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It's not a horrible attempt to just play around with options.  It's quite enough to tweak a bit so that you can see what you can do better, and then go on to a short game or one-room game. 

The graphics are a bit painful, but you're aware of that since you do a bit of self-mockery in the dialogue.  The dialogue has its good moments, but the drug references and slang become tiresome pretty quickly.  Poking fun at your own screens and simple puzzles works for a mess-around game, but I'd rather see something done where these elements are fixed instead. 

The first screen I started on had psychedelic colors.  I'm assuming that this is a palette problem.  You could change it to a 16-bit game, but with the small amount of colors, there's little reason to.  For 256-color games, keep the character palette/room palette in mind. 

You seem to have gone through the beginning segments of the tutorial as well as searching around enough to hit Kafka's page, so you might just want to figure out how to do the same things better.

No reason to be horribly embarassed, it's just that most people don't post their initial attempts at screwing around with AGS.  If you'd posted something like:
This was my first attempt at messing around with AGS, and I was wondering how I can improve A, B or C . . . then you'd likely get more helpful responses. 

Honestly, disregarding the graphics, I've seen countless submissions that were far worse as far as time investment and effort goes.  It seems you actually invested some time in this, just work on polishing the 2nd (or 3rd, or 4th) attempt a bit before you put yourself out there. 

Poor guy never has any luck.

(Sadly, not an entry.  Not a photoshop, actual Christmas decorations, just seemed too appropriate)

- a funny bone removed during humorectomy

Brilliant haiku
Up above gives me happy
Deep within my pants

While you may find yourself having to deal with an escrow service in the future (they hold the money and item and send both), they usually have you send the item to their address.  If they direct you to send to the buyer's requested address, use a phone or e-mail correspondence to clarify the situation. 

Paypal protects your purchaser as well since transferring funds requires some amount of personal information, I have no qualms about using them unless the item exceeds $500 or so. 

I was going to recommend you back out until I saw that you'd found out what you needed.  Not only does it reek of several scams I've read about, dealing with people living in the UK, moving to Scotland and not being native English speakers (the language structure's very similar to a Russian fellow's English that I hear from occasionally), while requesting you ship to Nigeria (versus them which would be instantaneous comparitively, no way it'd hit Nigeria before the 2nd week of January).   Too sketchy. 

Somebody shut Helm up before we get Tresspasser 2.

[Actually, the previously posted concept makes me stupid-happy with desire]

The same reason some people dismiss adventure games as soon as they find out they're 3d or have an action element in them. People are awkward and you either pander* to that to get the most broad user base or you do what you want to do any not be surprised when you don't make a million dollars.

Sometimes the dismissiveness is due to prejudice against change, yet at others it's bitterness from having been bitten one too many times.  Provided the action bits feel in keeping with the gameplay, I personally have no problem with it.  I have great hope for Dreamfall, but am skeptical about the stealthy parts. . . not off-putting, but does lower my hype level a couple percentage points. 

It's not entirely fair to categorize the criticism of action elements as bull-headed resistance to change.  After all, part of what I enjoy about adventures is not having my characters survival rely upon swift reflexes or keeping ego's head under a two-pixel line of shadow. 

Despite being one of the critical types, I really enjoyed Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy - damn global renaming) for what it was.  I couldn't pin it down as being adventureish or an action game, and it didn't matter.  It was fun.  Incidentally, the stealth segments were the least enjoyable for me and seemingly arbitrary - much prefer Thief's stealth gameplay.

Sorry, you never got your copy YakSpit. Give me a pm w/ your address and I'll see if I can dig up a cd-are with it eh?

Appreciated, but . . . Merry Winter New Year! It was the community support I was going for and I've got the actual product (since acquired ISO) so everything's square.  I hope the experience didn't squish your adventure game making spirit, because I'd love to see another game or sequel. 

