Messages

Looks great, good luck polishing the game up for release!

That's a cool milestone, nice one!

Hooray for Cat!

Sure. But if your argument against it is that it's awkward to control for a sizeable group of people, well, that's what numerous people have also been pointing out about verbcoins. That means that if you want a smooth and intuitive interface for look/use/special, you should use neither of the two.

My point was that reliance on the mouse wheel or middle mouse button is exclusive of a common method of input, one that using a verb coin is inclusive of.

Relying on the presence of a mouse wheel or middle mouse button is not great for those who play on laptops with their track pads, something I often do when I travel.

Some games I like very much:

Reactor 09

Patchwork

Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 3

They are: good.

I wasn't expecting to learn that Ben is cruel to children who can't afford nice Halloween costumes.

Neither were those children.

Ben I think you will be proud of me to hear I've started playing Earthbound SNES (Wii U is awesome for old games because it's also a great handheld) such great 90s Japanese humour!

I have always been proud of you.

You can get it DRM free on the Humble Store!

Awesome to see this one finished, I've been really looking forward to it! Just purchased my copy, I'm looking forward to checking it out!

Sure, hence why I promote dynamic, unique sets of verbs per hotspot.

Giving the player more room to explore is a good idea, but you don't accomplish that by simply adding more verbs.

Simply speaking, perhaps not, but surely you can appreciate that it's one method by which it can be achieved.

In this case, though, while I appreciate the sentiment of your artist, I think the choice should be the designer's. I agree that adding random "wrong" things won't make a game more satisfying, you should really only add more verbs if you know you're going to be using them for gameplay things. It shouldn't be something you add lightly, on some ideal, but something you add with specific design in mind. Your ideas should be enabled by your interface, rather than having them conform to one, I think.

I like it! I think the door seems very wide, considering the angle we're seeing it at. Perhaps it could be slimmed a touch.

I don't like static verb coins, like Curse of Monkey Island or Full Throttle, especially when you have to hold the mouse button down.

I do like context sensitive dynamic "verb coins", like in The Sims and Windows OS right click menus.

Having static verb selections feels like a limiting choice to me in games about environmental exploration, which some adventure games like to focus on. I prefer the idea of a list of unique verbs per object, as we often expect from character interactions.

Thank you for the kind birthday wishes!

Happy birthday Ponch!

Sweetness! Are all the fireball effects and so on hand-animated, or rendered with AfterEffects or some similar special effects suite?

In this case they're rendered!

Love it!

Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator is about investigating the paranormal as a guy called Ben Jordan.

Thanks everybody, and thanks for sticking with us for so long! Hooray for Arcanum, and yes, one of the games I recommended Grundi check out when he was preparing to make LC.

Andail: We should totally get you on again to talk about your new project, doing graphics in higher resolutions and the like!

It's interesting how the setup of the game affects the amount of animation, too. Maybe you picked the female character - that means a different running animation and jumping animation for one of the characters. Maybe you picked a different companion - that's another running and jumping animation. Depending on who you pick to take with you, and what order you pick them in, someone else can end up standing on the edge of the pier watching, which means two other characters needed a 'skidding to a halt' animation. It's much denser than I'm accustomed to, and the sort of work that suits a full time role pretty well.

Interestingly, when I started I was quite nervous about the prospect of doing higher resolution characters, and spent hours doing test animations, tweaks, and trying to figure out what works. We've had to make some changes along the way, too. But the intensity of the project has meant that I've grown fairly accustomed to working at this resolution pretty quick, and it's not quite so intimidating. Nice to have a challenge, even if some days I look at my todo list with some measure of apprehension.