Messages

Nobody.

It would be a swell feature request if it was 2003 and AGS would be new, beta-stage engine, but it's been "new" in AGS looong time ago and games have kind of grown out of it. As they're grown out of most Sierra-style things that were default and of which, many still are.
F-keys do things still, I think. F5 for save?
CTRL+keys do things too.

First, yes, I'm not ill.
And this vibe is NOT connected to any kind of pain in any possible way.

All the diseases/conditions misj' described, well, I guess a psychiatrist would write a whole book on me, I'm quite sure I have some minor psychological disorders. Many modern people do.

Mine are induced by self-destructive lifestyle, like 2 litres of coffee daily, 6x6-hours + 1x14-hours of sleep week cycle (6hrs or less sleep every day and one 14-16hrs long sleep at weekend) and heavy smoking. I would be amazed if this didn't  cause something already. Add chronical depression and antisocial behavior (zero friends, not going out) and you can find all kinds of fancily named conditions and disorders. Nothing that would strongly affect me or be visible, though, I consider myself quite normal.

I had a smaller vibe yesterday again. Once again, this client was inspecting a design and it hooked me. Not very strong though, but I tried to analyze it and discovered that I interpret the feeling as some kind of relaxing waves coming from person. Exact area where I feel it the most is directly behind the eyes, maybe even eye nerves, and brain behind eyes.

Then again, I'm starting to think that it isn't so mysterious after all.

First, I'm overcreative, my brain works like a steam engine all the time.
* I have never felt boredom. Even if I were locked up in a room with no doors or windows or anything, I can "sink" into my thoughts/fantasies and get really lost there. For hours, days.... I don't know what boredom is.
* During school, I had to buy new notebooks every month, because they filled up too quick. Of doodling & drawings, not lesson material.
* I listen to trance music all the time. The real one, not what not-listeners think it is. I mean, not the "pumping-happy dance music" but "digital emo with depression-inducing high-pitch melodies playing most important part"
* At work, my co-worker has also di.fm playing vocal trance all the time, so I'm in it even at work.
* I suffer from heavy insomnia and personally hate sleeping: it feels like a waste of valuable time for me.
* If I go to bed too early - if I don't "crash" there being exhausted, I don't fall asleep, and instead my mind starts wandering and creating and I shockingly discover that I've been like 3 hours in bed and entangled in thoughts...
* I'm always tired and not slept well.

So, under those conditions, how difficult would it be to go insane or get oversensitive?

There's some surefire other vibes I know and can easily reproduce: For example, not sleeping at all for a night is sure way to get hysterical next day. My sense of humor goes up 400%, everything is funny and I crack jokes like a comedy machine. I'm very sensitive to everything, and even little sources of happiness or sadness or simply something cool could burst me crying (not sad crying, but more like "why does it affect me? Why are my tears falling?"). Like a good song or a seeing stray dog (specific case, I wrote a song) or something.

Or maybe I'm just fucked up.

Well that was one heavy confession. Not easy to have a personality where perfectionist-antisocial-neat-and-organized-rocket scientist and crazy-humorous-messy-disorganized-strange-bohemianist-artist meet and mix.

[capitalism]

US should shut up.
War is most expensive and financially uncaring act in modern world.

If they use hellfire missile to blow up clay cottage - yet you could build a whole city of clay cottages with the cost of one missile, I couldn't translate it other way than 'irresponsible'.

If people want jobs, they better get their leaders and leaders' priorities straight. All hail democracy!

But in general, I'm afraid that capitalism is as self-destructive as other ideologies. General sense of comfort and stability simply masks that until it's too late.

I find the ways of capitalism gotten too far, and really oppressive: Where I live, if you don't have a bank account, in most jobs you cannot get even paid. Nobody uses cash! Anyone, from police to court to companies can freeze your bank account with a simple phone call, thus making you instantly piss-poor.

I have money on my account and I cannot withdraw more than a specific sum (daily). Of my OWN money. Bank won't give it to me. To reach it, I must use a card. Which I pay monthly fee for. While bank is using my money and not paying any interest. If I decide to withdraw money in bank, I must pay some kind of additional fee. So teller could get her paycheck.

What's even worse than local banks belong to some kind of swedishs and finnish banks, and my money and its fate is in hands of someone from another country. Not only mine, but whole nation's. Some fat, rich jerk somewhere holds a whole nation by the balls.
What happens if relations between those two countries somehow get explosive??

