Messages

[anything]

1) Do not mention anything concerning religion! (People here tend to jump all over anyone that expresses their beliefs.)
2) Do not mention anything concerning nudity, immodesty, impurity, indecency, etc. (religion usually comes up.)
3) Do not mention anything concerning morality. (religion usually comes up, also.)

Why not? What's so terrible about religion?

They're so cute!

Tuba for the win.

I agree with this person.

I don't think it's a good idea to try to compete with the Hollywood of games. They'll just outresource you, and sell people a longer game with 3D graphics and whatnot (except cool print supplements). You need to compete with them in areas where they are weak to provide something that is so different that it's worth it. I am talking niche games here. What about it?

Scratchware is what we need. Shorter, less technologically-advanced games for a fraction of the price of AAA titles.

Hey Squinky, once I'm done TGTTPOACS, we should totally make a commercial game together, seeing as I'm just as much of a sucker for great game documentation as you are. We could call our team "Squinky & Squinky". That'd be priceless.

I'm all for commercial games myself. I know that was my dream all along. The one you've mentioned above. Yah know? Make money, maybe even enough to support yourself or your dream doing what you love. It may even be possible, who knows. Don't give up if that's what you really want, but just remember ... when its a job its a lot less fun and lot more work.

Agreed.

No offense taken. I'm honestly just not sure as to how the friendliness of a game-making community is related to wanting (or not wanting, rather) to make money.

My personal experience (which consists of SLUDGE and AGAST, though I've poked around WME a teensy bit...) is that other adventure game making communities are just as friendly as AGS is. I've never encountered any hostility, even by people who make games of commercial quality. This, I suppose, is the source of my bafflement. In other words, ramble away!

If you're curious, by the way, I was originally intending to sell my upcoming game, but decided against it partway through development. Why? Because, as I realised, there are tons of high-quality free games out there that I stand no chance in surpassing; to be able to justify charging money for the game, I would have to create something of the same quality as Project Joe or Juniper Crescent. Although I'm a huge perfectionist and strive to make the best games I possibly can, I know my limits, meaning the talent, time, and energy I possess is not enough for such a high standard. Therefore, I'd have much more people playing my game if I gave it away for free than if I sold it, since as demonstrated on these forums, not many people would buy an amateur adventure game unless it were THAT mindblowing.

Heh, maybe I'll write a blog entry on this subject, seeing as I have so much more I can ramble about...

AGS wouldn't have a shadow of the good atmosphere and spirit we have now if it was all based on money. I'm not saying that Ionas & company did wrong by charging for their games, but in my heart I believe that if everybody would charge for their games, the community would be a less friendly place to be.

I don't quite follow your reasoning here. Are you implying that all people who want to make money are unfriendly greedy bastards?

And charging money for a game does not make its development "all based on money", because if it were, then we wouldn't even be making adventure games in the first place. What if the developer(s) actually are developing the game out of love, and the money is just a secondary benefit?

There is nothing wrong with trying to make money off an amateur adventure game. Making a game takes time and effort, and it's reasonable to expect some sort of reward for your efforts.

The problem lies in the fact that many high-quality amateur adventures have been and are being released for free. Therefore, we have the mindset that for a game to be worth our money, it must rise above and beyond the best of the free games.

If everybody starts making their AGS games commercial the AGS community will collapse 

I don't quite agree with this sentiment. On the contrary, if everyone were to start making their AGS* games commercial (or at least scratchware), I have a feeling that AGS games will demonstrate an increase of quality as a whole. That might be a good thing in some respects.

* This statement applies to all other engines too.

"Using one's brain" is not necessarily synonymous with "being intelligent". (Here, I'm assuming that intelligence means having a high IQ... though the whole debate about the problems of IQ testing is a different story.) Many people are intelligent but choose to partake in leisure activities that do not involve any kind of thinking whatsoever. On the other hand, a person who enjoys learning new things and solving puzzles does not necessarily have a high IQ.

