Messages

I'm confused.

...

No, seriously.

https://boingboing.net/2024/07/11/ai-tool-generates-fake-painting-timelapses-lets-cat-out-of-bag.html

Nothing to see here! No sir!

Well, WAVs are uncompressed, so using them will result in a larger game size.

320kbps MP3s will be smaller, and the loss of of quality will be so infinitesimal (as to be almost non-existent) that it makes no sense to use WAV. Heck, you could even drop to 128kbps, and you probably still wouldn't notice much difference.

I can't believe that James Cameron signed off on these (though, as highlighted in the video, he really didn't seem to give a shit) but it's proof that "cheaper" trumps "better" every time, when AI is involved.

On this french website Gabriel Knight : Sins of the Father is free to download, perhaps at least the french edition is "abandonware"...

No, the entire Gabriel Knight series is still available on Steam, so the copyright on the IP is still very much in effect, regardless of region. Jane Jensen herself has commented on the difficulties of trying to obtain permission to continue the series from Activision as recently as 2022.

So we can definitely mark that one as still in effect.

In fact, looking at Steam:

Space Quest
Police Quest
King's Quest
Quest for Glory
Leisure Suit Larry

It's fairly safe to say that the IP for those titles is ongoing.

Oh it definitely "includes things from space quest" it's just not going to have roger wilco mopfighting sludge vohaul in front of a phleebutt sunrise on the box.

If you're using actual assets from the games in question, you'd probably be looking at copyright infringement, rather than trademark infringement. Using trademarked terms, names or logos could, in theory, be avoided though clever writing and design, or perhaps even fall under parody. But the use of copyrighted assets would negate that possibility.

Look, I'm going to jump in my time machine and zip forward to the end of this conversation.

...

Alright, I'm here.

*cough*

Make your game, but be aware that it could be shutdown at any moment. If you broadcast the fact that you're making it, you increase the risk that it may be C+D'ed. If you manage to release it, you may be told to remove it at any point. In both situations, you will have NO recourse but to obey. If you connect it in any way to requests for money ("Hey, I'm making this free game, but you can join my Patreon, etc, etc") it's HIGHLY LIKELY you WILL BE shutdown.

Having said that, if you just make the game and put it out there, there's a good chance absolutely nothing will happen. The worst legal outcome is that a representative of the copyright holder will send you a boilerplate C+D letter asking you to stop distributing the game. You'll have lost the time and energy you put into making the game, but it'll likely go no further, providing you do indeed remove the game from distribution.

There really isn't anything else to say.

From the movie "The Heroic Trio".

Sierra won't be doing squat, because Sierra doesn't exist anymore. The company that initially bought them doesn't exist anymore, having been eaten by Activision. The Quest games probably still belong to Activision. Leisure Suit Larry was sold to Codemasters, and then to someone else.

But the rights to lesser known series or one-off games like Codename: Iceman, or Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist? I'd hazard a guess that they're buried somewhere in the bowels of Activision Blizzard, probably right next to the No One Lives For Ever license.

Regardless, nobody really gets sued over fan games. At worse, you might get a cease-and-desist letter from some lawyer, which is usually what does happen, if anything happens at all.

EDIT:  The Gabriel Knight IP also still resides with Activision Blizzard, it seems. I think we can take it as likely that most of the rest still do as well.

[Guido & Maurizio de Angelis]

Very, very cool stuff in general!

Indeed. Unfortunately, Spotify, and most streaming services in fact, lack a substantial amount of soundtracks for a number of key Italian composers. For instance, both Spotify's and Apple's Guido & Maurizio de Angelis offerings are noticeably lacking, although they do have a few choice tracks, such as...

But, conversely, they don't have...

Or Keoma, which is...oh, man...so f'kin amazing. I'm serious; listen to it, and at first I guarantee you'll be like "What? Wait...What?", and then you'll immediately fall in love with it. For a soundtrack that has been widely ridiculed, both at the time of the movie's release and even today, I think it's a masterpiece, and up there with the soundtrack for McCabe and Mrs. Miller (which is what Keoma's producers told the composers to ape.)

A fair few Nico Fidenco soundtracks don't seem to be available, such as his Black Emanuelle scores, which contain some great music...

I recently bought a German "mediabook" blu-ray of Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals specifically because it came with a soundtrack CD, and it's just...(chef's kiss).


I'm always on the lookout for giallo soundtracks, and one which seems to not have any sort of digital release (at least not that I can find) is Trans Europa Express' soundtrack for Il gatto dagli occhi di giada...

