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Copyright issues are something else entirely. It's debatable whether you should do anything based on any Sierra or Lucas game, but those are already computer games, already merchandised, and already very commercial. C&H otoh is something that the single author (who is usually acclaimed for his brilliance) is fiercely protective of, and which is considered a form of art within its media, and it is kept away from commercialization.

So what I'm saying is - legally you can't do either. But ethically, I see nothing wrong with a Garfield game, but I strongly object to a C&H game.

(oh and btw there exist NO official C&H t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc. Of course it's easy to stick a JPEG on any smooth surface, but that doesn't make it merchandisable)

Problem is I installed the XVID codec and it didn't work. I'll see if ffdshow helps, though.

Hi there!

Is anyone familiar with the XVID video format? It's some kind of open-source third party codec for DIVX. However, I am unable to get it to work on my computer (at least, I only get sound, no video). Does someone here have experience with that, or maybe a tool to convert it to, say, MPEG?

Are emulators even legal ... ?

Interestingly enough, yes. Creating an emulator for most anything is perfectly legal, and there have been failed attempts to legally stop emulators. Some people even write fan roms for some systems. Of course, 99% of ordinary game roms are copyrighted and not distributable, and I'm not convinced that'd stop with the NinRev, because of potential tiny-print clauses.

I think you should not do this. Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbes, has always vehemently resisted syndication, merchandising, and putting his characters anywhere else than in its comic strips (which is why you won't find any official Calvin statuettes, for instance). You should respect his wishes with respect to his creation.

http://taleoftwokingdoms.com/index.php?page=down

Could it be possible to open the new sci fonts. i think some of then already have accents.

I've seen SCI fonts with accents, but they tend to use the first 32 characters for that. I've never come across a 256-char SCI font, if you have one please send it to me. Reading it would be easy.

Does Radiant FontEdit allow creating SCI fonts with more than 128 characters? It's all very well if I was to add support for it to AGS, but if nobody could create the fonts then there'd be no point.

Not presently, but it would be trivial to modify it so.

I'd be happy to join this year's Brittens, time permitting. I do have a boat to catch

Alcohol... the cause and solution to all of life's problems (quote from Homer) (no, not that Homer. The other one)

No, but you do get improvements if you import from #2 to #4.

...but the stats will probably be so low you might as well start with a new character...

I believe you get +100 on each stat PER GAME earlier than 4 that you imported it from.

I believe adventures are replayable. Some of them simply because they are fun to play (I occasionally replay TSOMI and MI2, and go through Loom again at least once a year). Some of them because they allow multiple approaches (Quest for Glory series). And some of them because you only scored 120 out of 183 points and want the friggin' rest of them

If it's currently unfeasible to support Linux plugins, I would still appreciate a workaround so that the same AGS game file can be run on Linux; this would mean that any function calls to a plugin would have to be ignored (or replaced by stubs) instead of causing the game to crash.

How about this: you can write a function like this:

Code: ags

pluginfunction foo (int bar) {
// do whatever
// for instance give an error msg, or simply do nothing
}

This is treated as a regular function, EXCEPT that if a plugin is found and loaded that contains a function named foo, that function overrides this one.

People don't like mazes because they've seen a maze before, and most mazes are pretty much the same idea. You have to do the mapping and spend a lot of time walking through it even if you do know the way. It's tedious, repetetive and not challenging - so to the player it doesn't feel like a rewarding task.

Examples, Hugo II Whodunit; Larry 3; CQOTL; Indy 3; Future Wars (with time limit); Space Quest 2 and 3 and 4; King's Quest 5; Spellcasting 301

In every case the maze feels tacked-on and has no significant impact on gameplay.

Borderline cases include The Seventh Guest (because I don't consider it an adventure game), KQVI (maze has a story-based reason for existence, but is still needlessly tedious); QfG2 (ditto) and Indy Fate of Atlantis (since you get an overview map); Spellcasting 101 (rather obscure puzzle)

Examples of games with effective mazes include Loom (only it isn't really a maze); TSOMI (because they're actually puzzles rather than mazes) and a great many text adventures that put their original twist on it (Enchanter comes to mind)

Hi there!

A Tale of Two Kingdoms (recently featured on http://www.justadventure.com) is looking for someone to do a short intro movie, in AVI or MPEG or anything. It can be relatively short but we'd like something flashy to start the game with. This is primarily for our title screen and logo, but if you would be interested in doing a more extended intro sequence I'd be happy to hear it.

Leave me a private message if interested, please.

Yours,
Pieter aka Radiant

We at Solar Crescent are very happy to have received extensive coverage in the recent update of Just Adventure e-zine.

http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/TaleTwoKingdoms/TaleTwoKingdoms.shtm

1. No pixel hunts

2. No mazes

3. If you include an arcade sequence, allow the player to skip it if he wants

4. Decent walking speed for your main character (or configurable speed)

5. An option for 'clickable' text speed, for those players who read very fast and find it annoying to have to wait for each sentence to finish

6. (personal pet peeve) Keyboard controls for the GUI options

7. Solution to puzzles should make (some kind of) sense; if afterwards the player has no clue why that solution would have worked, it is not a good puzzle

8. No dead ends (mentioned above)

9. If you want riddles, incorporate a reason for them that makes sense (sticking them on a random door is rather odd)

10. Easter eggs

I would find rotation useful. Flipping, well, I don't see why not but the easy workaround already exists.

Have you tried WikiPedia?