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A reviewer doesn't know the developer's life story, Lonely Star. His obligation is towards the person reading his review.

Interesting interview, Vince. Thanks for sharing.

I'm just surprised that Chris Jones opened himself up to certain Essebs being able to knock on his door.

It's only fair. Esseb saved CJ from cancer

Maybe what you and I think the problem is in this case, differ.The current fuss about GTA isn't the problem. The mentality of the people who got all riled up about silly sex scenes in game is the problem.

We need unilin to come down and dm for us.

why should we blame the people who are downloading the mods?

I don't know, Andail. I've seen bad action films which excited me as a kid, and awesome violent video games and and and. Every time I saw a 'tournament fighting' movies like the Best of the Best and the like as a kid, I got all pumped up on being a ninja and did air-kicks in my living room (I identified with the monkey, then tiger, than praying mantis fighter, btw). I was very convinced that I am a robot with buzzsaw hands and laser eyes up to first grade or something. Yet I'm not out there killing people and mistreating women (well, ok, only when they deserve it) right now.

This has an influence on the youth in the sense that everything has an influence on the youth. Violence permeates the cultures of the modern world is many ways.  The attraction to violence is an easily tracable one in the instinctual bias towards safety in power and control. Everybody feels it, and it takes a lot of growing up to not be hopelessly enthralled by it. You have to soak yourself in it, you don't have to play the ostrich "It doesn't exist! It doesn't exist!"  We can't expect that from kids, and we shouldn't shield them from it preemptively because they will grow up to be psychologically and emotionally underequipped in dealing with it inevitably as adults.

I don't believe base-level violent depictions in games are a determining factor, or even a primary one leading to teen violence. I believe that regardless of how many awful movies you watch and how many times you do the Barakka fatality, there are other quite more direct reasons that lead to such things, and it seems more convinient to attack the secondary stuff like videogames than to tackle the real issues that refer to the deficiencies of adults in parenting, all the comfortable lies about morality, passive-agressive ethical indoctorination. I guess being completely alienated from your parents isn't an issue deserving at least as much discussion? Knowing that right now, people are dying from thirst has absolutely no effect on the psyche of a young child either, right? How about the biggest example of all, that an american kid knows it's country is systematically bringing war to other countries for power and control? Let's instead forcus on violent videogames and tasteless nudity.

Do you mean you present source code to the ESRB and if some programmer for example had left a "//fuck! this routine took a long time" comment OMG EXCPLICIT CONTENT? I'm sure this isn't the case. I'm sure the only content that is judged is that which can be reached without game modification using 3rd party software.

It's not so much that I'd guess he hates his games being released here -- quite the contrary. Anyway, I won't make an even bigger deal out of this, wouldn't want to derail the thread further.

Oh noes let's ban teh internet!

My guess is that they're working on it.

No way you're worse than me. The fact that I was able to go to sweden and return while only having lost one pair of pants is a small miracle.

Basically: It's not really important; he doesn't want to post here.
Simple

Not sure what you mean, Pod. Care to clarify a little? What's not important? The reason he doesn't want to post here? Or do you mean that this forum is not important?

Obviously, people who don't hang around the forums generally should be free to post their games (wasn't No Action Jackson released by a person who never posted?) around here, but I'm really sceptical of the by-proxy release. If Yahtzee doesn't care enough to release in these forums, Gonzo, don't do it for him. I knew of the game like anyone else who is interested in what Yahtzee does, without having to come here. He has a high-traffic website.  He's distanced himself from this forum for his own respected reasons, and to a degree I feel your posting of his game here undermines them.


