Messages

Ill post my now since I dont feel like finnishing it up - it wasnt a very exciting piece so Ill leave it like this.

Some people here have way too high standards...

You could make Rembrandt jealous with the way you drew that fog!

Totally unchecked code:

Code: ags

///STANDING STILL OR NOT
if (character[1].Moving==0) SetTimer(17, 100);

if (IsTimerExpired(17)==1){
  if (character[1].Moving==0) {
    Display("stuff");
    cpuscore++;
    standing++;
  }
}

It sets the timer when you're not walking, and if it's expired it checks again if he's still not walking.
Everytime you stand still the timer should be set again.

Cliché?
It happens to every teenager, but I can't say I've played much games with this theme.

If your main character clearly is a rebellious teenager, I think the idea is fine. Although  I don't see a lot of opportunity for puzzles.
Also I feel it's best if you make the family members really over the top. Realism might be too uncomfortable here.

Also, where will it end? If you escape, your ending isn't open, is a gaping hole.
Instead of escaping, you could as Ildu suggested better make the story about his quest to make his family treat him better.


As for information:

The Brass Lantern has articles / links on designing adventure games: http://brasslantern.org/writers/
It focuses mainly on text adventures, but most of the theory is valid in graphical adventures as well.

Also I can strongly recommend Whizzard's Guide to Text Adventure Authoring. You'll have to scroll down a bit, and there's two supplements.
Very interesting article.

Let's not be time nazi's. People have lives.

Time Nazis? Sounds like a good idea for a game.

Just Vince XII I also like to sleep on it for a day. I'm glad Andail changed the time limit to 48 hours.
And we all want a good story, right? So take your time.

Do you mean the fridge? I've used every command and tried every inventory item but nothing works so what now?

No, that's the kitchen. The living room is the one with the primordial soup (HINT!) and the pram/carriage in it

sorry I must be thick - I am in shed, I have found hotspot for light bulb, guess there must be a switch somewhere but have been a good 30 minutes trying to find it - am I supposed to be looking for an actual switch or should I be doing something with bulb?

Huh? Oh, you just dragged your cursor across the screen to find it?
I may be a sadistic designer, but not that sadistic to hide a hotspot inside a large black area!

Here's the solution:

Spoiler

If you look at the blue sky in the doorway, you should notice that at the right side of that blue area there's a few pixels of white / grey. That's the lightswitch.

[close]

I guess I should thank you for not giving up.
Thank you!

Flicking through the Cheesy subtitle thread I found this gem by InCreator:
AGS: Ancient Geek Society

I think a link on the banner like InCreator has shown would be a great idea. That wiki is very hard to find.

Also, the link to the beginners faq on http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ is broken. EDIT: And the link to the wiki itself.
Who should I PM about that? Chris?

in case anyone with authority is watching:
BFAQ = http://americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/index.php?title=Category:AGS_Beginners%27_FAQ
WIKI = http://americangirlscouts.org/agswiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Oh and I will try and hunt down the mythical wiki tomorrow

And no cheating by using my link rock_chick!

I'm going for minamalist but i can see your point my friend

I'm all for keeping it simple, so that explanation is good enough for me.

Man that's dark, Dualnames! Actually, the light shouldn't make that part of the window look brighter, since it's going down in a conical shape.
The colours should fit a suave and sophisticated party

What's that thing on the painting? Looks like a bent penis.

Spoiler

There's one really big thing in the living room you haven't looked at...

[close]

It is a small hotspot, but make sure the statusbar says 'Look at light' and right-click on it.
Also you can click on 'use' first and then on the lightswitch. It should say 'use lightswitch' on the statusbar.

(I assume you're talking about the light in the shed)

Ok, first off: I'm sympathetic towards the idea of a MAGS for beginners.
Mainly because I think that after you've finished that first game, you're past that first psychological bump in the road, if you know what I mean.
So any competition helping you in that would be a plus.

(the rest is numbered for your convenience)

1. There's no way you can tell how 'experienced' or how 'noobish' someone is. They might have drawn cartoons, or programmed something in Pascal/Delphi, which gives them a major headstart.
You'll just have to trust people. I think anyone trying to fake 'noobishnish' to win a Beginners Competition, is sad beyond comprehension anyway.
The only rule that makes sense is setting a maximum of one/two entries.

2. Two months is a long time. One month seems ideal to me.
What about supplying graphics? Insta-game and RON spring to mind. That way people can focus on their story and programming.
3. And while I'm brainstorming: you could use a signup list where the competition starts when there are enough partakers, if after a while it seems take there are no people taking part.

Within 24 hours my reputation here has been rapidly going down hill merely because I support a new idea, it's a bloody joke.

You're just being enthusiastic about an idea, nothing wrong with that. Just try to keep it civil. Tuomas actually supported the idea in his post with the Spanish lesson metaphor.
Just ignore the witty/silly remarks if you don't think they're funny.

Ok, the numbering was a bit redundant.

I love it!

Just a minor thing though: I'm not very well acquainted with beach apartments, but a big room with nothing but a couch and a cupboard in it seems a little empty.
Or is it a display room for a big expensive painting?

VWG's top tip of the day: use references by the bucketload!

If you want a TV, google image search for "TV" and take note of what is there. Then draw it as closely as you can.

That's a very good tip. Before you can draw, you have to look.

What helped me a lot, is a book about drawing cartoons I picked up cheap at a second-hand bookstore. You can improve your pictures a lot if you know the tricks of the trade.

Excuse me for being frank, but please reread your first post and tell me how on earth anyone would have understood what you meant?

I'm still not sure I understand, but I guess you mean creating some backup in case you delete an important image?

I'd suggest keeping all the images you create in GIMP / Photoshop / Paint Shop Pro / Paint-program-of-your-choice so you can import the missing file again.
As for the images already present in the template, you can easily start a new game, export the image you need and import that in your project.

Okay, so I took the default Roger, and modified the crap out of him to look like me.

The little Psychopath doesn't look like Roger at all anymore! I like the style though.

Now, I'm no expert on drawing, but: at least the shading on his pants should be the other way round (light on the outside, dark on the inside). The shading on the arms shouldn't be there, you can tell his arms and body apart.
The shoulders look alright to me. I think if you remove the empty spaces above his thumbs (so the inner side of his arms are one line) his arms should look better.

Okay, now you're just confusing me, one more person should tip the balance here for me, so can someone please say whether they find backgrounds or sprites harder to draw? Whatever there answer is means I'll practise on the other one.

What do YOU find harder to draw?
Who cares what other people think is most difficult.

Hm.

Well, technically a is Shift-A. Ctrl-A also has a keycode.

[Inventory]

On General Settings, look for Inventory and set "Use selected inventory graphic for cursor" to false.

I have wondered for a long time why being called gay is such a terrible blow, especially to adolescent males.

In your adolescence you're still searching for your sexual identity, so I guess it's insecurity that makes you real touchy about being called gay. And I know there are men who are scared about being reduced to a piece of meat by other men, but they're pretty much all idiots.

As for the hostility towards gay people, I haven't a clue. It's probably a cultural thing (young people see their friends / family making fun of homosexuals so they don't want to be gay because they don't want to be made fun of).