Messages

My calender says the 25th of January is Burns Night and the 26th is Australia Day... but its from Wetherspoon and its condescending so I wouldn't trust it. Oh, or Shrove Tuesday on the 5th of February - you could pour lemon juice over your avatar?

Blagh, that Wikipedia article and its links just confuse (and slightly concern) me. My computer hardware knowledge only goes so far. Would this mean that I couldn't dual boot with a Linux operating system? Would I potentially have issues if I wanted to change/add to the hardware (like have to look for specific hard drives or sound cards)?

I had trouble enough wading through the specs of the graphics cards on offer when I bought my Dell...

Shame, its a brilliant game

Attempting to get Toonstruck to run fullscreen with playable graphical quality. I never did find the solution.

Download Virtual PC and get a copy of Windows 95. That's what I did

I don't really know what it is or what it's advantages/disadvantages are. My computer reckons its a "Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)", but I have a Viiv sticker on the outside. In short I don't think Dell has changed your order and as far as I'm aware (which isn't very far) you're not losing any functionality. I've not had any problems (with the processor) anyway

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Ah, I found the problem, and a stupid one it was :

Spoiler

Don't tell anyone, but my gamma changing code was referring to a different slider...

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Gamma now works in the new Version 1.11 (same download link)! Especially for you Rui

Edit: That was version 1.11

No, I really should have taken that out. I followed the manual's instructions so either the function doesn't work or I missed something else. I figured maybe it was just my computer that wouldn't do it.

What I should have said was, why not practise in my MAGS competition

I get a lot of ideas when I'm doing something I don't want to do but have to. At the moment I'm studying for exams and I've got about 6 different game ideas swimming around in my head (and they'll be the last things I want to work on when I finish )

The thing is you can't just start from scratch. I agree with the plagiarism - though I wouldn't call it that - you need to take some bare bones before you can flesh them into your own work. Listen to music - not necessarily the words, but the sound - and try to imagine what sort of scene it would fit. Think of scenes from movies that you like and ask yourself what did you liked about them and how you could use that in a game. Think of character traits that you find interesting, and try and build several of them together into an interesting character. If you have an idea for a plot/setting/time/characters/etc do some research. Look them up in Wikipedia, see if you can find out anything interesting that gives you more ideas. Think of things you'd like to see in a game, and try and work out how they'd fit together.

Once you've got several matching pieces you can start trying to link them. As mentioned before you need to keep asking yourself questions - if you have an idea for a puzzle ask how the character gets there, why he or she needs to complete the puzzle, what hints they will have received, why the puzzle exists and so on. Keep asking yourself questions about why something is what it is, and how you're going to put that across to the player.

I've never worked on a game with someone else, but I have found it helpful to bounce things off friends when I get stuck with an idea. I also do a lot of my thinking when I've got nothing else to do like when I'm in bed going to sleep - or in the shower, I guess - which has led to a lot of lost sleep.

Or you could rip graphics and make a Monkey Island fan game

How do you define what a puzzle is? - or rather how much it is.

Yes, I'd say it's about how much thinking is required. So picking up a fishing rod and magnet aren't puzzles (debatable if one of them is hidden really well and 1 pixel big, but we want to steer clear of that), combining them isn't really a puzzle, but getting them, combining them and using them to obtain the shiny door key from the magpie's nest is.

Thanks guys! And thanks for the competition Mr Frisby!

The stomach flashes yellow on one particular frame. Other than that its great!

Maybe it's me but I've tried to download the small version several times and it terminates prematurely.

It still works for me, but if anyone else has any problems let me know. Try a download manager?

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I think it takes a while until the yeast modifies the hose. I searched a while in vain on different screens and suddenly the hose looked different in the inventory tab.

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No, there's no waiting for inventory items involved, you just have to use the correct items together. As already figured out:

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Use the lit branch on both the tap and hose to thaw them (you'll have to light it again once you've thawed one)

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Use the yeast with the hose once its thawed to cover it in yeast

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Lower the yeast covered hose into the moat to get holes bitten into it by the foxes

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You're missing another, slightly less scientific problem. Let's say that actually stopping time is impossible (you'd be breaking light speed and all sorts of physical laws), and so you'd have to do it by somehow speeding up your local time.

Let's also say that one hour in your local time is equal to one minute in the shopkeeper's (the world's) time, so take one minute to rob the shopkeeper and you'd only appear to have been there for one second.

When you slow your local time back down again, so you and the shopkeeper are operating at the same time, your body would have been living for 59 seconds longer than his. Every time you speed your local time up you'd age much faster than everyone else. You could go out to rob a bunch of banks and come back days or weeks older. Go out in the morning and come back a month older in the evening.

You'd have to be careful about staying in the same place for too long as well, otherwise you'd get seen or caught as a blur on a freeze-frame of a security camera. Extend this idea to your ‘time field'. Presumably you'd have to speed up the time of everything local to you to stop friction in your clothes or with the aforementioned atoms. In this case, what if you accidentally walked too close to a clock, or another person? Everywhere you walked things would speed up, brush some grass while you're walking and it would sway, slowing down again when you left it, but in a different position. If there's wind and you're moving outside (making your getaway), wherever you are the wind would blow at normal speed (compared to you), only slowing down again when you walked away from it again. Anything affected by wind close to where you are (trees, plants, dust) would also move at your speed. In other words any passers by would see all the plants and trees suddenly move to a different position where you walked, which is less than inconspicuous.

Oh, and you would find it hard to get more time to work on your AGS games, what with having to speed up the computer, electricity lines, power station and then having to explain a bill of several days electricity used in the space of a few hours…

Hints galore!

Hint 1:

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First you'll need to get rid of the patrolling guard

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Hint 2:

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Maybe a disguise is in order?

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Hint 3:

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Listen carefully to the guard, once you get one thing right he'll give you hints for what to do next

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Hint 4:

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There's no work order, so you'll have to prove something needs fixing

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Hint 5:

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Perhaps by breaking something...

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That should (I hope) get you unstuck...

And (almost) happy Christmas!

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There is no work order, you have to find a way to prove the plumbing needs fixing

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I think you can just do

Code: ags

player.ChangeRoom(2);
player.FaceLocation(player.x-1, player.y, eBlock); //Player faces left

The FaceLocation seems to get run after the room fades out, but before room 2 fades in, at least it worked that way for me

Hint 1:

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The guard patrols between the guard hut screen and the next two screens

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Hint 2:

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If you look off the screen, Alan will tell you if he can see the guard on the next screen

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Hint 3:

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On two of the three screens there are places where you can hide to give the guard time to walk past

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This is the Hints and Tips thread for Alan Saves Christmas; if you are stuck and need help ask your questions here.

Please make sure you use the hide tags:

Code: ags

[spoiler]Your spoiler here[/spoiler]

and please don't post full walkthroughs to the game

Happy gaming!