Messages

Pasting does not appear to be working in the newest AGS.

• I upgraded today and I noticed that the paste shortcut and menu options are not working.
• The copy is working...I'm able to paste code external to the AGS editor.
• I'm on a Windows 8 machine. I've uninstalled and re-installed to see if that would fix it, but I'm getting the same issue. I've tried moving back to the older version, but now that I've saved my game in 3.3 there's nothing I can do.

-MillsJROSS

Larry Vales is still my favorite AGS game. It happened to be my first AGS game, so objectivity is out the window.

Best newer game was Gemini Rue...but so many good games, and I don't take the opportunity to play enough of them.

-MillsJROSS

Not to muddy the waters too much, but I'd love to do it here Austin Texas. I was going to push for it while attending this years Mittens, but couldn't make the trip due to the recent knee surgery (I'm doing well, and was just able to walk unaided this week. Still got some time to heal, but things are looking up).

Now I do happen to live in Austin, so, yes, it would make it extremely super convenient for me. That's not why I think it's an ideal choice though. I don't mind traveling back to the east coast.

Pros:

• The food here is simply amazing. It has more restaurants per capita than any other city. It caters to those who like spicy, but it pretty much has everything.
• It's close to schlitterbahn, which was the biggest waterpark in the country (it still may, but i haven't researched it).
• It's beautiful, and has some nice hills, a central park, and a lake that runs through the city.
• Along the same lines, there are beautiful vacation homes.
• Bats - there's a bridge downtown with millions of bats in it, and at dawn they all come out, and it's pretty interesting. You can rent a boat and see it from below, or walk and watch from the top of the bridge.
• A thriving downtown with food trucks.
• Live music in all the bars in the downtown area.
• In general it's a funky place and has a youthful energy.
• It's fairly cheap. The groceries here were much cheaper than what I was seeing when I lived in Florida, especially produce.
• I live here, so you have a built in guide and pre-trip coordinator.

Cons:

• It is in the middle of Texas, so there's a lot of driving should you want to go do any exploring. Although San Antonio is about 1.5 hours away, and you can see the Alamo. Houston/Dallas are about 4ish hours and to get out of Texas completely it's about 8 hours.
• It can get a little hot over here.

-MillsJROSS

So Jealous. On the plus side I'm able to get around on one crutch now.

It's been going on for years. First injury was in college playing basketball. Pretty sure I tore my ACL then. Since the first injury I've reinjured it several times since, and the last injury was simply getting up. This time I tore something new.

Just got out of surgery yesterday. Everything went well. I look forward to having a knee again.

Bad news...I injured my knee and my doctors insisting that I get this thing fixed. He's telling me I need ligaments and such. The surgery is set too close for comfort to this trip, so I'm going to have pull out this year.

Instead of taking a week of and traveling, I'll spend a week laid up in recovery and several months with crutches. The good news is that I may be able to get temporary Handicapped Parking, and I'll have the money from this years trip for next year, which will clearly be in Austin, TX and super convenient.

Sorry guys

Look forward to seeing you there, Disco.

I understand we'll be getting there by taxi. Should we rent a car for the villa, though? Not sure how far from shopping etc... it is.

MillsJROSS, I agree that every experience needs a minimum length to generate satisfaction. But can we measure the standard length for games? You can say that a book, a movie, a song or a meal is too short for it's price if, and only if, you understand how much effort it took to make it, or the price of production.

The standard length for games is driven by the consumers and will always be driven by consumers. It's a moving target based on genre/fans/cost. I can still say something is too short without knowing a single thing about the cost of producing it. My opinion doesn't stop anyone from making a short game, but as soon as they start selling their game it goes from a pure expression of art to consumer product that is competing for my hard earned dollars. I do not download games illegally, as a person who's in the software industry I always choose to reward the company/person who develops a product I like. I, however, will not purchase a product that I don't think will be rewarding for the current price being asked.

If games are truly an art form, and I do believe they are, then they open themselves to criticisms. I don't have to like something just because it's art, and I can certainly choose to criticize something that was too short. Certainly length shouldn't be the only thing consumers base their criticisms on, but it's no less a valid criticism than me remarking on the music/art/gameplay.

If the content is wonderful and the price is fair (considering the cost of production and the demand value), and still you won't buy it because it's "to short for it's price", then you are taking the side of those who think video-games are time-wasting machines. In the same way, most people think that food only serves to fill theirs stomachs and satisfy psychological needs for "fulfillment", not really for it's nutritional rates. That's why they are getting sick, while indigenous people are healthy eating much less.

But that's just my point. If the price is fair then I'll purchase it, but if it's not, I won't. It can't be a fair price and be too short, because I won't judge it as a fair price. I'm not taking the side of anyone. There certainly are people who think games are time fillers and others think of games as a truly unique interactive artform. I choose to think both are true, and depending on my mood I might choose a game that is a time filler or I might be in the mood for something more. My purchases are dependent on my current needs.