Things like this tell pretty clearly who controls the world. Bankers.

And this is gone too far.

[unwritten]

Eyes or general direction of the face? Friends or well-known people might do this, indeed. But on the streets, I doubt.
"Aggressive" is unwritten rule, not a tradition or standard. Of course, all those "live happier"-people and social workers etc encourage people to be more open, smile more and look into eye, etc.

Local people simply don't do that. Comes from "keeping to self" very typical introvert and melanholic nature of estonians.
And of course, people vary, I'm simply stereotyping here. Not every british is same, neither.

Go on, chat with him and drill directly into his eyes. I bet after 30 seconds, he starts to get nervous even if it's hard to notice.

Random questions:
- During these events when you are hypnotized, are you able to continue working, or do you only observe.

Yes, but I don't want to. The vibe is too good to spoil it. If I continue, it wears off after short time.

- How long do these vibes generally last? - Few seconds? - Minutes?

Depends. Minutes, usually, I can't stare someone, or people would think I'm weird. Then again, if getting a haircut and barber happens to be "the one", it may last a hour or so. It's always connected to person. If person goes, vibe too.

- If an external stimulus occurs during the event, can you respond to it (in other words: do you snap out of the vibe)?

Yes, but I'm disoriented a bit at first. If I'm forced to do something else or respond, vibe slowly decreases and disappears.

- Do you like cats?

I love cats.

- When you talk to people, do you generally look them in the eye, or do you look away.

Estonians usually don't look into eyes. It's considered (not written rule) - aggressive. I do it when I remember to - just to have some sick fun: people can't stand my eye contact for long usually, and my brown eyes are uncommon for northern people around here. Ladies, though. Staring at men would either boil some bad blood or guarantee gay reputation.

- When talking to people, does your mind and/or activities drift (like doodling).

I have lived and worked at computer 80% of my conscious life. So it's like a standard - I always do something else too when discussing something. As a creative person, I usually don't like talking, because it wastes valuable time and try to keep discussions either informative and short or drift away.

- Are you more analytic towards yourself/the world around you than others?

Since age of 3. I read works of Benjamin Spock and tutored my parents how to raise me right. Seeing them fail, I've raised myself for most of childhood.

- Do you feel socially understood. Do you find it difficult to to keep a relationship (either friendly, or male-female)?

No. I've always been "that mysterious guy". I've had very few friends, but I'm very loyal so they've been very strong relationships. I've never met a woman with same amount of loyalty so I'm single right now.

- Do you prefer pastel colours?

I don't wear them... so it's hard to say. But my favourite colors are neon colors, or however they are called. Like (215/255/95 RGB and 125/185/205 RGB, etc). Sorry, don't know how to describe color better. As an artist, I always try to have many colors on single work, and not afraid of high saturation. I hate typical low-sat, dark-looking images all newbies, and sometimes, veterans make. For example Emily Enough was interesting game, but color scheme really frustrated me.

- Are you attracted to activities that induce an adrenaline rush (like roller-coasters, or bungee-jumping)?

Yes! Haven't tried em' much, though. Not much possibilities, friends to go with, or even theme park around here, neither, though.

- Do you consider yourself to be good at distinguishing between important and side issues?

Yes, definitely - and main barricade with women. Cannot stand "lost my eyeliner-crisis" or "one-misunderstood-joke = end-of-10-years-relationship" kind of bullshit.

- Do people generally share your sense of humour?

Depends. Got lots of it, though. Who know me, do. Who don't, get offended or think I'm weird.

- During the vibes, do your visual senses change? - For example: are there glittering lights.

Hm. Maybe. I'm a bit dizzier so I don't concentrate on vision much. Like dreaming people don't notice what's around.

- Can other people observe your events? - And if so, how would they describe your presence during such an event?

Haven't asked, it's been my strange personal secret for 24 years... Since it's very rare and happens with people I don't know or whom would never tell about this, no comments. But it's easy to notice someone who instead of working stares at someone doing something, I guess. What else to notice?

- Have you ever had a black-out?

2 times in whole life, one for heat stroke/head trauma and one for blood loss. Not connected.

- Are any of your senses affected during the event, and does this continue when the event is over (like a lingering smell, or a taste in your mouth)?

Don't recall anything like that. Symptoms I described. Senses? My hearing might be a bit muffled and sight more focused, narrowed towards vibe source. Body feels warm and I feel like I'm hovering outside of my body or something, like it wasn't connected to my neck. Depends on vibe strength and duration. But main focus and feeling and everything is in brain, somewhere back there, not near forehead. This area has usually my whole attention.

