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Welcome all. In this round of the FWC you MUST choose from one of the five themes listed below:

(1) A story involving a spatula and a frypan and one of them must be able to talk.
(2) A story where exactly five ants play a pivotal role.
(3) A story where a ghost is haunted by a house.
(4) A story involving anything other than the four other themes on this list.
(5) A story about you already having gotten the joke but you kept reading anyway.

HAVE AT IT!

EDIT: NAW, the joke didn't work so now I'll just say what the theme really is, which is:

YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT ANYTHING YOU WANT TO!

("comedy is dead" being a potential theme)

From his FaceBook post:

"ATTENTION BRITISH VAs!
I'm soon going to be holding an audition for a (thus far) unannounced project that will require an entire British cast! So Watch This Feed, Brits!"

His question at the moment is:

"I have been tasked with running a research project. We want to use eye tracking to test how people respond to the person they are talking to. I need info on what option exist and which systems best suit my research needs."

I can forward any and all follow-up requests for details from this end.

[THEME: A MYSTERIOUS TOWN]

THEME: A MYSTERIOUS TOWN

You all know the tropes:

Whether it be a town slightly embarrassed by the problem of the inbred cannibal family living on their outskirts, or a community where all the roads leading out (if any) just lead back into town from the other side, or that one that seems mired permanently in the culture of decades past, the concept of the mysterious town where everyone, except the outsiders, seems in on the secret holds a cherished place in storytelling.

Write a story set in a town that guards a secret, told either from the perspective of the outsider(s), the townspeople, or both, or even the town itself if sentient.

And hurry! Before the creepy little boy zaps you to the cornfields!

As it says in the thread title, the theme for this round of the FWC is "Local Legend".

This means the story must be somehow based around something that is part of a small community's mythology.

For real-life inspiration, think The Mystery Of Oak Island, or Nessie... or even something like The Smiley Face Killers, as the community nurturing the legend could be an internet-based one.

It can be based on a real-life legend or completely fictional. The story can be written from the point of view of someone investigating the legend, someone who is accidentally embroiled in it, or even the perpetrator(s) of the mystery, or whatever, but the legend must be central to the story.

Another rule is that the "solution" to the legend must be made clear to the reader by the end of the story. We must learn if the legend is true or not, or somewhere in between, and all the secrets of the legend must be revealed...  if not to the characters, then to the reader at least.

No loose ends.

The deadline is January 24th, 2022.

I seem to remember that I managed to do this before, but maybe I am mistaken.

I have a huge array that I want to fill with values each time the game starts and I thought that I might just be able to read them pixel by pixel from the room background as color codes.

Is this possible, and, if so, how?

I remember bashing my head up against dynamic sprites for hours before finally getting it working.

Something about GetPixel?

Sorry, but can anyone help me? I am trying to install the most recent build of AGS on a Windows 7 computer. I have installed the NET thingy but when I try to start AGS it still says

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
An unexpected error occurred trying to start up the AGS Editor. Please consult the details below and post the error to the AGS Technical Forum.

System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'AGS.Native.dll' or one of its dependencies. The specified module could not be found.

File name: 'AGS.Native.dll'

   at AGS.Editor.NativeProxy..ctor()

   at AGS.Editor.NativeProxy.get_Instance()

   at AGS.Editor.ApplicationController..ctor()

   at AGS.Editor.Program.startupTimer_Tick(Object sender, EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.OnTick(EventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.Timer.TimerNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)




---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

I have been bashing my head against these problems for a few days now. I tried updating to Windows 10 and AGS worked then but many other things on the computer are unusable.

Can anyone offer any advice?

What happened? That was a scary-long downtime!

The theme for this round is "Vulnerable" and whatever that means to you and however you wish to include the theme in your own story.

I chose this because I had a flash of inspiration for a story of my own that starts with a young single mother taking her baby outside her apartment in her arms, fumbling to lock the door behind her, and then turning around to see a surprised team of hitmen poised ready to break down the door of one of her neighbors. And the first thing she says is "Please, don't hurt my baby!".

I will probably write this story, not as an actual entry but just because it won't leave me alone until I do.

I will also pretty up this intro a bit with the rules etc. but for now the contest is open!

