Messages

I suggest robots

-MillsJROSS

Alright, I took some of your suggestions and this is a newer vs. of the first Tutorial. The zip doesn't contain the files for using the Tutorial (the original one still has this), but I'm more concerned with layout right now. Any comments would be helpful.

http://www.geocities.com/millsjross/AGSTut2.zip

-MillsJROSS

I have no problem with a game that has side quests that don't really do much for the main plot, as long as it serves a purpose. Character development would be big reason to do something like this. And it would be cool, if by doing side quests you get rewarded. Perhaps you get a fuller interpretation of the main story. Something that puts twist to the story, or felshes it out, more than if a person decides not to go down that side quest. Or maybe you get information that helps you solve a future puzzle with more ease.

A collary to that is that you should never ignore or disallow obvious and maybe unexciting, but very sensible solutions, like buying tools or destroying obstacles. A convulted series of actions might seem more interesting at design time, but at play time it is often just frustrating, especially if there'd be an alternative path in real life that just doesn't work in the game.

I agree with this. There's so many times when logic points to another solution, but the designer failed to realise this. This is one of the reasons I highly advocate beta testing, not only to get bugs out, but incongruities within the game. A designer can't think of everything, but if you get enough people to give advice before you release a game, you can rid a game of this problem. At the very least, instead of allowing the logic solution, show enough evidence that the logical solution goes against what your character would do, or how the game world works.

For commercial adventures I can understand the desire to add puzzles to pad out the game and make it appear longer.

I don't think there should be any padding, more so from a comercial game. What I do think is that for games, the length of time to beat a game should be a factor in how much the game costs. I find the industry usually sticks to the same price for every new game, and I don't quite agree with this. It's perfectly fine that a company shouldn't make an adventure game that isn't epic. But if I am able to beat the game in one sitting, the price should reflect this. But I don't think that padding is the answer. The game could be absolutely perfect in one sitting...but let's be honest, the price of a game does affect our expectations. Of course, it's perfectly fine for me to say this considering I'm not the one who has to pay for the production of the game.

I think that regardless of whether or not you use parser, the mouse, or something else, that the biggest problem in designing games, is that sometimes the player is stuck without having any inkling as to what they should even be doing, let alone be solving puzzles. So as a designer, when making puzzles, it should be abundantly clear to the player what their goals are and how they should be achieving those goals. So we can't just ask ourselves, "What puzzles should I add, that go along with the plot?" but afterward "How can I guide the player to a solution." Along with this question we should assume the player knows nothing of the outside world. Regardless of whether or not we think something to solve a puzzles is common knowledge, a designer should make absolutely certain that there is something within the game to allow the player to attain that knowledge. We shouldn't take this to extremes, like explaining what a paper clip is and it's uses. But once again, this is where beta testing can really help designers out, if say someone doesn't grasp the reasoning behind a puzzle, and you find you have to explain it to them, than you should probably place that knowledge somewhere in the game.

Anym, in regards to mixing items in your inventory. I don't think you should be able to mix items in your inventory if they don't make sense, like a flashlight and a pear. I don't think we should be trying to confuse the player. It makes the game tougher, but I think it has more of a possibility of pissing the player off. You could mix items that make sense together, but only if by mixing an item the player thinks they can solve something with it...and either find out that it didn't quite work.

-MillsJROSS

It's Everywhere you look, everywhere you go...duh

-MillsJROSS

Washington Post...while it's not really "classical" neither is Carmina Burana. I'm sure Strauss has a few Waltzes that everyone knows, as well. Naturally, though...most composers make larger frameworks for their music. However, unless a musical piece is part of an opera, or has a recurring theme throughout some work, I think it can be considered a piece on it's own.

-MillsJROSS

I almost completely disagree with Helm. I don't think forward planning has anything at all to do with the genre "death." A genre is a genre is a genre. I mean if there really was a neat trick to add to adventure games to make them sellable again, I really think we would have found out. And just remember, there have been attempts to revolutionize the adventure game. But they go so far to add other enjoyable elements, that we ourselfs don't consider them adventure games. I think that adventure games have gone places, but it's original fans are so purist, that we refuse to put newer games in the adventure game category, even if they have many adventure game elements. I don't think there's a death of the genre, I think there's a death of the genre by our narrow minded view of what makes an adventure game. And what a lot of people fail to realise if you look at the number of sales newer adventure games have today (like Dreamfall), there's actually not that much of a difference in numbers from the "golden age."

