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I've been thinking.
There seems to have been a lot of sightings of UFO's in the UK in recent weeks. Or certainly there has been an increase in press coverage of them.

Anyone else think this could be a bit of a publicity stunt to build up enthusiasm for the next X-Files movie?

I'm a strong believer that nearly everything in the news (apart from the big stuff like murders and international crises) is there for publicity purposes.  I'm not saying they make it up, but they certainly select their stories to fit in with what is going to make them the most money.

The headline on today's Sun was "ARMY SPOT UFOs OVER SHROPSHIRE"...
The Sun is part of the Murdoch empire, as is Fox, who are the company behind The X-Files, so it would make sence that His news empire would direct their stories to support his TV and film interests... just a thought.

I'll be keeping an eye on paranormal developments over the next month, especially in the Murdoch Media, and I'll provide a conclusion along with a review the film on August 1st.

I saw this the other day at the cinema where I work.  I'd never seen Planet Terror or Death Proof before, so it was good to see them both together as originally intended.

I  preferred Planet Terror, just.  And I love the fake trailers, especially 'Don't'.

Definitely has to be seen at the cinema to be truly appreciated.

Have you seen it?
What did you think?

[The X-Files: I Want to Believe]

Who else is looking forward to this movie?  I know I am?

IMDB reckon it's going to be called The X-Files: I Want to Believe, but Fox still claim it hasn't got a title yet.

In grand "X-Files" manner, the as yet untitled film's storyline is being kept under wraps. This much can be revealed:  It is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show's most acclaimed and beloved episodes, and takes the complicated relationship between Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) in unexpected directions.  Mulder continues his unshakable quest for the truth, and Scully, the passionate, ferociously intelligent physician, remains inextricably tied to Mulder's pursuits.

Nothing really new there, but still... it's a sign that we're close.

And here is the trailer...

Release date is July 25th, but I happen to know that it's August 1st in the UK, which is one week after The Dark Knight is released... bad move by Fox, methinks...

This is a bit premature, seeing as I haven't even made any backgrounds yet, but I fancied trying my hand at a GUI for my forthcoming game.
I've gone the silhouette route simply to make things easier on myself.

How does it look?


And here's how it would look on screen (with no background...).

This is my 1000th post.
Hooray for me.

I thought I'd mark the occasion by starting a thread which we can all use to share our landmark posts and reflect upon our time so far as a member of the AGS forums.

I remember when I first signed up and I had loads of ideas for games and I was really enthusiastic... Well, I still have loads of ideas, they're just different ones.  But if anything I'm more enthusiastic about my current project than I've ever been about a previous one.

You'd think I'd have more to show for 1000 posts, in the form of cold, hard games... or even some decent artwork... but alas, I've spent most of them chatting bollocks in the General Forum... It's been fun, though, and I don't intend on going away any time soon, but I do promise to start spending some more quality time in the technical forums and the Critics Lounge from now on... time to make myself useful.

So anyway, if you have a landmark post coming up at any time, why not spend it in here and use it as a chance to make a bit of a speech and reflect over your past 100, 250, or 1000 posts (or whatever you feel is a valid landmark 666, 108, 911, there are no rules).

I'm not really up on all this RSS shenanigans... If I want to read a blog or a newsfeed I tend to just go to that website.
One thing I wanted to know though, is there a way I can use this system in order to have the most recent entry of my blog appear on my front MySpace page?  So that when I made a new post on my blog, it would appear on my MySpace and knock the old one off?

I'm sure this is possible, but I can't work out how to do it.

Cheers

PS... I'm talking about a separate blog (Freewebs, in fact) as opposed to MySpace's own blogging facility.

Can I ask a really beginnerish question?
In games when he character goes of into the background does AGS automatically shrink him to give the illusion of distance, or is it up to the user to animate it that way?

Just been to see this film.
It was terrifying.  I've never shat myself so much at the cinema.
The whole handheld camera thing seems to be the craze these days but it pulls it off almost as well as Cloverfield.  It was certainly scarier and just as intense as Cloverfield.

I didn't do a lot of research about the film before going in but I knew three things before I went in:
a) it's in Spanish
b) it's a handheld camera thing
c) it's supposed to be fucking scary

That was enough for me to book the seat, and seeing as I work at the cinema I hope I'm not going to be the one who has to clean it.