For the record, I actually tend to think games are too big rather than too short but I don't get tons a of free time so I prefer to play 5-10 hour adventure games that I can knock out in a weekend.

I do think a games length is a valid criticism. Like it or not, if I pay for something I expect a certain level of enjoyment from it, and some of it is based on the length of time it keeps me engaged. It's the same with other purchases I would make, so it's not like adventure games are singled out. If I paid full price at a movie theater for an hour long movie, for a song that was one minute long, for a book that was fifty pages, for meal that was two bites, etc...I would make a criticism that I did not feel I got the value out of those purchases. This may be true even if the content is wonderful.

Filler is not in of itself a bad thing. It's only bad if it's obvious and uninteresting. If the filler is engaging, then it's serving a good purpose. If you're going to charge me full price for something, I expect to feel sated at the end of it. If I'm not, I will vote with my dollars elsewhere. If you're a commercial game company this is what you pay your game designers to create.

Independent games may have a different market who don't mind paying a little more for something artistic or different, even if it is shorter, but at some point even they're required to make sure the game is enjoyable for the right length of time for the right price.

It's the games he makes us play in the bedroom that are the most entertaining anyway.

[9:45 am July 19th]

I booked my flights, I'm coming in Lisbon at 9:45 am July 19th and leaving at 12:35 pm July 26th on luxurious coach seat that may or may not be an aisle seat.

Cool, I understand you are a definite? Looking forward to meeting you

Yes, I haven't requested it off work yet, but that shouldn't pose a problem.

I promised myself I would take a vacation this year. So put me down, and let me know how I can money.

It's been a long time, and now I'm 3 years wiser.

Bump...if it doesn't happen in the next few days, I'll volundo it.

The important thing is that you're a shell of a man. You are now ready to take your first step towards becoming middle aged.

I think I took my first step last year when my birthday present to myself was a ear/nose trimmer.

A belated welcome back! Good to have you around again, would be great if you could come to Mittens too.

Currently, that is the goal. It's been ages since I've been on a proper vacation...pretty much the last Mittens I attended. Now I just need to get back in tune with my creative side so I have things to show off.

Welcome back everyone!

Another Humble Bundle purchaser...I played it less than a month ago.

I think what made the game enjoyable for me was the atmosphere. I found the Delta-6 situation to be very engaging. Sure, the puzzles were secondary to the plot, but I found these were good puzzles, they rarely hindered the game. The only exception was the phone tree puzzle with the pilot.

RANT: As a general rule, I don't like Phone Tree conversations. If you get it wrong you have to repeat yourself over and over and over. The dialog no longer feels organic, and you enter a conversation that would never happen to "real" people in the same situation.

I really enjoyed the gun fighting. It might have gotten tired if the game was longer, but overall it injected a sense of danger and excitement.

I don't agree that puzzles need to be easy, or even secondary to the plot. I think the following is how I enjoy puzzles the most.

• The puzzles need to make sense within the context of the game. Some games tend to throw puzzles in the game for the sake of game-play, and it rarely has anything to do with the overall plot. I think most of the time these tend to look like "fetch-me" puzzles.
• The player needs to know what their current goal is. This can start to get frustrating when there is a lot going on. I think GR strengths was that for the most part, you had clear direction and there wasn't a lot of goals happening at one time.
• The puzzles need to have clear hints in the game. The clues need to be in the game world. I found the hint on the pedestal and was happy when I solved it, but it totally could be overlooked. If you brute force solved it, you wouldn't understand what really happened. Perhaps more hints can be revealed the longer the game play. So if you step away from the pedestal several times the character says something to direct your attention to the pedestal. One thing I liked about older text parser games, is that you could look around the room and find all you clues within one description. "The room is blah blah blah, there's a slight glimmer in the corner."

I don't particularly care for multiple endings. I know its supposed to add a richer re-play experience, but I rarely replay an adventure game. I agree, simple one-directional plots are better for me. That doesn't mean I don't like that you can solve puzzles in different ways, but I'd prefer the plot to stay relatively the same.

If I learned one thing from this game, it's that I should hire the voice actor for the Director. Anytime he was speaking the game was interesting.

It truly is. It calls to you.

"almost got married" - Your'e still young ... if you were a little older you would have instead said "almost got divorced". 

Good point, I saved a lot of money on a good divorce lawyer. Plus, I'm not a shell of a man who doesn't believe in love. I'm just a shell of a man who believes I need to continue looking

Croatia sounds more interesting to me. I have no preference on month, yet.

Quick question...what's the purpose of our AGS awards?

I ask only because their purpose changes how we should run the awards themselves. If the purpose is to...

• have a bit of fun and award community members...then we might decide that more awards are great, and be more inclusive of games that might blur the line between this year and last year.
• give an air of prestige to award winners for their hard work...then we might decide less awards are the way to go, and be more strict in our rules
• a mix of both...then we will constantly be having these discussions to find the happy balance between meaningful awards and a bit of fun (this is probably the one we're most closely aligned with, right now).

By nailing down what we expect these awards to drive, I think it will help us to decide how best to tackle these issues.