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I know Dave is Jewish, but since we already had a pic with him and the pope I might as well add this:

While we're talking about Hitman (one of my favourite games), I must say I never percieved the man as gay. He's a clone, that has basically been born and raised in a laboratory, genetically modified to be a killer. He's not exactly emotional about anything, so I doubt he'd be much into sissy things like love and friendship.

Well, the sequel starts with him being all remorseful and sad, and he seems to have developed a friendship with a priest, but

Spoiler

in the end, he refuses to accept the dying priest's crucifix, realizing that he's not one of God's creations. He was made for a purpose, and there's not much he can do about that (or something along those lines, only a little deeper and better written. It's been a while since I finished it ).

[close]

A pretty unique character, I must say.
Did you know that he was originally supposed to be a wise-cracking Duke Nukem type? There are some sound-files available somewhere, where a totally different actor spouts such classics as "have a nice afterlife", "when in doubt, trust in fire power" and "oh, I'm sorry! I though you said 'Kill me!'".

* Ghormak shudders.

I don't know how useful this is, but here's the .it file without samples:

http://www.agagames.com/ghormak/aaarh2x.it

No, don't ask for one with samples still in it. Too big, too big.

http://www.agagames.com/ghormak/aaarh2.ogg

I didn't spend much time on it, and it sucks, and it ends abruptly, and it's not very good, but here it is!

^_^

My claim to fame.

Now go post in the "I've met someone famous" thread that I've been harassing you over IM services.

Very nice work. It's simple, and that's the way I like it.

The only thing that bothers me is the quotes themselves. They're... too long! I prefer short, witty comments instead of long silly / me battles, but maybe that's just me... '

edit:
(how do you type "/" and "me" together without triggering the action?)

That's excellent reasoning, Raggit. I once saw somebody with red hair act like a total ass, so therefore I hate everybody with red hair.

Ah, that's what I get for not working with AGS for months. Thanks Gil.

* Ghormak gets to work on Moose Wars 2... maybe

True what Fuzz says. Say, if you want to see if (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) are within 8 pixels from each other, you'd simply check if ( (x2 - x1)^2 + (y2-y1)^2 ) is less than 64 (8^2). No need for the square root if you don't need to actually display the distance. I'm sure you knew this already, but I thought I'd clear it up if anyone else was wondering.

(correct me if I made any mistakes, my math is a bit rusty nowadays)

I like it when people judge their own maturity. It makes me giggle like a three-year old! gol!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... JESUS

Warning: also a rip-off inspired by another author.


I'm afraid I'm not going to survive. My breath is getting weaker and weaker as I write these lines, but something inside me compels me to go on. If I don't live to warn people, there is no hope for mankind.

I was sitting in front of my computer, quietly perusing sites about adventure gaming. There I stumbled upon a program called "Adventure Game Studio", or AGS for short. I've never considered myself an artist of any kind, even less a game creator, but something about the program appealed to me, and it made me want to write an adventure game. Before I even knew it, I had clicked upon the download link, and a ten minute wait followed. It was 11 pm, a late August evening as I sat there watching the percentage slowly creep towards a hundred, all the time imagining great adventures and stories I would be able to turn into games. When the download was finished, I didn't hesitate. I unzipped the program, and launched it immediately.

Things were off to a great start. I wisely decided to keep a few tutorials open while using the program, for only a genius would be able to comprehend the myriad of options available without documentation! I created a room, I added hotspots. I adjusted the GUI and I made two characters. I scripted puzzles and I explored all the options as I continued my quest for the perfect adventure game. I was caught in a wave of enthusiasm, I felt neither hunger nor thirst, and sleeping was the very last thing on my mind. I kept adding room after room, line after line of dialog, and debugging the script was a breeze.
I noticed that it was now well past midnight. Clouds had appeared, covering the moon. No streetlights were visible, and every lamp in the house was turned off. The only source of light was my computer screen, displaying the result of what must have been hours of work.

It was then that something to the left of the screen caught my eye. A queer little icon right between the 'Characters' and 'Cursors' tab, whose picture resembled a pair of mittens. I was startled by my discovery, as I had not seen it before, even though my eyes had barely left the screen since I started the program! I wondered what function in AGS still unknown to me it could possibly represent, but I found no rational explanation for the appearance of a pair of mittens in the menu of an adventure game creation program, and I still don't.

I shiver as I recall the events that followed immediately upon my clicking of the icon. I deeply regret I did it, but my curiosity was too great at that point, and it was as if an invisible force moved my hand for me.

