it up before the second episode, Graham could say "I have no use for it right now, and I don't want it to wilt in my bag" or similar.

With the kind of puzzles in the example, it doesn't make much of a difference because a game in that style usually allows you to carry around all kind of stuff that you have no purpose for collect. I'm not a fan of these games myself, but it's a subgenre that some enjoy.

I do think most puzzles can be structured to avoid it though - for instance getting the teeth could require a tool that you won't get until after encountering the rope. The Runaway approach of not activating hotspots or indicating that they're not useful until you have a reason to interact with them is simply bad design, because players expect consistent results and can't be expected to click on everything again once they've encountered a new puzzle.

Edit: I just thought of a recent example I came across in the first episode of The Silver Lining. You're on a beach, and the only thing that stands out is a peculiar flower - obviously a potion ingredient. If you try to pick it up, the narrator will tell you "there's no time for that, you have to rescue your children" or something to that effect - yet when you look at the flower, the camera zooms in, and the narrator goes on at great length about Graham pondering the flower's species. Tried to pick it up again - "no time" - then I stood passively on the beach, wasting several precious minutes just to spite the narrator.

Yes, call the collision detection function from repeatedly_execute().