Messages

Hi there,

nice game except for the annoying asteroids game.
Can someone tell me how to get past them?
I get hit every time, reload only to get hit again.
Is it time-dependent or do have have to navigate the
shuttle to a certain point of the screen?
Any hint is welcome!

Cheers and thanks
I a L

I did it by putting my shuttle in the lower left corner and leave it there. It won't work every time but I found it the easiest way. With a couple of tries you should be able to reach the next station.

I've just made the blast walls appear, and I have no idea on what to do next! Any hints?

Remove them again... 

Spoiler

You need to blast them ... hence the name... 

[close]

I'm sure you missed this. When you take the radiation blocker device, go and show it to Kohen.

Then you should be playing the arcade as soon as you enter the bar because when you do it after Kohen drops his card, he's gone. So I never came up with that idea. I'll change the WT.

Congratulations! I just played CQ1 to be sure to get this one. Thought some of the puzzles there were a bit far fetched (the pixel hunts, the overdone mask ... why not five rows of 9 digits, more then enough.. etc) and I thought the comments on that game were obvious.

So I thought you'd learned from that and guess what: you didn't! Again the crazy long mask search (ok 4 positions instead of 6 digits only this time, but again count to 20?!?) and the deactivation of the robot. How are we supposed to know that MGN is Magnetic? What do the others mean? And that the level means the sensitivity level (ok, maybe I could have found that out but hey... some explanation wouldn't hurt here..)

Graphics are good, story is good (as far as I got at the moment..), music is good but the puzzles..... they don't fit the game.

I'm affraid that this frustration sets the mood for the hole game which is a shame because all the rest is very well done!

Great game. Congratualtions!

Loved every BIT of it. Graphics, sounds. Right length, right puzzles. Not too hard, not too easy, just right!
Please don't do a sequel. There are enough sequels already and this game is great the way it is. Just because there's only one. Make more of those unique, creative and brilliant little games though. So if you have another 3 days to spare...

just hit F5 to save and F8, I think, to load.

Nope, F5 to save, F7 to load.

Sorry about that, it was unintentional. I adjusted my comment. Never thought of it really as a spoiler. But you're right.

... and dont have any ammo.

Spoiler

You can always refill in the basement, right? What I think is more odd is that after the light goes out, Ellie starts to scream and you empty your gun into the room. Looking at your inventory, you still have 40 shells....?

[close]

I started from scratch and there are some serious continuity bugs...:

- I could create a timebomb without having to get the timer and powerpack first.
- I completely missed the sequence with the manual & switches in the control room. Now that I've seen it, I understand the reboot.
- As soon as I hear the explosion the 'dude' just stands there with me asking: Is he dead? I didn't even touch the guy. He keeps appearing once in a while....

Ok so now I understand the bug with the dude. The only time I encounter him is when I leave the power room. He comes running after me and all I can do is turn around and say Oh Shit. My gun doesn't seem to work here, although I have enough time (but I can't really tell whether I selected the gun or not...)

Or should I run from him and leave it? It's just that I now don't know when it's a bug or when it's a real encounter.

I understand how the doors work now. It's just that I always play in windowed mode so I don't want to use the edges too much. But then again, it's something I can get used to if I play long enough.

Ok, I've played around a bit and here are my thoughts:

- The story is good. The environment is certainly big enough for more stories, even if they're not directly related. So it could well be transformed into a series (how many are planned at the moment?)
- It's a love/hate thing. The graphics aren't super but that's what also attractive about it. It reminds me of the space quest 2/3 times...
- The voices aren't bad but when sentences get longer, the end of the lines fade away making them unhearable so subtitles can't be missed.
- The controls are terrible! Even after playing three times, I still mix up left and right. Somehow it hasn't the natural feel.
- The door are horrible. When I click on a door, I expect them to open. Now I have to click just before, wait for it to open and click just after the door, which in some cases is very difficult with limited space.
- Why isn't everything usable from the start? A lot of elevators give me the message: not now, I should get moving. Only after a certain event, a certain elevator can be used... frustrating! (Also the panel to the control room. Why is it working all of a sudden?)
- I can't see which object I'm using. Taking it from the inventory doesn't give me any feedback at all. (It took me some time to open the footlocker...).