The game is enjoyable and well-made, from the few hours I played it. Sadly the mechanics are a bit transparent, which I guess is the price to pay for putting space fighting, trading and adventure game elements in the same game. I mean, the overal mechanic is easily to see, and it becomes a trade-route routine, with the occasional adventure game segment. The space fights are the most rudimentary of all. Generally, the space fighting/trading part of the game is not nearly fleshed out enough to stand on it's own. The adventure part is quite a bit more up to yahtzee's standards, though. So I guess the sum of the parts for me makes for a quirky but interesting experience. It feels 'light' I guess. A better implemented space dogfight system and the ability to explore space rather than go from checkpoint to checkpoint would be a definite plus for me.

hehe apparently most people will be renting tents. I know I am gonna. Well that'll even out between us money-wise.

I won't be bringing guitars, because  I have no case for my classical one. I guess having more than one around is nice if we want to improvise a duet or anything, but there's bound to be a guitar there as well.

I urge people to bring ags-game material to pimp to each other. I'll be bringing paper and drawing implements so 2ma2, they'll be useful, I think.

The paper dishes and stuff sound good. We probably won't need them ( one meal a day is paid for... no dishes per day not being paid for by default sounds strange, no?) but you never know...

I apologize in advance for the rant ahead.

When I was 16 and 17 and I found out about ags I made two short-ish (back then though they where considered more towards medium length) games in the course of one year. We were using DOS roomedit back then. The process seemed very intuitive. On my free time, I started learning ags, and made a room or two a week, some weeks nothing, last few weeks a lot. I didn't actually realize it (the idea of a deadline doesn't exist when you're 17), but the games got done, and were put out there and were not very good. But I was 17 and the planning part of making games was minimal. It wasn't so much about 'artistic vision', it was about nostalgia, emulating what you remembered as being good, it was more about enjoyment of the process, realization of the specific steps you have to go through to make a game ... all around a simpler kind of deal than most of the AGS people nowdays expect from the games they make and the games they play. These were our 'hello, ags! Let's see what you can do' games, and that's fine. I assume most people go that way before they start something 'serious' and it's a good way to test your strength. Actually seeing the kind of projects new users start with, I guess my assumption is incorrect. But anyway, seriously, when you got an intro sequence right, the fadeins/outs to go as planned, an animated sequence synching up or you got a piece of scripting to work you were all "whoa this rocks!" and nothing could stop you. When you're on this stage with AGS, or any other game making thingie, you're pumped up and depending on what else you have to do with your life, you can finish simple games relatively easy. The problem is when such a project mutates into a more serious one.


You go 'Now I will make the best ags game ever.' And you get in a mindset different from the one explained above. You start thinking like what you feel is a more 'professional' manner, start planning proper, you get people to help you etc etc and then underway (or halfway, or almost-done-way) you realize you're underequipped to make 'the best ags game ever'. Or maybe other circumstances hold you from giving it your best. The problem here is, that since you started out (or got in the trip of it even on a mutated project) with a specific premise such as this, realizing that you're set for anything else than exactly that really dampens the spirits. The game becomes a burden, it's not shaping up as it should, eventually gets cancelled or whatnot. It's happened to a lot of people. I gave up for years.


Short games on the other hand, have a good thing or two about them: if they take a relatively short time to make, you don't have time to 'outgrow' the game. By definition, usually they're simple-to-do premises that can be serviced in a small amount of time. When you're making a long game that requires years of work, after a while, the first few rooms, the graphics everything seems to look not so good, not inspiring, half-assed etc. You're outgrowing the mentality that spawned the original impulse to make the game. Then you either make that part of your brain shut up ( presumably. Never been able to do it. Because you want to finish what you start, I guess?) and get on with it, or you go back and revamp significant portions of  the game (hell. Never know where to stop or if you should stop and it happens again and again), or you give up.

Ideally you're a mature individual with a crystalized idea of a game you want to make, and are prepared to put in the work required to finish it. Some people can do this again and again. But if you get tired, maybe you should look towards smaller, more humble in scope and intent projects.

but... but...

Congratulations to the winners from me too.