- Have you ever (casually) consulted a doctor about this?

I don't consult doctor never, on anything. Any doctor visit means atleast 4 hours of sitting (more often standing) in the waiting room, and if I don't have fever or anything serious to report, It's life threatening to go to doctor at all, with all the workload the corrupted medical system has here. Also, I cannot reproduce this at doctor's office...

- Do any of these questions make sense?

Not really, though I have 2 theories: either you are similar/know anyone similar and trying to draw parrallels, or I have some well-described condition or something.

I'm interested, if not excited. WHY did you ask all this?

Whoah, quite close!
I have to wiki for "endorphine exudation" because I have no idea what that meant, but examples are quite close.
Most similar thing I could think of is long, refreshing yawn, or stretching yourself if you're tired. The relaxation effect is as good, if not better.

Even closer would be when you wake up extremely tired after few hours of sleep, realize that there's no need to wake up, and that few REALLY enjoyable, happy seconds before you fall asleep again.

Are you tired? Stretch your arms to the sides out wide, closing fists, keep them as tense and stretched out as you can and move them upwards until upper arms meet ears, while keeping the tension and stretch.

That vibrating, warm, deafing feeling near back of the neck, ears and lower head is about what I feel when in situation this thread is about. But times stronger, tonnes better, quite alot different and way higher in head. Plus, I'm heavily addicted and hypnotized when this happens.

Another close example - of atleast part of the feeling - is simply to cover your ears with hands. You will hear humming and feel warmth.
In my case, this humming is directly in head, not only ears, and caused mentally, not physically.

But it's not about sound. Sound amplifies it heavily, as well as being inside personal area (close enough for most people to start to feel psychologically uncomfortable), but it works even if I don't look at the person nor hear him/her and I'm in the opposite corner of the room.

I SENSE that person, somehow. And his/her concentration. I'm linked to it and hypnotized by it. Almost like controlled by it.

Well, maybe I'm simply supersensitive? But then, why only some, very specific people induce this?

Endorphin version - wiki says this:

Another widely publicized effect of endorphin production is the so-called "runner's high", which is said to occur when strenuous exercise takes a person over a threshold that activates endorphin production. Endorphins are released during long, continuous workouts, when the level of intensity is between moderate and high, and breathing is difficult. This also corresponds with the time that muscles use up their stored glycogen. Workouts that are most likely to produce endorphins...

The new job that made those - otherwise very rare occasions of this particular feeling so frequent - is totally nothing like I'd ever done before. There's not much physical "workout", but 8 to 9 hours a day, my brain is running a marathon, and I'm thinking, inventing, solving problems comparable to hardest school exam. Doing this almost 5 months, all day long might be the reason. I'm still leaning towards insanity version, though

There's a question haunting me since childhood. A feeling I tend to feel, and I haven't heard about such thing anywhere... Even on the almighty Internet.

If someone is doing something, close to me, with his or her hands, for SOME people, I get this strange vibe.
Since emotions are very difficult to explain, I try my best:

* My breathing gets slower and harder, like something is pressing onto my cheeks and blocking nose
* I get very calm, close to hypnosis or meditation, I cannot force my eyes off from the person
* My heart rate gets quicker
* and most important and best felt - I get this strange warm fuzzing or buzzing or vibration in the back of my head, like in the lower side of brain or something. I totally feel it. My head feels like there's a little engine working in it, generating warm, relaxing, arousing and very enjoyable feeling

It's incredibly good feeling. I totally go crazy and enjoy every second of it, regret the moment when it's over.
What causes it? What do I know about it?

* It's definitely linked to someone's hands. I don't have to see them, but be quite close, atleast in same room. The closer, the stronger the feeling.
* It's not erotic, love-related or sexual in any way. It doesn't count sex or age.
Because I feel same or even stronger for men, and older people. A bit clumsy or different people. Really old people, sometimes.
* Person who induces it, is always very concentrated onto something, and doing something with hands. First times I felt anything like this was at barber's. Little sounds fingers make on working, like touching sounds or little scissors snipping or so.
* Very few people are able to give me such "vibe". As I said, they are usually slow-moving, maybe a bit clumsy (like old people are), something like this.
* Person doing whatever he/she is doing doesn't have to be in direct contact with me, and most often they are not. I simply observe them doing something and suddenly this warm pulsating starts in my head.

