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This is nice and open and I have an idea that might fit. Rule 2 seems to be the stumbling point though, would you count unusual art styles and presentation of areas (use places in a non-standard way)? Otherwise it needs a bit more thought... lets hope I find some time this month

I made a rock version of the Monkey Island theme tune into a Frets on Fire song...

I'm fairly sure that no rhythm game asks you to play the exact notes of the music playing, just a pattern that fits with the song. This means that you would need a really simple background song to just be able to convert it - and I reckon when you compare a song with literally 5 notes to some things in, say, Guitar Hero it'd just be boring.

What you might find worthwhile looking at is Frets on Fire; a free, open-source Guitar Hero clone for the PC. That works with three files - an Ogg Vorbis format backing track that always plays on each song, an Ogg for the guitar track that plays when you are hitting the notes and a small MIDI file that stores all the notes you need to hit. The MIDI (presumably, I don't really have anything that will let me investigate, but this is how I would do it) has the notes A to E that correspond to buttons 1 to 5, and the pattern of these notes is the pattern of buttons you need to hit. When you make a song in-game you write the button sequence in to match the music yourself then the game converts that pattern to the MIDI. Extending this you can have multiple difficulties in one MIDI. This system allows you to have whatever you want as the song but you can't just convert it directly to button patterns.

I don't know what sort of MIDI analysis AGS is capable of, but I guess you could do something similar with a text document

Strange Visitor: Yeah, I've had that happen quite a few times before - its just another Windows glitch. If you leave it long enough or refresh the screen somehow it should all go back to normal though. Its nothing to worry about anyway and nothing to do with how theatrx built his game.

I have a sudden craving to look up Charlie Chalk on Youtube...

Woah Maverick, that is awesome! What program(s) are you using out of curiosity?

For some reason Katfoot never made it to the Autobot's A-Team...


This is a hard theme so my entry probably isn't quite what you had in mind. By the way his windscreen wipers are supposed to be transforming to eyebrows which he wiggles, but its hard to see against the background.

Did anyone else notice the huge amount of product placement in the movie?

Am I wrong in the observation that there's currently no way to edit hotspot/region/objects in the rooms aside from going into the room script manually or clicking on the properties button?  It's rather unintuitive at present and could use some work, like a right click option for hotspots/regions/objects/etc that will take you to the relevant function in the room script (or double clicking them). 

I'm not really sure what you mean. Since a hotspot/object/etc has various different events, you need to be able to select which one to edit. Perhaps the "..." button on the events pane is a bit small though, would anyone else want a right-click menu to edit scripts for these things?

Right-click menu of interactions that jumps to their script entries? Sounds nice...

Can't wait until someone makes Indy look drastically different though, or draws him in a completely different style.

Wikipedia says that the cancelled Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix had art deco style characters, anyone know if any screenshots exist?

Kaioshin: My comment on your sprites would be that when Indy stands side-on his face is the same as when he is facing the screen, so he looks like he is looking at the player while he's pointing behind him, has his hands on his hips, throws up etc. Maybe that's intentional but it does kind of break the fourth wall...

I'd say something like Beyond Good and Evil had some good character development. The lead, Jade, goes through several setbacks on her journey to find the truth, for example when

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she returns to her home and finds it destroyed and the rescued children kidnapped

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she starts calling out their names while you are still controlling her. You then have a cut-scene where she almost gives up but decides to keep on fighting. It adds more to her character and ups the tension of the game but ultimately...?

Well she doesn't make change her reactions to objects, she doesn't move any differently, she doesn't gain any new abilities or loose old ones. This is the issue really, because when the player is experiencing the game they have to be able to comfortably control the character. If the character changes every time something of plot significance happens it damages the bond between player and character and so damages their immersion in the game. Any changes have to be subtle ones, I'd say especially in the classic point'n'click games. After all, doesn't everyone get annoyed at puzzles where you know the solution but the main character won't do it because they have to have done something first that changes their mind?