Aside from what's already been mentioned, the detail in this picture makes some of the unrealistic bits stand out.  The "Painted-On" doorknob: Being at such extreme points in the hallway picture didn't make them stand out as much, but with the sharp viewing angle of the bathroom, it looks too 2D.  The plunger under the toilet stands out as being far too bright for being 1) in the bathroom and 2) in shadow behind the toilet. 

The bottom of the window sill has the same pixel-shift for the entire beam so it makes it look like it's shifted or cracked.  extending either the bottom or top by one pixel (or a median-color pixel) might wipe out this effect. 

It fits the style of the hallway overall, but the saturation does seem a bit high and the darkness seems a little extreme given the window & rumored overhead light.  Unless the light's made more obvious (by, maybe a yellowish cast on everything), it doesn't quite seem to fit. 

I checked out the histograms and the mean luminosity level is pretty different.  It probably shouldn't be changed too much or the picture looks too washed out.  Picture of what I mean here, to avoid congesting your thread. 

Great background, I particularly like the tile detail and the detail you put into the shower curtain.
[Edit: Interesting way of showing that, Mugs.. this few pixels, most are within a margin of error, but definitely right on the counter.  A couple pixels ought to bring it under rein though.]

I'll help out then:

Discarded Foreskin

I've known several people who play adventure games that I don't consider intelligent.

*Yak sheepishly raises his hand*

Actually, it's a very valid point.  Intelligence itself has nothing to do with it.  Quite often people who regularly play adventure and puzzle games like to spend some time with an FPS or platformer for awhile.  Occasionally, it's nice to spend leisure time with something that doesn't demand anything of you except for muscle memory and reflexes. 

I think it's also the lack of an involving story that makes me turn to some more mainstream games on occasion.  The progress of story-telling is often so slow in adventures that it feels like you're pixel-hunting for new sentences in the narrative. 

Part of the lull in creativity, I think is due to this particular era.  Until there's some down-time on the technology front, or a point at which life in general becomes a bit less hectic, we're unlikely to encounter a renaissance of ingenuity.

Nepotism at its finest.  Actually, based upon the Traveller theme, original character criterion, and usability I think it's a fine choice.  Congratulations, Geoff.

This thread comes and goes
Like ooze in a lava lamp
It floats to the top

It's nothing terribly surprising.  Adventure-gaming's always been kind of a niche market.  Compare the numbers of people who've played the Zork text adventures versus the number who've played Pong. 

Compared to creating action-based titles (ones in which patience and investment are not priority requirements), adventure game creation requires more time and energy in all departments.  Demand for "talkie" games puts the requirement for voice-acting leaps and bounds beyond what you hear in a game like Halo - not to mention the fact that Halo could pre-record all voices knowing that the gameplay/storyline would hit upon core elements, even if the certain levels or major facets of the game were modified.

One needs only look to the major companies to determine where the faults lie.  The profitability of adventures was very much in question for Lucasarts.  FT2 and Sam and Max:FP were both canned not due to lack of interest on the part of developers but as a decision by the marketing and accounting departments. 

Adventure games also tend to lean towards word-of-mouth and repeat players.  They could count on selling sequels because of specific characters (Monkey Island's Guybrush or Space Quest's Roger) with new players being influenced by their peers' praises of the games.  In an action game, you don't need name-recognition.

Old-school adventures also do need to be willing to adapt. Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit) wasn't a bad adventure game, and could've done without the puzzles (which seemed too simplistic and forced much of the time).  We've taken major changes to interfaces and graphics in stride without too much complaint.  Text adventures gave way to graphics with parsers.  Parser games gave way to verb icons.  The amount of investment, along with trial-and-error attempts were reduced with each major change.   We put up with less and less tedium while demanding the same experience and, frankly, we can't have it both ways.  If the genre were new today, would we put up with having to type: GET THING [Enter]-- GET DISC [Enter]-- GET COIN [Enter]-- GET BUCKAZOID [Enter] "You retrieve the Buckazoid from the ledge!" ?

