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Or maybe improvise.
I cannot really imagine making a tune based on chemical reaction only... it sounds dull.
So I decided to express a chemical reaction within a specific environment... I hope it still fits the rules.
And I'm not too sure but condensation is still chemical process, right? If I missed totally, then count fog as haze...

http://www.increator.pri.ee/muz/fog.mp3


As water vapor begins to condense into liquid water, it will be visible as fog, covering tall cities Man has built and once again shows the power of nature against most ambitious lifeform on planet Earth. It surrounds everything and separates humans from each other, making it impossible to see each other from farther away, even though millions of people are together in relatively small area.

So, I imagined the fog forming (ambiency, water-drop-like-sounds) in a big city (urban style beat, techno, choirs as in a sci-fi movie scene) separating things so they cannot be visible and everyone inside fog is somewhat alone (pianos & sad tune, trademark for songs about loneliness).

Phew.

Thanks for needed changes, CJ! 

New editor is... inspiring. A bit challenging at first, but inspiring.
Back to my projects! \O/

I like everything but color of the tiles on the ground.
Maybe lower saturation a bit?

I support this idea.
Why should everyone invent their own bicycle if many people need it?

But I'll imagine this rather "test current room" instead of integrating a bit of game into AGS.

I am sure.
Sadly, I think it's a bug, which - considering so large nonlinear scale of this game sounds quite possible...

I'm terribly stuck in chapter 5:

Spoiler

I rescued village from goblins but cannot befriend giant, because I can't do anything to pigeon. It's near waterfall just sitting there "resting from trip" and I cannot pick it up or do anything else to it.

[close]

Working on something you aren't interested in isn't fun. If possible, get the team to agree to agree on a basic concept before the competition begins.

Word!

As far as I can see the ATCs were not a great use of time for most former participants. Do I have the wrong impression?

Do you? Do I?
Really, what's the big deal? We start a thread, make some heavy noise and who really want, sign up. If nobody signs up, hell, delete thread and forget. All we need is a bit of time from someone who's volunteering to host the whole thing.

The noise should be loud enough because all the competitions are in miserable state right now. Miserable as no participating, and in some cases, even the host has abandoned his compo (tune contest? Photoshop friday? huh?)... Noise like in '04 was, with an outside-linktext over the forums (do I remember right?).
Or really, maybe wait a bit for better time. It's not like it costs anything or someone who don't have will or time, should still sign up. I understand people who doesn't want to be part of it, but really don't understand how one can be SO against it. Why?

What are you winning by not doing anything?

Please can you clarify this, it should work fine. Is your character named "cLada"? If so the compiler should recognise the "character[LADA]" form of accessing it.

Nah, it this works fine I guess. Atleast with objects used same old way it does.

It simply led me to converting/wrong room function names I reported in 2 posts below.

Which was probably why this old-style coding didn't work, so it's function problem, not old style coding problem. But character name was cLada indeed.

[works]

Converting caused even more problems:

Room script, event "Enters before fadein" looks like this in room script:

#sectionstart room_b  // DO NOT EDIT OR REMOVE THIS LINE
function room_b() {

In room editor, in room "events" properties window, for this event script "room_Load" is shown as default function instead... I didn't change anything.

Which leads to an error message:

prepare_script: error -18 (no such function or script) trying to run 'room_Load'  (Room 6)

I changed manually function to room_a in room events window and room proceeded to load.
Problem seems to be that new AGS doesn't rename functions according to new default naming when converting game from older AGS. Weirdly enough, they still work until smallest change in script is done... either this or when room is re-saved in new AGS.

Another example:



How to understand this? Strange, it works but when I even touch the script, it stops working?

Ouch! Old-style coding won't work anymore, such as

  // script for Room: Player enters screen (after fadein)
character[LADA].Walk(80, 107, eBlock, eAnywhere);

My game is a mix of old and new scripts (due long production that lasts over AGS versions).

Problem is, there's no way to replace text for quick converting.
So how about this feature?

Until this, I'll have to use notepad-copy-paste-replace...

ALSO, "use game default settings" for resolution etc doesn't seem to work from editor. It uses window mode, whatever is selected, basically because F5 excecutes game, but doesn't seem to build EXE file. Weird...

...I don't understand "naah, let's no do it" mentality neither. What's to lose?

Simply because it sounds like perfect business plan: let's make something out of nothing.
If it fails, everybody can still get some experience, if not, they'll get experience too and ALSO we'll have some new games, and some members have better game-portfolio, plus morale boost, etc, etc.

What's the alternative? Spend same time on discussing coolest video in YouTube at gen-gen?
Community is swarming with short, low-quality games. ATC would be a change to make (also) short game, but with skills combined.

Worst case scenario: Teams break up, no games produced, one useless thread. How much useless threads could these people generate if they're wasn't busy participating? After all, there WILL be some resources to finish what they started, even if ATC meets deadline, no team breaks up in first day. And sometimes only few missing backgrounds or story bits is all that keeps good game still unfinished...  : :

I'm saying that after having read the length and strictness of the rule set,

Democracy, hey. Aren't we discussing those? If you have good ideas about new rules, shoot.

