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It's that time of year again. Is anyone planning to do NaNo this year?
If so, what are your intentions? Or are you just going to tap the keyboard and see what happens?

I'm still mulling over some ideas, but can't settle on anything.  But it's likely going to be loosely based on my time in Japan with some surrealist/fantasy elements.

Summer is here and my only trip to the beach probably this year has ended in ugly peeling sunburn.

'The beach' is the theme for this contest. Interpret it how you will.

Rules - there ain't no rules.
Voting starts midnight (bst) on August 13th.
Have fun :-)

Trophies:
Gold^* =
Silver^** =
Bronze^*** =

^{*yellow  **grey  ***brown}

So Al Lowe has caught the Kickstarter bug and this time he's back with a new project.
Steve Ince is also on board, which is excellent news.

The game is called Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure.

At first glance it looks quite a bit like Kinky Island.  Hope you've got a good lawyer, Mods.

Do you get angry over video games?

My housemate spends most evenings downstairs playing Gears of War and Tekken and all you can hear is him shouting "Fuck off!... Fuck off!... Fuck Sake man! Fucking stupid cunt!"  And it's not just the odd one every few minutes. It's constant, over and over again for hours at a time, whole evenings in fact.  Sometimes he gets really angry and you can hear him banging the sofa or something.  Nothing tooo bad, no fists through walls or broken control pads... yet.  But it's annoying and has been going on at least 4 nights a week since we moved in together in September.  Some days are worse than others, like today, hence my writing this. Fuck knows what the neighbours must think.

I tell him he shouldn't play games if he doesn't enjoy them. He insists he enjoys it, but it doesn't sound like that.  He must have some severe pent-up aggression going on.  I'm not exactly the most laid back guy on the planet either, but compared to him I'm cool as The Fonz.

How about you guys?  Do you let games wind you up this much?

Krikey, they're all at it.  Yesterday I noticed that Al Lowe is turning to Kickstarter to help fund the Leisure Suit Larry remakes (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1451923705/make-leisure-suit-larry-come-again), and then today it turns out that Jane Jensen is using it to fund her new game studio (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005365109/jane-jensens-pinkerton-road-2012-2013-csg), which sounds more like a dodgy adventure game time-share scheme.

People have been known to do some of their best thinking in the shower.  Songs have been written, film plots have been conceived, problems have been solved, world peace has been acheived... well, I'm sure a few people have come close.

Just now I managed to write a poignant fairy tale and also to sing myself into a fit of hysterics.  Pretty successful shower.

The story was thus:

There once was village full of people who loved pie and chips.
One day a pie merchant rode his cart full of pies into the village.
But the villagers turned it away because they wanted pie and chips,
so the pies were taken to the dump.
The next day a chip merchant rode his cart full of chips into the village.
But the villagers turned it away because they wanted pie and chips,
so the chips were taken to the dump.
All the hobos at the dump cheered, for there was pie and chips galore,
while all the villagers died of starvation.
The End.

And the song (which I'm seriously considering entering for the Eurovision Song Contest) was thus:

(to be sung in a crooner style)
I love pie.
I love chips.
A moment in the mouth,
A lifetime on the hips.
Meow Meow Moew.
I love chips.
My lovely lovely
lovely tits.

Please share your moments of shower genius.  Thanks.

Has anyone played this free game yet?


I saw a link to it on Twitter yesterday and decided to give it a bash.  I also noticed today that GOG.com are also hosting it in their selection of free games.

I started playing it last night, but it actually caused my shit laptop to overheat and crash, so I might not have a chance to play it for a while, but the tiny bit I did get to play looked really nice.  So check it out if you haven't already.

first

I think I need a little prodding in the right direction.  I'm just walking around in circles.

Spoiler

So, I think I'm kind of near the end.  I've found Busbot and Melanie in the coat cupboard, sussed out that he is innocent, and I have been able to open the storage room door and found the two [fake?] robots.  I have the cutlery and the green rubber gloves.  I'm guessing I need to get my gun back somehow (to get into the kitchen, I presume).  I'm also guessing I have to find some food for Melanie, as she hinted at being hungry.

[close]

I'm pretty sure I've exhausted every conversation with everyone too, so now I'm ready for a hint

Thanks.

So, I just decided to have a look at the members list to see if we'd had many new people sign up since the Bake Sale (welcome to those people ) but I also noticed there are hundreds of fake profiles recently.  They are easy to spot because the names are made up of three letters followed by three numbers followed by a somewhat pronouncable set of four more letters.  (ini691shil, irm695shun, jil721tami, zhu293hana).  It looks like they've been going on for nearly a year, with an average of 4 or 5 fake profiles being registered every day.