The fact remains that the gameplay in adventure games actually is more focused on "using one's brain", whereas most mainstream games tend to involve quick reflexes. (To be more accurate, though, it involves using a different part of the brain, but still, it's obvious that it's more of an instinctual thing than a logical thing.) If you prefer one genre to another, it does not make you any more or less intelligent. There's no need to be insulted, really...

Why not? If adventure games were what everyone was playing, it would mean more people were using their brains and less people were mindlessly mashing buttons with the hopes of blowing things up.

The thing is, our society is currently one in which using one's brain is not as encouraged as watching things blow up, or acquiring lots of money, or looking good, etc. The types of media enjoyed by the mainstream are more of a reflection of the interests and values of a society as a whole than anything. Thus, I'm thinking that if the world changed so that everyone (and not just "smart people") were encouraged to use their brains in all aspects of life, then adventure games would be more popular, and the world would be a much better place.

If we leave society as it is now, the only way adventure games would become mainstream would be if they became more like the more popular genres. To some extent, this is already happening.

The real question is... do we really WANT adventure games to be mainstream?

PARTICULARLY when he had that hot security guard ready and willing! My god, he took the bitchy future-housewife in favour of ... well. I've changed my answer. I destinctly remember wishing he ended up with... I forget her name, but the security guard... skeleton woman. She was a -damn- sexy pile of bones.

The one with the metal detector, who took you into the back room to talk about figs and dates? I believe her name was Carla. I liked her too.

I must say, I'm quite glad that Ben and Mo didn't get married and live happily ever after at the end of Full Throttle. Now THAT would have MAJORLY sucked.

By the way, I'd like to change Grim Fandango to make it mouse-driven rather than keyboard-driven. That would've made finding hotspots WAY easier. Speaking of film noir games, I'd also like to make Discworld Noir less buggy and easier to get in North America.

I'll echo a lot of other people's statements and say I'd buy one if it had a good demo.

I didn't buy Fatman when it was first being sold, but probably would have, if I had a credit card back then. Recently, though, I played the game. While good, I'm not sure whether I would've found it to be worth the money.

Didn't Adventure Gamers give Fatman a bad review as well?

In contrast, Out of Order (yeah, yeah, not an AGS game, but admit it, you loved it anyway ) was supposed to be commercial (or at least shareware), but at the last minute, its creator decided to make it freeware. As a result, it got played by a lot more people than it probably would have otherwise, and ended up winning a lot of awards.

I, too, like the idea of donations pages. I have been known to actually make donations after playing games I thorougly enjoyed. Come to think about it, I even have my own donations page on my website. Maybe when my next game gets released, people will actually start using it.

Whoa... it's Neole!

And to think I still remember those dog animations from five years ago...

It does too work! (I had to run the SETUP file and make it run at 320x200 and autodetect my sound card, though.)

I have a little question, though:

Spoiler

What does the text at the end say? Since my computer only lets me run the game at 320x200, I can't read it.

[close]

http://www.geocities.com/captains_games works!

I was looking for this game too, just so I could piss off some guy at the Adventure Gamers forums who said that all amateur adventure games are poop.

Are you looking for something like this, perhaps?

I'm also from Canada (British Columbia), and I would like to clear up a misconception. Yes, we do live in igloos. In fact, our Parliament building just so happens to be a giant igloo. Therefore, if anyone wants to launch a terrorist attack on us, they should be sure to bring plenty of hair dryers.

We also have $1, $2, and $5 coins, which we refer to as the loonie, the toonie, and the woody respectively. The latter is called "woody" because it's made of wood.

By the way, can you pass me a serviette, eh? I just spilled my poutine on the chesterfield.

I use Cakewalk Music Creator and a little Roland keyboard I've had for years. (and have had to buy a USB connector for...)

A movie is extremely immersive, very little distractions and one huge fecking screen in front of you plus huge surround sound speakers to make sure it takes a LOT to drag you away from the experience. IL of about 9/10.

Not necessarily... for one thing, I personally find most movies extremely boring and zone out of them easily, ESPECIALLY when they lack an interesting plot. For another thing, people usually watch movies with their friends, and for that reason, the immersion level can go down as much as (or even more than) it does when people play video games with their friends.