ATC is really hard only for a Team Leader. I can't imagine if someone asks 5 music tracks or backgrounds or character designs from me, why I couldn't make them and hand over. If I really don't have time, it's better not to participate at all, right? Team leader is the one who should pass them to other members and encourage coder to put them together- But organizing is the whole key anyway. First the story is set, then graphics people read it, background artist makes first BG and passes it to character animator so characters will be drawn according to background size/style... musicians can rely on purely story and when these resources are coming in, coder starts putting them all together. Doesn't sound that complex after all? Team leader should keep an eye on everything and make sure that deadlines are met and quality stays same. But...

If there is to be another ATC, I don't think the teams should be randomised - this, indeed, caused some well-known and hard-working members to be in a team with n00bs who did less than was wanted.

This is true too. If things are going well, team wants to win the competition. And if one of the resource providers can't produce similar quality to others' work, like noobish characters in marvellous backgrounds etc, whole team morale suffers. IMO, before the ATC, people should compare each others style and make sure it would fit together in a game. This goes especially for graphics artists, but other members must be sure they like general art style too. I'm talking about graphics mainly because it's the most time-consuming thing to do and decides alot in a genre named "graphical adventure game".

Adventure game combines so much different aspects that require skills that rarely someone's able to make both quality music, graphics, coding and gameplay. Especially for something longer than a short MAGS/OROW game.
This is where ATC is different.

Whoa. I just red up on that large rulebook, and if we're using that, count me out. This is way too much of a hassle with formalities and bureaucracy.

Why the sarcasm? I simply think that rules should aid success of ATC, not make it harder. Like setting a room count or something else game-specific. ATC '04 suffered from people not being really sure what to do, thus wasting precious time.
Like ozzie said:

This competition is all about working in a team and meeting deadlines

I totally second that. Only strongest teams managed to stay together to hand over a final product.
Also, I'm sure many new(n00b?) members would love an opportunity to work together with our veterans.

It might just take that one week to properly organise your team for this sort of stuff. So the deadline should in my opininon be further away.

Yes, things take time. With international teams, time zones, etc, a week couldn't produce even sufficent communication between team members.

It shouldn't be who gets the most rooms or longest storyline, it shopuld be the originality captured in given theme and adaption of gameplay!

I'd prefer actual content. A game. Puzzles. So there wouldn't be case where team hands graphics over to the coder just a day before deadline and coder barely manages to import backgrounds in time, so result becomes a simple slideshow and not really an adventure game.  :

I think a team name and logo shouldn't be necessary or even encouraged.
The first two days would be just about figuring those out.

Funny as it sounds, it's true. But this could be left into final, testing & debugging week Ozzie told about.

I kow I am new here, but I got my skills and I would definately be interested! Maybe even make the teams country based, so estonians could win!

Members of the team were picked randomly, so there wasn't "ultimate team" made of masters only. But if you're interested in making something together (off-challenge), send me a PM. With you, me, Clip and Kristjan together, it sounds actually pretty cool.

It would make most sense to wait until December, when most people have free time.

Though it sounds a bit pessimistic, I'd rather start ATC now and set deadline for December or something... This case, if someone bails out, other team members have atleast enough time to mop things up...

Also, instead of waiting "something to happen", we should have competitions like this going on all the time. So even at worst, new games would be still popping out occassionally.

I found those links...
ATC 2004
ATC 2004 - official thread
ATC 2005 - signup

I think that strict rules and short deadlines were what made ATC so hard, and why so few entries made it to the final day.

Community has been growing every year, so why not try it again?
If you look at middle link, you see that there were some pretty high-quality games in work... For for such short time, they were never completed.

I think that if ATC could be ressurrected (if there's enough people to participate), the rules should point out minimum AND maximum number of rooms for a game, so teams would go filling these with actual game, instead of starting a never-ending string and missing deadline after.

I don't offer to host ATC myself, but I would simply love to participate in one.

I love new editor!

But how to see objects? There should be a simpler way to find all objects. Like a list or automatic outlining of all of them. My objects are parts of the background and it's almost impossible to find one.

I'd say that new editor is extremely complex, compared to old one. But it possibly takes some time to re-orientate and I will like it more.

EDIT: Ah, stupid me. But auto-outlines (with selected one outlined different color) would be neat anyway.
EDIT2: Compilation errors tell the faulty line number, but I'm not a masochist enough to count dialog lines manually... how about a status bar/something to show current line number? In DIALOG editor? Other script editors show numbers.

What happened to team challenge, anyway?

I know that in 2004, entries barely made to the deadline and most teams broke apart, but isn't that's the challenge?
Trying to stay and work together and finish the thing?

How about trying again?

And I'm sorry to report that your video sucks. What were you thinking?
To make stickman movies, Flash could be much better option.

But before releasing anything, take a critical look at it by yourself.
What are you trying to say? To show?

Burgers falling on people?
What's the point?

Looks sketchy, but good.
I wouldn't make shadows in the way you drew them: they feel so flat and drawn-on.

I think that you should add a warning into title, because screenie contains heavy gore AND nudity.

I personally think that no other human could criticize someone's else's turn-ons. Even not law.

If there wasn't porn, thousands of passive rapists, paedophiles, etc-you-name-it would be ACTIVE ones.
World if full of sick people. Most of them simply don't cross the line.

But who do --
-- should be punished as harshly as humanly possible.

Everybody does love m0ds. And CJ. Unless it isn't men-wear-dress day.
But due this fact, women cannot be gay.

Maybe. But let me finish this piece first.