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I reckon that not beleiving in anything raises mor questions than beleiving in something

"Scientific study and reasoning involves more questioning and rational thought than religious devotion."

Also in the news today:

"Excercise requires more work than liposuction."

"Diplomatic and peaceful conflict resolution takes more thought and time than nuclear strikes."

and

"Christianity topics on this forum just go around in circles for days."

If you want to be a Christian, you have to study the Bible. But when you study the Bible, you can say "Oh, look, there's rather quite a bit of truth here" or "oh, look, this is completely ludicrous and contradictory" rather than "Oh, look, this says what the preacher said it said, so he and it must be right."

If I'm not mistaken you can have the same "Oh, look, there's rather quite a bit of truth here" or "oh, look, this is completely ludicrous and contradictory" conclusions from what a preacher says...

Saying "Anyone who bases his or her beliefs on what other people tell them needs to be murdered most brutally" could apply to someone reading a book and believing it word for word just as well as it could apply to someone listening to the preacher on the pulpit.

I think what you might actually mean is that everything that you learn, be it from a teacher, preacher, parent, or book, should be considered and examined with a critical eye rather than taken word-for-word as gospel -- something which I would suggest should be applied to everything in life, not just religion.

I'm not saying that preachers are good places to find the truth, I'm just saying to be careful when you suggest that a 2000 (rounding significantly up) year old book can provide better summary of what is right and wrong or what is "true" than what someone (a teacher, a philosopher, or your mom) in the modern world could teach you.  Things change.  Books usually don't.

Anyone who bases his or her beliefs on what other people tell them needs to be murdered most brutally. 

You tell people to study the bible, ancient texts, or other religious documents, but they shouldn't base their beliefs on what other people tell them to believe?

Just who do you think wrote those texts?

From TFA:

Posey was charged in 2004 for the murders of his father, step-mother and 13 year old step-sister at a New Mexico ranch, after an alleged long history of parental physical and sexual abuse.

Yup.  Definitely the fault of video games.

If you ignore him he goes away.

P.S. I'd love to see a psychic cold read someone fresh off a plane from Japan... "Is there a Yasunobu in your life?" now that would be impressive!

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!  One of the 600 students that I teach is named Yasunobu!!!  Eric, how do I send you all my money?

I just finished reading the article and watching the videos.  How cool was that?  Congratulations Dave!  I'm green with envy.  I don't want to get all "over-used Dr. Seuss graduation gift" on you, but with the determination, skill, and resourcefulness that you're demonstrating in this little endeavor of yours, "Oh the places you'll go!"  Keep up the good work!

I post game related stuff, specifically amateur game related stuff on my blog at

http://www.xiigames.com

I don't post terribly often, but I try to put up information that would be helpful for game making hobbyists such as myself.  I hope someday someone finds it useful...

A few pertinent posts:

Restricted game development - About the advantages and disadvantages to being an amateur game developer compared to a professional game developer.

Story Wars: Episodes one, two, and three - about the importance of story to a game.

And of course, the Twelve Interview Series

I have to agree with GarageGothic.  The puzzles that seem best interwoven into the story are not made by thinking of a puzzle that fits the story, they are made by thinking of stories that naturally contain connundrums and presenting them properly.  A detective story has a puzzle built naturally into it.  Perhaps it's a who-dun-it kind of mystery...  All the gameplay focuses around uncovering those clues that help unravel the mystery (puzzle) at the core of the game.

A "natural" puzzle like this will often have many layers and pieces that can be approached in different ways with differing results.  GarageGothic also summarized this neatly with his GK3/AEatLDM comparison.

I, for one, am not terribly hung up on puzzles needing to weave naturally into the story.  I know Myst is not a popular game among adventure game purists, but I loved Myst and especially Riven for the logic and mechanical based puzzles.  It's just an excercise that my brain enjoys.  I think this came out a lot in Anna. 

But on Rui's original question: I can't stand puzzles that are solved by completely random item combination/interaction.  If I come accross something like this, I will often quit a game or, if the story is intriguing enough, rely on a walkthrough until the end, just to see it through.

Candall, the demo looks fantastic.  The character animation and the little touches like the camera and the intro video are great.  The art style is interesting and most importantly, consistent.  I love the idea of the console as well.

One comment about the graphics, you probably don't want to do this because it would require redoing a lot of sprite importing, but I think you can get rid of those jaggies around the characters by using .png files with an alpha channel.  I don't use blender, but I'm sure it would be able to export in .png, yeah?  Anyways, this is just a minor point to me and didn't detract at all.

I won't speak about the puzzles, because I couldn't immediately get past the second room even though I thought I knew exactly what needed to be done and I ran out of playing time.  But I will talk about something that did bother me: usability.  I found four little usability niggles while playing:

You made one major mistake that many first time game makers make: unclear inventory cursor hotspots.  When I've selected a peg out of my inventory on the first screen, I have no idea where I'm pointing.  I kept trying to use peg with counter top because of the lack of indication on the inventory item cursor.  Adding a triangle or a crosshair using AGS' built in feature will fix this right up.

