Messages

Hm, can I just submit META again? 

(seriously though, time permitting, I'll give this mags some thought)

How come nobody's mentioned Snail Quest yet?

Wow, way too many pictures here

I'm so glad I missed that space center, too...

Sounds pretty cool. Perhaps I should change my avatar to a capitapillar?

We could invite him as a guest speaker next year...

You could try to go to Namen (Namur) and get a lift. Saves about 4 hours.

Sounds like a decent plan. Those French railways are hilarious in their waiting times...

Would it be possible for one of the car drivin' folks to pick us poor little Dutchies up in a slightly more railroad-accessible location? Pretty please?

No, no, just quote Moulin Rouge lyrics at them. You know, "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?" and all that. They will get it and think it's funny.

Ah yes. A couple years ago I was in charge of a scouting camp for Dutch kids in France, and the group included a couple of twelve-year-old girls who insisted on singing that all the time (despite not speaking French and probably not knowing what they were singing either). Attracted quite a bit of attention, too

So...

anyone up for coding WarioWare in AGS?

Funny how only one of six games is a point & click adventure game that AGS was designed for

We could always rename it "Arcade Game Studio" 

Some issues:

Thanks. I think I've fixed that in the new upload.

[Vector Vendetta]

Vector Vendetta (updated in July)

As an experiment in what other things AGS can do (and MAGS, of course), this is a fast-paced shooting game with retro-style vector graphics. It's probably the first AGS game that uses a grand total of zero sprites, and proves that AGS is quite capable of handling arcade games.

In your mighty triangular ship, use mouse, keyboard or a combination of both to obliterate the enemy vectors before they do the same to you! It starts out easy, but on later levels you'll be quickly overwhelmed by swarms of enemies! Dodge bullets, kamikaze ships, and laser beams, collect sparks to upgrade your ship, and prepare yourself for the boss battle at the end.

* Twenty different enemies, from lowly Wonk to nasty BFG, and an evil boss monster.
* Lots of powerups and special weapons, from teleportation to nukes.
* Retro graphics and soundtrack.
* Three difficulty levels, three game modes.
* Keeps track of high scores.
* Two-player support.
* Demo recording.
* Enjoy!

[Vector Vendetta]

Well, here's my entry...



Vector Vendetta

Since the contest said that any genre of game would work, I opted for a fast-paced shooting game. Around 1980, several arcade games like Asteroids and Battlezone used vector graphics rather than bitmaps, which was considered state-of-the-art based on CPU performance back then. So here is the first AGS game that uses a grand total of zero sprites.

Using your mighty triangular ship, defeat the evil polygons of doom! It starts out easy, but on later levels you'll be quickly overwhelmed by swarms of enemies!

* Twelve different enemies, from lowly Wonk to nasty BFG.
* Thirteen powerups and special weapons, from teleportation to nukes.
* Retro soundtrack.
* Keeps track of high scores.
* Enjoy!

Please tell me if you find the game too easy or too hard; I'll tweak the difficulty around if people prefer it that way. Games are always easier for who wrote them

Actually, now that I think about it, I think both having multiple  keyboard shortcuts and an optional GUI that will pop up in one of the corners showing all the actions is the best way to go.

I agree.
The best part is that in AGS, it'll take all of five minutes to code. Just have your on_key_press code call whichever interface_click function fits best.

I'd still like to know what letter people associate with the active inventory being used, though.

(U)se, and have (T)ouch be the regular hand icon.

I can see that I'd better get to work on Part Two which is all about the inherent flaws in both the Sierra and Lucas Arts standard interfaces before you guys bring up everything I was going to discuss!

Cool. Actually I don't think they're all that bad, but perhaps that's because I grew up with them. It is quite important to note that (unlike many fangames who apparently use the same GUI) both Sierra and Lucas have numerous keyboard shortcuts. For instance, pretty much any Sierra game has F5/F7/F9 for save/load/restart, and TAB for inventory; and Lucas games like Maniac Mansion have keyboard controls for inventory scrolling (hint: use the mouse wheel, nowadays!)

Right-mouse-button cursor cycling works with just a few cursors (say, the standard five) but gets progressively more annoying with more of them. Verb coins can also be quite annoying if poorly implemented (click, hold, drag, release is NOT something you want for every interaction, imho)

Use Linux 

LCP, or Little Computer People (which is the precursor to The Sims).

Populous 1 and 2 (the third part is really an RTS, which doesn't count).

Any number of trade sims, like *Tycoon, or Supremacy, or whatnot, but that's probably not what you mean.

And The Incredible Machine, of course.

Perhaps you should contact This Guy.

Well, that's not really "quiet and rather quick" though. Then again, I'm not sure you can make a change like this in a quiet and quick fashion, other than by just running off one night which of course won't net you any money.

Here's a possibility: either find somebody you really trust completely, or failing that, hire a notary because that's what notaries are for, and have him do the sales after you've already left, depositing the money in your account.

Note that friends and family, if they really desperately want to track you down, can probably do just that with the power of t3h interwebs.

Some very good points here. I've seen several games with very good ideas behind them that had their gameplay lessened (or, in some cases, ruined) by a poor interface. Not seeing where you click, well, that's not good. My personal quibble is keyboard shortcuts.

This isn't just AGS, either. I can think of a few commercial games that suffer from the same problems. And there's always the interface Hall of Shame.

I want to visit Bastogne (the location of the battle of the bulge) and the remnants of the Maginot Line.

Interesting. I'm all in favor of excursions.

By the way, I believe I mentioned this earlier, but I'll be arriving a bit later than the rest of us. This is because my cousin is getting married that very same weekend, which will be a big family reunion which I really can't miss. That's august 16th, so I'll arrive on the 17th. So that means no Paris for me, but of course I really can't miss Mittens either.

Yay, this is back!

Very well, I nominate Quest for Yrolg.

I could also mention The Hypntoad but that probably doesn't count... 

i cant even start it it says somthing about a script error

You should not run the game from the ZIP file, but extract it first.