Messages

First of all, Pumaman is "This Chris guy", and you don't have to use AGS, but you'd be missing out on a great program. Everything you listed is possible, though I didn't understand what you meant in number 4. What main screen? Please be more specific.

Now, about the custom inventory, here's a good tutorial:
http://ags.slaveinostudios.com/customize.html
Thi includes selecting the inventory item too. What do you mean by interacting? This is ussually the same as selecting. Do you want this to be something else?

Please clarify what you mean by number 4. Do you mean the main menu? What do you want to select there?

MSPaint is difficult for me, argh, how can one survive without zooming in?

Next up: A supposrt group meeting of alcoholic cats gone crazy.

Nice! I like the new version of the battery.
The deodorant is great, only thing that bothers me is the cover/cap/wahtever it's called. I think it needs more higlight because it looks a bit flat, plus it blends into the bottle a bit too much, like they're inseperable. Not sure how to fix that problem though. It might get better with more higlights.

Vartgrass: I've had and played B&W for more than year now, aswell as the expansion pack, and the interface is indeed inventive, though I dunno how it would suit adventure games. You use the mouse to change your view and location, but not in the way you would expect. It takes some getting used to. You are 'the hand of god' and you drag your way around, or double click to get somewhere directly, and use the wheel or Ctrl+up arrow/down arrow to zoom in and out. Personally I really like holding down the wheel and moving the mouse, which allows me to trun, pan, and zoom altogether, finding the best view. This wouldn't work very well in a 3rd person perspective adventure though. It might work well in a 1st person, with some altering of course.
There is more to the interface of course, the physics of the B&W world are amazingly accurate and when you throw a rock for example, how quickly, how hard, and in what direction you throw it directly affect wherer it will hit. How hard it hits affects the object that it hits. There were some things that you could call puzzles in B&W, like finding a person or a stone you needed, but these aren't at all like adventure game puzzles.
If BW were and AG, it would be incredibly non-linear, since you can basically choose to do anything in each situation, and what you choose afects your alignment and thus the game (though the end of the game isn't affected. Just the means you use to get there ). What I liked most about the game was teaching the creature and growing it to be a useful "pet" which helps with your quests.

If such strong non-linearity and change, plus different possible endings, were to be implemented in a game, this would produch great results IMO, and great replayability.

Yes, linearity is sometimes a problem, which is why I think there should not only be several puzzles to solve at the same time, but also different solutions to puzzles, and these solutions should not just give alternatives, they should change things later in the course of the game.
Sometimes though, it's fun to play a quite linear, simple game, but the truly great games are the ones which focus on story and use the puzzles to advance it.
Let's not be too harsh on the puzzles though, I find them to sometimes be the best part of the game, what really makes i interactive and more interesting.

About  wether they are the Gameplay or part of the story, I think they should be the story, but very often become solely the gameplay, which is when they feel unnatural and disconnected.

DGM: Lol about Ben and Bernard!

So, from what I'm reading so far puzzles need to be less dumb and pointless, and a lot less rigid and more flexible. With this flexiblity, tho, there's the chance of going back to the old adventure games. for example, on King's quest 1 you have to find the three lost items, but that's really all you know. then you have to walk around and find out where they are, and you're totally clueless of what to do, therefore losing your attention span. Yeah, I haven't finished King's Quest I mainly because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. With zak mckracken and maniac mansion it was the similar style because you could basicly go anywhere and do stuff. Of course, this has changed over the years but to a super-rigid linear style that still has the same old I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing style here and there. So maybe players need more direction on what to do,... but that's all I've got. I have no idea how to accomplish this without making the game too stupid.

Maybe we should start working on some set of general rules we can use for future adventure games; we could call it something like "the adventure game code" (idea stolen from the comic book code )

Good idea about the game code, seriously. It could be a great sort of guide/tutorial on making games. It should be very deatiled and extensive though, so it would take a lot of work,

About flexibilty: Yes, it's important to have flexibilty but also to make sure the player knows what to do. This can be accomplished I think, by letting the player find out the problem, and providing him with several ways of solving it.

About the visible interface: In BW there is no visible interface as I already mentioned, but as I said it isn't exactly good for AG's.