If anything the point-and-click gaming allowed adventure games to survive another five or more years. You think that typing in commands makes the game oh so more emersive, and to some point I agree. But I also remember being so angry at a few text parser games when I couldn't find the correct verb, that it completely tore me out of the game. And it made me even angrier when I wasn't far enough away from what I was trying to say, to make much of a difference. And yes to a point point-and-click does limit the thinking process. I don't disagree...however, I do think I can enjoy solving a puzzle with a mouse with as much satisfaction then with a parser, if by clicking object1 on object2 I know how they will mix before-hand. The handicap of making a point-and-click game, is I can click like crazy and eventually find an answer. And I think it annoys me more when I get into a situation where I'm clicking on everything like crazy, because I have no idea what to do. But if this was a text parser game I'd be typing like crazy with the same result.

I think what would be really awesome, is a mix between the two systems. You click on X and put it on Y, and then you have to type a verb to go with it. It would provide the ease of a mouse, and this would help you get out of those traps where you're trying to look at something but you don't quite know the name of the object, and it takes you a couple minutes to find the correct noun. And it would force the player to know what they were solving.

Personally, I just don't like the term gameplay. It's too ambiguous of a meaning for me. You either enjoy the game or you don't, and for me, it has more to do with the storyline, sounds, and graphics then the mechanics. I loved Grim Fandango, but personally, I don't like the mechanics of walking around (although, I eventually got used to it, but never loved it). However, this didn't make or break the game for me. And let's compare it to a game with pretty much the same "gameplay"...MI4. Didn't like it...gameplay had little do to with this. And I didn't even mind the puzzles in that game (other than monkey combat). The sound quality wasn't as good as I expected considering they "improved" their graphics. I'm using these two as an example, because other than storyline, sound, and a few puzzles. They played very similar to each other. Those are my ramblings, make of them what you will.

-MillsJROSS

I like O Fortuna, but it somewhat irritates me that so many people seem completely oblivious to the rest of the piece.

While I completely agree with this...as there are some really good pieces within this Opera. There's a number of musical selections that people only know a couple minutes of. The William Tell Overture comes to mind. 1812. Holst's Mars. I'm sure people have heard pieces from The Magic Flute, and wouldn't know anything about the rest of it. I'd say Adagio for String is used a lot in movies, although arguably once you've heard a couple minutes of this piece, you can pretty much get the picture. It's fairly commonplace for the public not to know anything about the tidbit of piece their listening to. But arguably, the tidbits they know are the best parts of the music, and are readily enjoyable for those who aren't fans of classical/orchestral music. So while it might be irksome, it's understandable.

-MillsJROSS

I' personally love dialog. It's essentially what makes the story in an adventure game. I want to know as much about the gameworld as possible. I go down every dialog path, even if I have to play the game a couple times. I'll click everything with every icon available. I like to interact with what's there. I think "dynamic conversations" would just add so much more to the game, for a person like myself.

I have no real problems with "FedEx" puzzles, as long as there's a perfectly good reason for them, other than adding length to a game.

That's movie world. In game world, it's about gameplay.

In an adventure game, the word "gameplay" doesn't really mean that much to me.

According to Wiki:

Generally, the term "gameplay" in video game terminology is used to describe the overall experience of playing the game excluding the factors of graphics, sound, and the storyline. The term "Game mechanics" refers to sub-elements of the gameplay, but particularly the primary control and movement features of the game (thus excluding things like level design or AI).

So if we take out graphics, sound, and storyline; We have puzzles and how we control our player character left. I don't think the control of the player character is that important, only because whether or not you like to type in commands, use the mouse, or use a joystick (and whatever else you can think of), there are good games in each of these categories, as well as, bad ones. Puzzles are a major contributor to the enjoyment of a game. However, look at The Longest Journey. In my eyes it didn't particularly have any great puzzles, and some of them were insulting. But the depth of the storyline was enough to make it enjoyable for me.

