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Ok, it's official, I HATE the way AGS currently handles guis and text windows. Sure, it's flexible, but only as long as you're emulating Sierra and LucasArts. What I wouldn't give for an easier to customize gui setup - especially now when we have templates that allow newbies to start with the classic interfaces and speech styles anyway.

Sorry for that little rant, but either I've overlooked something very obvious, or I have one or two suggestions for the next version of AGS.

can you use this?

game.speech_text_gui=12; // the text gui you created
DisplaySpeechAt (int x, int y, int width, CHARID, string message);

I thought I could, but then I realized that the speech_text_gui is ALSO an ordinary text window that centers on the screen. And the DisplaySpeechAt and DisplayAt commands MUST be used for each line of speech, don't they? This wouldn't be THAT much of a problem for ordinary messages, but it makes dialog scripting unnecessarily complicated.

If there's no other solution, I'd like to suggest this to CJ: Permanent (until changed in script) custom "int x, int y, int width" settings for Display and DisplaySpeech commands (the latter also used for ordinary dialog and should be set on a per character basis - or universal but able to be over-ridden per character). Maybe this could include the different-font-for-different character thing that somebody else suggested.

Somebody have a better idea, or I'll suggest it in the technical forum? For now I'll be scripting my game in the ordinary way. I hope that somewhere further down the line we'll be able to either set the placement and size of text windows or we'll have something similar to what I suggested.

Edit: Maybe a tad unrelated. But can you do Sierra style speech without the closeup view? I mean, I want my character sprite to be talking, but in his ordinary view. If I include a talking view of him moving his mouth, it's displayed as if it was a closeup, off-set from the character. I seem to remember some games that had the on-screen character moving his mouth as well as using a closeup, but maybe those were the original Sierra games and not AGS games?

I still haven't figured out what this conflict between Yahtzee and the rest of the AGS community is all about. But boy do his games rock.

Aside from the somewhat clichéd plot and the a-bit-too-colorful-for-the-mood graphics (I really think a more monochrome palette a la Odysseus Kent could have added tons to the atmosphere), I loved everything about this game. The structure was terrific - I haven't seen such a buildup of tension in any other amateur adventure, it reminded me of The Shining, rather than more obvious comparisons like House on Haunted Hill.
I adore games with lots of dialogue, especially when there's conflict as here. The suspicion and mistrust was almost like  something out of The Thing. I really wish people would work more with characters. Inter-character conflicts is one of the most powerful tools of storytelling, and adds much more than, say, a flashy animation which would take three times as long to make.

Oh yeah, graphics animations were nice too (especially you-know-who falling on his ass in the bathroom), but what really won me over was the writing and the overall design. Beautiful job. (In fact, it was so good that I've decided to nick a few... er, let myself inspire for my game )

Thank you. You are right, they pretty much cover what I asked for. And I finally discovered how to get there. But man were they well hidden.

A piece of usability advice: when you update the website, please get rid of links where the actual hyperlink (and thus the only underlined part) is the word "here". With well written hyperlinks, the user shouldn't have to read anything but the link itself to know where he's going (thus the links on http://agsacademy.tripod.com/agsaward.htm could be "register your game" and "list of registered games")

This thread is beginning to feel like the first scene of Romeo and Juliet ("Do you quarrel, sir?", "Quarrel sir! no, sir.") So maybe I should just shut up now. I won't make any more arguments, only clarify a few points.

So what you're saying is: they're allowed to compete in other categories EXCEPT for BEST GAME as they have their own short game category.

Not at all. With my hypothetical "Short game" category, a short game could easily win the Best Game award. In fact it could win best short game as well as best game. So in a way short games would be more privileged than long ones. However, what I think WOULD happen is that some short games would be acknowledged, even if they can't be compared to the likes of Tierra's, and others, that really DO compare, despite size, would be contenders in all the other categories as well.

In fact, I think a "short games" category would be an excellent way of bringing attention to less mainstream games, more experimental and innovative ones. An alternative would be a "Most original premise" award, even though that wouldn't take the actual presentation of the idea into consideration.

Besides, people don't consider it the "ultimate AGS" game -- I think more people mention the likes of KQVGA 1+2, Pleurghburg, Larry Vales, Rob Blanc, and Richard Longhurst

No, no, no. I agree that it isn't actually hailed as the greatest AGS game ever. What I do know however, is that when I got into this community and started looking around for good games, I first played all the award winners, and - I must admit - was a little disappointed with 6DA (sorry that I keep bringing it up, but it's really the only example). If there had been a short category, it'd be more likely that 6DA had (deservedly) ruled that one, and perhaps KQ2VGA had been voted best game.

There are definitions and I've made them pretty clear, as most people seem to vote for graphically consistant and graphically billiant games.

