Messages

Can I confirm around the middle of June? I genuinely won't know what I'm doing until the end of term  .

Gatecrashing is so tempting...

T2 is the best film, but T3 has the best ending. I'm a sucker for negative endings, I'm afraid.

Don't forget about The Crow's Nest (and since Erwin didn't point to AD, I suppose I should mention it too).

And Adventure Gamers Underground, OK?

Isn't it the cliche detective thing to wear the same thing though?

yaeh like lutenant columbo. You know the guy with the goofy face and the brown coat. 

That would be the detective who features in a series that ridiculously SHOWS YOU THE MURDER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE EPISODE, just to completely wreck any point of watching the damn thing, right?

I read an article in PC Gamer UK a few years back when several authors of Monkey Island fangames were sent cease-and-desist letters by LucasArts. It had a quotation from Mixnmojo, and, my interest stirred by the discovery of a LucasArts fan-site, I typed in the first web-address that came into my head. Thank goodness www.mixnmojo.com was correct :S.

From Mixnmojo I found a link to MonkeyGames (who were at that time hosted by them), and played The Treasure of Drunk Island. I also took a look at the ideas for their new game, which was to be made using SCRAMM.

Ben Croshaw joined MonkeyGames, and I saw his Rob Blanc games appear on the MonkeyGames website - naturally, I played them. These led me to the AGS website, and my permanent state of defiantly NOT releasing a game. One day, I will, honest...

Every LucasArts adventure game with the exception of Zac.
King's Quest 1-8
Space Quest 1-6
Gabriel Knight 1-3
Broken Sword 1-3
Beneath a Steel Sky

I have to say, I would be playing tons more AGS games if I could play them on my handheld...

Maybe next year for me - you're spared again!

adding 3d would open up a whole new world of games and developers using AGS. We might actually see commercial games made with AGS. Who knows, maybe Sierra and Lucasarts will abandon their engines and use AGS (This is a longshot, but a possibility none the less).

Professional companies with staff positions dedicated to engine development would never use a free tool - using their own allows them an even greater degree of control, customisation and optimisation.

As for the other comment quoted, I really don't see what the big thing is about developing commercial games in AGS. Has it occured to people that perhaps people merely choose not to release their game commericially. I've seen several games that could easily have been sold with only a little more work. Hell, if it makes people happy, then I'll make a commerical AGS game. But I really don't see why you'd want that, if I could release a game of the same quality for free...

This hardly refutes the premise that online point-and-click adventures can work.  Maniac Mansion, one of the earliest adventure games, had multiple players, each with their own inventories.  You're only thinking of a specific instance in which players can theoretically hoard items and keep everything to themselves.  What you need to do is come up with an alternative solution rather than give up on the idea entirely.  You could, for example, limit a player's inventory to one or two items, and give players the ability to drop items.

Of course, this is only a problem if you were to have players competing against each other - in which case this would be a sensible idea. Personally, I believe that a co-operative style of play would be more desirable at first - especially with the whole issue of player interaction to worry about. Certainly, trading could be one answer - if the size of the inventory were limited, then one player could not hold all the items, and so would have to trade them for the things he wanted. But, in a co-operative environment, I'd be interested in seeing someone play with the use of multiple characters at once to solve puzzles (for instance, one character might have to keep a button pressed down so that another character could walk through a door, while different characters would have different dialog trees, and be proficient at different tasks ala Maniac Mansion).

Don't give up on the multiplayer idea - it's one thing I'd be particularly interested in seeing...

I think 3D support is the kind of thing that should be right at the bottom of the 'to do' list. One day it might be nice, but extra 2D features would benefit a far greater number of people in the short term.

I think this music would be particularly useful in an end-game or intro sequence, as others have stated. I like this a lot - it doesn't just sound nice, it demonstrates a firm grasp on compositional techniques. The only thing I can possibly suggest is to consider varying the central section slightly more. While I like the scaled down number of instruments, perhaps you might want to consider altering the pitch, melody or accompaniment slightly to avoid the piece sounding too repetative. Unless that was the aim, of course.

Feel free to ignore the idea - it's a purely personal thing, and I can't really find anything to criticise the composition. It's certainly a hell of a lot better than I would have done!

Just remember to alter the colour of the doorway on the right hand side (which you changed from white to black) to fit whatever room is through the doorway in your game ...

Other than that, it looks fine to me.

This artwork is amazing.  :o

http://www.trillian.cc - A very good IM program, supporting AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo!.
Also http://gaim.sourceforge.net is a similar, open-source program.

http://www.skype.com - Voice-over-net communications.

Damn ¬_¬

LOL. That made me feel really valued ...

Much as I'd love to come and pester you all, my study leave ends on Wednesday 16th, and I don't then break up until 13th July.

So you won't have to suffer me...

I suspected that this was an April fool's joke, but I was getting worried by the time I reached the third page...

Not that I have any AGS games up on it atm, but one day http://www.laceyware.com will...