Messages

Trisk, excellent game, I just finished it. The ending is simply amazing. 

I, too, wouldn't mind a quick description as to how you did the full motion sequences in the game. Are they painted on screen frame-by-frame?

Your 2nd edit is a definite improvement, good job!

Here are a few minor things that you can think about to improve (some of these could be considered as nitpicking):

* shade the backfaces of the boxes (the faces farthest from the bulb)

* a few more personal items would be a nice addition, like a book somewhere, some magazines, papers, etc. When I moved to a new place, I didn't have shelves, etc. in the first days, so everything was in boxes or on the floor.

* What is the ceiling made of? The walls are of wood, so I would expect the ceiling to be wood as well - a flat "paint"-like color doesn't fit well with the rest of the room.

* For the window glass, in Photoshop (or PSP) just create a new layer and draw a polygon that covers the window (inside, but on the left include a bit of frame, since the glass is not at the edge of the frame but in the center.) Fill the polygon with some dark color (like dark blue) and set transparency to about 65-75% and the layer mode to overlay or screen (I don't know for PSP.) Create another layer and draw a dark brownish frame on the left and bottom part of the polygon as the glass frame.

* the stain in the upper-right corner somehow looks weird, out of perspective. Try tweaking it a bit.

Otherwise, nice room!

I sort of like your image so I decided to give some c&c.

* Change the wall colors (unless the brown has a special meaning in your game.) Living in a room of that color would drive you mad - it's very dark and depressing. As someone said, adding some texture would help a lot, too.

* It's very good that you added some items to the room - it already made it a lot more interesting than the original was. Add at least 2 or 3 more cardboard boxes off different sizes in the corner. Turn one of them (so that it's not paralel to the walls.)

* The room is waaay too high as I see it, you should cut down on it.

* The picture is a nice touch, but I cannot imaging anyone hanging a picture that high. The top of the picture should be slightly below the top of the door. (Or at the same level.) You don't necessarily need to show the line on which the picture hangs - you rarely see it in reality.

* I think a bit more pronounced door frame would help in adding more detail. You can think about adding detail to the door itself - most indoor doors are not just flat pieces of wood, they usually have inset parts.

* There is no glass in the window: it's just an open hole in the wall; I think it would make it better if you added a (semi-)transparent piece there.

* Move the mousehole to a different wall (or just lose it altogether   ). Mice usually don't dig a hole into the living room, expecially not from the outside. They normally go for food (kitchen or pantry.)

* The lightbulb on the left wall is weird. I would imagine that even if there is a light there, it would have some fixture, not just a socket right in the wall. Most wall lights have  a fixture and some ornament as well, that houses the socket.

With all this said, you already made good progress, keep it up.

[EDIT] Quick (not very good) paintover - fix shadows, depending where you want your light source. It has some double pixels along the diagonals, too, sorry for that.



Changes:
* room smaller (height)
* different wall colors
* added differently colored ceiling
* added box
* moved down image
* added window glass

Hope this helps.

Just a quick idea (without having experience with the scripting language so far): how about creating a managed object for these graphics objects when the script actually accesses them? If the script doesn't refer directly to frames in a view, don't whip up the managed objects for those frames. his would help cut down the number of objects going around without being used.

Wow!

I know it's not very useful as C&C, but that's pretty much all I can say.

Strange Visitor: I don't think there is any problem with the car; I believe it seems pointing up because its headlights are tilted a bit. Some European cars are like that. (I may be wrong about the perspective, though, I didn't actually check it, but to me it looks fine.)

Awesome job, InC!

Sony has been sued by the State of Texas and it made the news on Fox 4 (I don't know about other channels; I accidentally watched it when they started talking about it.)

If someone is interested, here are a few links about DRM news when it hits computers/TVs (worth reading to embrace the brave new world of Sony and RIAA):

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122738,00.asp

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,122843,00.asp

http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,115057,00.asp

If you happen to be a movie/computer freak (I am), get a new computer this year - if I'm right, Intel releases the first motherboards with onboard DRM chips next year.

InC,

Your image looks very nice - in fact, the first time I looked at it, I thought it was a photo.

There are a few (minor) things that I'd like to point out:

1. I feel that the center sign makes the image somehow flat. It's right in the middle of the image and it's waaay too prominent there. I think the image would be better without it or if it would be smaller.

2. The gray car (of the two black ones) looks too softened, smudged. I'd use some different color to set it apart from the black one.

3. The stain at the bottom of the building in the front (to the right of the doors) seems too strong. I've never seen such dark stains on an otherwise well-maintained street.

With all this nitpicking, very nice image indeed!

Also, get a voice recorder for ~$40 and record every conversation that you have with them. Later on it may be very useful. That's what I'm doing when I call any customer service nowadays.

