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Since I'm also on the market for an inexpensive tablet, if you could also list any tablets that you particularly reccomend AVOIDING, that would be good to know, too.

No, the euphoria surrounding any big-name adventure game that comes out these days would not be enough for the game to sell well.

So why in the blue hell did they even start making it in the first place? As someone else mentionned, there's not that much difference in today's market as compared to whenever they likely started making the game in the first place.

Even if there's more to this whole fiasco than meets the eye, I find it very hard to simply dismiss Purcell's stamp of approval. If HE was so enthusiastically backing what he was seeing, really, how bad could it have been?

I think that there was some people at LucasArts with their heads up their asses, pretty much any way you look at it.

Is there a toll-free number to reach LucasArts at?

(yes, I am too lazy to dig out my recent LucasArts games...)

Cripes, that's weird.

I was just telling my brother a few days ago that I'd had a dream the night before that I was playing the new Sam and Max game... and that I, unfortunatley, counldn't remember much about the game. Except that it was awsome.

This is so sad.

Hm. I'm stuck in "Night of the Zombie Fish".

As such, I appologize, since I'm probably a retard.

Nevertheless, here's where I'm at:

Spoiler

I got the pickaxe from the Prawn Shop, but have no idea how to use it on the rock by the clownfish. Furthermore, I figured that the zombie fish are talking backwards (though I don't seem to know it "in-game" yet), but have no idea how that is useful to me or what to do about it. Furthermore, I have no idea what to do with the fish hooks, the door in the starting screen OR the pannel in the starting screen.

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Again, I appologize for my stupidity.

As a Canadian resident, it'll be a little more of a hastle for me to send away for this, so when someone actually recieves their copy of the game, could you please post about it here?

Thanks in advance.

It was my pleasure, RTF. Thanks for the future credits incusion.  

Title Suggestions:

-Last Minute Shopping
-Midnight Madness
-Present Tense
-Deadbeat Father Christmas
-Chrsitmas Crunch
-It's Better to Give than to NOT GIVE!
-Silent Night... Holy Crap!

Not sure (I never used the thing), but based on its description, I think that  the Collision Detectior plug-in may help: http://www.agsforums.com/games.php?action=detail&id=190

I agree that imersion into the game plays a major part in its atmosphere. Who here didn't jump the first time they openned a door in DOOM, only to find a nasty demon of some sort directly on the other side?  :

Related to that, I think it helps to have the player identify somehow with characters and situations in the game. As such, stereotypes of some sort can often be used effectively. In playing through Day of the Tentacle, I'm sure we were all able to think of someone (be they someone we know or some other charachter we'd come to know through TV or movies or books or whatever) that typified the essense of the geeky nerd, the vapid ditz and the burly moron. With barely even being introduced to the main characters, we're already able to know a great deal about who they are and what they're all about.

While to some degree that has to do with the cartoon nature of the game, we can also see this in something like Gabriel Knight. Very quickly, we're able to get a sense of Gabriel as a womanizer of sorts and of Grace as a fairly strong-willed, no-nonsense, type. We've all met these people before, so most of what they say and do "fits" very well.

This use of character types can thus be an effective tool in getting the player into the game, as it allows for the quicker formation of attachment to the characters. Added to this, additional characterizaton occuring in the game that BREAKS the player's pre-conceived notions of the characters can have immediate interest value and help them care about the characters even more as a character is fleshed out and gains percieved depth.

EDIT:  The emotions of characters, too, can play a large part in building a game's atmosphere, especially if we're  identifying with them. As an example, in the game Shannara (GREAT game, by the way), I felt like crying when (POTENTIAL SPOILER AHEAD!!!) I (well, the main character... this young elf guy) had to pretty much decide the fate of the female lead of the story (that scene was a tear-jearker to say the very least... and the craziest part is that I sort of knew it was coming!).