I'd like to point out that Gladiator Quest was not made by myself only, it was made by Ghormak and I. I know the orow games are supposed to be single person efforts with the help of one person allowed, but GQ was very much an evenly shared creation, myself doing most of the designing, the writing, the puzzles and the art, and gore doing the scripting the implementing of the puzzles and the SID music. Which I guess explains a little what CJ is talking about: it's the product of long hours work by two people for a week, not one.

a few words on some of the games:

Anna - One of the best AGS games I've played so far, I was completely sold on the premise, enjoyed the subtle effects like the 'layer' walking and the grayscale, the writing was very good and all that. Good pacing, the dialogue, although heavy, was on a topic I enjoyed and it delt with it pleasingly, if not a bit predictably towards the end. This is exactly the sort of game the AGS scene can release, but very difficultly would ever be in a commerical context ( unless it were IF ). Congratulations, Vince. I loved it, and hope you make more. Only complaint would be that, as smart the puzzles were, it was very apparent that they were 'puzzles' puzzles, which sorta killed the suspension of disbelief. On the one hand, they made up for it by being smart ( the 'not completely solvable' text puzzle was brilliant ) but on the other hand, they did seem more artificial than would be allowed ( towers of hanoi, mostly). But it was I bet a lot of scripting, and maybe the complaint is with the genre and not your game particularily. Thank you for making this and giving it to us.

Alone in the Night: Nice graphics, and probably the best rotoscoped main character I've seen in a graphical adventure of the kind ever, bar none. Good work on that. I was dissapointed when the game turned a bit silly, with the ghost, the picking up of burning logs and the breaking of the fourth wall : "It's an adventure game! LOL!", "This would never work in real life!" thing. It got a bit generic on the puzzle end, really. But the presentation was solid, and being the first game to play for most people on this orow compo, it set the bar high on terms on graphical quality.

Dance 'Til You Drop had a main problem for me. Although it's well made (I'd do without the gradient dithering on the walls, though) and it shows there's much care and effort that has went into all aspects of it's making, it's too straight (to make a bad pun). Meaning, it's a honest-to-god day-in-the-life-of Richard Simmons, and this premise, regardless of how well it's executed, will never be one of my favourites. However, I played through a significant portion of it, and when I voted for it, I voted on the objective work that had gone into it. Perhaps I would expect less dancing and more hilariousness, but each to his own.

Sheet could have made a great game if the author had more time, I guess. It looked neat and the premise was fresh. I dug the expression on the pen. I urge the author to extend this into a more fleshed out game.

chicks. Lots of them. Chicks dig AGS. The moment I mention that I am the celebrated creator of Ulitmerr and Aaron's Epic Journey, they can't keep their hands to themselves for the life of them

Police Quest series.

There is an age where investing 3-4 weeks on solving a puzzle, and then feeling the enjoyment from finishing it is appropriate more, I feel: When you're a kid and have nothing else to do. Today, even when I do solve puzzles properly, I very rarely get more than an 'ah, that was clever' or possibly an 'ooh I wish I had designed that puzzle' and that's it. These things seem like a big deal more when you're enveloped in the game world, and though to no blame to the games themselves, as you grow up, it's much more difficult to get sucked in. You can see the 'numbers' behind the game more, the walkable areas, the simple design. it's not a game world and you're not 'beat it' you're just trying to figure out what the designer had in mind...

EDIT: this also had a lot to do with how much access we had on different games back then. You'd be surprized how much of a big deal solving the rubbish puzzles of Flight of the Amazon Queen is if you have nothing else to play.

the melody guitar over the riff goes one halfbeat off meter every second bar, making for weird synchopation that i'm pretty sure you didn't mean to be there. Your playing in the clean part is not steady enough. Practise with a metronome a lot. I'd suggest you don't loop metal riffs but play the repetitions yourself, to add some spice, some different voicings of the chords, more or less muting etc. The solo sounds better over the guitar riff this time around, and generally seems to resolve better. This isn't 'progressive rock' quite just yet though

awesome, I'd like to hear a more properly synched version.