Messages

I agree wholeheartedly about the Sierra system, but not so much about the Lucasarts system, the reason being keyboard shortcuts. When I first played Monkey Island and Fate of Atlantis, yes, the interface was annoying and took too much time to move my mouse back and forth. So that's why I always had one hand on the keyboard and one hand on the mouse, and it make the GUI experience streamlined, and close to perfect, in my opinion. My left hand would pick up the keyboard shortcuts instantaneously, allowing me to switch between cursor modes without ever having to touch the GUI at the bottom, save for perhaps inventory items. It was extremely intuitive, in my opinion.

About the 2-interaction system (left click interact, right click look, or vice versa), I used to always disagree with it, seeing how it limits the players choices to only two interactions, thus dumbing down the game and guessing at what the player was trying to achieve with use. Recently though, I've come to agree with what you've said with your article, in that it's basically a more efficient version of the current Sierra system of Look-Talk-Interact, because Talk and Interact are 98% of the time used separately in games.

I dislike verb-coins for the reason of the "Holding down to bring it up" aspect. If I have to wait a second for the GUI to pop up, that's too long for me. However, verb-coins that do pop up instantaneously (ala 7 Days A Skeptic), I love. Those seem to be close to the most improved version of the Sierra interface.

p.s. Vince, did you get my PM? 

It's probably best to get a rock solid design (which constitutes preparation, story, and puzzle design) down before you get into the real development process. At least in my experience, if you don't know what you want to do, or if you leave some aspects of the design unfinished, there is a good chance you will become bogged down by that vacant, undesigned area of your game when you finally reach it in development.

Also, if you're not sure of the design during the development, you may re-work it several times throughout the development process, which is fine by me, except sometimes it may get out of hand to the point where you re-work your game from scratch over, and over, and over.

Once you get into the development process, I'd say (in a general sense) graphics and scripting take up at least 90% of the work. And I know it's been overused to death, but it's really true: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

Alarconte, the word "going" crashes the game. Which is pretty frustrating after some time of trying to figure out what to type.

Really sorry about this. I tried to test it extensively before uploading, but I guess I missed at least one game-crashing bug.

The whole game was pretty much an experiment to see if I could pull-off a semi-realistic conversation simulator. I'm sure there's plenty of more bugs, and if you do run into any, or have any suggestions regarding responses, please PM me and I'll definitely take a look.

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Anyway... My favorite entry had to be Beauties and Beasts. I just loved everything about it--graphics, gameplay, writing, and definitely the ending. I had a hunch it was Mash Patato's work!
A close second for me was Man Boy. I just love the style of that game. And yes, How Many was hilarious.

I'd recommend you draw all the line-art for the background, so that you have all the exits, hotspots, and locations down. That's all you need to code the room. It helps if you use line-art close to the finished product, so you don't have to constantly re-arrange hotspots, objects, etc.

So is the voting over, then?

Also, in Baltazar, when you try to interact with the leftmost button on the panel behind the lord guy, the game crashes:
Error: prepare_script: error -18 (no such function in script) trying to run 'hButton5_Interact'   (Room 3)
which is even more frustrating since you can't skip the intro.

Yeah, sorry, this is the reason I've not been finishing this game. After it crashes, I really don't want to watch the intro again, and the walking speed of the character is kind of slow. I don't know if I need to push that button to win, and I didn't want to play the whole game only to find out I needed to. Sorry. 

[One Room One Week]

One Room One Week

Spoiler

Surreal. Tried doing stuff. Got to Day 2, and 3-4-5-6-7 all at the same time. Don't know how to finish it.

[close]

SEED

Spoiler

Picked up the girl and she tells me I need to go to ARM#4 or something. I'm thinking this is section 4 but the door is non-interactable. Don't know what to do.

[close]

Think Outside the Boxland

Spoiler

No clue.

[close]

WISP

Spoiler

Got in every room. The only thing I haven't been able to do is open the safe. Don't know how to get the combo.

[close]

Are you only interested in commercial projects?

Is this ending in 20 minutes, or 1:20? I heard its ending at UTC time, and I don't know what that means.

@Storygamer

Spoiler

I think you are on the right track. Pay close attention to the recipe, as I think the order is of critical importance. In particular, note the exact times you need to heat it up and mix ingredients.

[close]

@Guest

Spoiler

Try using the white acid on different objects.

[close]

Hint:

Spoiler

There is an object in the room that contains the three symbols also listed on the computer screen. You need to find it and look at it for the password.

[close]

I've lived in LA for a long time, but I'm not the best person to talk to since I actually don't have that much hands-on experience with the city/culture itself.

I don't know if I can answer any of your questions because Los Angeles is actually hard to define as a city. Sure, it has cultural and geographical boundaries, but everything down here is just so decentralized and scattered around.

If you do move to LA, you'll almost certainly be needing a car, especially since it's so expensive to live in high activity areas. Depending where you are and where you need to be, chances are you can't rely on the public transportation system to get you there. (I don't know how it is in other major cities?  )

And the weather... well... the lowest it will get in the winter is probably the 30s (Fahrenheit), and the temperature hovers around 70 all year long. In the summer it breaks 100 on a regular basis.

Just a small note to anyone who is interested: The game has been translated into Russian and Hungarian.
Feel free to send me any bug reports or errors that you encounter. There is a known graphical glitch with a certain GUI on the Russian translation, but it's not going to be fixed.

The download file has been replaced, and you must use setup to switch between languages.

Yeah, I know good and well how to make my own quit GUI, but thanks anyway. Guess I'll just have to make my own.

I want to change the default quit message GUI, but I don't know if it's possible anymore. I remember you used to be able to do it by changing the global messages, like this thread shows: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=30964.msg396480#msg396480

Now in AGS 3.0.1 however, I think the global messages have been removed, so how can I change the quit text (preferably without making my own quit GUI).

English as a mother toungue and the availability of Windows Vista are welcomed albeit not necessary.

Me have windows xp. That good?

Same here. I'd like to be a beta-tester, if possible.

Hooray!  

Another fabulous issue.

Awesome.

One little suggestion: a check all box would be nice, so we can narrow our searches faster.

The last scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where you have to pick the holy grail; that used to KILL me as a kid when I played it.

When you choose a cup and drink from it, it goes to a close-up of Indy's face. If you chose the right cup, he lives. If you chose the wrong cup, he suddenly turns into a ghastly skeleton and your speakers scream out a ear-pearcing midi noise.

That got me every time.