Some technical issues:
- animation of the elevator doesn't go smoothly.
- I can get behind the cargo bay door. Just step to it without pushing the switch.
- When I leave the control room,I heard an explosion. 'The Dude' is standing there, motionless.  I can't do anything with him, I only get the message: is he dead? Entering the control room again and leaving made him dissappear...
- Double clicking an item has a different effect. Where does the timer come from with the explosives? <figured this one out.... think it's a bug since I didn't even had the communication crate open until long after>
- Filling the gun with bullets again doesn't give any feedback. I look at the supplies and all of a sudden my gun has 40 bullets again...

Storyline:
- I've disabled all controls, yet the elevator in C3 can still be used?
- What happened in the main corridor, in between C3's? I can't step beyond the yellow lines but get no feedback either...
- How did the power get restored? I can't remember doing anything yet I can use the main computer all of a sudden?


Typo's:
Talking to Ellie in Hypersleep Chamber - No, no, it's truly a pleaure --> pleasure
Looking at gun: All members of all shipt --> ships
Leaving C1 after finding Ellie & talking to the captain - There's certainly an intruded on board --> intruder
Taking the elevator outside the controlroom, downstairs it says SINGN --> SIGN.
Looking at the rust: It wont go away --> won't
Using the crate: I don't need a trasmitter --> transmitter
Looking at the sabotaged button: It wont work --> won't
Looking at the gap in the pod: I cant fix it --> can't
Looking at the logs of hypersleep chambers: It's a diagram.. hyperslepp --> hypersleep.
Looking at the manual control throttle: the ship's runningn --> running



I'm lost at the moment. Too little feedback of my actions and too little hints on what to do. I'm sure I have to open the container in C3 but so far I could only use dynamite (which didn't do much good..).
The Dude shows up now and then and can be taken care of, but I'm unsure about his status. Once shot, I don't get any feedback on him.... (Is he dead?)
At the moment I'm not sure if it's the buginess of the game that stops me from progressing or am I really missing something?

As a resume..... there are still some points to work at but it has a good potential for a series. Provided that the storyline stays unique and doesn't get too much influenced by other space-quest like games, it's a well done job! Congratulations and I can't wait to see the progression in #2.

This is a very nice game, but where do I find the inventory button?  .  .

It's the bar on top of the screen. By default it'll show your gun (40). Items you find will be added there.

If I can get rapidshare to work, I'll sure have a look at it. So far no luck.

Rui, thanks for the offer. I might use it soon.

And concerning the UHS, I've had a look at it. There are several (freeware) utilities for that but it's not my favourite. You always get the spoiler even by reading the headers. The same goes for a walkthrough. You can't do with them, sometimes you can't do without. Besides it's more intensive to write a UHS file than it is to write a walkthrough.

So what I'm working on is the human hint system: a forum like system where you can ask your question where your problem is (more or less the hints & tips of AGS).
You can use it in two ways: 1: ask your question if you don't want the spoilers. I don't mind answering questions more than once. 2: search the previous asked questions with the risk of reading the answers you don't want to see yet (the current hints & tips of AGS).

Also it's going to be possible to upload your savegame so we can be at the same point you're stuck. That way you can also easier find bugs (if any occur).

What you'll eventually get is a knowledge base of questions and the point people get stuck. That way you don't have to hint the obvious and you don't have to think of all the points one could go wrong, risking missing a few (and missing your goal).

The walkthroughs you can read right now are the basics for that human knowledge system 

To explain my activities:

I'm trying to create an index of games made with AGS. Since some post them in the Completed Games, some in the Games Database, some in the MAGS threads, some in the competition threads (OROW, 1Hour etc.), it's very hard to find out whether a game exists or not.

There's not much structure or moderation in the games database nor in the games archive. All is voluntairy based and everyone can create his/her own entries. This freedom is good on one hand, on the other it creates chaos and eventually misses it's goal. What is a short game for one, is a long one for another. What's a joke to one, isn't for another (I remember a recent entry of Fsi under full-length games what easily could be joke or short game, certainly not full-length).

So here's what I did:

1: I took an output of the Games Database. Then I searched for the games (physical files) mentioned in that database.  A lot of them have either broken links or no links at all. Searching the completed announcements helped a lot because other links were often mentioned there.
2: I took the lists found on the web, mostly on the americangirlscouts with the year lists. and added them to the list after filtering for dups.
3: I took the threads from the competition forum and checked the OROW entries (so far only four so quite managable) and searched the physical files. Searching these threads were also intensive since there's no structure in the OROW entries. Also dups were filtered because some entries are also in the DB and not mentioned as OROW (take Vince XII's ANNA for instance).
4: The same with the hour games. Even more games and even less structured but ok.
5: I worked through the mags-competition.tk site and searched all files to go with the entries. Again I searched the completed games forums since a number of entries in the MAGS, were never put in the DB or completed threads. Furthermore are there missing links on the mags site for games that do exist on the archive server or elsewhere on private shares.