Your forgetting one great pure AG with no visible interface though: Grim Fandango
You move with the keyboard and your inventory is your jacket. You pick things up and you hold them in your hand when you use them. The only interface in that game is the menu, and the dialogs. I think the dialogs are one of the hardest interfaces to get rid of, because the only way would be to allow the player to type in what he wants to say, and this is generally impossible cause we never know what he will type, and how to respond.
The menu is also not yet "get-rid-of-able" but it might not be such a problem because it's outside the game. Saving the game will always be required for example.

Who knows... Maybe someday, we'll have a way to connect our mids to the computer, and it would read our minds and we control the game by thinking, and the dialogs would be spoken by us, with responses for anything, and with special virtual reality glasses we would feel like we were inside the game. And saving and loading will be implemented by thinking about it, and poof, it's saved, or will be automatic.
It would require making sure accidental thoughts don't get read though, like maybe identifying when the thought is directed at the game.
Now that's what I call immersive. The only thing missing is adding the ability to taste, smell, and touch things inside the game. My, now that sounds scary. Fun, but scary...

All hail CJ!
It's amazing how commited you are!
Thanks for everything, and these esspeccially:

* Added option for characters speed to be adjusted in line with their scaling level.
* Implemented multiple select for dragging and deleting sprites in the sprite manager.
* Added preliminary support for right-to-left text writing.

Great work!

* Added extra "Blinking" view to draw an extra animation on top of the character's speech animation intermittently while they are talking. Currently Sierra-style speech only.

Great! Too bad it only works with Sierra style for now, but no matter .

edit: Almost forgot to mention my favorite- Properties!

Thanks
I think I'll use a sprite because it allows me to use any font without importing it to AGS. I still need to work on fonts, hehe. I plan on creating my own font in SCI, but not just yet.

I like Espresso Games.
Why are you changing it though? Men from Mars is a nice name.

Working on so many games simultaneously might be too much, unless you're a really big team-company. It sounds like you're serious though, so good luck .

I think this belongs in General Discussions forum.

Tips? Pay attention to little details.
Read the tutorials on this site to get strated, and don't be afraid to experiment (though prefferably on a test project just in case the experimeny goes wrong).

Well, my native languge is hebrew technically, though I always speak russian at home, but there are many times when I feel english is more natural for me. It could be the fact that at a very young age I lived in Singapore for a while, and english sank in eventually, though according to my mom I didn't say anything in english for 2 out of the 8 months we spent there (I say according to my mom because I don't remember, lol).

In any case, english is my favorite language, which could have affected my skills in this language, like for instance it could've unconciously motivated me to watch films and read books, thus improving my english, whereas I don't read very much in hebrew (I just don't like the type of books that are written originally in hebrew, and reading a traslation is pointless since I'd much rather read the original version (if it's in english that is. Though even if it isn't I find english translations better sometimes).

The language I use in real life is different from what I use online, because on the internet everything seems to be much lighter and forming entirely correct sentences isn't that important. I don't really know the rules anyway...
In games I think the language is a slight mix of the two, though it could be just me. It depends on the game's mood of course, and I wouldn't write lol in a game dialog, but I don't use high words and I'm not afraid to use shortened sentences, if you know what I mean.
I would definetly use "higher" words if it's part of a characters personality though.

Also, spelling mistakes can give a character a lot of peronality, if he says 'em instead of them and tis instead of it is/it's.

Non deliberate spelling mistakes can be funny too, but can create a problem when the game isn't supposed to be funny, at least not in that way, or when the mistake appears somewhere where it isn't appropriate to laugh. Like when someone's mother dies for instance .
I don't remember any AGS games that I noticed serious mitakes in, but in Syberia I remember chuckling at the bigining, talking to the hotel manager(?), when there was a sentence that didn't start with a capital letter or something like that. You might've noticed that on the internet, starting a sentence with a capital letter isn't as important. Also, we use abbreviations to shorten typing time and because it's just more comfortable, but I wouldn't use IMO in real life ( now that's a scary thought), or in a game.

DGM:   lol

Dmitri: lol @ "All your base..." the mistakes in it are what makes it funny.
The saying is very true .

P.S. when I finally make a game, there's a good chance I might run the script by you, Bill . I wouldn't want to ruin the game for you though, so we'll see. Generally I think I can spellcheck with the good old dictionary (I have several, including the huge Random house dictionary. it's my favorite ), and I tend to 'feel' when grammar is incorrect.

