Messages

That's a nice idea, having for example the summer competition be for custom teams, and the two yearly ones with random teams. All those improvements sound good to me

One more question to the designers before this thread nears the second page. This is more of a general question, and I considered asking it in PM, but thought I'd share it with the rest . I also considered making into a whole new topic at the Adventure Talk forum, but I'll do that once I have more ideas gathered. This is partially due to the article Ian wrote about conversationg, but I've been pondering this long ago too, so here goes:

I noticed in some places in both Apprentice I and II, that there were references to characters, events, places, etc, that we have never seen and may never see in the game. I can't point out a good example at this time of night, but I noticed comments like "That sign looks just like a hat my great-uncle Jerald used to wear for parties." (hypothetic naturally ).
When these things end up in a game (such as Apprentice) I always wonder how you add that in.

One theory I have is that you add it on the fly, making a note of the idea possibly, for future use, but in truth you just invented that great-uncle Jerald while writing the conversation. This can be tricky cause it's a bit random, and you may not get the idea of adding that in. This is a quick way to give characters lots of depth though, in my opinion. For example, that off-the-top-of-my-head comment (a response to looking at a sign prolly) could be very good at convincing the player that the main character has always had that great-uncle, and makes it seem like the character has a history.

The other theory I had for doing this was actually writing out a (relatively) complete history for (almost) every character, in this case with a family tree full of all sorts of quirky characters, and try to reference them in the game. Of course, I doubt you would think of a great-uncle who wears hats the shape of french fries or something absurd like that, so fitting it to your needs can be done. In more serious games however, having a solid history to shape personality and comments etc might be a good idea. Plus it must be fun, and probably encouraging, to have a document/biography of a character to read, or even to add with the game as an extra (only if there won't be sequels though, cause that could slightly ruin some of the tension or surprise. possibly not such a good idea to release it actually). Some people didn't like reading lots of documents and books and the diary in TLJ, but I found it highly enjoyable, and would love to have the option to read a long imaginary history book about an adventure game world. It can be so much better than real history

On second thought, maybe I should post this in Adventurea Talk . I guess I just had to let that out, but my real question is, what did you do when writing the conversations? Make it up or pre-write it, or perhaps something completely different?

Well, even though I've never had any trouble going to the dentist, there are many who are afraid of him/her().
'Escape from Dr. Drille' as a title pretty much sums it up. "Aargh, noo, not the Drill(e)!!" So the goal is to escape from the dentist. Wether or not the kid succeeds is up to the designer .

Glad this Puzzle Ti... I mean Tuzzle Pime is back on track
I'll be sure to enter!

I'd suggest some kind of evaluation system for the games. For example, the organizer and/or the judges would receive a full game plan from each team.

At the end of the evaluation week, everyone would hopefully have a good plan for a game that could be made in the given time frame.

I agree, an evaluation system might be a good idea. That way if a team wants to achieve more than the approximate limit, the evaluation will help determine wether or not they can manage the task.
But, weren't judges supposed to be a ecret until the end? Doesn't really allow them to do the evaluation that way. I do think they could be more involved from the start, judging goals versus achievements (it's not neccessarilly bad if you achieved less than you were hoping for, it shows that you were able to restrict yourself in order to fit the time frame. lots of good ways to look at it, not sure it's even possible to do this wrong, but it's fun to look at). Perhaps Andail (or the host if it won't be Andail) could send the evaluations to the judges and the responses back. Like an oracle "The force (of judgemnet) tells me you have set you're goals a bit too high.."

I also like the idea of application forms, as people may sign up and then forget about it or lose their starting enthusiasm. People siging up in an area they aren't skilled in could also be prevented (though I don't know if this happened or not).

As for restrictions, limitations of the MAGS sort sound interesting. A limit on rooms won't really help in my opinion, it may even restrict uncomfortably. You can make a game with 40 rooms with nothing to do in some, or some of them being close-ups, and you can also make a 3 room game packed with many puzzles and twists. That's why setting such a limit can be difficult, with the exception of the one-room game, which is a challenge in itself.
I think making it a bit more MAGS-like, with the option of having obligatory inventory items or other things. The theme should be the main part of the rules though.
Naturally, rules would still be set by the organiser and/or host, so they would be reasonable and that should assure good results. Hopefully there'll be more finished games each time.

Not sure if the time limit should be a bit longer, or maybe it was just holidays interferring. Then again we had, in essence, a month and a week, and even the finishing teams seem to have finished at the last minute. Perhaps a period of a month and half to a month could help, though it's probably better to just set goals lower and thus not need more time.

Andail, I remember you mentioned wanting the next competition of this sort to only take place next summer, do you still think that's best? Possibly holding it more often (maybe not as often as MAGS, like every 2nd or 3rd month) would help this competition progress and improve upon the "mistakes"(more like just improve the methods).

[File Trap]

Damn forgetfullness.

