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It's a myth that teenagers are per se (mentally) fragile.

Then my argument doesn't stand as such. Ill effect of cannabis on mental health still shouldn't be discarded altogether when making a cost/benefit analysis.

As it's been said already, food consumption isn't prohibited, just because it can lead to obesity (which is VERY unhealthy). Why isn't it forbidden? Because it would be crazy.

If people don't eat, they die. If people don't smoke... my, there's a chance they could live longer! Why isn't McDonald's banned? Money. They're a big company and employ a lot of people. That's always the crux of the matter, isn't it? That doesn't prevent my government for campaigning in favour of eating 5 fruits and vegetables per day. Oh the horror! They're meddling!

What should people think who like weed and don't like alcohol? They have to get an illegal drug from the street, while others have fun in bars and can buy their legal drugs everywhere. Isn't that a bit unfair?

And I can't have my daily fix of heroin legally! So unfair! If you are for legalizing every substance then your position is coherent. Are you?

Seconded. People should have the right to damage themselves (regardless of how stupid it might be).

Then any public health campaign is pointless?

Why should there be a problem with legalizing it then? Instead, I only see advantages, like better quality, less (drug related) crime, more tax income...

Organized crime rarely deals only in cannabis, as far as I know. Again, let's legalize hard drugs to step on the dealers' turf?

I see you bring up tax income. Over here, the government started cracking down on tobacco fairly recently. Why the shift? Because the cost of all the medical problems caused by smoking finally outweighed any benefit in tax income. Legalizing cannabis means more smoking-related diseases (breathing smoke = not good), will the tax income outweigh that?

And actually, not everybody that would potentially smoke weed if it was legalized smokes it now. I'm an occasional smoker. If cannabis was legalized, I'd do it. But for the amount of smoking I do, getting cigarettes instead is less of a hassle. And I know a good deal of people that simply don't break the law when it come to buying illegal stuff. Crazy people.

Marijuana is [in my opinion] less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes (or chlorine) so it doesn't make sense for it to be illegal when those others aren't.

I really don't get that kind of argument. Snorting bleach is certainly more harmful than snorting cocaine, let's legalize cocaine? The last trendy thing in clubs is to drink industrial solvents to get high, apparently. Do we legalize all hard drugs because the solvent kills you faster than them?

If you start reasoning like that, you just end up legalizing everything. And when you see how unreasonable people can be, that can't turn out in a good way.

I doubt that a drug simply causes things like shizophrenia, unless the person already had mental problems.

Did you just ignore half of my sentence or is the meaning of "exacerbate" unclear?

Let me explain my train of thought better on that one:
Who smokes irresponsibly because it's cool (tobacco and/or pot)? Teenagers. Who's mentally fragile? Teenagers as well. Is it a good idea to give teenagers a drug that would potentially aggravate any mental problems they have? (If that reasoning is wrong, enlighten me.)

If there is a risk to public health, it's the government's problem. They are campaigning against tobacco, alcohol and junk food where I live. For the freedom of reasonable adults to smoke their fortnightly joint we should let teens be heavy smokers with possibly disastrous consequences? Hence 'tread carefully'.

You can call that stance hypocritical given that alcohol and tobacco are legal. But that's exactly what makes this problematic different. Instead of the "worse things are legal" argument, you should examine the benefits / disadvantages of legalizing cannabis without shaky comparisons to other drugs. I hear all of you on the possible benefits, just pointing out what in my opinion is a possibly very big disadvantage here.

There are over 400,000 tobacco related deaths each year. [source] *

Given that marijuana is often smoked in conjuction with tobacco, that can easily become an argument against it. And breathing smoke in general just can be good for your lungs, no matter what you smoke.

Anyway, what I find worrying about possible findings on cannabis is that it would allegedly exacerbate existing mental conditions or render more likely to develop one, schizophrenia being the example that was given. Maybe the physical effects are less dangerous than that of tobacco or arcohol but that doesn't mean effects on mental health should be treated lightly. Governments should tread carefully, is all I'm saying.

Well, legalizing cannabis would at least make all the ongoing research on its effects easier.

Is it? My mom used to take me to a doctor that dealt in homeopathy when I was a kid, I don't remember him saying anything like that.

Anyway, she took me there when I had a cold. Seeing how incredibly efficient medicine is against viruses, homeopathy is just as good and yummier. The other doctors around systematically gave out antibiotics. I think I prefer the alternative of little sugary balls and placebo effect.

Mass is very tiny so you can cross out mass in e=mc²? I don't think that's how mass works, but more importantly, that's definitely not how multiplication works. But hey, what do I know? Stopped watching after that.

The basis of homeopathy is to dilute medicine so as to a give you a single molecule of aspirin, or whatever your drug is, to avoid waste (I'm not qualified to say whether this idea is silly or not). But it's usually diluted too much and you end up with just water.