It was as if the power went out, and now I'm starting to believe it did, because the manifestations I saw had nothing to do with the computer or its programmes. The monitor blackened, the low humming of the fan disappeared, and the occasional spinnings of the harddrive came to a halt. I didn't see or hear a thing, as everything was covered in a darkness so intense I could almost feel it. Slowly the clouds parted, allowing the moon to reflect the rays of the sun again, softly illuminating my front yard. My heart nearly stopped as I saw the shapes. It took my eyes about a minute to get used to the light, but as they did, I could count to 15 foul, monstrous humanoid creatures lumbering about on my yard! Seven of them appeared to be erecting some small buildings seemingly made out of hide, as the walls kept flapping in the wind. Two of them were gathering pieces of wood and placing them in the middle of the yard, and the rest were performing unholy gestures as they appeared to be chanting something that I can only describe as a low, gurgling noise not of this world:

"N'gwlrui Rh'oger fhtagn, Bl'yechup mwgl'af!"

I was mortified with fear as I kept watching the horrific display on my front yard. After a while, the two wood-gathering beasts had returned to the "camp" (for lack of a better word), and had started a fire. The light from the fire allowed me to get a better view of the things. It was a sight I would rather not have seen, and if gouging out my eyes would erase the vision of the monstrous creatures from my mind, I would not hesitate a moment to do so! All creatures had two legs and two arms, but that's where the similarities between us humans and them ended. Where you would expect to see a head there was only a writhing mass off what looked like living, crawling, pulsating worms or tentacles, and the torso was equally vile, filled with ominous and frightening carvings in the flesh. One of the things, the one with the longest tentacles, grabbed what looked like a carved piece of wood with some strings attached to it. As it started rhytmically hitting the thing, ear-piercing tones emanated from it, and all the other beings joined in on the chant. The combination of the horrible visuals and the loud, spine-chilling noises was too much for any human to take without going insane, and I passed out to the sound of the ghastly chant.

When I awoke, my computer was showing signs of life again. I can't see the creatures anywhere, but I know they're still out there. I can feel them. I can sense them. They're coming for me, they know I am here.

AGS tells me the compile was successful. Before I completely lose my strength, I must delete the game I made. God knows what would happen if anyone were to play it! The mittens button certainly convinced me of the evilness imbedded in this program, and I'm sure the powers a finished game would contain are even greater than that.

It is gone. The game is gone, and AGS is being deleted as I'm writing this. The creatures are still lurking about, but atleast the true powers of my game will never see the light. God help anyone who finds this program. God help us all. I hear a noise. They're coming.

It's funny to see there being actual debating about MP3 in this thread when clearly Sylpher was just posting to show how predictable such a debate would be.

Read Sylpher's posts. It's about as far as any real debate on this matter would ever go anyway.

Kudos Sylph, I was once thinking about doing something similar.

(which, as every child knows, means "somebody who discovers DINOSAURS!")

Haha, I was so obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid. I used to draw them all the time, I knew everything about them and I knew how to spell Archaeopteryx and Pteranodon at the age of five. All I wanted to do was to become a "scientist", which I thought was the word for "somebody who discovers dinosaurs".

Now, I don't know. My computer science studies begin in less than a month, and then we'll see...

as it is now, I get ill from sitting in front of an ordinary screen for too long

Make sure you get a screen that is capable of refresh rates of 85Hz or more. Some (most?) monitors default at 60Hz. If I try to go back to 60Hz after using 85Hz for some time now, I get sore eyes very quickly.

It looks really nice to me. I don't know much about art, so I can't really comment much about the details. I agree with dydo about the water, though. Maybe some soft ripples would make it more easily discernable from the landscape.

I only really posted because I thought I should point out that usually Photoshop is abbreviated PS, while Paintshop Pro is PSP.

From my point of view it is a very good buy, but then again electronics are ridicolously overpriced here. I bought a similar setup for 1500 euros.

*gasp*  The forbidden link!!

That reminds me, yesterday I was reading some reports by people, who have responded to Nigerian scam mail just for fun. One of them ended up linking to goatse after a few mails, and the scammer got all angry and said he would put a curse on him and whatnot. I'd link if I remembered where I read it.

Argh, one one hand the angry people make me laugh, but on the other hand I want to kill them with spoons. Lots of spoons.

"Oh no, this site kind of promotes violence! We must shut it down!! ... Success! Now there are only 99999999999 sites left!"

Maybe they should start with shutting down their children's computers...

Good thing you're done, because I'm laughing myself to death here.
Phew.