Could you please direct me to those definitions. I must be blind, but I couldn't find anything like that on the AGS Academy website. If I'd knew about this, I probably wouldn't even have started the discussion.

Just so you know and I make it absolutely clear: WE'VE DONE THIS AND IT DID NOT WORK!!!

Nuff said. That is all that matters. I won't bring it up again. Promise

If one of the other AGS communities wishes to hold their own awards, they have my blessing and support if they need it.

Woohoo, at least I'd have a chance to win the Danish AGS Community award of 2004 (possibly 2005 or 2006)

Christ, I wanted to hand the awards over to someone else cause of stuff like this -- you just can't please everyone, especially when people call your categories "unfair" or "injustices" or whatever.

It wasn't the categories I called unfair. It was some of the results that I found unfair, the *objective* quality of the games taken into consideration (if there ever was such a thing as objective quality, probably not). I wasn't attacking the awards or the categories (or at least it wasn't my purpose), only suggesting some ideas for what I considered clearer definitions.

I'll stop taking this so seriously - I'd much rather show my appreciation for designers and their games by writing to them in person than by voting and hoping that everyone else share my opinion.

Straston, somebody just didn't update the website. The awards were held earlier in the year.

Barcik: Damn, I really think Mourir en Mer deserved at least a nomination or two.

Jeez, this was apparently a sensitive subject. I'd love to say that we shouldn't take it so seriously. As Andail said: "it's all for the fun of it, and we don't win any money anyway". But still, it is the one time of the year when we collectively show our appreciation for the truly excellent games, and I think it deserves the respect of a solid discussion.

First of all, I apologize to those I offended - MrColossal in particular, I wasn't attacking his game, but rather questioning the system. I wasn't aware that this had been discussed before. It was just some thoughts that came up when I looked through the lists of previous years.

Great injustices?? It's not flippin' apartheid -- It's a game awards ceremony!

Ok, wrong choice of words, so I'm a drama queen. I merely meant that in my opinion, some of the awards (as well as nominations) were unfair.

I don't ever remember the Oscars having seperate categories for comedies and drama, except in music scoring about 6-7 years ago

I did say "in the early days", so I don't suppose you WOULD remember it, unless you are VERY old I was thinking of the first Academy Awards ceremony back in 1929, when they had separate "Best Director, Comedy Picture" and "Best Director, Dramatic Picture" awards.

sheesh i get it, you don't like 6DA

I have nothing against 6 Day Assassin. It's a nice little game without pretention, and it has a killer premise (no pun intended). It's not the game's fault, nor MrColossal's, that it's become one of the most over-hyped AGS games. I'm happy for you that it got on a magazine cover-cd, and I hope it'll bring more attention to AGS. But I do think it's a problem, if people play it, thinking it's the ultimate AGS game, realize it's shorter than most demos and say "screw AGS!" It's the gap between the expectations and the actual game that bothers me, not the game itself, which I'd really like to see a sequel to.

and if a short game is chosen to win those categories over longer games then is it the system's fault for not seperating or the people's choice?

You REALLY don't want to get me started about democracy, trust me Of course you are right, people's choices are their own, and you can't keep anyone for voting for their friends (or themselves), or voting for the same game in all categories, just because they liked the gameplay.
But I do think it could be made clearer what the awards are given for. I'm not even sure what Dialogue Scripting covers. Is it just the writing quality of the lines, or does it include the structure, the choices and as such "scripting" in the programming as well as the screenplay sense?

It's very difficult to compare short and long games. What is it we're looking for? Does a long game with five excellent and twenty average puzzles rate lower than a short game with three excellent puzzles? Should graphics be judged without taking the amount or the work put in it into consideration? In that case, we could reduce the backgrounds category to a "best single screenshot" award.
I could easily see myself voting Conspiracy of Songo for best background art. It's certainly not perfect, and it nearly put me off the game. If it had been a single or two-room game, I would never have taken it into consideration. But with the amount of rooms and consistency of style, it's one of the most professional looking games of the year. But there's little chance it would happen with games like Apprentice out there.

Unless we make some proper definitions of what to take into consideration, everyone will just make up their own. This isn't just the case with length, but also with different techniques and styles. If some people are voting for "prettiest art" while others are voting "artwork most fitting to the atmosphere of the story" (Norman Cooks could easily win for both, so no complaints there), things are getting confused. Clear categories and definitions would solve a lot of my personal issues with the current award system.

Back to the matter of size (don't let them tell you that size doesn't matter ), I've realized the main problem - distiguishing between short and long games is bound to create the idea that one is better than the other. If only because the more important awards are given at the end of the ceremony. And that's not the purpose. The idea is to let the games be judged on their own terms. This goes for all the short games, which would never be able to compete against the monster-size titles of Tierra.