I paid for Fatman just before the removal from the marketplace was announced.  I would've considered it worth it if I'd ever gotten my copy.  Since then, I've acquired the ISO for it, so I suppose I got my money's worth out of it. 

I'm not quite a graphics-junkie but there's got to be real work put into some visual aspect, whether it's outstanding backgrounds or terrific animations.  If I get something impressive to stare at and a decent game, I don't mind paying.  After all, it's a pretty significant portion of their free time a person's investing.  How to be a Ninja will probably harvest my hard-earned buckazoids, but I'd prefer to try a demo or something first.

Recently?  The initial post states that it was done "today". 

As far as specific suggestions, it would seem you have difficulty representing 3D shapes and their corresponding perspectives.  One example of this is the deer's snout. Since a basic snout would be that of a tapered cylinder (cone with the tip trimmed off), see if you can sketch a representation of this and then make stronger lines for definition, erasing the portions that don't contribute to the shape and pencilling those that make it look snout-like. 

The poses are forced, but show enough variation to communicate what you wanted to.  What might help would be drafting basic stick-figures for angle placement and then sketching in basic shapes to find the appropriate sizes, lengths, and proportions. 

I would suggest not committing yourself to creating a finished product on the first try.  Sketch in a draft with light pencil strokes, and use stronger strokes for finished lines, correcting sizes and shapes as you go.  Even if it only comes closer to properly resemble a human face, it's still worked as a learning tool and definition will come with practice.  One thing I've liked to do when learning was to sketch out everything in pencil and then use ink to solidify the best lines.  That way, I can erase the pencil leaving just the finished product. 

Really, there are loads of tutorials linked in the sticky threads that would help.  There's not a single person here with admirable art that hasn't started from the basics and continued with lots of practice.  For me, I need to heed my own advice and do more basic anatomy studying so I can draw people properly.

Expanding upon what Helm just posted (sneaky bastard), one good exercise for faces is to try and minimalize them.  Don't kill yourself trying to add each and every detail and freckle.  See if you can make an oblong shape and give it personality.  Grab a diagram of facial proportions and practice placing features in their proper positions as well as seeing how much difference you can convey with slight variations.  If you do a face feature-by-feature, it'll end up looking skewed and amateurish, often with eyes misaligned or a nose not matching the face. 

I still found it a nice twist.  If anything, I think Kyrandia was primarily guilty of the ultimate game cliche - that of grabbing anything you can conceivably pick up even if it seems to have no purpose.  At least with most adventures, the needed device or object is readily apparent, but Kyrandia liked to make you carry around a Dead Hippo/Cream Cheese combination object for the entire game so you could use it to divert nemeses from their evil goals.

Again, Kyra 3 had its kick-ass parts despite all the pre-rendered graphics.  While the jail sequences were irritating, they were fairly unique at the time (the first couple times).  There was a way to escape or skip them after awhile, wasn't there?  And I really don't know how you can't love a game where in a farm area Malcolm quips, "Ah.  Smell that dairy air." The height of pre-pubescent humor incarnate! Later sections kept me entertained by having my opinion changed from believing them utterly stupid, to believing them significantly brilliant, and back again (like the waterfall puzzle).

Wait? You're talking about the far superior VGA with claymation and the most ass-kickin' bugs this side of Speilburg QFG1 VGA, right?

Well, maze/funhouse/trial and error bug-filled (VGA ver.) pain in the ass. 

I sort of enjoyed the maze.  It was an interesting twist on paper-mapping a puzzle given the limited duration of the light.  Considering the straight-forward mazes in many KQ/SQ games, it didn't feel too much like filler.  Though one of my favorite standard mazes was KQ6's catacombs.  QFG-I had an amusing maze-like bit, but too frustrating at times.

Part of what I liked about K3 was the character parodies - Brandon was a bit of a whiny wuss in the first so it was cool to see the developers pick up on that and play with it a bit.