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At least Revenge of the Fallen now looks much better to me.

I saw that one and found it very enjoyable. Because come on, huge robots kicking each other's brains out, how can you go wrong with that? Plus it's got robot ghosts, robot pirates, ancient Egyptian robots, explosions, and Megan Fox. It's not literature, of course, but surely worth the ticket.

In what little I seen of AGS so far it appears, that it's best to start with final (or "near final" art), before you put anything into the engine.  If not you might be doing a lot of things several times over, like defining walk areas, walk behind, areas, etc.

That's not actually a problem: a room with programmer art doesn't need walkbehinds, and setting the walkable areas for a room with programmer art takes about thirty seconds.

So yes, I do use what I call "scribbles" (similar to what Dave posted) for rooms, a big for portraits, or Roger for walkcycles, and plug in the finished art when it's available. AGS makes that easy.

Nice one. I've had an idea for episodes for a long time now. I'm not sure if I can make such a game this month, though, I've got too much work already.

Okay.

Code: ags

enum direction = { right, up, left, down };
dx [] = { 1, 0, -1, 0 };
dy [] = { 0, -1, 0, 1 };

int x=0. y=0, len = 1, dir = right, step = 0;

while (1) {
  do_something_at_square (x, y);

  x += dx[dir]; y += dy[dir];
  step ++;
  if (step >= (len + 1) / 2) {
    step = 0;
    len ++;
    dir = (dir + 1) % 4;
  }
}

How does this work? First we take one step right, then we rotate and take one step up and rotate again. Now we take two steps left, rotate, and two steps down, rotate. Now we  take three steps right, rotate, three steps up. See the pattern here?

(note that this pseudo-code never ends, looping over an infinitely large spiral; it needs a boundary condition, of course).

I'm looking for someone who can do translations from English into Spanish.

Specifically, for the games Quest for Yrolg, and Warthogs.

The games aren't that large, about 20 and 40 kb of textfile respectively. PM me if interested, thanks!

you need to be an artist to actually have a hope in hell in completing something decent, worth-while.

I beg to differ...

Given how much trouble commercial companies are having getting security to work without being overly obnoxious (and that most of them are failing at it big time) I don't think this is a job for an amateur game design community.

Besides, how many commercial AGS adventures are there anyway? Five, maybe eight? Out of many many games made?

Total Commander. It rules!

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In an counterculture action I was wondering what makes a bad, or downright awful, adventure game.

(1) long unskippable cutscenes. I'm looking at you, KQV.
(2) pixel hunts
(3) atorsiouc spleggin
(4) items that can only be picked up once your character knows he'll need it, despite the fact that your character happily picks up everything else, and picking stuff up is a fundamental strategy in adventure games

Personally, I would prefer Italy, because going on vacation in my own country just lacks a certain appeal...

The question ultimately is "what factors account for the unpopularity of point and click graphical adventures?"

(1) many players and game companies want impressive visual effects; adventure games are not really suitable for showing those
(2) likewise, many people want multiplayer capabilities; this is fundamentally incompatible with adventure gaming
(3) for those gamers who want a story, turns out that a story is easier to tell with movies and cut-scenes, than with interactive adventure gaming

and (4) a sufficient number of adventure games published around the end of the "commercial adventure game era" weren't really all that great

This adds up to (A) adventure games are a niche market, and (B) commercial companies tend to aim for mainstream.

Because MAME is one of those odd little things online that is spruiked all over the net but doesn't seem to have much decent documentation anywhere

Er, there's http://mamedev.org/ ...

Basically, I'm trying to run Street Fighter III in MAME through the command-line version and it doesn't even seem to recognize it as a game in its library.

That would be a matter of version numbering. Check if you have the most recent one.

(update)

Thanks to Veronika and Ludovic, Quest for Yrolg has now been translated into French and Czech, and has the language packs available in the main download. For all you international folks out there!

*snerk*. Well, we've got an unfilled void of 2004-2009 to choose from if a specific place on the timeline is desired.

No, it's not the game intentionally doesn't even specify what age she is.

And where would ROAE go on the timeline?

Why, right at Mika's birthday, of course  :

I'm gunna miss not being there.

Me too

I'm afraid I don't have enough vacation time left to visit the 'states this year. But have fun y'all!!

Atmosphere is good.

For me, what is also important is replayability. An excellent example is the Fate of Atlantis, with its different paths, or Maniac Mansion with its different combinations of kids you can use. Other than those I rarely find a reason to play any adventure game a second time (although I realize that's a matter of taste, of course).

Also, a lack of such things as pixel hunts and nonsensical puzzles, because those can really ruin the gameplay. Interestingly, dead ends are a big NO in graphical adventures, but aren't nearly as bad in text adventures, presumably because it's much faster to retrace your steps in those.

I'm sure someone has already realized this, but I found out that

Well, yes. That way there is no dead end for the casual players, and still a puzzle for the die hards.

PS. If you think you can attend and would like to exhibit/present a game in development then you are still the most important person I need to hear from

Hm, I think I would be interested...