What I really want to know is what we actually consider gameplay, and to that end, how should gameplay be applied to puzzles to make the game more enjoyable. I only ask because gameplay seems like such a vague word. I'm not really understanding how we can say it's all gameplay and nothing to do with storyline, sound, or graphics. Especially, when a majority of gamers buy games purely for graphics, regardless of whether or not the game is the same in almost everyway as many other games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_play

-MillsJROSS

I thought about adding pictures, but my desire was for people to follow along with AGS. I felt that if I added pictures people wouldn't do this, because they'd see everything layed out before them. In general, when learning things people will be as lazy as they possibly can. Additionally, adding pictures would make the tutorial much larger. Of course, if I get enough oppinions to the contrary, I'd consider it.

-MillsJROSS

I'm trying to make a tutorial for begginers, and eventually want to have topics for intermediate users. I'm trying to be as detailed as possible, and get the user to interact with AGS as they read the tutorial. What I have here is an indepth tutorial on how to create a new game file. Tell me what you think.

http://www.geocities.com/millsjross/AGSTut.zip

-MillsJROSS

Either one is fine. Just remember, what will offend a fan more than anything is if you make fun of something, but get it wrong. So as long as all your jokes are accurate, most fans can enjoy a few laughs at their expense.

And for the record, I'm more of a Babylon 5 fan over both series.

-MillsJROSS

I think the problem lies in what we determine an independant developer to be. And I think the real definition is it's a person or group of people without support from a publisher. Which, if this is the case, it's obvious that most independant games aren't seen by the public at large. Unless you stumble on to there website, or someone tells you about them...it's probable that you'll never hear about them. If they did make a game that was excellent, than it would seem they wouldn't have such a hard time finding a publisher...and in that case, they no longer are independant.

-MillsJROSS

I agree that adding a new specific verb other than a hand icon would be nice. However, if added it should be utilized enough to make it commonplace to use it (i.e. There's no reason to have a "punch" verb if you're just going to use it for one puzzle).

As far as text parsers are concerned, let me start of with I love text parser games. However, I don't think many other people enjoy these games. They're a hell of a lot more work to deal with than the point and click icons of today (for players and developers alike). If you want to make one, by all means, be my guest. I don't think they will necessarily go over well. This could be a wrong assumption. I do think they can add a lot to a game, it really does allow the player to be more interactive within the game.

I think the thing to really avoid is Fetch me puzzles. I do it, I'm not proud of it, though. These puzzles are probably the worst. It's part of the weed killer example. You have to fetch the ingredients. But it also goes along with characters who won't give you the medicine to help the old man until you've found them some fresh strawberries. It's really easy to make them, without too much difficulty on your part.

I think a lot of the time we build puzzles around characters vs situations. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but it seems that in almost all games our main character needs to know as much detail about all NPC's than a person would usually need to know. We don't need to know about the bartender's love life! And most games fall into a formulaic, hello, need information, goodbye, type of deal. For once I'd like to see a game where the main character is too shy to ask a lot of these in depth questions, that he doesn't need to know. And I want people to stop building puzzles around non-important characters lives.

That said, I do enjoy puzzles where you might have the material available, but your character doesn't have the knowledge at hand to do certain things. The only downside to this, is we come across situations where we figure it out before the MC does, and sometimes it seems there's enough evidence for the MC to know what to do, but sometimes the MC has to hear explicitly what to do, which can be rather annoying.

You should either build your puzzles around with the plot or the plot around with your puzzles. They should be closely related to each other, and not work against each other. You can allow puzzles to force different plot lines to come out if a player decides to solve something a certain way. I have no problem with making puzzles more difficult as the game progresses. As long as the puzzles don't step away from the plot it's alright. And I just want to say, while the plot is important, don't downplay the importance of puzzles. The key is in being original with your puzzles, and no one can really tell you how to do that.

-MillsJROSS

A few years ago we, my household was one of the selected for the Nielson rating. They paid us some money, I don't think it was a lot, but it was free money. They plugged something into the tv's, to record what we watched. Although, I don't think I represent anyone but myself.