Or Stelvio Cipriani's super-lounge soundtrack for L'Iguana dalla lingua di fuoco, which I love for two reasons; one, because I love Cipriani in general, and two because that particular giallo was shot in Ireland, and features a number of shots of my hometown, and a number of Dublin landmarks (such as Davy Byrne's pub on Duke Street!) are featured in it!

Cipriani's fantastic soundtrack for Blindman is, thankfully, widely available...

I tend to ramble on about Italian movies/soundtracks whenever the topic is even hinted at, like an answer to a question nobody asked...so apologies if this post is a little long.


EDIT: All these movies are worth watching, by the way, though your mileage may vary...

Haha, my Italian summer vibe is a lot more chill and a lot less disco than this

Gianfranco Plenizio did a bunch of movie soundtracks that are well worth checking out. Most of them are on Spotify, if you have access to it. Django Strikes Back is a particular favorite.

Anyhoo, I'm feeling quite Irish at the moment...

I once saw Sinead sitting in a restaurant in Dun Laoghaire; I was outside, walking past, and she was looking out the window. We made eye contact. Not the greatest story, but, when she died, I remembered that moment. She was a very special person. And The Lion and the Cobra is a great album.

Ah, the ha'penny bridge...I love this video because it reminds me of so many Dublin landmarks...and Phil was so f'in cool! Despite being deep into a heroin addiction (that would claim his life four years later), The Philip Lynott Album, on which this track features, is a testament (one of many) to his talents.

I know I posted this before, but bear with me. The National Prayer Breakfast were one of those bands that seemed to disappear into the ether (an interesting article by one of the members is here). Feeding Frenzy became the unofficial theme for a Dublin pirate radio station, Phantom 105.2, and as such holds a special place in many Dubliner's hearts.

I get quite emotional when I drink (if it's Saturday night, Fish is drinking!), but, as I said, I'm feeling very Irish at the moment. There's so many more I could post, but perhaps I'll save them for another time.

EDIT: Actually, here's Cork's The Sultans of Ping F.C. with a stone cold Irish classic...

Ah the Gameboy Colour... I still have mine. And the box it came in. And all of the games. And all of those game boxes. And all of the manuals. All in almost pristine condition as well. (Am I sitting on a gold mine?)

Yes. Yes you are.

...

Maybe...

Buying and selling Gameboy games is apparently a minefield, and everybody is suspicious of everybody else, due to the amount of fake cartridges floating around. But authentic boxed games in very good condition can fetch hundreds of euro/dollars, depending on the titles. Even boxes and/or manuals can fetch decent prices, without the cartridge.

You can use a pricing website to gauge how much a game is worth, such as this random one here.

Nice!

I still have a bunch of GB/GBC carts...somewhere. Off the top of my head, uh, Metal Gear Solid, The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, Link's Awakening DX, Perfect Dark, Star Wars Racer, Pokemon Pinball, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, a really battered copy of Super Mario Land, maybe more. Some are boxed (MGS, the Zeldas, the Pokemon, and Perfect Dark), the others were bought as ex-rentals (I think). All were obtained during the GBC's original lifetime, and I owned more (Azure Dreams, R-TYPE DX, Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, Resident Evil Gaiden, Alone in the Dark, etc.) but these were traded-in, somewhere back in the mists of time.

Seeing Pokemon Pinball in your picture, reminded me of the built-in "rumble" those lumpy carts had. For such a limited system, the feedback in Pokemon Pinball, and especially in Star Wars Racer, was actually really well done. Perfect Dark was less impressive.

My purple GBC disappeared way, way, back, but I still have my original GBA (jet black, Toys'R'us exclusive, apparently ) purchased in...cheezus, when was it? 2002? I'm actually lucky to still have that GBA, as I had a hard case that I usually kept it in, along with a few carts, and that case vanished into the ether during a house move, along with the carts inside. It still bugs me that I can remember the exact carts, too; Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Golden Sun, Columns Crown, and the copy of Super Mario Advance 2 that came with my GBA. But I had, for some reason, put the GBA itself back in it's original box before the move. So it remains.

https://boingboing.net/2024/05/24/googles-ai-enhanced-search-suggests-users-add-glue-to-their-pizza-and-eat-one-small-rock-a-day.html

Ah, yes. Madness, the...etc, etc...

https://boingboing.net/2024/05/20/scarlett-johansson-denied-openai-the-right-to-use-her-voice-for-chatgpt-they-used-it-anyway.html

Ah, yes. Thievery, the cornerstone of AI.