  Final Status Report for File Trap:

* Progression in all areas, in percent
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Story/Plot/etc - 80%
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Art/animation - 60%
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Music/sounds - 90%
Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Programming - 50%

* Any obstacles that may have arisen lately

Mainly real life butting into our plans. We got a puppy, which I do not regret for 1 second, he is wonderful, and about the same time my windows installation CD-ROM went FUBAR until I got a new one in 10 days . Minimi went on vacation this week, and I'm going to camp this morning for 5 days.

* An evaluation of the team work so far, and if your project is likely do be finished in time

The team work has become a bit slower near the end, and we have attempted to shorten our idea somewhat, but because I'll be gone for the next 5 days, I'm afraid we won't finish the game. I'd still like to say that we enjoyed this competition very much and hopefully next time arpund will be more productive in my case.

All the best of luck to all teams entering!!

I can't wait for The Find aswell, I'm sure it'll be of the same quality. I think there's a certain feel to the name Apprentice that suits this, so I prefer the name you have already .

And btw, I love the irnoy of the game.

Agreed. Tom Cruise has never looked better than now, resembling Guybrush .
Anyone resembling Elaine? LeChuck?

:o Wow they do look similar! Ton Cruise should play guybrush in an MI movie.. Then again, best have a better actor . The makeup really makes him look like Guybrush.

Looks great Daz .
I think the white highlights on the pool look a bit too thick in some places, and the two clouds look almost alike, but otherwise I like this style very much!

I particularly like the waterfall, and the other shadings aswell, on the stone wall especcially. I can't seem to figure out what the little green area under the plank and to the right of the fall is, i'd expect more stones there, unless it's grass growing on the stones.
The sun looks good, not the cliche sun I sometimes use .

I have a small question aswell, are we allowed to immedeatly release the game or should we only e-mail it to you at first and wait? Just wondering.

I've just finished playing, and it was fantastic! I had to restart due to the quill issue, and used 2 or 3 hints, but I absolutely loved this game! The graphics and animations were suberb and I loved the music. The ending has me really excited about the next part . I liked the golem, it was amusing, too bad we didn't see more of it, I guess it just wandered off .

Off to try finding the secret puzzle .

Pocketgame:

Spoiler

I actually noticed that it doesn't have to be two numbers in sequence for the correct pocket to be the same, just the first one. For example, 9, 6 and 9, 4 etc all end up in the same pocket. I just used a pen and paper to keep track of which pockets are wrong for which starting number, and knowing which pocket it was not in helped aswell.

[close]

It would've been nice to be able to bet the copper in the game with Navy Joe. Not that I think he has any money .

Got a bit further

Thanks OSC

I'm a bit stuck, but I'd rather not get hints until I'm desperate. Absolutely amazing game, and very inspiring. Are you planning on adding voiceacting (good voiceacting that is )?

A small thing I noticed: In Pib's bedroom, even though there is no dolphin figurine (I wonder why ), the game acts as if there is. A little voice in my head is telling me it's intentional, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
And, the crashing thing happened to me too.

:o Woohooo! I was just informed of this on IRC.
Downloading, more feedback to come...

Andail, I'm away the whole day on the 14th and am only back on 15th. Should I post the status report today, or can I leave the info on the team forum and ask someone else to post it tommorow?

It crashes before anything appears, no splash screen.
And, I have no plugins right now, didn't have any before either.
Thanks, though
Btw, the last time it happened aswell as this time, other things started working wrong like Windows Media Player, cookies, etc, so I'm guessing it does have something to do with my computer. Could even be a virus, though Norton doesn't detect anything. I've been needing to reinstall windows and format, so i probably will, as quickly as possible, so that I can continue scripting for the ATC.

Ok, I'll try it in C:\AGS.
edit:
Still displays the same message :\. If it's any help, I tried it in D:\AGS too, because I use D: for most programs. Same result.

Right, when I start AGS, all I get is this error message:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're sorry, the AGS editor has encountered a serious error and must shut down. You will have lost any changes made since you last saved your game.

(Exception 0xC0000005 at EIP=0x0046B22A, AGSE v2.61.490)

Please note down the numbers above, and what you were doing when this error occured. If it happens repeatedly, please inform CJ of this error by visiting the AGS Technical forum and providing any information that you can.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's happened before, and "reinstalling" (removing and then unzipping again ) AGS helped, but it's started again just now, and continues after both reinstalling and rebooting my coputer. I also downloaded the newest version of AGS afterwards, incase I didn't have the latest updates, but still got the same error.

I have a strange feeling this has something to do with my computer rather than AGS, but I thought I'd better check. This day isn't going too well. :\

Ah, ok then, so we can keep those. Thanks .

If the comp goes vel*, will it take place every month or just during summer?
*apologizes for thinking of new questions all the time*

*well hehe, typo

Heh, ok, I figured that would be it. Thanks for the clarification nonetheless. Anyways, I have another little question: Obviously only team created content means our own GUI and cursors, but does it apply to fonts? Not many people know how to make custom fonts. I could try, but it's likely to be very difficult to learn SCI studio or a similar program quickly. So, are we allowed to keep the default font?
Thankyou for answering quickly .