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It's currently set to DX5. The game won't run on D3D9 (I don't think my graphics card supports it?).

I've run into a problem using TintScreen(), in that it now covers the entire screen with a solid, opaque color instead of a transparent fill every time that it is called. It also repeats the top portion of the screen through the tint.

Here's a screenshot illustrating the problem:


I use the command multiple times throughout my game for different effects, and it never used to have this problem, but now the problem affects every usage. My only guesses would be that it has something do with either ShakeScreen(), my game resolution, letterbox mode, or it's just that my monitor is doing something funky.

Any thoughts?

First, I'd say think small. Know what you can achieve in one week, and set challenging, yet achievable goals.

Usually you'd want some kind of interesting idea, or unique game mechanic that will set the game apart, since people will only be playing this game for a short amount of time(?).

When development starts, you'd want to implement the hardest, central game idea first to make sure that a working prototype is possible before getting bogged down by all the art assets and resources. Once you're sure that this idea is worth cultivating and developing and is FUN, then you should make the rest of the game.

I'd recommend working with placeholders and then building the game from start-->finish to make sure it's all intact, and then go back over it to iron out the rough spots and make it fully playable.

That's just my advice! Good luck!

Yeah, just like other people have said, I think C++ is the standard in the games industry.

I spoke to a guy from Activision a while back and he said the same thing: If you want to be a programmer, you have to be proficient in C++. When employers ask what your proficiency of C++ is on a scale of 1-3, it must be 3 or else they won't hire you. In essence, he said that C++ is the language of the games' industry.

For all you college-student, professor-finding people, I recommend Professor Ratings.
(Simplifies searching by being able to right click on a professor's name, and then being hyper-linked to his/her professor ratings page.)

[Freelancer]

Freelancer and Wing Commander. 3.

And simulation games in general.

Am I the only one who doesn't find Telltale's 3D graphics appealing in their games for the most part?

Their simplistic style works for Wallace & Gromit, as well as Strong Bad, but the whole thing gives off this amateurish vibe to me. It's not the fact that it's 3D that's unattractive--it's just the execution.

I mean, compare any Telltale game to any DoubleFine game and you can see the difference.

Telltale wasn't involved in either Vampyre Story or MI4 (which did not happen), though. Right?

I just wish Ron was listed as part of the Telltale team. Oh, and Dave Gilbert. Get the gang back together!

Yeah, I remember when Dave worked on Monkey Island 1, right before Bestowers of Eternity!

Yes, great job, and I still enjoy watching your playthrough of La Croix Pan. I'm sure it really makes the creators' day when they see you playing their work--I know it does in my case.

Oh crap... there was another game that I thought was hilariously written, it wasn't much of a game but it was about a soldier from DOOM having to buy a present for a boss from DOOM... As you can tell my memory is awesome. Anyway I think it was hilarious!

OMG, are you talking about Harry's 21st Birthday? It was written by one of my best buds here. I play board games with this guy, like, weekly. And the really funny thing is he didn't tell me he had made an AGS game until pretty recently. This is so weird. Small internet!

Wow, this game was awesome. Thank you for sharing it and newton for making it. It really takes me back to the times when the internet was a simpler place, and making AGS games was not about quality perse, but about the sheer excitement of being able to create a living, working game out of a childhood dream.

EDIT: Interesting that US university lecture is LOT less technical, more dumbed down (and well, simpler to understand) than exact same stuff I learned in 10th grade. We got formulaic, mathematical/physical and much more boring version of this, with load of exercises (like "find the critical mass of this and that if you have so much isotopes") and stuff. Then again, we got much deeper into this than simple mosquito examples and circles on blackboard.

Not so fast! 

This particular class is structured to be less technical and more conceptual -- and this is a review session, so they're barely skimming the surface, I believe. You can't really generalize all of US university into this one lecture. Every single class in every single different major in every different university is structured and presented in a different way. So, you're bound to find every difficulty and every level of technical understanding if you look around.

Ah, so would it just be simpler to ask the recipient of the CD to copy the entire game folder to the hard disk?

Is it possible to run AGS games off a CD? (it is quite imperative that I do so at this moment)
Currently I just get this error when trying to run any games off the CD:

Code: ags

---------------------------
Adventure Game Studio
---------------------------
Unable to write to the current directory. Do not run this game off a
network or CD-ROM drive. Also check drive free space (you need 1 Mb free).

---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

Is this possible? (And if possible, could you respond quickly! I need to have this done in less than 24 hours.)

If I may suggest:

I did two things here:
1. I darkened the shadows A LOT to create more contrast in the room.
2. I fixed the tree (DoUn2u's suggestion) so that it more realistically mimics a broken shadow.

Just played the game and I enjoyed it. very different but perhaps a little limited. I felt I really wanted more interaction and more stuff to talk about. Anyway, this is a really good read and could give you some ideas:

http://qntm.org/?difference

Wow, I forgot about that article. I think I read it years and years ago (and subconsciously used it as my inspiration).

Yes, I agree the game is limited, and I really wish I had the time go back and fix it up, but thank you for playing regardless.

Thanks for the bump--always happy to get more publicity.

One of these days I feel like I should go back to this game and thoroughly play-test it to double, triple, or even quadruple the available text responses.

I don't like to automatically label pixel art as "nostalgically better" just because it's lo-res. It's all about the amount of effort, the style, and the art direction put into it. If you are able to do that with 2D sprites and backgrounds, that's awesome. If you can do that with 3D models and environments, that's awesome too.

One sad drawback to pixel art--this is Helm's advice, and I agree with it--is that it limits your, how do I say, progress as a representational artist. By this I mean it's harder to learn subjects such as anatomy through pixels and then apply them to real-life drawings. But on the other hand, it's perfectly applicable to learn anatomy through real-life drawings and apply them to pixel art. Pixel art works well because it allows you to focus not on the details, but instead on the overall impression, IMO.

This is just restating what others have said in the past.

I really like the small details you've added.

One other thing you can think about doing is adding some kind of foreground other than the black fence, although it may seem a bit arbitrary at this stage. The reason being the rest of the background seems a bit foreclosed from the subject's point of view.

If you enjoy movies, Indiana Jones, or have any interest in screenwriting, you might be interested in this synposis of a talk between Lucas, Spielberg and Kasdan:
http://mysterymanonfilm.blogspot.com/2009/03/raiders-story-conference.html

One of my favorites from the article:

6) Consider their approach to exposition.

So Indy’s in Cairo with his friend. We're at a scene that we know will be full of exposition, that is, the Staff of Ra was too long for the Germans and they’re digging in the wrong place. So the question was, "what are we going to do to make the scene interesting so the audience doesn’t fall asleep?" And the idea was presented that this exposition could be done over dinner that’s been poisoned. As they pick up tainted food and gesture with it, we fear for their lives. They loved it. (And I've been saying this for years - great exposition is always given in the context of something else.) Okay, now that we have the setup, how do they figure out the food is poisoned and survive? A pet nibbles on it and dies. Okay, what kind of pet?

Happy birthday Vince!!