80s Europop:

90s Iggy Pop:

Crazy Roboto Pop (I also find it hilarious that Dennis DeYoung sings "I am the modern man" as "I am the modren man" which is how I pronounced modern when I was growing up!):

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/stellaris-director-insists-ethical-use-of-ai-is-very-important-to-us-after-generating-voices-in-latest-dlc

Ah, yes. Ethics, the cornerstone of capitalism.

And thank you, for the kind words. 

Along with the two finished games in the database, which used the Panorama module, you can see the Panorama3D module in action in the short teaser game I made for an MAGS competition some years (fourteen!) back, which you can find at the Internet Archive.

As for the unreleased third "Wound Vignette", I was just never happy with it. Like the first two, it was made with the original Panorama module, but this time, while it was still set in a single location, it utilized six panoramic images to give the impression of moving between certain areas of that location. It had little to no puzzle elements, primarily being story and exposition dumps. I found that I had a hard time justifying it as a "game", and so it was quietly filed away.

"The Hallow" never got beyond the prototype phase, although that prototype was shown at a AGS gathering some years back. It was so far from being a completed game, though, that there really wouldn't be much to release, save for a dozen or so backgrounds and an intro sequence.

Right, well, I do actually remember. I suck at coding, and, yes, I couldn't find out why @overhotspot@ didn't seem to work when starting a game from scratch. And since I suck (so hard!) at coding, I took the cowards way out and simply built my games around the demo panorama game, in which @overhotspot@ worked flawlessly.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Panorama modules are amazingly simple to get running; SteveMcRea's modules were always fantastically user-friendly, and the Panorama modules are no exception. And I'm more than positive it was a lack of understanding on my part as to why I couldn't get @overhotspot@ working properly. But, as I said, the demo game works, so...

It's been, what, eighteen years (Christ, I'm old!) since the Panorama module was released? It wasn't used much, maybe once or twice, beyond my own games, and I always assumed it was because not everybody had access to the 3D programs to render out the backgrounds required. But I've always also felt kind of annoyed that SteveMcrea went to the trouble of creating these modules, only for them to be used in so few games. Again, it's understandable that not everybody would be fluent in the various 3D packages required to make proper 360 degree backgrounds, but still...

So, as a hopeless script jockey, I suggest that anybody who is having trouble getting @overhotspot@ to work out of the box, look to the demo game; and if you still can't figure out why @overhotspot@ won't work, well...build you game around the demo game provided? I'm sure Steve won't mind.

As to using several backgrounds in a game (moving from one viewpoint to another) it's relatively simply, and any hotspot with a "cEgo.changeroom" command will work. The final "Wound Vignette" actually exists (completed in...2011?...2012?...though it was never released) and it features half a dozen panoramas linked by simple "cEgo.changeroom" commands. As long as you use the correct "Panorama.Enable" and "Panorama.Disable" commands, you can move between multiple backgrounds with ease.

/reaches for bottle of rum...

Mmmm...

So, yeah, I hope that helps.

Running 11 Pro, and I've never had any interference from Defender when running AGS, AGS games, or compiling and running AGS games.

Installed AGS 3.6.1 just to see, but still no problems.

As usual, Defender did chirp when I ran the AGS installer, flagging it with the "Unknown Publisher" alert, but it generally does that (inconsistently) with installers. Some trigger it, some don't.

I like this a lot, and I was particularly impressed at how it managed to avoid a lot of the tropes of the genre.

As someone who suffers from mental health issues myself, I'm hope that developing the game was beneficial for you, and I hope to see more from you in the future.

I must admit I'm beginning to get really scared now Real musicians or people with a big music interest they'll hear something is off, but that's in the minority these days

And then there will be that discussion about supporting real composers that make music but, at this point, how do I know they didn't use AI to make their music?

I don't even think it's a case of AI becoming so good it's indistinguishable from the real deal. It's more about the vested interests behind AI trying to convince us that what they are producing is good enough as is. That there is no real difference in quality between art and AI art; it just looks a little off because we aren't used to it yet. Look at the video I posted; somebody decided that it was good enough to put out as is, despite it being hilariously inept. They don't care what it looks like, they only care if it will be accepted and consumed. And if it is, why even strive to make it "better"?

AI is a scam, and scammers are lazy. If the manpower, and cost, required in producing AI content outweighs the benefit of the scam, then it makes the scam seem more like work, and the scammers will split.

I predict you'll see a number of previously vocal AI supporters slowly lose interest in it (like NFTs, like crypto) as it becomes clear that it's not going to pay out they way they want it to.

EDIT: And the reason why we catch AI art so quickly is that the people producing it can't tell the difference. It's why they feel confident posting artwork without disclosing that it's AI; because it looks like real art to them, since they lack any form of critical or creative ability.

As always, fuck AI.