What I suggest is that we look at the way animation is handled at the Oscars. They have a separate category, BUT the can be nominated for the regular awards, if they are good enough.

It would mean the addition of a "Best short game" category, which would allow the best titles of that format to be acknowledged. Defining long and short games could be solved easily by letting the designers choose which category the game belongs to themselves. There would be little to be gained from putting a longish game in the short category (only more work). And a short game nominated in the long category would obviously have some difficulties competing, unless it truly was among the best.

Short games would still be able to compete in all other categories, but they would have to be judged taking the length of the game into consideration (a game like Apprentice could easily win in the animation category despite it's length, after all, it has as much of it as most longer games, and of a very high quality).

As for saying you KQ2VGA doesn't deserve the award for best story, I disagree

I DIDN'T SAY THAT! I said that "I'd really hate to see Tierra win a "best story" award for QFG2 VGA" (which is plotwise, according to themselves, more or less unchanged from the original), adding - to prevent any misunderstandings, but apparently I wasn't clear enough - "I do however respect KQ2VGA for the vast improvement" (meaning that I respect their awards).

As for Indy winning for FOY in the possible future, why the hell not? -- Indy's acting in it and if Indy does a good job that the Community likes then he deserves his award. Remember, the character awards are awarded to the characters -- even though I send the award to the game developers, I ask them to "pass the award to the proper recipient"

Ok, point taken. I wasn't aware of this distinction. I figured the "Story and character" awards were all writing awards.

BTW, did you notice that KQ1VGA wasn't nominated for story?

I just figured that was because KQ1 has a crappy story

All this said, I'd like to suggest one change to the awards, which I think is very valid. And that is to add a "Best Speech Pack" award (or just "Best Voice Acting", as some games include the speech in the main download). Aside from making the sound category more equal between speech and non-speech games, it would also bring more attention to the actual sound effects and ambient sounds, a truly underrated part of amateur games.

Edit: When was the English translation for Mourir en Mer done? I'm curious because the game had no nominations in the 2002 awards which is quite puzzling. If the translation was released in 2003, could the game be nominated again for this year's awards?

Maybe this is the wrong time and place, but what do people think of the current award categories? I haven't been present for either of the past awards, but reading the lists of winners and nominees, I see some great injustices.

Most important, I really think we should distinguish between short and long games, the same way that the Oscars have separate categories for feature films, short subjects, animation and documentaries (in the early days they used to have separate awards for dramas and comedies, but I wouldn't go that far). It's much easier to come up with three innovative puzzles than 50 ("6 Day Assassin" anyone?) in the same way that it's easier to draw five superb backgrounds than 30 or 40.

Also, seeing the huge amount of fan games in progress, I think there should be some modifications in the writing categories for games "adapted from other material" - I'd really hate to see Tierra win a "best story" award for QFG2 VGA (I do however respect KQ2VGA for the vast improvement) or a best character award going to the FOY team for Indiana Jones.

Just my two cents.

Thank you very much. Sounds like it would get the trick done. I'll try it out!

Ok, I'm trying to make an interface similar to Gabriel Knight 1, where all text, dialog as well as other messages, appear in a letterboxed area at the bottom of the screen.

Easy, I thought, I'll just customize the text window and place it at the bottom of the screen. But lo and behold, as soon as I turn the GUI into a text box, the X,Y coordinate settings no longer apply. Is there ANY way of moving the speech box to the bottom of the screen and setting a fixed size (I'm keeping an eye on message lengths so as to not overflow the window). Or am I stuck using the DisplayAt command for all text?

I've considered using LucasArts speech, turning all text into voice, and making a hidden narrator character. But I really could use the anti-aliased fonts which doesn't work in LucasArts style (in my opinion, those different speech styles really confuse things more than they help. I still haven't figured out what QFG4 speech does). I'm using a black background for the text anyway, so there's really no need for the transparency of LA text.

Excellent game. I adore the player character graphics, I'd love to see further adventures with this girl (do we learn her name, I didn't notice?). Great use of cut scenes, those swish-pans are so cool.

As others have said it could use more sound and music, but the graphics are so lovely that you hardly notice. Starting the ship reminded me of the biplane in Indy 3, but fortunately it was much easier. In general the puzzles were good, but on the easy side. The interface worked great and looked very professional. Even the wait-icon was beautifully drawn.

May I ask how the art was made? Some of the backgrounds reminded me of the technique I'm using for Shadowplay with a handdrawn sketch as a multiply-layer in Photoshop. Only you have more contrast making the outlines look almost photocopied. Very cool look and it works excellent with that style of characters. I wish that I could draw stylized people that well.

This was a very impressive first effort. I can't wait to see what you'll come up with next!

