Messages

I'd never wear the Royal Stuart (aka shortbread tin) tartan.. I'm in a sept of Buchanan.

Anyway...

Its a bit early in the year for this, maybe, but since most people seem to think that originality is a good thing, should we make more efforts to recognise it in, for example, the AGS Awards?

Spoiler

Apart from anything, its one way to make sure that sequels and remakes don't dominate!

[close]

Only if he gives his consent, otherwise all you are doing is changing the type of fraud

but i am just going to lie to buy things, thats not a crime
I really need do get my pass, i mean it is not a crime, and if it is, since when???
also i think you have to be 18 because when you get this pass, you can sell things, so i think thats why you need to be 18, if it is so, then lying about your age to buy one thing, will not be a crime

It is a crime, called "fraud". In the UK, under-18s are not extended any kind of credit (and that includes things that might not seem as credit, such as switch cards that give you 3 days of credit, and paying for phone calls AFTER you make them... I know, I tried to get a BT phone line when I was a 17-year-old student) and the reason is that under-18s as minors are not deemed capable to make an informed decision about their ability to pay back a debt and thus any debts against them are NOT ENFORCABLE. So obviouslt, any lender would be nuts trusting to lend to anyone under 18.

Similarly, contracts with under-18s are not enforcable unless they are made with parental consent. ebay is all about making binding contracts  between buyers and sellers, so once again under-18s can effectively withdraw bids with no repercussions and thus screw up the whole auction system.


Why not persuade an over-18 person you know to bid for you and then pay them the money in cash?

Pixel perfect only used to work on non-sclaed characters, so to make sure it works all the time:

Turn on pixel-perfect checkbox, save game, make a copy of your entire game folder as a backup
Download AGS 2.62RC1 from the thread in the technical forum
Start the new version of AGS and load up your game, then save it again...

I think what Farlander was trying to say was that there's really no point in posting a message that says, "Image Hosted by Tripod!", or "Big red Xs".

If you can't see the images, just wait awhile.  The author of the thread will (most likely) take steps to fix the problem.

Sorry to stay offtopic, but I think that in this case, actually blackman was correct to mention it, becuase these problems are actually often invisible to the one who posts them due to their cache, cookies, etc. However, if you are a person who knows how to solve the problem (which he wasn't) then you should of course try and be helpful and post a solution as well as the problem...

blackman, just becuase it works for you doens't mean it would work for anyone else, as you would have a geocities cookie in your browser that would enable them for your oiwn pictures.

However, I can see the pic you just posted, so maybe geocities have changed their policy!

Try here or here

i can't buy one because i'm 15 but what in the world is the second one???

Is it illegal for under-16s to buy things in your country? And even if it is, does that mean its then OK to steal instead? When I was your age and I wanted to buy something mail order, I went to the post office and got a postal order for the amount... or asked my parents to get it for me after I gavce them the money.

[Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade]

i am looking for
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
for my dos computer

Try here or here

I think part of the problem with this thread is that there's really (at least) three separate issues.

1. I'll trust Richard's judgment on his anecdote, as I have no real reasons not to. Those parents were not paying enough attention to their child. My daughter quite likely would be doing the same kind of thing, running around Homebase or B&Q climbing ladders etc, but I at least would be running around after her trying to keep up. Quite possibly they could be better parents.

2. Extrapolating from one incident of negligence to that those people don't desrve to have kids is a Quantum Leap ( ) however. We all make mistakes, even about juding potential risk. Letting your kid run off around a supermarket is probably realitively OK, but a hardware store is a different matter, but maybe the parents were just to entranced by the wonderous display of plumbing goods at Rich's shop. On the other hand, Rich was only saying so in a blog    but back to the first hand again and Rich did go on about various ways to reduce welfare payments to kids' parents

3. Even, assuming that in this case the parents shouldn't have kids, extrapolating from a specific case to some kind of radical sterilisation program to reduce the number of parental negligence-related deaths (which seems to be a huge problem in people's minds here, but I have yet to see any hard facts on the death rates involved here, compared with, say, deliberate parental abuse)  is another leap.

And sorry Kinoko, I did realise that you weren't advocating sterlisation, but my reply was aimed at more than you: I should have made that clear.

And worry about your kid changes over time. I used to worry that Alba would be born with a birth defect of some kind, but I don't worry about number two so much... does that mean that I won't be such a good parent to her? Or maybe experience is the mother of realism? How much experince in being a parent do you have, Rich?

SSH, instead of criticizing my ideas, why not try amending/changing them?

Because I don't agree with them one iota?