It was one of those reaaallly rare and strange feelings during most of my life. I felt it once a year, at most. For 24 years.

After I got new job few months ago, moving into print/design business, suddenly - this goes like, on daily basis. There's always people gluing or folding something, inspecting my designs etc. And some of them give really strong vibe. They like, turn completed design, look here and there, fingers make quiet sounds when handling carton or fiberboard, they think-think-think.... and I watch and get semi-hypnotized and suddenly my brain goes "brrrrrr" 

What's even more strange that I'm sometimes and somehow able to induce this vibe all by myself now. I work on something, and like, this starts from my own concentration and handicraft. Rarely, but it does. It never happened previously in my life.

I repeat, it's not sexual in any way - for a male, it's really easy to determine such thing, but it feels even better sometimes, and totally disorients and hypnotizes me.
---

What could that be?

Am I getting telepathic links in environment of extreme concentration?
Or getting part of some "energy fields" those wannabe shamans on TV talk?
Or being sensitive to/absorbing bioelectricity?
Or having frequent internal brain bleeds and somehow translate them as good feeling?

Or am I simply going insane?

Has anyone ever felt something like this?

Then it's PSU.
To be really sure, try another power cable. They tend to break near the plug (that end that goes inside case).
If no luck with cable, replace power unit.

I seriously doubt that you need to change mobo... Power fan goes around even if motherboard is toasted.

I know this from whenI toasted one on my 486DX/66 (sob!) when taking out RAM while computer was working (Forgot to turn off).
I saw sparkles and really bad smell, but power fan kept on spinning.
Then again, new technologies might work other ways.

Because, for a long time, I thought my air intake fan was broken on new Intel case, just to find out that's it is auto-controlled by motherboard and spins only when temperature exceeds some specific limit.

Ooh, this is GOOD. I could eliminate rest of the noise with vertus fluid mask (thanks mrcolossal!) plugin...

Thankyou--

I suggest to get a spare machine, and re-test every piece (except motherboard, I guess) in another machine.
This way, you know what's wrong.

My condolences, though.

Not bad, but

* Nose is wrong. Nose stands out, is closer to the viewer. ...Which means, it should be lighter, not darker than rest of the face.
* I kind of hate those yellowish hues.  Everything looks a bit too... yellow. Try with more different color tones.
* Right shoe looks like clown's shoe. Make it shorter by 2 pixels
* Left hand on Indy with hat is strange. Make it like on version without hat.
* Version without hat has way better eyes. They don't look so clueless and dumb. Use those ones on both.

[3D-texture]

For a photorealistic 3D-texture?
Sorry, not really.

VERY early screenshot of what I'm doing:
http://www.increator.pri.ee/i/rpg/ss013.png

See how jagged grass looks? I want atleast the quality I have on tree leaves.

I have nothing against hentai games, and a well-made hentai game is no less valid a gaming experience than an equivalent example from any other genre. I'd like to see an example from a non-Japanese point of view, though, without the sexual fixations/fetishes which are usually part and parcel of this subculture of Japanese sexuality, and an answer to the question: Can you have a degree of explicit sexual content in a game, without making a pornographic game?

All is correct. But-

* Many hentai games have a romantic story. Not simply random banging. And games with light-hearted, romantic story are rare. Especially during modern era of digital blood. Out of 10 random games, how many are about killing people or animals?

* ...From non-japanese point of view? Sex is sex, everywhere. Or you mean graphics?
I personally think that any kind of EuroPorn would be most likely lame. manga/hentai/whateveritscalled-style drawing removes few layers of sin from porn game, IMO. Dunno how.

Can you have a degree of explicit sexual content in a game, without making a pornographic game?

* Romance with no real act of humans mating? Well, only girls would play this then    If even them; you can woohoo in Sims2, yknow.

Thank you so far.

Excellent tutorial, Ryan, but this is what I referred as "simpler case". Like most of PS tutorials out there - alligator is way other color than rest and shape is quite simple. It's still helpful though!

Zabnat:

Yeah, manual.
I know what print people do, I'm one of them "print people".

...as a packaging designer (engineer would be more exact) and I see that hell of pathmaking in Adobe Illustrator every day. I don't do it much personally, though, but what my point here was, manual mode is way over my head on this case. See lower images to see why.

Also, I suck at vectors overall. And Adobe somehow ignores all intelligence about graphical user interfaces learned by mankind so far making its every program so goddamn horrible to use.