As a side note I've only experienced the light/evil RPG thing in KOTOR and I wasn't blown away. Sure you can say good/evil/neutral things to people, but generally its choosing between gold (robbing them), experience (killing them) and light and dark points which give you different costs on your force powers. Your companions (especially Bastila) make comments on your progress (whether you are sticking to the light path) but ultimately you are faced with the choice at the end. Even if you played through the entire game as a light side do-gooder, you still get the option to betray everyone and take over the galaxy at the end. I guess its all about being given the freedom to react to a situation as you want, but still it doesn't ultimately affect anything

LOST: The Graphical Adventure, anyone? Nice theme by the way, though I don't have much time on my hands to contribute

Well I've never finished an AGS game (mainly because I've never had a decent enough idea that I've wanted to turn into a full game), but the one medium-sized game I did make (in OHRRPGCE no less) had a huge gap in the production. I went back to it because I had an overall plan and could see how much work was left (less than I'd done), and also because of the amount of people that knew it was in production. Also my brother kept on at me about how I'd never finished anything and I wanted to prove him wrong. I think that helps; taking a break, having a visible target to aim at and having some reason to finish it apart from yourself.

Its also my experience that even after taking a long break you won't want to go back to a project, but if you force yourself to open it up, you can usually find an area to work on that you don't mind much. But that was when I was at school and had loads of free time 

I liked the first one most, with the sun's attention. Abstract snd likable.

Reminds me a bit of a game called Blue Ice where you could grab bits from the scenery like the sun and moon.

Mr Buckéthead, the solution to getting past the fisherman (while hugely illogical) was probably the funniest thing I've seen this week, and I loved Gamer_V's mulitiple solutions for each puzzle.

I've put my vote in on the MAGS website, so I'll not confuse by putting it here.

Ack, I've got about two thirds of the way through my entry, but now I've started a part-time job. Now 'Jim The Pigeon' will never fly...

Yeah, congrats Maverick, and thanks BaRoN. Time willing, see you at a future competition. Thanks for the challenge vertigoaddict

Yeah, the boot does match up. It's all looking really good, way better than I would have time for/could do

Okay, here's my shot at this. Not sure if its exactly what you had in mind, but here you go:



A paranormal force manifesting itself in the form of a red-jumper-ed man

Personally I don't see much of a problem with the text buttons for exit, load and save. Certainly if you want those options on your main gui, I think its justified to have them more 'spelt out' as they're system commands rather than in-game ones. I'm wondering about the foot icon - presumably you're making a space themed game, but that doesn't really say space-boot to me. What is your main character wearing, and should the icon be influenced by that?

In terms of holes in the interface, I think they do look good on the design, but I'm not so sure when they're above the background. It creates something of a focal point with the strong yellow, and that's not something you really want. You could try keeping the design, but making the holes indentations and have a look what that looks like.

One other thing I'd question is the colour of your cursors. They're quite a vibrant purple, and I'm not sure that fits with the the rest of the colours in the design, which don't seem as bright.

Well, those are just some suggestions. I think its looking really good

NEXT: When Larry Vales, Pokemon and The Flying Spaghetti Monster meet!

This reminded me nicely why I hate MSPaint as a program. Convert to .gif=screw up drawing. Both mouse buttons=delete the nice line you just drew. Aaanyway...

NEXT: Yourself or your avatar reacting with unnecessary jubilation after completing a simple task

My first encounter with Pokemon was some stamps on the Gameboy Camera. I'm pretty sure that was at least a year before they started appearing as games and trading cards; I didn't know what they were anyway. I don't understand why people buy into these franchises when they seem to essentially be the same game, though I'd be quite happy to make millions from one idea then repeat it every year or so...

This movie was muddled & convoluted!    I still enjoyed it but it seems the filmmakers don't care if we follow the plot.  They trust that we'll just latch on to whatever silliness they subscribe us to.

I hear ya. About 2/3rd into it I was thinking "I haven't cared about the plot for a while now" and was just waiting for things to calm down somewhat so I could find someone to latch onto.

The first Pirates movie was (and I expect most people will agree here) the best. Why? Because it was a huge and fantastically over budgeted farce. The vague plot was just an excuse to bring pirates, ghosts and a governor's daughter out onto the high seas and generally have a lot of battles and swordplay. It was essentially something that should have been made in somebody's swimming pool, but with million dollar effects and some great one-liners.

Now Pirates three rolls out, and somebody's decided that they want to go all serious. We get

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a huge complex plot that doesn't exactly sit perfectly with the other films, and what on earth is going on with Jack and his army of Jacks? I signed on for the jokes and action, not Depp being surreal in a big white studio and licking rocks. And I don't see why they had to make him mad; he's the best written character by far. Also a distinct lack of action until the end (which was a great sequence)

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That having been said I did enjoy the film, just don't go expecting something the same as the first two. And all of my complaints are overridden by

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the sight of a monkey in a pirate costume being launched from a cannon

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