Any chance of a subtle hint :-)

Spoiler

I'm stuck with retrieving the key from the balloon.  I've said RAAAAH! too many times that the ballon is stuck at the left hand side of the screen, and I'm not sure if it's mean to be there or how to get it to come back the other way.  Also I have no idea how to open the trapdoor or how to get the hair for the witch :-(

[close]

Thankss

[edit]
Forget it... sussed

Spoiler

Everything fell into place once I realised you have to stand the other side of the balloon to make it go the other way... d'oh!

[close]

[BOTH Steve Ince and Charles Cecil.]

Is anyone thinking of attending Platform 2012 in March?

It's in the 17th and 18th of March at the University of Hull.
There will be a number of interesting speakers, including BOTH Steve Ince and Charles Cecil.

I'm seriously considering it; Just depends on fund, studies etc, but tickets aren't too expensive and there's a further discount for booking online before the end of January.  It would be cool if some other AGSers came along.  

[Update]
I'll take that as a no, then 

Y'all better cry like that when I die! 

Did anyone else do the BBC morality test?

I'm interested to see what other people's results were like compared to mine.

I'm reluctant to discuss too much now in case it gives too much away and affects your answers, so why not go ahead and take the quiz first and then come back to discuss your results.


Only read below if you have taken the test.

Spoiler

I apparently have a lower sense of what is wrong than most people, and I am apparently less easily dicusted than most.
It says that I get more angry about governments big corporations and bankers ripping people off than I do about individuals committing crimes etc.
I am also apparently more forgiving of people who fail to report wrongdoings by members of their own family or group.

All this apparently makes me less part of the "human superorganism".  Am I supposed to feel ashamed about this?  Because I don't.

[close]

Anyone on it yet?
What do you think?

I'm liking it at the moment.  It's a nice toy for sure and its certainly a lot less nosey than Facebook, although it's difficult to decide if it is really going to compete.  I prefer it as a tool, but then I've always had a bit of a grudge against FB. FB was good at allowing me to get in touch with old school friends, but now I've been in touch with them and have no reason to talk to them again.

I feel there is a lot more that can be done with G+, but I guess that's what these early stages are for.  I've had to unfollow some people that I had been following because they post too much and clog up my stream, but some clever things can be done with the circles to avoid such problems, it's just a case of fiddling around.

If anyone wants a look, PM me your gmail address and I should be able to send you an invite. :-)

Has anyone else heard the news that Charles Cecil, the man who gave us Broken Sword and Beneath a Steel Sky, to name a few, has won an MBE in recognition of his "services to the computer game industry".  That is good news for adventure fans if ever there was any.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a324363/broken-sword-creator-charles-cecil-awarded-mbe.html

Congrats Mr. C!

This is a really interesting diagram of the Universe with a slidy bar that lets you zoom from right at the edge of the universe to right down to the quantum foam that supposedly makes up the fabric of space and time.

http://www.primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

I was in Tokyo when the quake struck and I'm surprised there isn't a thread about it already, so I thought I'd open the discussions by plugging my latest blog post about my quake experience.  It's pretty text-heavy but it's there for anyone to read if they would like :-)

http://stujapan.blogspot.com/2011/03/big-ass-quake-2011.html

I'd be interested to hear about how the media reported on the stories in your respective countries, especially regarding the Fukushima nuclear crisis,  because it seems to me that the French and Germans really panicked at the first mention of radiation.  I was staying at a hostel and they were the first to book planes home, even before the French government officially told tem to come home.  Even my English friend, who I know very well, and who would normally have been the last one to panic, was actually the first of us to leave Japan, and the only reason I can think is that he has a lot of German friends and connections, who were clearly scaring him, because their media was scaring them.

Has Anyone tried playing these 'choose your own adventure' style things on Youtube?
Today I suddenly had the idea of making one, before quickly realizing it's probably already been done... and it has... to death.  But it's quite entertaining.

Here's a link to the one I just played... Kind of cheesy, but a fun distraction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8rJ1WML60Y

Sorry if I'm neglecting something, but I'm trying to think and  I can't recall there being much, if anything, in the way of 'physics games' on AGS.  Has anyone tried having a go at making one?  AGS is pretty powerful, I'm sure it could cope with some interesting physics-based puzzles (such This one I've been playing.