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um... walking in front of a large mirror helps a bit. But best way (I use it) is to experiment: first create a walking cycle for a stickman (sketch) and put him into a game.Then redraw it until you feel that you got it and walking is fine. Next step is to redraw stickman and best way is to open frame in PhotoShop or any other drawing proge that supports layers. Just create another layer for your stickman and draw "right" character over it (onto second layer). then you may erase the first one.
After all, good character doesn't need many colors - only if its anims are good. Remember the game "Another World" (a.k.a Out of this world ) or even Prince of Persia?

Hmmm.. for everone who is not statisfied with MIDI but ain't able to use difficult trackers, such a MODplug Tracker or Impulse Tracker, I'd suggest Sound Club.
It's a 'piano roll'- type tracker and its strong super-user-friendly is the best I've ever seen. And It's small & free! Just get it... and I don't think you're going to be disappointed...Supports its own format (.sn2 but also MOD and S3M)

www.bluemoon.ee

I make all my music with that and later add advanced effects, such as reverb and chorus with MODplug.

RestoreWalkablearea? Oh, sorry for stupid topic. Didn't know that even existed.

EnableWalkableArea()  ..and...
DisableWalkableArea()

cute, isn't it?  

Before color TV we had black&white- and we were just fine. Before TV there was just radio- and we were just fine. Before radio there was just newspaper- and we were just fine.
Before houses we had caves, and we were just fine...

And why did we invent color tv's then? Or houses?
Why not stick to the cave and watch b&w TV's there?   Better graphics will *surely* attract more downloaders/buyers. Who can argue against that fact?
But technology is at the moment in a position where we buy/download games by their minimal requirements, not the quality. At least, this goes for bigger percent of people.

Hmm... but isn't selling Rob Blanc under false name illegal by itself?

Want to stop this nightmare? I'll give you a solution or walkthru or however you call it:

Get Wallet
Look at Wallet
Get Cash
Walk to Tool Shop
Talk to Shopkeeper
Buy Hammer
Walk to Home
Use Hammer on Modem

That's it! Simple and works fine.

Oh well, what the heck. Use classics and don't worry, Beethoven, Mozart, and rest of the crew are dead and I don't think they'll mind... Maybe you're just going to have problems with ghosts or something like that.  But expect to get a good beat-up when meeting those guys in the other world  

Heh - If I'd see any of my games in store like that, I'd be *very* pissed for sure.
But here -- even if some games ARE illegaly sold - It's just an opportunity for fellow AGSers to sue the magazine and gain a fat sum. (Which they undoubtly deserve)  ...

I didn't say that effects would spoil anything! They look cool! but what i really eanted to say was that in this case, effects seem to be the "backbone" of game graphics -- i just think that if creator could draw as nice rooms as he can use effects filters, we'll have a helluva good artist. As seen on these shots, there's some way to go through, yet.

RemoveWalkAbleArea? But how in the hell am I able to walk there when door is opened again?

MrColossal, I think that ...

why can't people just be people?!

...is just a nice dream about happier world. People learn to divide themselves by gender very soon after starting a life on this planet. We live by the roles which are strictly set by our gender - isn't it? Men must be strong, smart and successful, earn lottsa cash and get the prettiest girl... girls should be pretty and make a good wife/mother/whatsoever and so on. Isn't our civilization built on that (at some points)?
Yeah, people CAN be just people. But It doesn't work in the world we're living (*khm* The world WE MADE so far). This just a pretty dream that doesn't work well in reality, just as communism or God's ten commands in the Bible. btw, It's a good thing to sit here at chat to each other, because according to Mother Nature -- aren't we supposed to eat each other or something?

As always, I see things through my wacky sense of humour, so I could be totally wrong, but I think different points of view makes things more challenging.

To end my monologue, I think that identifying yourself to a female character is SURELY easier than doing same in real world. Of course, if creator of the game doesn't happen to be man, who is complete genius, psychologist and who also has been a transvestite for half of his life... well, then he maybe really happens to create a life-like simulated female character... Isn't there centuries-long whining about "I don't understand women" and vice versa- going on? Maybe the problem is hidden excactly there?

So, what I'm trying to say with all this server-space-wasting weird piece of text is: "Maybe we can't find connections with female characters because problem is in ourselves, not in female characters being not good to star an adventure game and being connected with.". After all, this is just a bunch of pixels, right? And whatever we do - it's still our imagination that does the trick.

