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Hm...

I like the award for good documentation. Few games bother to make it, and I think it deserves recognition if they do.

I don't really see the point of "best programming in a non-adventure", that's really a niche award. Non-adventures tend to be judged by their programming anyway.

And I strongly prefer a downloadable ceremony because everyone can see that, even a month later, whereas an IRC event will surely be missed by some people who have a busy schedule or simply are in the wrong time zone.

Impressive. I used to keep track of this, and there's a few games on your list that I hadn't even heard of.

Some tidbits you may be interested in,

• To my knowledge, only one demo of Destiny: the Lost Soul exists. I have been unable to locate it, though.
  
• Quest for Orgy is actually a complete game, mostly featuring graphics from King's Quest 5. I've played this in the past, although I don't think I have it any more. Also, a one-room demo exists, which is not part of the main game. Neither is particularly related to Quest For Glory, though, apart from the title. As I recall, Sierra/Vivendi sent a Cease&Desist order to take this one down, because of its (marginal) sexual content. I don't think the named sequels were ever a serious plan.
  
• I don't think Mirror Of Dreams was QFG-related, either. Also, except for the screens included in HOIK, I have been unable to find any information on it.
  
• Quest for Yrolg has two voice packs, one in English and one in Czech. The latter sounds very appropriate to the setting even if you don't speak the language.
  
• One that's not on your list yet is Glorious Quest, which is admittedly dead.
  

I choose Prometheus. Cause he may not be a god, but he stole the fire, and said the first line to be known as "IN YOUR FACE".

...and was nailed to a rock for aeons to be horribly mutilated by a big eagle every single day...

...by Zeus! Not only does he get all the girls, he also gets to punish those who piss him off!

Apollo, without doubt. I mean, that guy has it all.
The god of music and poetry, but also a skilled archer, and at times attributed with oracle powers. And the ability to heal. 'Nuf said.

On the other hand, Zeus gets all the girls 

However, this act of piracy contributes, however small, towards an overall disregard for the idea that piracy is wrong.

That's completely beside the point.

Theft isn't murder. Both are wrong, but they are not the same. That means that (1) any rules or measures that reduce theft have little if anything to do with reducing murder, and (2) equating them in law gives ridiculous results: you don't want a murderer to get off with a fine, and you don't want a petty thief to face twenty years in prison or the electric chair. Neither of which changes the fact that both are wrong; there are plenty other things that are also wrong and that society responds differently to.

Now apply the same principle to "piracy isn't theft".

Piracy is not theft.

That definitely bears repeating.

We had an idiotic anti-piracy commercial a few years ago with an aura of faux-hip and pretend-cool, that spread the shocking message that "Stealing Is Forbidden". Well friggin' duh. I know some law grads who completely tore apart that message, because as you say piracy is not stealing.

Also, the music industry tends to assume that one million downloaded songs equals a net loss of the price those one million songs would have cost in a music store. Anyone who took Econ 101 should know how nonsensical that is.

What will they try next, sue random housemothers for a million dollars for downloading a dozen or so MP3s? Oh wait, they've already done that, too.

Yes, they tried something like this in Australia. There was a secret government-owned list of banned sites, and of course it was not possible for the general public to get something on it or removed from it, or even to know what's on it in the first place. But the government said to trust them, it was only used to block out child pornography.

Then the list was leaked, and it turns out that the majority of the list had nothing to do with child porn, and that several entries on it were essentially silencing people the government didn't like.

So the policy didn't get anywhere in Australia - for the moment, but they've started secret talks (not even involving the governments affected) to set up a similar policy in Europe. And now this, too.

No, you can not trust any government with this, and it is a sad day indeed when any western country is trying to implement censorship policies akin to the Great Firewall. And yes, such censorship can make a handful of wealthy people even more wealthy, so they'll keep trying.

Make Your Voice Heard.

Twelve Monkeys.

You read the whole list?  :o

Geek!

Yay! Can we add "First geek to read the whole list" to the list?

First non-english games:

I'm sure there are several games in French, aren't there? If games with translations count, then Portuguese and Czech should be on there. First game using translations? Game with most translations? First game with windows executable? First game that lacks a DOS executable? First game that uses the movie play module?

Also, your "first compiled joke game" predates your "first compiled game, any category".

As I recall, the only thing that winsetup.exe does in the first place is run "game.exe -setup", which is trivial to duplicate in a setup.bat file if you really want to.

Well...

I was actually selling indie games back when I was a student. My first "real" game (SubTerra) had the fortune of attracting interest of an established shareware publisher, and it sold reasonably well. Mind you, students get a government grant, and many of them have a part-time job to the side; so my part time job was indie game design. Also, this was in no way a big hit or a bestseller, just some nice money on the side.

When I graduated, I decided that I could not reliably make enough money out of game making to support myself, so I ended up getting a fulltime job and doing game design as a hobby. This has worked out pretty well for me.

So my only real advice here is to always have a fallback. The vast majority of indie designers (or indeed any self-started business) are not succesful, so be sure you have money and/or an education to fall back on in case you fail.

I would recommend TVtropes.

Start from these two articles and go from there.

On a sequel to Warthogs??

Oooh, that would be fun. Sooo many books there to parodize

Larry Lotter and the Deathly Half-Blood Prisoner in the Phoenix's Secret Stone Goblet!

Okay, with five so very different opinions on this game, I really have no choice but to download it and check it out.

Now where did I leave that spare time of mine?

So anyway. Has anyone of the bigbluecup regulars seen or played this episode, and what do they think of it?

QFG2 is the game that reached the limits of the engine.

Which limits would that be? Because there's several limits, and most of them have been changed once or twice in the past decade.

AGS used to run in DOS until version <foo>
AGS runs in Linux since version <bar>
The editor sometimes inserts lines that say "DO NOT EDIT OR MODIFY THIS LINE" but nothing bad happens if you do.
The Make My Game For Me button really works!
The empty game template isn't entirely empty.
The AGS game with the most rooms is <qux>
The AGS game with the least sprites is Vector Vendetta.
The standard "poster" and "blue cup" items are hand-drawn by Chris.
The standard "Roger" character is a handmade attempt to duplicate Roger Wilco pixel-by-pixel.
The standard font is also from Space Quest.

...afaik

What happened in King's Quest III!?

It's the first game to contain the moosehead, which is a recurring joke in many Sierra games.

I am not left-handed. However, I do frequently use a computer mouse with my left hand - and if I do, I strongly prefer that the mouse buttons not be inverted.

(note, incidentally, that Windows allows you to invert your mouse, so whatever game or application you may be writing probably doesn't have to deal with this)