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And as Radiant said, I too would use E for look (examine)

I said L for look but in case of doubt, use both. ATOTK allows that, and1, 2, 3, 4 for the four "modes", and mouse-wheel support, and whatever else we thought might be useful.

The single worst thing you can do to a good game is ruin the experience with a poor interface.

If you're using the default Sierra-style GUIs etc., you probably have reasonable argument that you *are* making a Sierra parody.

Er, no you don't.

First off, calling something a "parody" doesn't make it so, and second, the American judicial system means that the company with the most money has a high likelihood of winning the case, regardless of whom is right.

Again, that doesn't make the OP's question any less silly. But the parody clause is an oft-misunderstood excuse.

If there's only a handful of options (e.g. Sierra'esque) it's easier to use T for talk, U for use, and so forth. I'd use + and - for cycling through items both ways, and add the cursor arrows to move the character around.

Aside from that, there's really no reason to disable the mouse to use keyboard controls, or vice versa.

This is the most popular MAGS Iv ever seen, I still need to go through them all before I vote but has to be said WELL DONE

Seconded. Lots of interesting ideas here, and an excellent turnout.

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With regards to the pirate, you have to give the photo of himself to him straight after you gave him the mannequin, otherwise he won't accept the photo (due to a bug)

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If you have problems with this bug, I'd suggest downloading the new version, which has fixed it.

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I would like all these templates, especially the LucasArts and Verbcoin ones, to have rudimentary keyboard support. This should encourage more people to use keyboard controls in their game.

I'd be happy to add these myself if necessary; it's just the matter of adding a dozen lines to the on_key_press() function, to call interface_click() or character[EGO].MoveDirect() based on which key is hit.

Aside for that, you're welcome to include the MegaVerb GUI, if people are interested in that.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/acres.shtml

Thanks!

The game was slightly rushed - it's a MAGS game, after all I can easily add some responses for item-on-item usages, and e.g. having Vicks respond to the ciggies. The focus on non-standard locations, by the way, is intentional, as is the GUI - I tend to put new and somewhat unusual GUIs in all of my games.

I've spoken Renegade Implementor wrt adding it to the RON site. I'd like to have it on there, but I the registration captcha doesn't appear to work.

[is hyped up as]

Before i start i would like to add that i am fully aware that Halo 3 stands against almost everything we love about retro gaming, but forget this for a second and look at what has been hyped up to be the best game of our 'next gen'.

So what? Every single new game is hyped up as the best game of uor generation.

Let's see if anyone is still playing it five years from now? Ten years from now? Most games don't stand the Test of Time at all, and are found in the bargain bin months after their release.

Radiant: Yes, well TGS was in my own country so no international flights involved. Hold Mittens in Japan next year! Then me and Vince can come!

Oh, if there's a Jittens some time I'd be sure to come! I've been meaning to go to Japan for ages.

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In that case you don't kill the Barghest. It's optional.

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As I recall, the Merge function simply first calls RawDrawFrame, and then disables the object. That's all. You can enable it again, or call any other object function.

It's actually not that hard to code.

1) make sure the left end of the room matches the right end. I don't mean they mesh together, I mean that they have a full screen width of overlap. If your room is 500 pixels wide, make it 820 by copying the left 320 pixels to the right.
2) create a Region in AGS at the leftmost 160 pixels, and another Region at the rightmost 160 pixels.
3) code it so that whenever the player steps on the left region, you add 500 to his X coordinate, and you use the Viewport functions to set the viewport to the right, then release it (for scrolling) again.
4) ditto for the right region.

This assumes a 320x200 game resolution, just multiply for bigger resolutions.

It seems to me that what you're lacking is focus. Judged by your description you're working (or at least, intending to) on a dozen different projects. In essence, that enables you to push back every project because you're going to do another one first, which gets circular real fast.

What I would suggest? Organize your hard drive, if it isn't already, then make two directories: a small one that is "stuff you're working on NOW", and a big one that is "stuff you may get around to some time in the future". Promise yourself you will finish the NOW folder, and don't make any promises, even to yourself, abotu the future folder.

This gives you one or two things to actually work on. Have a makeshift list around of what things you still need to do for them, and whenever you're at your computer, start at one of those things. Even if it's only for half an hour before you get destracted. Many drops fill a bucket.

Who went to TGS this year?

Anyone?

Who's going to Spiel and Spellenspektakel this year? Hm? Are you?

(and you didn't even come to Mittens either... sheeh!)

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You don't distract him. You're supposed to get him into the store.

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If you talk to him, he'll mention he just came from the store, and is packing up the things he bought.

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The things he bought are bottles. Hence, fragile.

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You are correct. The third person is Griff.

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   if time since character last said something > time limit plus some small random number of cycles

SetTimer and IsTimerExpired are your friend.

No, advanced palette cycling effects can't be done effectively in 16 bit in a easy way

Sure they can. Simply make a separate sprite of each "step" in the cycle. That's rarely more than eight steps (because you only have 256 colors to begin with), and any decent graphics program will let you "replace all of color X with color Y".

I'd advise 16-bit. It saves you a lot of headache, and it's actually easier to make animation look good than to make color cycling look good.

Resolution is very much a matter of taste, however. Issues with performance and disk space aren't all that relevant on contemporary systems, but art style for 320x200 is simply different than style for 640x480. Compare Monkey Island 2 (low res) to Monkey Island 3 (hi res) and you'll see what I mean. There's plenty of screenshots of both of them on the web.