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Looking nice, Paul.  But... there's a mirror, where's the beard?!?!

The beard in the mirror is yours!

Beat me to it! We're using the Beard 5000 plug-in for AGS that detects users' facial hair, and doesn't even let them start the game until they've got at least a half-inch of growth. It's sort of like the old Monkey Island code wheels, but with beards.

No, but really, the exact nature of the beard in the mirror would be a big spoiler, so we decided not to allude to it in the title screen. Maybe I can find a font that adds wisps of scraggly hair to the title or something... Umm, wait, actually, that would be awesome. I'll have to look into it.

[eight years later]

Hey guys, just wanted to let you know that Lizo and I are going to be demoing The Beard in the Mirror at Boston FIG this year! Come say hi if you're in the area! Free hugs for all.

Also, we started working on a title screen. Yes, eight years later. That's not weird, right?

(We can't really take any credit for it; it's courtesy of our friend Kate Jay.)

[Gradient #3]

Oh man, so many good ones! I think Gradient #3 is my fav.

Ditto Virtue's Last Reward. The first time I came across an ALLY/BETRAY choice, I spent ten agonizing minutes working out the ramifications of each, making my decision then re-thinking it, over and over again. Never experienced anything like that in a game before.

Looking nice! That blob dude is my new favorite character.

Haha what on EARTH am I looking at?! Awesome trailer; I'm adding this to my to-play list right now.

If I grow mine out more, can it count for both of us? Thanks for the positive feedback, everyone!

[Teaser trailer:]

Links to our new teaser trailer and Facebook page added to the original post!

...but I'll paste them here, too, so you don't have to scroll back up:

Teaser trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPC4LP6NU7g
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheBeardInTheMirror

Wow, that looks really authentic! Awesome work!

[late-breaking The Beard in the Mirror development]

Haha, I really should have! I just went on a url-registering spree, nabbing thebeardinthemirror.com and paulmfranzen.com (both of which just point to my own development blog, rather than anything particularly useful).

PRO-TIP: If you're linking a WordPress blog to a new domain name, don't buy the url through a different service because it's "cheaper"; just get it through WordPress itself. WordPress is charging me extra to associate the url with my blog, anyway, even though I'm already paying an annual fee through GoDaddy. In trying to save myself five bucks a month, I think I'm actually spending like seven extra, instead.

On the plus side, GoDaddy called me a couple days after I registered the domains, just to see how I was doing, and ask if I needed any help. They didn't try to up-sell me or anything; when I said I was good, that was it. The call was over. It was adorable.

Ummm, is this too far off-topic now? Am I gonna get modded? If so, here's a late-breaking The Beard in the Mirror development!!

I added a sound effect today.

You guys. You guys. This is getting out of control. That's it, I'm renaming it again. Now it's called "IT'S MY DARN GAME AND I'M CALLING IT WHATEVER I DARN WELL WANT, AS LONG AS MY WIFE APPROVES: The Graphical Adventure Game That Will Become Your World, by Paul and Lizo."

I'm just gonna go ahead and register IMDGAICIWIDWWALAMWATGAGTWBYWBPAL.com now.

But really, the whole boring story is that we added the "is Yours" to the end of the title to make the game sound more serious, but it went a little overboard and made the game sound pretentious (to us, anyway), so we chopped it back off. I'M SORRY!

[II]

Copy Editor (actually, Copy Editor II now!) with a human resources consulting firm, working from home full-time 

Original post is updated with new numbers and a status update! Spoiler alert: It's all good news.

Hey, thanks for taking the time! I don't have any concrete questions in mind at the moment, but I might bug you later. Right now I'm mostly trying to assess whether it'd be worthwhile to try to showcase a point-and-click adventure game at a convention, and it sounds like...yes! It would! I'll keep mulling it over, but I think I'll give it a shot. Guess that means I'll actually need to get a laptop or a tablet at some point...

Chances are I'm not going to have a finalized version of the game ready in time for the con, but I bet I could still burn some demo discs to give away, so people can take the demo home and try it at their leisure. I like the sound of that.

To go back to something that was said earlier--one vote AGAINST cutting Best SoundFX. (We're voting, right?) ...But that's only because right now I'm killing it with the soundFX in my game and I think I have a real shot of it.

Yeah, it was just me being dumb. Figured it out--there was nothing wrong with the file or the coding; I was just loading a save file instead of starting a new game, and the save file was made before I added in the sound effects.

I gotta think there's some people here with some experience presenting at conventions--especially since, you know, AdventureX is a thing. There's one coming to the New England area this fall I was thinking about attending to show off The Beard in the Mirror, but before I dot any i's I was hoping I could hear of some of you guys.

Specifically--how does demoing a point-and-click adventure game work? With a side-scroller or a shooting game, it's pretty easy for someone to get a handle on the game right away; but adventure games are so much more story-driven than they are mechanic-driven, and I'm wondering how well that plays when you're just spending a few minutes with one at a noisy convention. Anyone with first-hand experience?

EDIT: Actually, it looks like there's at least someone here with experience at the exact con I'm looking at:

So...it just started randomly playing now. I don't know why, but I'll take it!

I can! I can play the sounds fine in the code itself, but trying to attach a specific sound to a specific frame doesn't do anything.

I'm tearing my hair out here. From what I understand, having a sound play during an animation is pretty straightforward; you just have to:

1) Go to the animation's view, and
2) Set the "Sound" parameter to the sound effect in question.

That's it. So...WHY WON'T IT WORK?! Does it have to be a specific type of file? Does it require some extra coding when I run the animation? I've tried this with two animations, two different sound effects...no go. Help me, AGS forums!