-MillsJROSS

[

To me this book ranks similar to the works of Michael Chrichton. His writing style doesn't necessarily do anything for me, and I consider it weak. But he makes the book suspensful enough for me to keep going through. The only difference between the authors is that Chrichton seems to have more accurate research.

I'd say that Crighton's suspense is more character-driven or story driven, and you actually get the answers you're looking for, as opposed to Brown's implausible mysteries. But ymmv.

I never intended to say that both authors are exactly the same. However, I do not think either author is a particularly good wordsmith. They're good at making the book interesting, regardless of how they differ in their attempts to do so. I've only read The Da Vinci Code...so I can't speak of all his work, but I didn't really see any answer he left behind. And I think Chrichton's works are just as impossible, regardless of the research.

I would argue that while, perhaps, not everything in The Da Vinci code is correct, I'm sure there are some nuggets of truth. And you do have to wonder sometimes, why the Vatican has held back things from the Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm not saying his story is true, but it seems less fiction than the bible.

-MillsJROSS

I just finished the book yesteday. It was okay. Brown's writing stlye wasn't his strength. The books strengths were mainly the mysteries that the book had that kept it a page turner. Las pretty much nailed it on the head as to how he did it.

I enjoyed the book for what it was. I'm not Christain so it doesn't rock my religious boat. And I could care less whether the secret of the Grail is true or not. It was a book. It's a  work of fiction. To me this book ranks similar to the works of Michael Chrichton. His writing style doesn't necessarily do anything for me, and I consider it weak. But he makes the book suspensful enough for me to keep going through. The only difference between the authors is that Chrichton seems to have more accurate research. Although, I'm sure there are some descrempencies with his work as well, but since most of his work is anti-science the church doesn't seem to make hundreds of reports falsifying his novels.

-MillsJROSS

Those of us from the American Goat Society are still a bit miffed that you changed from AC to AGS. Now you know what it feels like.

-MillsJROSS

You'd better hope they don't make another adventure game. They'd probably start out with a nice idea, and then they'd change things around to match the market. It's like when SQ7 was being made by sierra. They intended to make it 3d (not so bad) and multiplayer. Which completely has nothing to do with the series. Look at what happened to Monkey Island...The last had some good elements but they added so much more to appeal to a wider audience, it made the game less playable.

-MillsJROSS

I never finished Syberia, more because of lack of interest. The graphics were nice, but they were merely eye candy and had no depth, and the character would usually only react with one object in a room.

I'd say this should be reviewed like a book or a movie. Both a book and a movie can have a wonderful story, but be just okay movies. No matter how good the story is, if an author's writing style doesn't make the book interesting, it should be reviewed as such, and is. Which is to say, that gameplay is important while reviewing a game. And while you may argue that it's a sequel, and most everyone who played and liked the first one, will play and like this one, you have to understand that there are people who never played the original, and don't know what to expect. Which means that the reviewer should talk about gameplay. I do care about gameplay. I wasn't that annoyed by TLJ puzzles, they were fairly straight forward in my mind.  But to simplify the element that almost makes the genre, seems strange to me.  To me this seems like a movie with a mouse...which is fine, I enjoyed TLJ's narrative and characterization.

I like the fact that they tried to add some action elements, simplified or not...I don't mind meshing genres. And I'll probably buy this game, because I did enjoy most of TLJ. But I'm almost positive that the review on IGN will be my thoughts exactly. I'll enjoy the game for it's story, and nothing more. 

-MillsJROSS

I'd suggest looking into books that teach you game design with C++. I've seen a few books here and there that are for beginners. Whether that implies begining in programing or just game development, I couldn't tell you. For just programming and getting a handle on C++ itself, I'd suggest the Deitel books, they're fairly comprehensive with a lot of the basics and a bit beyond. However, it is pricey ( about 88 on amazon, though I'm sure you could find cheaper). A class wouldn't be a bad idea, but I feel it would just reinforce what you know through AGS. You might want to become a member of a message board that concentrates on game development or programming, and use them as a source.

-MillsJROSS