We'll add an exception for rape

In which case, for the purposes of welfare, they'll just claimed they were raped but don't want to prosecute.

How about instead, if there are two parents, then at least one must have a full time job.

So if the mother looks after the kids and then the father is made redundant through no fault of his own then they dont get any help?

As for already having more than one childre, they can apply for, say, limited welfare. I mean, if you can't limit yourself on how many kids you have and start reproducing like rabbits, and never prepared for it, then why should they get the same welfare treatment as people with one or two kids that need the help?

So the poor newborn baby has to suffer because the parents were silly?

Why would it be unfar to devout Catholics, etc.? Just don't have sex if you can't have more children.

Oh, well thats alright then  :

This is why most devout Catholics don't have 25 kids.

Or maybe due to the fact that "natural" family palnning methods can have a best-case 2% chance per year of conception if done perfectly (which is about the same as the Pill) and even if done badly sometimes gives about 15% per year chance.

If the person has a moral objection to abortion, then they can have the kid, but either (1) be eligible for limited welfare, or (2) be disqualified. If you can't afford kids, don't have them. People should learn that.

So reward people who would murder unborn children? I thoguht you wanted parents who were good parents?

If the parents don't have some trusted relative, then they should prepare before having children.

So you should penalise people whose parents have both died young?

That's the thing with having a family. People tend to start them without ANY preparation whatsoever.

"Tend to"? Which statistical study is this assumption based on? Anyway, doesn't foreplay count? 

One parent could work the nightshift if need be. But there are ways to do it.

That's kind of what my wife and me do at the moment and it means that we nearly never see each other. In a marriage that wasn't so strong, it could destroy the relationship which would be REALLY good for the kids.

Agreed in some circumstances, but there ARE circumstances where a persons previous behavious in other areas indicates they definitely would not make good parents, or at least are at great risk of not being a good parents. I totally agree with rapists/murderers/child abusers never being allowed to have children. Not matter how reformed, the risk is too great and when you've done something as bad as that, you lose your rights in this regard for life.

What if a murdered killed someone out of revenge for them having hurt their child and got away with it (e.g. A Time To Kill movie).. would they then not be allowed to have kids? And what if a conviction was overturned? Medical technology can't guarantee that sterilisations are reversible, and they aren't 100% reliable, either. And that's before we even get into the whole punishment versus reform argument.

There are some people you can just speak to and know that aren't ready for parenting. They just give off "stupidity" and "irresponsibility", and you -know-. It's a vibe... hard to measure, but in this case it's not that people should be made sterile. Just that I don't think they should have kids until they've grown up and become better people.

But since its impossible to measure and oh so very subjective, should it become law anywhere? I argree that there's some pretty irresponsible people around, but you just can't legislate for this kind of thing. And the whole idea stinks of the slippery slope to Eugenics.

I've had many ideas for welfare, on restricting it.
The recipient(s) MUSt be employed full time and hire a babysitter/daycare center if they need to.

Despite the fact that this may be worse for the children, or may be more expensive than any wage they can earn? Surely part of the point of all this stuff was that we should do what is best for the kids?

There should be a maximum child requirement, any birth or adoption over that number immediately disqualifies them for welfare.

Isn't this kind of unfair to (a) Devout Catholics or other religions that prohibit contraception and thus violating some constitutional amendment or other (b) People who have already had lots of kids, find themselves unexpcetedly out of work through no fault of their own and are trying to restart their lives (c) those extra kids, who are now going to suffer because of your rule? (d) women who have been raped but have a moral objection to abortion (e) when it comes to fathers, would children that you act like a father too (i.e. stepchildren) count? If they did count, does that mean the biological father then doesn't count them? Does a couple get counted as a pair or separately? Wouldn't it discourage adoption, which is generally far better for the kids than care homes?

I'm not talking about a parent who accidentally lets their kid scrape a knee, or a parent who has a shoplifting record from the age of 15, or a mother who can't say who the father is. We ALL know there ARE parents out there who just should not have ever gotten pregnant and don't under any circumstances deserve the right to raise a child. Children aren't toys, we all know that. A parent's responsibility is to raise another human being as well as that child needs to be raised. I can't say "To the best of their ability" because some parents' best isn't near good enough.

I'd LOVE the right to take people's children away from them when I saw them being raised by what I consider to be bad parents. However, what we want to do or what we feel people deserve isn't the goal, it's a world where ALL children are raised well, lead happy, healthy lives and ALL have chances in life.