In a similar sort of vein, some sterotypical situations help form atmosphere by drawing on the player's life experience and allowing them to relate to it. Placing a character in their school and dealing with bullies, or having a character dealing with the death of a loved one are both situations that many players have dealt with either directly or by proxy, and are thus prone to evoking real emotion if the situations are presented in a somewhat realistic manner. For this, and for the example of character stereotypes, it makes me think of how comic books changed once Stan Lee really got rolling with Marvel with the early Spider-Man stuff. Here, readers were presented with a vigilante in tights who had the ability to clight to walls, super strength and a sort of sixth sense, yet they were also presented with a teenage geek who had problems with his foster mother Aunt May, girls, friends and the general drama of teenage life. Readers were thus treated to a mix of fantasy and something that very much resembled reality... and they obvioulsly liked it, otherwise there wouldn't have been a gazillion superhero books to follow that would try to emulate a similar kind of effective formula. A little dose of realism is what a lot more amateur adventure games could definitely use, IMO.

Switching gears somewhat... pacing of the adventure can help set the atmosphere in a game. Pretty traditional in many a good story, is to start things off slowly and humbly, gradually building things up, and then hitting the audience over the head with a big finnish (and maybe winding things down afterward, depending on the intent). Alternately, there's the possibility of getting right into the think of things from the start and following up with a real barrage of content from start to finish (think WarioWare, if you need an example) for a far more intense atmosphere.

Literary-type devices can also be key in forming atmosphere. Themes and symbolic imagery have been mentioned to some extent already. Other elements like foreshadowing can be very effective tools, too. Having some inkling of what's to come can help heighten tenion in a game immensely.

(having trouble staying online, so I'll finish here, at least for now... I've probably said all I had to say pretty much anyway...)

I've implemented the code that was described by Hollister Man at: http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=8303;start=msg132614#msg132614

But in some rooms, when I'm navigating around certain walkable area edges,  I find that I'm getting caught on them more than I'd like to. Can anyone thing of some way to add something to that code that would allow for the character's walking motion to slide along fairly smooth walkable area edges? (what I mean is that the player character would slide along the edge while continuing to walk in generally the same direction)

I was trying to think of a way to do this, but I'm stumped and have no idea whatsoever of where I'd even start. Can this even be done?

Is it possible for the player to do something like naming characters, objects, hotspots or inventory pieces in the game (give 'em a space to type the name in, and that's what the character's name is for the rest of the game, when referred to in dialogue and when appearing in a hotspot mouseover and such).

Can that actually be done? I've been thinking about giving it a try, but don't want to get too far into it then realize it's impossible and all.

Thanks for the reply, but...

Well... That's kind of what I'd thought, but that doesn't seem to be working.

What I did was download some ".agt" files.

I then placed these files in the AGS folder (where agsedit.exe and such are).  In particular, I tried using the Broken Sword one and the Blank Game one (both of which I found at: http://www.freewebs.com/skimbleshanks/templates.htm).

From there, I start AGS up (version 2.52, build 2.52.297, if it makes any difference) and select the "Start a New Game" option and press OK. I enter the file name and press OK.

I'm guessing that there's something else that's painfully obvious that I should be doing, but I guess my brain's not working or something.


EDIT: AHA! I now realize that for some reason I'm not getting the "Create New Game" templates dialog box. Unfortunately, I have no idea why this is hapenning. Is this a matter of the version of AGS I'm running?

Okay, so I know that I'm going to seem like a total retard in asking this...

What need to be done to use an AGS template/ how do you get it to work? (specifically, what is it that I do with a ".agt" file).

I'm sorry for being such an idiot.

Nifty. I'll have to give that a go sometime.

Thanks!  

After looking at http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?board=10;action=display;threadid=8303

I was wondering if it would be possible, without ACTUAL switching between characters, to move one character about with mouse clicks and a second one with the keypad (would they be able to move simultaneously?).

Is there any possibilty that this could be done?

Spoiler

The scissors will work on a certain spot on the mirror to get the piece off.

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Well, to get out a window without getting killed,

Spoiler

You might need some sort of rope. Can't find one? Then you may want to consider using something else.

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Good luck!  

Ulkesh (or whoever else might like to respond),

Spoiler

A mint? Really? Where in the world do I get it?

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Okay, I'm probably an idiot, so feel free to think so (thanks for trying, though)...

but I'm still stuck at the same part as I indicated above.

Spoiler

I have an anchor, a raw potato, a cooked potato, a spellbook and some salt. Am I missing a breathmint or something to spruce up a sacrificial lamb's breath or something?

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Thanking you again in advance...