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I'm not saying that McGee didn't get it.

No, but Captain Mostly did.

I'm saying that it's a game of little substance compared to the original text. It's like taking A Streetcar Named Desire and remaking it as an action film. Sure, it's possible to make such a film and still "get it" through reinterpretation, but I doubt the concept would stand anywhere close to the original text due to lack of substance.

I think it's pointless to compare the "substance" of a computer platform game with that of two books. Of course the game is not going to be as substantial!

Let me put it this way: I don't think the game would have been any more substantial if it had stuck more closely to Lewis Carroll's vision.

I also think you can't really compare Alice to your example of Flynt's Dorothy cartoon. Firstly, Flynt's cartoon was a single-shot comic, where a one-note joke (such as the corruption of innocence) is possible. For a whole game, you need more than something one-note.

It was just meant to show that the juxtaposition of something (seen as) innocent and something judged corrupt can have a strong effect. For an example where the effect is more sustained, take all the horror films with dolls/puppets.

As I mentioned, I haven't really played the game a lot, but from what I've read, the "dark Wonderland" is actually a fairly complex, multi-layered story. You start out thinking that it's just the game taking elements and characters from the Alice stories in an action game. The whole idea that Alice is growing up and that's why Wonderland is more "adult" quickly comes up. Then it is revealed that this dark world is the psychosis of a girl in a mental asylum, which raises questions about the original Wonderland as well. Then players have to uncover the hidden psychological meanings of the obstacles in the fantasy world, find out the truth about Alice's childhood, and (I assume) overcome her dementia.

If that description is broadly correct, I would say it's a remarkably thorough exploration of a multi-faceted idea, not a "one-joke" concept.

And secondly, Flynt's cartoon was only controversial because it was released during a time of conflicting sexual attitudes. McGee's Alice isn't all that controversial. It's very tame compared to something like GTA 3 (which I classify a very controversial,Ã,  partially due to it's modern-day violence and partially due to it's satirical look at urban society).

Sure, I'm all for art that corrupts innocence to make a point. But for McGee's Alice, I don't think it does it very well. As you say it "should be judged on the quality of the execution". And I don't think its artistic value was executed well.

That's you prerogative. I haven't played it enough to really tell, I'm mostly just going from reviews I've read. However, most of the discussion up until now has been about whether the concept of a "dark Alice" is worth doing or not, I haven't seen any arguments for why you think this game doesn't do it very well.

Not only that, it's hard to mix genres like that. Is it a parody? Is it horror? Is it an actioner? You see, it's hard to take seriously because it seems to cross between genres very rapidly, never knowing what it really is. A game like Grim Fandango can cross between noir and comical genres well because it does it in a more subtle way. That's why I think McGee's Alice doesn't work well as a "scary" game or a "parody" game.

In the bits I played, I didn't really notice any parody elements. (Having jokes does not make it a parody.)

But like I said, this doesn't detract from the gameplay. As said, it's got a good level design and it does keep you interested. But it's not a game of substance when compared to the original text.

[are]

I can't say I've noticed Alice being all that much more prone to dark reimaginings than most other children's literature (Svankmajer's version was pretty disturbing, but the Disney version evens the scales). Nor have I ever heard it refered to as a gothic story.

However, I think a good argument can be made that Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are nightmarish. They take place in worlds where rationality has broken down, and that is a scary thing to children of a certain age (in particular). If you read (or more likely were read) the books at the right age, they would probably frighten you. And that's not to mention menacing stuff like "Off with their heads!" In fact, if the stories are dreamlike, I'd argue that they resemble nightmares more than any other kind of dream.

Even if you disagree with this, I think it's inaccurate to say that McGee didn't "get it" for making the Alice game so dark. He didn't make it dark because he thought the original stories were dark. He made it dark because they were not. If you are trying to shock or disturb, violating something innocent is a simple but effective trick. (For another examle, just take Larry Flynt's pornographic cartoon featuring Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. Instant controversy!) Horror writers, of course, do this kind of thing all the time. In my opinion, it's a valid (though increasingly tired) device, and should be judged on the quality of the execution.

I've only played a couple of levels of Alice (I didn't care for the platform gameplay), but I've heard good things about the darker story McGee weaves around Wonderland elements. So while the twist may not be very original, it appears it is at least exectuted competently.

Finally, I'd just like to say that there is a weird kind of symmetry in creating darker versions of children's classics like Alice. After all, most children's fairy tales have been bowdlerized from original stories that were much more violent and sexually explicit. (Little Red Riding Hood is the classic example.) These overtones and psychological motifs, not fully supressed even in the nursery versions, are part of what gives the stories their eerie potency. I imagine a nimbus of adult versions of Alice floating around the original stories, and I think it can only increase their richness and strangeness.

Looks good. I have a couple of suggestions.

Currently, the shins are as thick as the thighs, as if his legs were tree trunks. Legs generally get thinner further down towards the foot. You might even want to try drawing the muscle at the back of his leg.

Also, the shading on his legs looks like wrinkles or blotches to me. Looks a bit unhealthy. Something smoother would be better.

[Edit:]

I had a go at fixing the up view, since Eric wasn't happy with it. Like Cerulean said, it was a problem with the perspective being inverted.

Old:


New:




It's not as polished as the original animations, particularly in terms of shading, but people are meant to paint over it anyway, right? Besides, this is my first try at anything like this. C+C welcome.

Thanks to Eric for making such a cool template! I hope this little tweak will come in handy for someone.