The location of the basket is random (can be in 3 or 4 different rooms). Look around and you'll come across it eventually. Don't worry about the earrings. I'm not sure if you'll be able to retrieve them later (I think you can), but you will be able to finish the game regardless.

As for the library, didn't the librarian say that the old man next door was a member?

Well, it leaves LSL3 which is, in my opinion, the best in the series. I'd love to see that done in VGA graphics (but not that psychedelic LSL1VGA and LSL5 & 6 style).

An LSL2 remake is in progress as far as I know - point and click but with the old graphics. There's a demo somewhere.

Dave, you are so right.

In the old days you could be stuck in a game for months until you came across a hint in some gaming magazine or met somebody who knew the solution. I remember when a friend of a friend of mine used to call me five or six time each night to get hints for some game - was it Codename: Iceman? - which he knew I'd completed. God was that annoying.

As for hintbooks, I bought The Colonel's Bequest and the hintbook for it - I knew I would get stuck otherwise - while on holiday in London. I ended up having read the entire hintbook before even getting home and installing the game

Get a NES emulator and find the KQ5 rom at:
http://www.iwn.fi/~timod/games_nesroms.htm

(scroll down, they're sorted alphabetically)

It's actually pretty fun to play a conversion of games you know from other platforms. Also note the Maniac Mansion rom further down the page.

Edit: D'oh! The links to the roms seem to be broken. But really, it shouldn't be hard to find. Google-search for "nes rom king's quest 5 emulation" or something like that.

Edit2: http://www.romnation.net/ seems to have it, but I didn't check if it worked. Those porn banners scared me away.

Not sure if I shouldn't rather let this thread die, but we might as well get something useful out of it

First of all, as I said, I have no problem with games like Pirate Fry or Buccanneer. They are original enough to stand apart from the obvious inspiration of Monkey Island.

I agree that there are also far too many detective games around. Especially the kind who thinks that putting a Bogart-like PI and a dangerous dame in a story makes it noir.
But I do think that the detective genre lends itself better to the gameplay of adventure games than pirate stories, which is hardly even a genre, more of a setting. My problem with pirates (in games) is that there is very little "natural gameplay" besides fencing, recruiting ship crew and digging up treasures. This usually leads to a very loosely structured plot with puzzles of little or no relation to the actual theme. Maybe this is why all pirate games I can remember have been comedy games.

I just think that detective work is by itself very similar to actually playing an adventure game. But it could be very interesting indeed to see a serious pirate game. Maybe focused around a treasure mystery, with maps and clues like those in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug" (ok, so maybe it's actually a detective game on the high seas ).

One thing you might try is to run two slow-down programs "on top of eachother" (I did it once with CPUKiller and Moslo). It'll probably get VERY choppy, but as it's just to get past one spot, it could be worth trying.

What is it with pirates? Sure, Monkey Island was a great game, but everyone and their mother is making a pirate game.

Looking back at the last few pages of the Games in Production forum I find Pirate Fry 2, Skurvy Dawgs: A Pirate's Tale (which was recently cancelled) and The Island of Shadows. Not to mention Buccaneer 2, which although not exactly a pirate game, is a swashbuckler adventure. I also remember somebody suggesting a Pirates of the Carribbean game.

Did you consider finding an original idea before posting your two-sentence announcement? Or did you notice the READ BEFORE POSTING thread? If you have nothing to say, then keep quiet and work on your game, instead of wasting our time with brilliant topics like: "discuss wot the best adventure game is".

NOTE: I would never attack somebody like this if I actually thought they had a serious project (Buccaneer and Pirate Fry are fine games, and I mean no offense to their creators). Judging from uNdEaD pRiEsT's last posts though, I'm beginning to think that the registration quiz is too easy.

"Just because you're a newbie doesn't mean you have to act like one."

I don't really care for action sequences in adventure games. But it all depends on the genre I think - I hated that silly disappearing bridge at the end of GK3, or the weird arcade games in Manhunter, but the whack-a-mole game in Sam & Max was really funny.

I think the major problem is when you're ripped out of a story-intense adventure and suddenly thrown into an arcade game (like in Rise of the Dragon). The only reason the fights worked in the Indy games was that 1) they still followed the aesthetics of the rest of the game and 2) you could avoid them through conversation or bribes.

But that said, it's a pirate game, so swordfighting and other swashbuckling feats is a must-have. I think the hard part is integrating them without making it feel like something from a completely different game. As long as it doesn't involve jumping over rolling barrels

Always a pleasure to help.

Yes, it did require a bit of inventive thinking, as the obvious thing is to give him the fake diary. In remember when I originally solved the puzzle, I almost felt like I had cheated the game, but of course it was just part of a very clever design.
I absolutely love this game. I never understood why people keep going on about FOA rather than Last Crusade. To me, this is, along with Zak McKracken and possibly Loom, LucasArts' finest hour.