Oh hell, I can't stop once I started.... this gave me an idea: Let's take a girl and let her to make an adventure game, about herself to have full 'girl' effect. The game should be text-only, and let's hide every hint from player that main character is a girl. Now, let's have some men to play it. The game itself should be interesting and deep enough to make them draw lines between game character and themselves. Is connecting with female easier then? Interesting experiment or stupid idea?

Hmmm, friend. It's quite obivious that you're not a very good at drawing (yet). If you care about people who may want to play your game, reducing resolution IS neccesary. btw, I suggest you to learn to draw well in 320x200, then move further, not vice versa. PhotoShops's lens flares and 3-d effects may look good, but that doesn't mean that they'll make nice backgrounds for adventure game, yet. Of course, I you don't give a heck about players and make this game for showing to your friends only - go ahead. Put some MP3 music there and some 100+MB AVI videos, too!

Never ever post so large images into ANY forum. People hate it. I hate it. It loads slow and makes unstoppable desire to press "stop" and "back" buttons on browser.

But if you really want to impress the world, don't pay much attention to graphics, and start with the GOOD story. Story that nails players to the computer, until the end of the game. Then polish it all with graphics and music. Give your character a face and a life. Life that interests other people too. Make player care about the game, the character and the result of his interaction.
Make reaching the result difficult, so player must do a little work with his brain and mouse to reach the result. Make player happy and statisfied, when the result is reached.

This is where you should start, and It'll be a damn good start then.

(hey, sometimes I amaze even myself )

Resolution. If It's higher than 640x480, consider very few people downloading it. Anyway, looks great. I thought that this is kickass 3D in first sight.

No no no. I have a long walkable area and at some point door blocks it. How to make so that if door is closed player cannot walk through it? I didn't find any DisableWalkAbleArea command. otherwise, I'd make a little walkable area just under the door.

How do I make an object that can be not walked through - like an openable door?

Actually, I don't think that linking player to a character should be too difficult. Let's take an example  from absoulutely non-adventure game - Samurai Shodown (a.k.a. samurai spirits) . I don't remember characters name, but I liked guy with wide blue pants and a sword. He acted like he's sick or something. Once, when I won another round, the guy started to cough and -- coughed blood. At the end of the game he died... As any other fighting game, there was very little connection between player and actual character but still, i felt sorry about him, though he was just a digital fighter.

Then again: two games that really kicked my brains in and made me "live" with character, were Half-Life and little known-but superb adventure game KGB (a.k.a Konspiracy)

about girls:
There ARE some nice female characters. For example, look at Passionate Patti from Leisure Suit Larry series... But adventure games are mostly based on LOGIC and not EMOTIONS...*ahem* ...what was the difference between men and women in reality?... Anyway, I hate women who carry a minigun or fight, such as Xena the warrior princess, Buffy tha vampire slayer, VIP (yeeeowh!) etc. They're not women anymore. More like a failed research project to cross sex and violence... But Ripley is excellent example of doing that right. She's no blonde long-legged sexy bitch. Just a human along metal cybermonsters, afraid and wanting to survive. In matter fact, didn't she cut her hair off in Alien 2?And still, everybody loved her. And she stayed woman - she even become mother of aliens... neat.


But As seen on Larry, women make good npc's!

about strong character:
I think character will get strong by his story in the game. Player should live through characters lucky and unlucky days, right next to character. This gives connection between Player and game. I don't think comedy games are easy ones to get a strong char. Serious, deep games sound better here - like Gabriel Knight for example.

Good graphics and comparing fan-made games to commercial ones? Well, some people here are able to make games every kickass adventure gamer is ready to buy. But still, no money is charged.

Dunno. For me, making an adventue game is way to present my (crazy) ideas in full effect - writing a book gives just text and drawing a picture gives just art. Same goes to music.

Now let's mix all of these and add some riddles plus user interaction. Well... there's the magic. Works well - I know I was able to share my creativity with world and positive feedback gives sufficent food for my ego, plus motivation to get even better at this stuff, learn more scripting and drawing better gfx.

And - that'll do. Why should I need someone to compare my work with commercial games? This could be handy when I'm selling my game aswell - to have more buyers, maybe.

Can't beat the laser door puzzle! What am I supposed to do with those buttons?
Have tools, primary stuff and mirror.
If key is to press buttons to make right color sequence, then I wonder why the game isn't commercial yet. This looks helluva similar to standard LucasArts copy protection...

edit: Oh, already got it. Just didn't expect that to be sooo easy   ...and missed one large hotspot...