Not a computer game, but still very much in the feel of adventure games, and probably one of the coolest things I've ever heard of.
I so wanna go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScF3tf2DgTM

[My Stage-fright Story]

My Stage-fright Story

A few years back I was at the Newcastle Writer's Convention in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, by total coincidence.

Well, not "total", but my friend had mentioned she would be there and I had no idea where it was but I was driving by and something seemed to be going on in a plaza with a big tent so I parked the car and my wife and I went over to see what it was, as you did back in the "Before Days"...

My friend came running out and she said "OMG you made it! I'm gonna read my piece in like an hour on stage! I'm just booking it now!"

And I was like "Yup! We're here! Cool!"

And she asked me "Do you wanna read anything? I'm just about to talk to the guy?" and I was like "Ummmm, sure why not?!" and wondering to myself why I had said that.

We met the booking guy and he took down our names and we went to sit in the front row of a tent pavilion that held about 200 people.

I realized what I had gotten myself into at this point and thought "WTF am I gonna "read" with zero prep?!" and then I got on my phone, went to the AGS forums and searched for this: "thine cuntish" which was the only thing I remembered from my story that would specifically find it in search.

My story "The Last Deal" came up, which you can link to from the clickable above, and I read it through and just decided to read it out as my turn at the mic was quickly approaching.

I considered asking if foul language was allowed but decided not to. It was an adult gathering, and so I just went up to the mic, in front of over 100 people, and brought my chair with me and sat down on it and lowered the mic down because, at this point I knew I couldn't hold my phone and also read from it with shaking hands, and also I had like 7% battery life left on it etc.

I started to read the story and, when the first "funny" line hit a bunch of the audience actually laughed, so I got into it a bit more and really ate up the scenery with the "Devil" voice and the "GOD" voice and a lot more laughs kept coming.

Inside, though, my whole being was trembling and I was glad that I was sitting down with the phone braced against my knee to hide it.

My wife told me that, when I spoke the final punchline of the story, the cameraman filming the event pumped his fist and said "YES!!!" in response.

I got a massive round of applause from the audience and got down from the stage in a state of euphoric shock.

I'm so glad that I overcame my stage-fright and just got up there and did it.

So yeah, that's MY entry into this FWC so far and best of luck to everyo...

Oh wait, shit, I'm the host?! ... Now I have ACTUAL stage-fright... so here's a photo of how someone might feel when they step up onto a stage to speak and now write away all:



And now I dash off the stage and cower behind the stairs in shame.

This is a great interview that all game devs can draw something from. Edmund talks about his feelings towards game dev in such a broad way that it's not just an interview for fans of his genre of games, but really applies to anybody's style or genre. A great watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X_QYumQQGk

["My hand passes through my gravestone."]

Everyone is probably aware of the first example of the "Six Word Story":

"For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."

The concept is that an image of a story can be placed in the mind of the reader with only six words. The story will never be complete but the best ones will stay with the reader in either some mysterious or humorous way, or some other third way.

I started this thread because I had an idea to create a book or calendar or roll of toilet paper that has one Six Word Story per leaf, and I'm lazy and can't come up with (at most) 365 or so such stories myself so please post below if you have one of your own original ones.

But, I do have one to start us off with of my own creation:

"My hand passes through my gravestone."

(All Six Word Stories within this thread are owned exclusively by Mandle and you will get a mention somewhere if the final product ever appears in any form but if it's toilet paper your name may be on the wipe-side.)

I wasn't quite sure if this belonged in General or Adventure Related but decided to put it in the latter for reasons that might become clear if you watch the whole video documentary.

I'm sure a lot of people already know quite a bit or have heard of Neurocam before, but for me it was completely new. I had no idea that this had gone on in my own country of birth!

I'm posting this here in AGS because I think the content of the documentary will be very interesting and potentially inspiring to people in the community here.

Are you ready to find out what is Neurocam?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9XmXad_wmo

[CASE #1:]

I have a collection in my head of the stupid things that people have said and that I have witnessed them saying but couldn't just laugh out loud for fear of offending them.

These are things I actually heard from people that I thought were comedy gold. Please don't re-post accounts from others that you have heard tell of. Only first-hand experiences or we will just end up recording fake stories from the internet here, which is not the intent of this thread.

