Messages

I adore television, because it never hurts me.

The splendid piece of gaming was made by Superhoughton, a very talented and wise man, who is the legend around AGS old guard.
When he still was with us, nobody could understand the wanderings and sudden twists of his immensly educated brain. The ending you've reached is the proper one, you haven't missed anything - but to achieve any understanding, I guess you just have to read as much ancient philosophers as Superhoughton did. He never told us what the ending signified, he just used to smile mysteriously and told us that we will "understand in due time". Now there's even a discussion group that meets on the mIrc channel to discuss and ponder the meaning of the ending with lots of sheep et al.

You're giving awards for adventure games and you even called it Academy? Ridiculous.

The design is highly pleasant, nevertheless.

splendid! thanks, gg! I'll come back whining if something goes wrong.

I think we should encourage people who aren't PhDs to answer those questions, After. Don't mar their innocent minds with "engaging imagination beyond actual play", or they will grow up strange and mentally handicapped.

In fact, I would even go as far as to exchanging:
Puma: 5) I really felt like I was there - superb stuff
After: 5) Thoroughly realised, engaging imagination beyond actual play.
to: 5) Supa-f**ka-momba-blasta!

Do you mean Soviet or the new Russian cinema?
Of course, I've seen plenty of Soviet movies, more or less filled with propaganda. There were lots of them on TV when I was a kid (obviously...)
Only yesterday I've seen a great movie by Andrey Tarkovsky about Rublov - b&w, still very captivating.
"Letjat zhuravli", by Kalatozov, is a very moving war-film, and also heavily experimental, much like Tarkovksy's Rublov.

I like to watch an "ordinary people's dramas" kind of movies from the Soviet Era, apart from stronger censorship, they're quite similar to Czech ones (still, Czech are masters of this genre).

And of course, I know lots of Russian children's movies and fables - this is also thanks to our history

I rarely have a chance to see a movie from new Russia, I've seen just 3 or 5. All of them are strongly connected with crime, prostitution, mafia, illegal weapons trade - much like new Polish cinema, I'm afraid, very dark, very social. I guess those are the most pressing subjects, but I miss the Russian humour I got to know from the Soviet literature and cinema.

Hey, those were neat words of guidance, Bspeers.
At some point I started wondering whether you also contradict this fallacy about writers working in a straight line from beginning to the end of their stories or books. I never do this, I usually write the ending pretty early.
So, I find funny all those scenes in movies (like, recently, Hours) when there is some writer who finally, after nights and days of labour, writes "The End", stands up and collapses, or whatever.

Btw., do you know of any artistic-fiction forum on the net? I'm looking for something rather serious, for people already published, etc.

Thanks, I'm glad you all liked it.  

I didn't.
Don't jump to hasty conclusions, human.

Hey, I feel stupid for asking, but I'm really ignorant in the domain of graphics.

I would like to see how my game in progress would look with the new options provided by our wonderful Pumaman - that is, mainly character anti-aliasing - but I have no idea how to do it.
My game is in grayscale, 640x400, hi-color and all my sprites were saved in this format as pcx. When I try to transform them to 16bit in photoshop, the image becomes "locked". Transparent areas around the characters were done pixel by pixel in one shade.

What should I do to change them to this cool hi-tech new format?

Tshyeah, like when they took one of the best Polish SF books, Solaris, and filmed George Clooney's buttocks instead.

I never watch American (Hollywood?) movies anymore, apart from the loudest productions.

I find them terribly boring, I can always foresee the ending, dialogues are terribly similar, character types are almost identical.

Besides, I found that Poles are fed American culture since birth, they know what is Halloween and what is a Thanksgiving Turkey, whereas they are completely ignorant to the (more interesting in my opinion) culture of their neighbours - Russians or Germans.

So, it's a part of my private...

KULTURKAMPF!!!

I sincerely doubt that history of literature took note of the first author who divided chapters between characters, dear Lance... but how about Homer (not Simpson)?

My 2 eurocents:

Putting together in one post Heart of Darkness and LOTR is, in my opinion, laughable.
LOTR isn't a deep book contrary to what some people claim. It isn't any more complicated than an ordinary fairy-tale, it just has some gore in it. I do like it, though, because it appeals to our simple, somewhat infantile fantasies about a different, glorious world, sense of having an aim (The Quest), etc.
Thus, it's as intellectually stimulating as ice-cream, but equally necessary and nice to have from time to time.

As for LOTR movie, I enjoy it when I'm sitting in a theatre, but sadly I remember little once I get back home. I think it's too fast-paced.

Yes, I do love IF, although normally I find them too demanding - that's how visual age spoils us. Therefore I think that Legend's late IFs (like Gateway) were probably the way to go, although the storylines weren't that sophisticated.
I don't really like the majority of modern IFs, because it seems to me that the designers concentrate on "tricks", "things that haven't been done yet" with damage to the story, which, in my opinion, should be in the center of any game.
I believe that you're mistaken, GG, about the superiority of puzzles in IF. The problem is that they're not so much more innovative than the ones in point'n'clicks, but simply demand true reasoning.
Take the infamous "paper sheet under door" puzzle.
Take point'n'click played by a moron: he/she selects all inventory items and "uses" them on the door. Finally, sheet of paper works and the character puts it under the door, later on, a pencil also works and voila, we have the key.
In IF, first, you have to examine the door, maybe even the keyhole. The only hint you have is that there's key on the other side. You have your inventory, but you cannot "use" it (the power of IFs lies in the lack of "use" command, the command that makes everything trivial). You have to think, then type "put paper under door", "insert pencil in keyhole" - you see what I mean? You have to know what you're doing.

And, of course, without graphics there are no limits to the designer's fancy. The medium's obviously more noble, and equally less popular than point'n'clicks.

I would very much like to do an IF one day, especially as HUGO and TADS allow you to use some graphics and music. Which I like.

P.S.
As for recommendations: Gateway 1&2, Fallacy of Dawn (all three with graphics), Shades of Grey.

I think I'm gonna wait for Platinum Edition.

Ooh, sorry, I mistook everything with everything!
I wanted to make the game do something everytime the character enters a new room and though that data has to be always specifed... now I know how to do it.
Delete this thread, sorry to harras you.

Is it possible that in - for example - on_event (enter_room, data) data could mean ANY room? And similarly with other on_events?
It would be very useful and time-saving feature!
I may elaborate on this later, if others don't see the rewards of having this feature.

The first game I've played... this was back in - I don't know - 1986? 1985?
It was a Polish amateur game on ZX Spectrum (48 kb !!!) - the title translated to something like Fuckstress the Princess.
So, as you can see, I'm with amateur scene since it started...

My girl studies photography, this is a part of her new series...

It's always good to congratulate Chrille, Dragonrose, but this time he wasn't on the list.