Edit: When I looked at the animation, I realized the guy was walking with his legs spread out like crazy. This looks a bit more normal, I think.

Loops are bits of code that are executed again and again as many times as you tell it to. The bit in between { and } is the loop, and the bit in while() controls whether run the code again (or at all). There's an explanation of how it works in the coding tutorial in the AGS manual.

You're right. To fade out you need to change +5 to a negative number (or change the += to a -=, which amounts to the same thing). You also need to make it start at 100% opaque and stop the loop when it reaches 0, like this:

int trans=100;
while(trans>0)
{
   SetCharacterTransparency(ROOF,trans);
   trans-=5;
   Wait(1);
}

You should take Gilbot's advice and use a loop and the script name. This will have the same effect as your code:

int trans=0;
while(trans<100)
{
   SetCharacterTransparency(ROOF,trans);
   trans+=10;
   Wait(2);
}

This will do the same thing, except more smoothly:

int trans=0;
while(trans<100)
{
   SetCharacterTransparency(ROOF,trans);
   trans+=5;
   Wait(1);
}

That's bloody brilliant. I thought your original sprite was very good, but I'm really impressed with how you've picked up on the best suggestions in this thread and then improved on them, while resisting others.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the dark outline of his jaw in the front view. I guess that's supposed to be his hair just barely visible from the front, but it's not really clear that's what it is. Maybe if you made it more irregular.

Are you sure the lines aren't part of the background image?
Is it possible you accidentally got some edges included in a sprite or sprites you're displaying in these screens?

By the way, it's "I layed awake", not "I lied awake" (unless your character is a very deceptive person).

Cheers, Scorpiorus. I guess I'll find GlobalInts come in handy when I get around to doing some global messages and dialogues.

How do I access the GlobalInts as an array?

Or do you just mean that it's accessed by an index, so it works like an array?

Yeah, it's possible to use hashdefines to name the indices, but isn't it cleaner to just define and import your ints?

int money;
int health;
int room_lever;

Then you can write:

health = 100;
x = money;

And elegantly do stuff like:

money+=10;

Is there any reason at all why I should use GetGlobalInt() and SetGlobalInt() instead of just defining and importing ints in the global script and script header?

With GlobalInts it seems like it would be a huge hassle to keep track of what each one represented, and make sure not to use the same one for two different things.

Are they just a legacy feature since before AGS supported importing ints from the global script, or do they offer something more?

Ah, the generational starship motif!

Yeah, it's an interesting idea. Loads of science fiction writers have thought so, too. You could look at Brian Aldiss's "Non-stop", Harry Martenson's "Aniara", Stephen Baxter's "Ring", Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama", James Blish's "Cities in Flight", Gene Wolfe's "Book of the Long Sun", and Ursula Le Guin's "Paradises Lost" (in the collection "The Birthday of the World"), as well as a ton of short stories. There was even a low-budget Canadian TV series called "The Starlost", starring Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman in 2001).

So I guess I'm saying... if you're a pompous ass, then you're not alone. Although you shouldn't imagine that this is a completely original idea, I'm sure there's plenty of potential there for a fresh story. Good luck!

Maybe not. I guess I'd cast my vote along with yours, for TSOMI. And not just for historical significance or nostalgia. I played it last weekend, and if had come out this year it would still be the best adventure game ever.

[adventure]

Quite simply the best adventure game of all is Conquests of the Longbow.

Memorable music + great story + Robin Hood + nice graphics + intriguing puzzles = Best. Adventure.Game. Ever.

Don't forget the multiple solutions to the puzzles that lead to multiple endings, the points system that works on at least two dimensions, and the fact that it includes an authentic medieval board game. It's genius!

I have friends from Europe that don't speak that great of English yet but they're fun and funny people to hang with. I don't know if Rebecca is bitter against Europe in some regard but I thought that part was uncool...

Speaking for Europe, we really didn't mind.

Sorry about your cat, Rebecca. We tried to swerve, but it was too late. Maybe you shouldn't have let it running loose all over our streets.

Yes. By importing bigger sprites (images), you can make bigger characters. You can also scale characters by more than 100% to make them bigger, but they'll look blocky.

Yeah, but layers are good for doing AGS masks, because you can paint them right on top of your background, and store them in the same file. Also, if you build your background right, you may be able to generate the masks automatically from the image. For instance, if you have a tree that's going to be a walkbehind, and you draw it on its own layer, you can use that layer to create the walkbehind mask, and it will be pixel-perfect.

Any paint application that does layers. Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, for instance. There's a link to a big list of decent paint applications in the "READ THIS THREAD FIRST" thread.

OK Dikla, let's see if I've understood what you're trying to do.

You are using Sierra-style speech, and you want to show the portrait of the different characters, along with a line of text. You want the game to automatically show these lines of dialogue, one after the other, without the player having to click "Talk" on the characters.

Currently you're hacking this by sticking the character portraits on the screen as objects, making them visible with ObjectOn(), and then using DisplayXXX() to show the line of text. But it doesn't work.

Is that right? OK, I'm not sure why ObjectOn() doesn't work, but I think I have a better solution to your problem.

Make a conversation with all the characters and the things they have to say, and then use RunDialog() to launch it. Look up RunDialog() in the manual first to see how to use it. I think you want to put this in the Room Interactions, under "Player Enters Screen (after fadein)", so that it happens automatically when the player enters the room. This is probably the same place where you have the hero say "I want to thank all my friends".

Wouldn't it be better to set this for each walkable area, rather than for each room? The perspective might be significantly different.