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I have to say that I do like the interface even if I also find it confusing having the mouse buttons switched when using the interface.

What I don´t like is the beginning of the game. You´re trapped in the first room and have to solve a really hard puzzle. Now that I´ve solved it, I´m stuck in the second room without any hint what to do. I would prefer having some easy puzzles at the beginning so you can get used to the style of the game.
I really want to like this game, as it looks good and has got nice voice acting. But until now it seems as it doesn´t want to be liked.   

Sorry, this is my experience too.

First room, I got stuck for an endless amount of time trying to figure out a puzzle when in reality I was struggling with the interface in confusion. After finally solving the puzzle (and I still didn't understand the solution), I get to the next room with no goal of what to do, I walk into a puddle of goo by accident, and then the game kind of laughs at me because I died and had no save games.

I appreciate all the animations and polish, but I just wish it was a bit more user-friendly.

Actually, I don't think it does. He's just so exasperated by this time he'll give up if you say anything.

Fun game! Great work on all the animations and character graphics, for some reason I really liked the walk-cycle. It's definitely my favorite game out of your releases thus far.

I think the assassin-bot puzzle was slightly buggy, for instance

Spoiler

I could sneak below the right bot, and get in front of the button, which led to my confusion when in reality I had to sneak BEHIND him.

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And I don't mean to be a bad-sport, but I feel that the story (which was a great idea) could have been executed a bit better, say in terms of the conflict between robot HQ and free-thinking. For example, maybe have robot HQ be more opposing to the "free-thinking" idea early in the story so that it's clear the player is embarking down on a road of rebellion.

Overall, it was really nice! Thanks for making it!

@nvebr

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If I remember correctly, here's what to do: Ask him to meet -- if he says he's still worried, just say something like "but I'm not!" He should give in out of frustration.

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Stuck at

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Assassins on the road

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:

Spoiler

I've spotted the button and tried using everything on it but still nothing.

[close]

Love, love, love it! 

If you don't mind my saying so, it's much more charming in low-res than hi-res.

I know everybody says it, but it is critical that you complete at least one short game before going on to a full length one. Doing this gives you an entire overview of what is important in the game creation process; what matters, what doesn't; what you need to do immediately, and what can wait until the end. It shows you how to overcome silly mistakes that will save you time and energy in future projects. Furthermore, it prevents you from falling into the "I've put way too much work in this sinking ship to abandon it now" syndrome.

For a long project, this is what I find effective:

Plot out everything first on paper: if it doesn't work on paper, it won't work in the game. Don't waste your time putting in features that don't work or have loopholes. Work out a small prototype first that contains all the "intuitive" or edgy features you want to put in the game. Find out if it works or not before you spend half of your time on a game, only to find out that the selling point you want isn't going to work after all. Placeholder everything: don't be bogged down by animations, high-detail character art, animated backgrounds, and polished GUI buttons. You don't need these at the beginning, they'll just consume your time and lose your focus from the big picture. If you start out working on character art at the beginning, you'll find you've improved too much by the end. Just work on the graphics at the same pace once you have everything else down, and DONT commit to anything too early. (Don't create all the animations based off one half-thrown together sprite that you will revamp later, anyway) Work from the beginning to the end in layers: Try to get the entire game complete before going in and adding all the small little touches. Of course there are many exceptions, but it is easy to get distracted by the little things that don't matter in the long run. It is much more important, in my opinion, to get a full prototype of the game first, and then build up on top of that, since you have all the core work done. The downside of this method is that it can become very tiresome as you are just revising and polishing and not adding any new features towards the end. However, I think it's more fail-safe and effective than just "winging it" and hoping for the best, or thinking that inspiration will carry you on forever.

I was actually surprised at the number of people who knew about old adventure games when the subject of game-making came up. I mean, since I automatically expect no one in this modern age of gaming to have heard of them.

Somehow, someone once asked me "You made a video game?" and "What kind?" Then I start talking about some extinct genre called "point n' click adventures." I've been thrown back more positive responses than I've ever expected, as it turns out quite a few people have actually played games like Fate of Atlantis, or one of the Monkey Islands, even if the fanbase isn't that active.

But then again these were like 20-24 year olds.

Congrats SPC! Great round, everyone!