Photoshop is supposedly #1 graphics editor in the world, and yet - fuck, how do I draw a line? click here? and hold this key? and not forget turn this off? and that? what? Back to mspaint, damnit.

So I'd avoid all kinds of pathmaking/using as much as possible.

MrColossal:

Yeah, first link probably is the one. Thanks, I will check it out tomorrow! Actually, any plugin that would actually do what I want would work. But most plugins out there have very little to show, no demo and still cost too much for just one tool.

can you post a picture you took that is causing particular problems so we can do some tests?

There's about 30 pictures of "particular problems". I want some variety in my foliage, many different grass/plants, and all trees need branches too...

Well, pictures. A simple(simpleR) case is like this:



As you can see, going manual and making selection paths/using lassos, whatever, ...is POSSIBLE, but really uncomfortable and takes way longer than probably-never-to-be-finished game deserves.

Well, since rocks are different, color range selection should do the trick, right?
Wrong. Turns out like this or even worse, whatever I try:



This is what I meant by "bug feast". Magic wand gives about similar results.
To hell with them holes! I can patch them up! But... what's not so well seen from second image is that much of the green is actually transclusent, not 100% opaque. I have no clue why Photoshop does this. This is so stupid.

Of course, I'm using photos about 3x the size I posted here, but it doesn't help much.

But since summer is over and there's not much grass left for more photos, I have to use what I could get. And some of it looks like this:



And here, I still have no way to get a clean shape at all. Even not for enough varied portion to make my own lump.
I really don't know what to do here.

But I'll make sure to try those plugins!

There was a period in my life when I was quite addicted to old Hentai adventure games, some have -- despite totally random sex and "look"-"think"-"look" boring clickfest -- actually quite cool stories, like Three sisters' story for example. And bad graphics is rare to see.

I suggest to make this only if you're sure to succeed at what makes those old games good: an interesting, yet romantic fantasy story. That's only reason I would play one.

I'm actually not against sexual content neither, if it's not downright absurd and  horrid in some way.

[How would you cut out a really complex shape easily in Photoshop (CS2)?]

The title of the thread is pretty descriptive.
How to select something from a photo, yet maintain clean edges and not go nuts during this?

I'm making a 3D game and for foliage texturing, grass and leaves specifically, I gained a load of photos.
Problem is, it takes a millennia to gather even one plant from a photo, clean it so only plant remains and not the background. I tried acquiring photos as trouble-free as possible, often put something single-colored behind the plant or took a picture where ground is totally different color than grass lump, etc.

Still, there's loads of little bits of background between reeds and grass/plant/branch shapes are way too complex to manually select. It takes ages using magnetic or polygonal lasso tool, and outcome isn't still good. I tried to select by color range, but it works in ways of inhuman knowledge, I couldn't select grass greens so it wouldn't horribly antialias edges and make large loads of green color semi-transparent. Of course, magic wand tool wouldn't help here either, I could cut grass out, but all edges would be like little bugs had a big feast eating grass - full of little holes. Going manual to fix this would be more trouble than it's worth.

How would you cut out a really complex shape easily in Photoshop (CS2)?

I recall seeing a demo version of some kind of PS plugin that processed image, finding all similar colors and dividing whole photo into single-color portions for easy selection, and it worked like magic!
...but I can't recall name... maybe someone knows it or something similar? The link I saw was most likely here, at AGS, but it was long time ago.

Help me, please.

PS: of course I did Google for tutorials and plugins. Fact is, all selection tutorials are for much, much simpler cases and plugins, well, didn't find anything that would ensure me that buying this would solve even half of the problem.

And the apartment level... The jumping on that game is horrible. Died a lot on those parts. There's one part in particular, where you're on the side of a building, and suddenly a van pulls up and out jumps 5 or 6 guys, who just unload on you. There is no cover, so you have to make your way down this thing while they shoot at you. By the time you actually get down, you have such a low chance of surviving unless you can rack up bullet time fast enough.

That's what the bullet time is for. As soon as van gets there, throw a nade/molotov, after it explodes, switch to bullet time and wipe out any survivors.
But yes, apartment level was trial-and-error at most points.

[Stronghold]

Stronghold series have insane difficulty level. Thing is, in latter games, only way to win is by exploiting shortages in AI and bugs (Like blocking enemy gate with ox tether, using "attack here" to make catapults shoot further or making a moat maze, since enemy never fills in moats when there's a path... Even if this digging-free path leads seventeen circles forth and back through arrow/mangonel fire and is moistured with very flammable pitch!!!).
For many scenarios there's no way to win "normally", play a game without being remember that you're human and against AI in every move. Don't get me wrong, I'm in love with this game.