How is this looking for a sprite?
I tried shading the face, but I just can't do it

x1
x2

I'm basing my character on this guy:

Sorry if I sound really layman, but I've just downloaded 'How to be a Complete Bastard' (I'm thinking of making an AGS game based on the same idea) and it's a .d64 file which I gather is something to do with it being a commodore64 game (although we had it on our Amstrad yonks ago).  Does anybody know exactly what I need to do/download/sleep with to get this game running?

Cheers guys.

[EDIT]
Unless you know where I can simply find a more accessible version of the game online...

Rules are useful.  They help to create stability and consistency and order.

Language rules are no different.  But all languages have evolved over thousands of years to get where they are today?  Surely it has to be allowed to evolve further... so who decides what is what, which words are acceptable or not, and in what order?

I'm mainly talking about particular words... if people hadn't invented words in the past we wouldn't be able to talk to each other today.  So why can't I invent a particular word, just because it has never been accepted by any dictionary makers.  Many people in history have 'coined' certain words.  So why weren't they told off by their peers?  Why were their new words allowed?  Why didn't Bill Gates come up to them with a squiggly red pen every time they wrote something unconventional?

I had a particular word in mind to back up this argument, but actually it turned out to be a bad example 
but everything above still stands.  Have you ever come up with a word which would perfectly suit your needs apart from the fact that it doesn't exist?  And then felt the need to correct yourself, to the detriment of your creativity, just to avoid a berating from your peers?

[Server downtime this week]

Server downtime this week
Due to planned maintenance, the AGS Forums will not be
available from Wed 12th March to Sun 16th March.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Discuss...

Every once in a while i sit down and tell myself to start work on a background or a sprite.  The only trouble is I can never get a decent colour scheme going.  I thought to save time I could find an existing image along the same theme of mine, and simply lift the colours from it to use in my own picture.

Is this considered cheating, or is it a good exercise?

I still haven't seen the first nine...

Last time I got so much as a lump in my throat from watching an emotional piece of television was in LOST when

Spoiler

Charlie died.

[close]

It's not something that happens very often, but I'm man enough to admit it when it does.

What was the last piece of TV (or film) that choked you up?

To put it into context I didn't even cry when my Grandad died.  Not because I'm dead inside, more likely because I did all my crying at primary school.

hiding the huge spoiler to LOST. eric

[Edit]  Ooops... hehe... well in my defence if you didn't already know that then you probably don't care anyway.

I was playing about and came up with the following basis for a background.
But rather than carrying on and destroying it forever, as I tend to do, I thought I'd ask you guys what you think I could do next.
I have no idea what the game is going to be, but I was kind of hoping that making a new background might be the kick up the arse I need to get me making a game.



Not sure why I chose purple... might be something to do with the fact that I've been playing 'The Dig' demo which uses quite a lot of purpley shades...

Absolutely any suggestions/ideas/paintovers are welcome.

For Media Studies we have been looking at British cinema and discussing them in terms of "Britishness" as well as things like gender, class etc.

I'm British and I find the term extremely difficult to define.

We at AGS are a very culturally diverse group of people.  What does the term "Britishness" mean to you?  I am interested to see what answers I get from everyone, no matter where you come from.

I was thinking of trying to make a video using AGS by:
1) recording a scene normally on my camera;
2) taking screenshots of say 3 or 4 frames per second;
3) farting about with each one on photoshop to make some groovy effects;
4) uploading them on AGS as rooms and telling AGS to just move from room to room in sequence so that the video is recreated thus (with my groovy effects).

Has anything similar been done before and what are the pros and cons of such an attempt?

Discuss!

The other night I remembered a film I had once seen on TV.  Only thing is I couldn't remember its title or much about it.  All I can recall is that is was set on the eve of the end of the world (literally the last few hours or so) and everybody was trying to do the things they wanted to do before they died (such as having sex etc).

I remember quite liking the film, and I can remember that I didn't see it from the beginning, I only caught some of it after some channel-hopping.  I'd like to watch the whole thing and I thought you guys might know which film I'm talking about.

[Edit] - I do a lot of remembering don't I?

I really want to get on with making a game and I'm annoyed with keep using lack of time as an excuse.
However it is a genuine excuse.  Does anyone have any tips for being a more efficient game designer.  To get as much done with little spare time in which to do it.

Whether it be in the backgrounds, character design/walkcycle, scripting or whatever, do you know any shortcuts or subtle cheats?  How do you save time while making a game?