So, yeah, anyway, that's all..

Good luck with trying to make the game, hehe.
If you feel you need a break by all means, take one.
Enjoy the rest

Lol dragon!
Iqu, have you heard of Taoism? I don't know what Buddhism consits of exactly, but Taoism is what helps me not to flip out and throw my shoes at the wall when the PC crashes (which it does oh so very often).

I absolutely agree, anger doesn't help at all, but it's a natural human emotion as CJ said.

Also, when I'm angry is practically the only time I play action games, because it lets out the anger when I shoot that monster (though I much prefer physical combat, i.e. punching etc. I enjoyed the Matrix because o this (a friend got it for free when he connected to a certain internet company).
Meditation is good too, as is laughter. Reading or watching or hearing something funny is releiving, and not just for anger, for tension too. (I remember it was mentioned in a different thread, though I don't remember quite which).

Anger management sounds ok, but I don't think mking you angry would really help you to deal with anger. Esspeccially if you bottle it up.

I don't really see why this is a dumb thread. This is General disscussion after all, and he wanted to share this site with us. Am I missing something?

Anyway, the site is great, I agree, the hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the best. I also liked the sword in the stone very much.
I would have liked to see some from Beaty and the Beast..

Yeah, this is probably made with a program, though you never know. You gotta be either very bored or very determined to do this manually.

This site makes me wanna rewatch the old disney movies...

edit: Scummbudy linked to the Calvin and Hobbes one, which is superb too.

Thanks! I had a feeling it was something simple like this.
Once again, thanks, works like a charm.

When I tried it at first it wouldn't unpause, but I found the problem quickly, the funtion was not responding to keypresses when paused.

edit: To make it clearer to the player that the game is paused, I was thinking of tinting the screen in a pale gree-blue colour. However, since tinting slows the game down, this might be a bad idea. Of course, I'm still just experimenting on a test game, but I think it would be a better idea to display the word Paused onscreen. Do I need to import a sprite to do this? I.e. a sprite of the word paused in a certain color, and then use it in a GUI?

Ah good, GIMP is similar to PS I heard, so you can probably do a gradient there.
I like the simple sky though, but I would add a cloud.

Minime: lol, nice idea, though if there'll be sheep then you need to balance things. You don't want a poor lonely sheep, right?

I like the bricks being very vague, as if they're very old, you might wanna define them a bit more in some parts, and leave it very faint on some.
Then again, it isn't paint, it's bricks...
Hmm, is the house supposed to be old or new? An old house could have a few marks or cracks on it maybe.

I like the door too, thoutgh it looks somewhat like there is no door or the door is open on the inside. Either way it looks nice, though if it is a closed door, it could be more defined. I like the idea of it being open though, because the effects (scrathces/cracks?) you did on the opening are nice. That's also what made me assume the house was old.

Nice work, I like the label and the font very much .
The metal parts look a bit plasticy as was mentioned.
There isn't much else except for what Kwark mentioned.

Mind giving us a link to the program? I might try it out.

I have a problem pausing the game using the space bar.
In the on_key_press function I put this:

if ((keycode==32) && (IsGamePaused==0)) {
PauseGame;
}
else if ((keycode==32) && (IsGamePaused==1)) {
UnPauseGame;
}

But when I save the game an error message appears saying:
Error(line 40): expected '('

Line 40 is the line the code I just wrote here starts on, but I've looked through it and there doesn't seem to be a '(' missing.

Before this I also tried putting this code in repetedly_execute, only I used IsKeyPressed(32)==1 instead of keycode==32.
The same error occured.

What am I doing wrong?

(OT: Do you think the Spacebar is a good choice for a pause key? I noticed it's used sometimes in AGS games.)

Really? cool, I'll look for it, I must've missed it hehe

edit: ah, yes, found it now .

The roof looks very nice, it could use some tiles but not neccessarilly, it might look better like this.
The grass looks a bit flat.
Other than this, the picture is great. I'd add a cloud or two in the sky(yes I know it's not finished).
What program did you use? is it MSPaint? it doesn't quite look like it, the fence especcially.

Anyway the picture could use more shading, and here's another idea for the sky: I've read in several tutorials already that it is a good idea to use a gradient for the sky, going from blue at the top, to pale blue at the bottom. This can be done easily in Photoshop, but could be done in paint too, by adding more colors to the sky.
Still, just a suggestion.