A lot of files come from http://aafiles.bicycle-for-slugs.org/, the semi official archive.
I made an index of that server to search easier. There's not much structure there allthough the several folders should indicate otherwise. The biggest problem lies in the fact that there's a location for users (incoming) and a location for the archive (full/hour/mags etc). But where to find the file you want? Names aren't always very clear (i.e. which game's called dlrt2.rar?) and how to find a game in the incoming section when you don't know the author?
And I noticed more files with the name 1hour/hour/onehour etc so which game is that (same goes for the mags part). Who does the 'moderation' of the names or keep the index?

So when you take away the files you're looking for mentioned above (under 1-5), the remainder on that server needs to be of somewhere else. Sometimes these are the misspelled, sometimes these are deleted entries in the forum/games db etc. To find out more about these files I search all forums.

That all together is a dirty job, but hey someone.... ;-)

The end result should be about 900 non-commercial games. These are of all categories, excluding the demo's. All other entries are listed. Of about 95% I've found the original game files and stored them in my personal, offline archive with commonsense names, registered in my own database with author, filename, category (multiple for 1 game and only added after I played the game), year of production and once played, the solution to the game.

You can view them here (#/f), here (g-p), or here (q-z) for now.

At the moment it's just an overview and only indexed on gamename, searchable with ALT-F. Maybe other functionalities later on. It's still work in progress and the online version isn't realtime. So my local archive holds even more entries than you can see right now. The ultimate result would be a 100% coverage with a 100% working links.

In my opinion that can only be reached through moderation and official archiving (every entry of a competition, every completed game announcement etc). But that's another discussion and someone should be willing to do that. And then I didn't even start talking about version control. (What happens when an author updates a game with another version?)

Enough to talk about! Let's play some games.

@Pumaman, thnx. No worries, I'll see it back sometime...
@SSH, thnx. Nice to know you can search that way but I'm not that desperate. 

Hope it wasn't me:

if somebody does a search the forum grinds to a halt for everyone else.

I use the function quite a lot.

 :o I'd be happy with 1 mil. already.....

Wheeelp! I'm working on an index of AGS games and one of the most used function is the search.....
I can't search throught the forums anymore? What happened?

Gaaaah I can't figure out how to control the magnet (if there's anything at all to be figured out). Somebody help!

Not sure what you mean by that but...

Spoiler

Give the book to Widebeard, telling him that you can help him. That'll keep him for a while. Pick up the pebbles next to you and throw them on the bell. As soon as the bell sounds, pull the lever next to you. Use the round buttons to move the magnet. Try to get the magnet over Widebeard.

[close]

And if you want to know the sequence of the magnet from the default position:

Spoiler

2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 3, 2 and 1.

[close]

Wow, looking good. Might be a nice alternative for all those adventures... I've played this a lot with 'real' dice.
I'll give this one a try as well.

Good work!.

by the way: Quadruple or Quadrupel or both?

Allright, I played A Walk In The Park and here are my notes:

A very nice game. Although I'm not a huge fan of the character type (I have my specs on but couldn't tell if Andrew was boy or girl, other then by the name) it didn't bother me in the game. They do very well in their environment. The interface with menu is very well done.

Because of the beautiful graphical nature of the game, I was a bit disappointed the way the wind blew away the pieces of paper. I'd expected some sort of animation here instead of just text. The bird on the other hand was perfect, the way pixelhunting was avoided.

Then there's the dialogs. It confused me that you start conversation by looking at people and that the same conversation options returns when you talk to them. To be very picky, when talking to Mr. Sweets, you get the option to ask for the book. He agrees that you can have it. Then when you want to take the book, you ask it again...?

You could have extended the gameplay a bit more by using more pieces of paper (the bin, the bush, in the book etc) and make a real puzzle game at the end to recreate the message. Maybe somethin for a next game, because I certainly like to see more of this kind, but with a bit more difficult puzzles and a bit longer story.

Well done!

by the way, there's a typo in the end sequence outside the park: undestand --> understand.