Here is a generic, unoriginal, and unstylized ninja:


2x

Should be 6 colors + background

Hey, thanks, Goldmund! I'm very happy Chatroom got nominated, but I wasn't sure what to expect since it seemed to be more of a sleeper 'hit,' if a hit at all.

As for the rest of the games, this year I haven't actually found the motivation to finish all of them. I've played most of the major ones on the list, but I found myself basically dropping games mid-way through with no plans to finish them to the end. The short ones I can muster up the time to finish, but it's been a real struggle for me to get through the longer ones every time I get stuck. (Sorry! It's just a personal problem.)

It'd be great if there is a close-up shot of Jake's hand pressing a button whenever he uses the elevator.

Oops! I missed.

If a character says an important piece of information, whether it be the code for a safe, or a hint about what to do to move on, it must be possible for the player to hear that information again.

Imagine talking to a character, choosing the option "What can I do for you?" and having that character tell you "I've hidden a note under the fourth rock from the left near the cabin in the woods.  Bring it to me."  Then, that dialog option disappears.

I would normally agree with this, but in some cases it just makes the puzzles and solutions so blatantly obvious. A while back I think I was playing Two Of A Kind--this was a very long time ago, so my memory may be incorrect--and most of the characters had this dialog option enabled. If they required you to complete a task or some-odd, important options would re-enable every time you respoke to characters. For example, you spoke to a store keeper who said it was 'crazy hat day' and then that dialog option remained there, informing you that you somehow had to get a crazy hat for I can't remember why. It was nice because you wouldn't forget your goals, but I also saw it as too informative in the sense that they were basically telling you every puzzle you needed to do until you completed it.

Yes, player goals should be there and be able to be re-seen by the player, but sometimes they are highlighted a little too much, in my opinion.

I don't know. That was a bad example, but I can't think of a better one from my four-year old withering memory.

This is very impressive. After five minutes, I was able to get the handling semi-well. This seems like it would be really fun when combined with more features.
My only suggestions are:
1) Sometimes it was hard to distinguish which buildings I would crash into and which I would not. Maybe make a more distinct barrier visible.
2) Driving on grass has the same effect as driving on pavement. Maybe it should slightly slow down?

Great work!

Hooray! Thanks for the heads up!

Yeah, I agree, but I've only existed solidly on the internet for [only!] 3 years, and I don't think I have changed that much--but then again it all depends on the period in my life. Back in the early days I used to post with an air of apprehension and worrying of acceptance, but that changed a bit as time went by.

In my experience, this kind of character change is more evident in personal writings, like blogs. At least for me, because in that kind of writing I don't feel restricted or think that I'm going to be judged for what I have to say. As such, I get to spout out lots of random nonsense which I will come to regret 3 years later.

So yes, it is interesting.

Wow, works great Gilbot. It does inspire me, but I couldn't figure out how to make one on my own from scratch for the life of me.

Instead of a listbox popping up, I was thinking of just having a Display(); command giving you information on the object contained, and if two objects were contained in the selection, it would go null from too much information. Also, if the selection rectangle reached a size so big (say, a 1/4 of a screen, or even smaller) it would go null from too much information and demand a smaller size.

I want to get some kind of mouse function going that has the properties to analyze an image. For example, holding down left click would start a selection rectangle from your initial mouse.x, mouse.y, and then to your current mouse coordinates. Afterwards, the game would detect if the rectangle you made overlapped the appropriate item and then it would feed you information.

What I can't figure out is how to do the selection rectangle, and how to detect objects/hotspots in that selection. I tried fumbling about with RawDraw but got unintentional results. Any help would be appreciated.

It looks good for a start.

I'm not an expert on anatomy (so some of this may be wrong), but I made an edit to address some issues:

1. Loosened shoulders.
2. Altered shape of breasts, but kept same position.
3. Raised crotch a bit (maybe too far).
4. Resized head.
(I left the arms and legs alone for now.)

I think you got most of it down in your initial version (the hips in particular). All I can recommend is to follow some anatomy tutorials or look at others' work. Good job!

Looks nice so far!

Some things to think about:
1. Think about adding a fixed light source -- right now everything is "pillow-shaded" meaning each surface is independent of each other and thus kind of looks flat.
2. Google up human anatomy, if you wish to be more realistic. The shoulders are a bit uneven right now and I think the breasts should be lower.
3. You may want to take gravity into account when doing the hair. It kind of looks like some of it is floating, and not naturally resting and flowing with the face.