There's something wrong with his sleeves, I think. And his face. I messed up coloring his shoe properly, please disregard that.

Any remarks on the shading would be greatly appreciated but all comments are welcome, really.



Next step is teaching him how to walk, open doors, bend down, swim, mend socks, ...  so I'd like to have a clean base as a reference.

I've been waiting for this. I loved the demo I played a while back. It's great to hear the game is nearing completion!

I've just a regular cold. *achoo*
I wanna be cool and have the swine flu.

If it was offered, I'd definitely consider it as a design option. As of now, I'm content with using items on the characters to prompt speech.

This is seriously lacking depth.

It can be a style, but coupled with the problems in proportions... Your street lamp is four floors tall and incredibly fat, judging from the building's size. That doesn't look like a hole but like a black and orange stain. (Lack of depth, again.)

No offense, but that's closer to "programmer's art" than to a background usable in a game.

Where does the blue-ish tint come from ? If it's from the neon above the door, you'll notice that it's not lit.
See : A neon.
The neon is the brightest part and the light radiates around it. The blue tint doesn't randomly come from the top-left corner of the photograph. And the projected light is not as blinding as what you have on your picture. Light effects can be a big plus... if they're done well.

As for contrast, GIMP handles layers, right? Use a layer but change its opacity and its blending mode (to incrustation, I think? I don't know Photoshop all that well and GIMP even less) and use a large brush to define large zones of shadow and light on your picture. For smaller shadowy areas, I select my colours by hand.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that the last version is an improvement from the first. Upon re-reading my message, it sounds a tad harsh.

InventoryItem is the correct type, I don't think Inventory actually exists.

Your method is neater but maybe the topic creator has a specific reason not to handle money in the inventory. (Or not.  )

[scenarist]

Hi everybody,

So, I have was given a general idea for a game from somebody who has sadly been run over by a bus. Or left the internet. Whatever.

Thing is, I kinda like the general theme and this could unfold into a Phantasmagoria-ish kind of game (main character moves to a new place, bad stuff happens, etc.). My problem is that I know where the story starts, I've a vague idea of where it ends, but I've no idea what happens in between.

That's why I'm looking for a scenarist and a game-designer (if you can be both, that's even better) to help me out with this. Bear in mind I only have an overall theme and maybe some gameplay ideas, all open for debate, so you'll have to build up that world all on your own. Or bounce ideas with me, whatever sounds good.

If anybody is interested, pm me.

To the best of my knowledge, that's not possible. 

You can access the Name and ID properties of inventory items, but not the scripting name. Maybe you could make a loop check over the inventory array until you find the name (not the scripting one) of your item, but that doesn't seem practical.

Why not use two arguments for your function instead?

Code: ags

function Func_Roc_Searching(bool type, int number) {
  if (type) { // Let's say that's for money
    GiveMoney(number);
  } 
  else {
    player.AddInventory(inventory[number]);  // And here is for items
    PlaySound(4);
  } 
...
}

I've no idea if that's applicable to what you're doing or not. (And I've no idea if there's a better way of doing this or not. )

My advice will have nothing to do with making things scary.

Stick to a drawing style. Everything but the blood is neatly pixel-arted with clear outlines and no variation in colour. On the other hand, it seems like you drew the blood by spreading a red stain with the "finger" tool, it's all blurry. The two don't blend.

Blood isn't bright red in large quantites, it's actually closer to black. Nick an artery for reference. Also, blurry outlines in a vaguely round shape does not make a puddle. Think about how gravity works and where the blood should flow. Spill some syrup to see how that works. In the same order of idea, intestines aren't bright pink, even less so when they're dead tissue. Go to your local library and get your hands on a medical textbook, with pictures. You'll get a better idea of what we look like from the inside.

I never did that with my friends. At that age, we re-enacted DBZ and Saint Seiya fights. 

if (keyHeld) works event though that's not a boolean? I get 0 = false, 1 = true, all the other possible values would stand for "true" as well?

Related question:
given that this is impossible

Code: ags

function repeatedly_execute_always() {
  Display("Plop!");
}

would this work?

Code: ags

funtion myFunc() {
  Display("Plop!");
}
function repeatedly_execute_always() {
  myFunc();
}

(Basically, where is myFunc queued when I call it from rep_exec_always?)

Thinking about it, the only use I can see from a end-user perspective is that you can create various loops on the same screen. Less clicking around to create a new animation.

I don't think I'm really answering anything here...

Well, running Vista with 1GB of RAM is a bit tight. (I'm assuming he's running Vista.) I'm fine with 512MB because I'm running XP.

This being said, if this was an issue with his computer running too slow, wouldn't the framerate of the game drop down?