In my (personal) opinion, keylogging is about the lowliest things to do in a home (especially in a home.) And yes, keyloggers *should* be labeled as spyware and even as malware, as they illegally record someone's typing without the person's permission. You can use it for example to record the credit card/social security numbers of your roommates.

It's deeply despicable.     (The grin is not about you, it's about spyware in general.    )

I, for one, like the text in the middle. It can be used to a great extent to create great story elements, like the hero crawling through it from one wall to the other (to climb out on the window); one could also think of the priests hanging some wet clothes on it or as a banner for advertising. So it's good, you should leave it, and probably include it on every game screen, since there they can definitely be grabbed and used elsewhere. If you leave it, though, consider adding appropriate shadows and reflections to it.

On the less-important matter of the rendering, adding some dirt, some more detail (like Bibles laying on some seats, cushions, etc.) would add a lot more reality to the picture. You could try using bump maps for the walls (maybe you use one even now, but it's not very strong; the walls look a bit flat.)

I don't think the lighting is bad; it may not be completely realistic, but it looks good enough to me.

As far as I see, tutoring already works - you post something in the critic's lounge, you get advice. You post something in the tech forum, you get programming advice. You post something in general discussions, you can discuss ideas, etc. Having a private tutor system would hide all this information from others who might also need it but don't ask, for whatever reason. There may be a lot of people, who don't post but still lurk around the forums.

Awesome game so far, very good atmosphere and very funny



I also found an exception:

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Illegal exception
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An exception 0xC0000005 occured in ACWIN.EXE at EIP = 0x7C911F52 ; program pointer is +5, ACI version 2.62.772, gtags (2,0)

AGS cannot continue, this exception was fatal. Please note down the numbers above, remember what you were doing at the time and notify CJ on the Tech forum.

(Global script line 666)


Most versions of Windows allow you to press Ctrl+C now to copy this entire message to the clipboard for easy reporting.
---------------------------
OK   
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This happened when I clicked the chair next to the green gate (with the keypad.) I cannot reproduce it, so it may have been caused by something else.

I think your final version looks awesome. It seems to me that the snow is on the window ledge, so it looks very good to me.

Search wikipedia, I'm pretty sure you'll find it there. If not, go the local library and get a geology or a astronomy textbook, those should have it as well.

I think it's tasteless. I think George Bush is an idiot (and a moron), but as I've said a few times on these forums (and in real life): he is nowhere near as bad as Hitler. Comparing them is stupid, not funny, because he IS a bad president, there is nothing funny about that. He's just dumb and not prepared to conduct anything other than electricity.

I'm liberal, but given the choice of Bush and Gore in 2000, I would've voted for Bush - Gore really looked like an asshole (there, the liberal mascot ) and he made sure everyone thought he was.

I tend to agree with those who say that Kerry would probably be just as bad, but that doesn't make Bush any better.

I tend to agree with you. I hope Sony gets it this time - I wouldn't even mind if the class-action lawyers get away with all the money, just make sure they hit Sony where it hurts.

Sony has been sued in a class-action lawsuit in California and there is a federal class-action lawsuit in the works - according to news on Mark Russinovich's blog.

In Italy, police is investigating Sony and hopefully Endland's Scotland Yard will move too, against First 4 Internet (the criminals who developed the virus that Sony installed on users' computers.)

I seriously hope that Sony gets badly burnt in this - they deserve everything bad that could possibly happen to them. One thing is for sure: the next time I'm (or my company is) buying a Sony product, year will start with '3'.

Heheh,

Guys, thanks for all the (unexpected) replies!    I had no idea my silly little rant would bring so many people together, but you already made me feel a lot better about this stupid game. I decided to uninstall it for a final time and get rid of it. I guess it's not a good sign (for the game, that is) when I rather start working on my office-related stuff than playing the game.

I really appreciate it!

[lgm],

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if I like it. I already uninstalled it twice and tried to give it another chance - a LOT of people seem to like it - but I still don't. I guess I just don't get it. 

Never mind, though, I just wanted to rant a bit about it.

How can anybody like this game? 

I recently got it from a bargain bin because I saw so many good reviews on it. So far I installed it already 3 times but I've yet to get through the first level of the apartment. The problem is not "story"-wise, but simply this game is so mind-bogglingly boring that it's hard to describe. The only reason I tried it again is because of the good reviews, but now (after the 3rd try) I question those.

The endless wandering around in a totally non-interactive environment and sometimes slashing a monster is just numb. The graphics is all right but the rest is just... trash.

Am I the only one who doesn't like it? Based on reviews, it seems so, as everybody praises the deep and intriguing storyline, but I've yet to see something interesting.

I'm not really into FPS/shooter games, so I didn't expect a lot of action but even in the most amateurish adventures one can interact with more things on a single screen than in this game after 3 hours of playing.