Since there's no better way (yet) to put some sharp arrows into screaming peasants while building a castle into dark forests, I will always love Stronghold (especially Crusader), but difficulty and lack of AI is really annoying.

Only exception is Stronghold Legends, which I don't play, since it's fucked up from first code line. This game takes "annoying" to the next level, and should be described with stronger language than "annoying". Yesterday I picked it up again... Got stuck in 4th or 5th mission.
And so bad, I memlocked gold so I had infinite, trying to win this one, and even having unlimited gold I still got beaten like a sick dog. So long, Legends, you won't never find your way back to my machine.

Ghost Recon games are insanely bad. Even though there's cult-like followers claiming it's the best shooter ever, I never saw this. First games are about walking until direct bullet hit from unknown location ends it in a second, Advanced Warfighter games are a bit better, but have same theme plus need to exploit weaknesses of bad AI code.

One thing is hard game (Contra?) you can master in time, but digital masochism is way another thing.
I really tried to like it. I spent, like, 3 months trying to beat first game. Years later, I did beat AW I and II. It left me empty and disappointed.
I love a realistic game. I like a shooter. But Tom Clancy's Duck Hunt (starring player as blind, paralyzed duck)?
No thank you.

Art of Fighting 2 on arcade/Neo-Geo. Not many people can claim that they've ever beaten this game. I still play it occasionally, it's IMO best 2D fighter ever made, and bruising up (literally!) some bastards after hard day is really satisfying. But not many people make it even to 3rd opponent at easiest (level-1) difficulty. There's like, 50/50 chance that I, even been playing this for over 10 years, can still get beaten by first opponent without even sustaining him/her any damage. Damn!

World of Warcraft....
...
"The real fun starts once you make it to level 70"
Really? How can anyone get through this mess of a RPG so long? And what "fun" starts then? Quests and "storyline" won't be lame excuse for more grinding and letter deliveries anymore? Yeah right.
I will never ever make it to level 40. I simply get dead bored and annoyed after level 20, when levelling up drops to turtle pace. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was only RPG that ever had story-driven, interesting quests. And even this was killed with badly planned gameplay, such as city-size dungeons with billion monsters and no reward of any kind ("6 Gold, yippee!"), etc.

Commandos series. I love them and hate them. They can be mastered, but they are SO diffiiicuuult!!!
Ah, and Commandos 3. That's one hell of a letdown. I regret I ever tried this, world would be better place for me if I knew that there's 3rd game somewhere and it could be as wonderful as second game was. Sadly, I broke this illusion by really trying Commandos 3.

Civilization (ANY, especially IV) makes me always angry: I evolve from dark ages to a tech dream, have most horrid weapons ever developed and ready to wipe all other civilizations to dust. I've built largest cities, explored all tech available. Let the destruction commence...
...50 turns left!
WTF?!

Sure, you can skip time victory and play further, but "no score recorded" and... well, I don't wanna. It's not "right" anymore.

And generally, any games (RTS usually) that force you to accept heavy losses. I always want to play perfectly, have unbeatable defense, make a superb, overwhelming offensive. As most perfectionists.
Some games, such as mentioned Stronghold, are done so in the end of the mission, you have only ruins and three wounded units left. It's like - needed, goes with story. Why?

I could go on, but those are worst ones I could remember.

I like it quite much. Very functional, yet simple AND good-looking. Sounds like ultimate formula to get some games done!

What I would whine about is color: there's almost no color!

First image has 3 colors total and second one - 4 (green, blue, black, brown)... where's rest of palette?  This is enough to make cartoony, beautiful graphics, but not enough to make it look interesting aswell...

So put more palette into it, it isn't CGA era anymore!
But to not turn this into color battle, use more low-saturation tones, everything you've used (apart from upper sky) is very highly saturated. Not best idea IMO.

About font: It isn't the most horrid one to read, and anything's better than leaving font to default (there's WAY too much same old font in AGS games), but "kerning" or horisontal spacing or however it's called is way too big IMO. It's, like, too wide. Other fonts usually have letters together. Here, even a short word makes a loooong line. That's what makes it uncomfortable for me. Maybe you can fix it without font change? Probably not in AGS though.

EDIT: noticed that it's really not spacing, but letter themselves are horisontally very long (wide).