The intent of this thread is to record such never-before-heard comedy gold here, anonymously, for others to potentially use in their games, stories, stand-up comedy routines, or whatever without giving away identities or otherwise offending anyone.

Here are some of mine:

CASE #1:

ME: I found a bar that has a sign advertising an all-you-can-drink wine course at 10 cents for 1 minute.
FRIEND: Sounds too rushed for my liking.

CASE #2:

(While driving through a busy street decked on both sides with Jacaranda trees in full bloom)

FRIEND #1: Wow, the Jacarandas really are beautiful this time of year.
FRIEND #2: I don't really know that much about makes of cars.

CASE #3:

ME: Silence Of The Lambs is a perfectly plotted movie.
FRIEND: No, I found a flaw. It was never explained how Hannibal managed to make such a perfect mask of the guard's face for his escape.

I had another one but I forgot it for now. I will post it when I remember it.

But for now... Let's see some more molten comedy gold flowing through this thread of stupid things you have heard people say:

This is a sound file I imported and have later deleted. But I still get this error of "Unexpected error: Filename too long (limit is 12 chars): 'Full Intro 01.ogg'" every time I try to compile the game. The game runs fine when I run it in engine. Anyone got any ideas?

[True Lies]

I guess this is the third thread in my trilogy of movie threads:

"Good Movies You Hate"

"Movies That Should Have Been Bad But Were Awesome"

And now we have arrived at "Perfect Movies".

Post here a movie that you consider to be perfect, in that you would not change one single frame of film, line delivery, casting choice, camera angle, or whatever.

I will start with:

True Lies

I have watched this film over 50 times over and still cannot believe the perfection of it.

It's an action movie where the plot is perfectly understandable, but also you have a guy on a horse in a hotel elevator, a terrorist pleb running low on video battery just as his "Bond Villain" boss starts to complete his world-wide demands. You have an actual nuclear bomb going off, something that is usually disappointing in other films where it gets disabled at the last moment. You have a drama between a wife and a husband who has been lying to her for 17 years, but he's much more attractive to her in who he is in his actual life than he was in the lie and she has to deal with the conflict there as well.

And there's also so much more to unpack in this movie. Every camera angle, every performance, every plot-point arriving just on time, and getting properly paid-off later on, all in a normal movie length.

Incredible.

**********************************************************************************************************************************

So, what are you all's choices for perfect movies?

I have a list a few meters long but I won't pollute the thread by just spamming them. But I will agree with you, or not, when you mention one, if I also consider it to be "perfect"or not , for whatever reasons. 

Also, this thread is not a place to call other people's opinions "stupid" (or worse) and I hope my trust in the sensibilities of the people on the AGS forum is well placed.

The Fortnightly Writing Contest, one of the longest running AGS traditions, is in danger of dying out.

I'm making this post in an attempt to draw attention back to it.

This round, there are only 3 (or 2) stories that are each less than one or two scroll-wheels long.

The voting is simple: You just say "1st favorite is _______" and "2nd favorite is ______" etc. and you don't even have to give reasons, although feedback is always appreciated.

HELP SAVE OUR FWC!!!

Just go here and read a couple of excellent stories and then vote:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=58514

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here's a video we filmed for the kids to watch at the start of our Halloween events today.

The setup was that "Patrick" was late for the party and we needed the letters to spell out "HALLOWEEN" before the party could start so he was contacted on the "Patrick-CAM".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ys4CMhv-XY

I play the "monster".

READ AFTER WATCHING:

Spoiler

Patrick and I then hid before each party and matched our appearances in the main party room in time with the video footage at the end as if if was a live-feed. Patrick starts putting the letters up on the whiteboard while ignoring the kids screaming at him that a monster is coming! The final punchline is that the monster then crashes into the room after rattling the door for a bit and then roars, scaring the kids, and then says "YOU FORGET "L"!" and hands Patrick the axe, which he turns upside-down and sticks to the whiteboard in place of the missing "L", and the party can begin!

[close]

As the days get shorter, for us Northern Hemisphere folk, twilight comes earlier and earlier each day.

Let's see some stories that capture that feel.

You can also write a Twilight Zone style episode if you wish, even including opening and closing Rod Serling narration...

But any story written with twilight (literal or metaphorical) as part of it is fine.