BB: about the puzzle in TLJ, it actually made sense to me, because you use the ducky, the clamp, and the chain thing to create a hook, and "fish out" the key. The key was dropped there. It all depends on what you see as logical, sometimes in games it's fun to have a bit of illogical puzzles. A game would be boring if everything was totally logical, for example a key would always be sused on a door, and to cut a piece of paper for example. IMO, it's more interesting when the objects you use are not used how you would excpect to use them, but instead in an origianl way. This can also include things that would sometimes seem illogical. That's why providing hints is important, to make the player see the logic in things, or give him an idea. Grim Fandango is a great example of this.

DGM: I agree, that's one of the biggest thing that bother me too. I like original ideas, like GF for example (how do I always bring it up? ).
TLJ was original too, because it took the cliche story of saving the world(s) etc, and turned it into something origianl and interesting, with a huge nackstory. This is also important, to have a lot of details about the story (the exception would be in a humourous game, but even in a game like MI it's important to know details and backstory, even if the player doesn't get to know them). If the designers have a lot of details worked out, they feel much more natural when

When it comes to AGS games, what is most noticeable is the lack of animations, interesting non generic story and good characters, and sound effects IMO. There are of course games that have all these, but generally I think many games lack this.

Aniamtions are hard to do and many games don't have many animations except for walking talking and a few more. A great excpetion to this is Apprentice, with the best animations I've seen in an AGS game, on the level of old LucasArts games like MI. What I've seen of FoY, it will be on that level too.
I think having things moving in the background is important too, otherwise the game may seem static at times.

The story can be generic and cliche if it's altered and implememnted in a good way. Like I mentioned TLJ. Apprentice also has a story which could be considered cliche, but the humor which is used makes the story unusual, special, and engrossing even in being based on humor.
If making a humourous game, the humour should be in good taste, and in context.
Sound effects I mentioned, as an addition to animation, sound effects are great for immersion and making the game not static. Once again I bring Apprentice as an example, because it did these thing so well.

But enough about AGS games, let's talk commercial.

Puzzles can be a problem yes, because sometimes they are brought as a standalone, when they should be intergrated entirely into the plot. They are the means, not the end.

Both in AGS and commercial games, characters aren't always done very well. It doesn't matter if it's humourous, serious, or somewhere in between, it's important to have characters with an intereting personality, preferably with some special twist to it. Character devlopment is also nice, though not neccessary IMO.

Umm, in cemmercial games, I'd like to see better voice acting, which is ussually not great. TLJ and GF have splendid voice acting for example. Though some would disagree, I'd also like to see voice acting in AGS games more, though I know it can be hard, since it's important that it's good. If it is good though, it adds so much IMO. Plus, I find myself reading the text and missing the talking animation, with voices I can look at the animation instead. Also, talking animations should be made more interesting than just moving the mouth, it should have something more to it, like head movements and hands possible. Or like Stan in MI, who moved his whole body while speaking. It added a whole lot of personality to him.

(Is this some sort of official discussion always started after Mittens, each time a new topic?)

That's about all for now...

Lol, BOYD.

Well, being still a kid I can say what I want to be: I want to program, and games more specifically but just be a programmer. I think I've almost always wanted this.
Except than there was a time long ago I wanted to be an Anthropologist. Hehe, because I was interested in Dinosaurs. I still am, but I don't think I'll be an anthropoligs hehe.
Every now and then when watching National Geographic, I feel a longing to be a bilogist, because I really love animals. Being a vet was excluded since I wouldn't be able to take it when a dog or cat or other pet died. Not to mention being a doctor of anything isn't really my thing.
My friend wants to be a doctor though. Another friend wants to an accountant, and another could be a model but I don't think she wants to.
The one who wants to be a doctor had an actual dream once (that is, in her sleep) where all of us meet together in a sort of reunion thing, and she's a doctor, another is a lawyer, one a model and I'm an executive running a company which distributes Harry Potter books . I was a big HP fan then. I still am, but not in the same way, I don't reread all the books all the time anymore .

Anyway running my own adventure makin company in which I design and also program is my dream now. I better decide soon though, if I want to consider being a biologist, hehe...

God topic, I like talking about these things.