Here's an important difference from what other people have said: you have to act on how parents HAVE treated their kids, not how they might. Until Minority Report comes reality, we can't judge people in advance of what they might do to their kids. The state does have the right to remove kids from their parents, but its not just a simple choice like that: care homes are crap. Having known some people who have been in them, they are awful places to be, no matter how good and caring the staff might be (and they often are not that even). So, in many cases staying with parents who are being treated for some condition (usually depression) would be much better for the kids.

Might find it handy to look at the rather more concise code here: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=14871.0

The latest advice in the UK is that any alchohol intake while pregnant could be harmful. Since the effect of alchohol  on a person is roughtly proportional to body weight, and depending on stage of development, a baby could have a hundredth of an adults body weight, even half a lager could be equivalent to 100 units... obviously bad news for baby

In rich countries like most of us live in, goverments know that they have to encourage people to have kids. Those kids are going to have to support a rapidly aging population, so the more the better. They will be the ones that pay for our retirement, one way or another. The west has a problem with underpopulation, not overpopulation.

Welfare systems are often designed piecemeal and thus actually encourage people,to explot them and not to seek work. Means-testing just makes the problem worse. Only a universal benefit system can encourage people to start working their way off the bottom, yet support those in genuine need.

Kids who commit crimes or commit suicide are not just a product of their parents upbringing of them. There are so many factors at work, that it is naive to assume that trying to deal with one factor (even assuming that any of the methods suggested for that would work) .

All of us can think of things that our parents did wrong in bringing us up... does that mean that we should all be only children?

Read some books on child development, Darth, and you'll see hundreds of anecdotes of parents doing things that seem like loving behaviour actually encouraging bad behaviour in the kid. ITS NOT SO SIMPLE. But despite all this, most of us grow up and are able to handle life most of the time. I think a loss of human rights is a very big price to pay . A wise man (who had illegitimate children) once said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither libery nor safety."

I thought that slowness was just me...

but anyway, it doesn't really matter if AGS can import them as all sprites are the same once inside, but if you have a lot of big still to show, like in a cutscene, you could use jpegs for them...

It's called Irony, Rich 

I can see your point, just don't be TOO quick to judge. Sounds like in your case, you weren't, though!

Well, I can't speak for the exact circumstances of Rich and Zooty's anecdotes, but let me offer some possible mitigation, from someone with actual experience.

I first went to the local Church's parent-and-toddler group when Alba was less than 18 months old. She had been walking since before she was one, but couldn't do stairs. At the group they had a big wooden slide with quite big gaps between the stairs. Alba loved slides when we have been to playparks before, but I always lifted her onto the slide rather than let her climb up the big steps. Alba seemed keen to go on the slide so with my hands about 2mm away from holding her all the way, she managed to pull herself up the steps and then went down the slide happily. Later the same morning, I turned to look at something else for a couple of second. In the meantime Alba had got herself up on top of the slide and was on her way down. She must have climbed the steps all by herself. In fact, she has never fallen off the slide. Since then , she has managed to climb vertical ladders on slides with rungs about half her whole height apart. So  a 4-year-old should be pretty capable with ladders by then, and also pretty capable to pick themselves up after a fall. OK, about the first 100 times your child falls over you run and pick them up straightaway, but as they get older they don't want you to help. So you only go to them if they start crying for you.

On the other hand, some parents do just sit at these things and have a chat with their firends and don't play with their kids at all. But that doesn't make them bad parents, either, just maybe a bit less good, and spekaing for myself I'm usually pretty knackered to go runnign after her, but run I do. Maybe its not having a proper nights sleep in 2 years that does it...?

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but:

http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/jpeg.zip

shows that AGS can show a jpeg, and if you put your own jpeg in place of test.jpg, the prog will display that instead....

Here's the room script code.

function room_a() {
  // script for room: First time player enters screen
PlayVideo("test.jpg", 1, 0);
WaitKey(500);
QuitGame(0);
  
}

Dibbs on the 'Angry Scotsman Guild'! where me and my Scottish bretheren shall plot the downfall of you all BWAHAH-- I mean colaborate for some kick ass games!

I think it would be a pretty good idea, allowing for a kind of localised critics/production crew, and it would probably ease tension in asking people for help on projects.

Not to mention that there doesn't seem to be an uber-artist amongst our scots, so we'd be a bit lacking there.

Especially as pixel-perfect works on scaled characters in the latest beta...

I would also recommend:

1. Draw some new mouse pointers, they really clash with the rest of the art
2. Try and get rid of her flashing knees when she talks to camera, its really disconcerting. Also, the butcher's head has a flashing outline when he talks.

I'd really recommend that you produce a revised version of this with these and any other loose ends tidied up, the overall look is great!