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social engineering

further explain

Lavey and his so call church of satan are anything but devilworshippers. They're plastic-card-carrying rational egoists who desire to belong to some sekrit club and have sex with each other as if it's a big blaphsemous ritual. It's not. It's just old bald people having sex with each other every other saturday dressed in goat skins. They don't believe in Satan. They don't believe in anything other than fun.

Erenan, thanks for the offer, I was making this a year ago or something, I have some graphics, I have a full design document, and a map of the island I've now lost, but I don't believe that at this time, I can make all the graphics needed. However, if you feel so inclined  http://dasjoe.de/helm/ there you will find test graphics and the doc. This is actually something that would be better done in 3d, but a good 2d implementation is not impossible. Know that you'll have to write some sort of dynamic randomizer of objects (which you should be able to walk behind and in front of also) and a lot of nifty little things AGS won't make easy to do. I am very safe in 'public domain-ing' this knowing that anyway, nobody will manage to make it in the next 3-4 years, at which point I might reattempt it myself with others. But if you think you can, go for it.

How much story you can put there can go from Sierra AGI Space Quest 1 to Gabriel Knight. I presented a gameplay model.

Mills, which brings this to why I believe restore mechanics should be more like in roguelikes than they are in hold-your-hand-adventure-games.

I think what I posted stronly rests within the definition of what an adventure game is: a game where exploration, discovery, conflict occurs, with the emphasis on story and characterization.

Sure.

Discarded Helm game idea #234265247:  I play the part of a man stranded on an island. How I got there is not very important. My first interest is securing food and potable water. I scavenge in the wilderness, trying to avoid dangers and get my basic resources going. Then I make basic tools with which I defend myslef if needed, fish, harvest, hunt and upgrade my living conditions (thatched hut by the beach, wee!) more efficiently or what have you. If it rains a lot and I have no shelter, I might get sick and die. Once my basic needs are taken care of, I start to travel the island and map its' geography, slowly finding remains of an older civilization, clues that lead me to search the various caves on the island. I fight off a bear in one cave, carefully navigate the slipperly terrain inside, find it too dark. I emerge to search for means of fire, find some broken lens, concentrate the sun's rays (only on a very sunny day) on a piece of wood, or alterately, I try the rubbing wood together thing to get fire. Anyway, once I have fire (also, cooked fish straight from the sea, but watch out for the shark!) I return to the caves and with the added illumination find a series of painted instructions on a wall. They're very symbolic, and I have to discern where the clues lead me on the island. Now with fire, I may maintain a beacon flame at an elevated spot on the island, that needs regular tending, and hope that one randomly passing ship will see me. On the adventuring front, once I find the location the hints hinted at, I find a hidden passage to the deeper cave system of the island, where only the braver survivor dares to dwell...

at the end of the game, I'm ranked for how I survived, what habits I had, if I was a vegetarian, a pacifist or none of these things, what I ate and how much I did, how sick I got and how many days I lived. How much of the island I charted, what kind of clues did I gather and how far into the subterrainian mystery sideplot of the island I get into. Finally, if I was rescued, and what my overal morale was.

This is a kind of adventure game I'd love to play. A very realized version of the 'deserted island' cliche. Now think how most people have utilized the deserted island scenario in actual adventure games. It's endless day, you walk wherever you want, no danger, you collect objects and combine them and solve PUZZLES until the designer deems it right to transport you from this locale to the next one. Boring, underutilized, marred by unambitious design. Everything I say above is not easy to make in AGS, but scripting-wise nothing is stopping you. I can't do it, but somebody else might. It's difficult to do, but it's a better game than the usual fare.

You have to study anatomy a lot. I mainly suggest a subtle contrapost to the still sprite, avoid mirroring. This is probably one of the stills the player will be looking at the most, so you have to make it interesting and give it some character.

I am suggesting broader definition because puzzle to me, seems firmly entrenched on the 'use item on item' mentality. Whereas an obstacle could be a npc's mood (angry guard you calm down via smart conversation), or it could be to traverse some difficult or dangerous terrain using data you've gathered in the process of the game, or it could be to overcome a huge amount of bureocracy in an office to get whatever. How many of these games have we played? And how many of the 'give fish to fisherman to get hook, use hook on rope, use grappling hook on window' variety?

Obstacles are in every sort of game. Puzzles however, are a different thing. I'd gladly play an adventure game where I have to negotiate different obstacles in different ways, without a single oldschool puzzle in the way. I am not trying to make any 'realism' case, but I don't walk around with pockets full of inventory items, and I negotiate obstacles every day. Some of them boring, probably all of them mundane, but not all of them impractical to game design. I think *any* story is wounded by excessive adventure game puzzling.

So what is the difference then between a puzzle, and an obstacle?

A very narrow definition of 'puzzle' hurts what adventure games can do. Before I start ranting on my own, I'd like to invite talk on what a 'puzzle' is. Be expansive, include anything you think falls into this.

I suggest some of the following to send off this wonderful day in style! You can still make it!


Paradise Lost - Rotting Misery
Deicide - Satan Spawn, Caco-demon
Rotting Christ - The Small One on the Cross
Weakling - Cut their Grain and Place Fire Therein
Samael - Baphomet's Throne
Univers Zero - La Faulx
Goatwhore - Sacrament of Emptiness and Despair
Whitehouse - Erector
Incantation - Unheavenly Skies
Mercyful Fate - Into the Coven
Unholy - Neverending Day
Darkthrone - In the Shadow of the Horns
Immolation - Of Martyrs and Men
Profanatica - Raping of Angels
Nocturnus - Destroying the Manger
Burzum - Det Som En Gang Var
Worship - In the Name of Selfkrucifixion
Tiamat - Ancient Entity
Swans - I am The Sun
Venetian Snares - Befriend a Childkiller
Sarcafago - Christ's Death
Current 93 - Falling Back in Fields of Rape
Patty Waters - Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair
Ripping Corpse - Anti-God
Miasma - Baphomet
Vital Remains -
Virgin Black - Walk Without Limbs
My Dying Bride - God is Alone

I AM A CORPSE! I AM A CORPSE! I AM A CORPSE WITHOUT A SOUL!

steve: because an object's highlight shade isn't the same color as the thing's color, neither is it's shadow. If someone wants to better their art, I'd urge them to check out color theory just enough so they have a grasp on the basics, nothing fancy, how a lightsource for example, tints various materials, and go with coloring stuff in themselves.

The process doesn't have to be much different anyway. Just make a new layer, set it to OVERLAY for highlights or MULTIPLY for shadows, paint with a color you find appropriate using basic color theory, vary the opacity of the layer until you're happy, repeat as needed.

please don't use lighten/darken brushes, add highlights and shadows using colors you pick yourself.

You're telling me?! I could get cancer in some dignified place like in the BRAIN for having a huge brain or something but instead I get it in the balls... which might mean... I have huge

I'm cool with it.

LET US TALK ABOUT MUSIC
HERE
FOREVER

THERE IS NOTHING ELSE IN MY LIFE

MY CURRENT FAVOURITE BAND IS

CANCELLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not saying make it completely freeform. Just not as on-rails as The Dig was.

Cancer. In the balls.