Next usability problem: clickable character.  The character you made is attractive, but since he's so big on the screen, he's a bit obstructive.  When on the first screen and fumbling around with the pegs, I'd use peg with countertop on accident and the main character would go and stand in front of the hole.  Then, when I'd try and click on the hole, the main character would be blocking the whole thing.  I'd have to move over to the side and then attempt to click the right place again.  This could be solved by making the character unclickable and changing the walk-to point of the counter top and holes.

Next problem: Non-intuitive inventory opening.  I eventually guessed pressing "i" would do it and then read on your website that the middle button will do it too.  But I tried tab, esc, and F1 first.  Either multiple buttons to open the inventory or, optimally, a little icon in the corner of the screen that I can click so I don't have to go to the keyboard at all would be nice (remember, some people don't have a middle mouse button).

Next usability problem: inconsistent cursor use.  When I finally got the inventory open, and wanted to use the pegs, I tried the interact cursor, because logically that made sense.  The "look at" cursor worked just as I expected it to, so I expected that the interact cursor would pick up the item.  But it actually tries to use the inventory item within the inventory.  It told me that I should use the item with something, which I was trying to do.  Why wouldn't it let me?  I fumbled around for a while, getting frustrated, until I finally figured out that the "walk" cursor lets me pick things up.  That didn't make sense to me.  Why would I even use a walk cursor in the inventory?  Either let the interact cursor do what I expect it to, or use a new cursor to let me pick things up.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I like the screw icon for picking things up, it looks like a tool icon.  I'd make a different cursor for walk.  This applies to the other GUIs, like the number pad in the next room.  I don't understand using the "walk" cursor to press buttons.

Sorry for the long post.  I hope you find it helpful.  I hope it didn't sound harsh.  I'm just trying to help you polish up a game that I think looks very promising.  Good luck, and keep us updated on the game's progress.

I married a girl and she de-balled me.  Can I join?

You're brain be lost in quandrary

heh.  Definitely put that on the back of the box.

But seriously, read the rules.

You get a lever, I believe it's from the billiards puzzle.  Go back to the billiards puzzle and see if you forgot to pick something up out of that safe.  If it's not that one.  Look around in the other safes that you already opened.  You probably just missed it.

Yeah, personally I suspect Jozef...

I have vague idea in my mind of a game I'd like to make that would be all about exploring, complete with rivalry between other explorers, observation of the natives, dysentery, impressive beard growing and exchanging of 19th century witticisms.

I had an idea for a game about cartography.  You are a rogue cartographer with an deep routed need to "map shit."  But there are forces working against you, such as a king who has made shit-mapping illegal, and the ever shifty science of plate tectonicry.  I believe it would be the first game based around cartographing.

I have to support the group who likes innovation and new types of gameplay.  I don't download a lot of games because I like to spend more of my free time making games than playing them.  But I do look at every game in the completed games forum, and I admire the games that have slick graphics, but I usually only download ones that look like they might offer something unique and fresh; Into the Light, Heist, and the recent TiLTOR spring to mind.  And even those games that I do download I rarely finish, because unique and fresh ideas can be refreshing and even inspiring, but it's very difficult to come up with new ideas that will be persistently fun throughout a whole game. 

My game in progress is original to be sure, and I personally think it's enjoyable, but I'm not sure that a lot of people out there will agree with me.  But that's the good thing about being a hobbyist.  If you don't like my game, I don't care.  Most people seemed to enjoy Anna for the most part, but one person commented on the voting page that it was "unplayable"...  oh well.

I don't think that having all these negative feelings like doubt, confusion, or even anger means that you're not ready to be a father.  Everybody has those feelings unless you're in a position where you're trying to have a baby.  But sometimes they just happen. 

My wife and I were engaged and already living together when we had our "oops, stupid Japanese condoms!!!" moment.  Six weeks later when we were looking at the two pink lines we both freaked out a bit.  I was feeling all those negative feelings for a few days.  I knew that I could be a good dad, I just didn't want to admit that a part of my life was over.  My wife and I had planned to travel around and see the world for a few years before settling down and sprouting little Twelves.  Now, all of that is impossible.  Instead we moved into a house and I'm working hard to make enough money to support us.

But you know what, I wouldn't trade my beautiful daughter for anything now.  And if anyone came up to me and said that I wasn't ready to be a father because I initially felt doubt, I'd show them my beautiful happy daddy's girl who cries when I say goodbye to her on my way out the door to work and squeals with glee when I return -- the little girl who wakes me up in the morning by calling "DADA!" from her crib.  And if that person still felt that I wasn't ready to be a dad, I'd (after averting my girl's eyes) offer him a tall frosty glass of Karate-chop!!

Edit:  And whether or not you're with the right person, regardless of how long you've been together, is not something that people can judge over the internet.  Of course it would be nice if your relationship was longer and you could be sure (living with someone else reveals a lot about them that you wouldn't otherwise know... both good and bad), but if you think you're ready to be a dad, you need to also be ready to devote your life to making the mother of your child happy.

Good luck.  It's not going to easy, but it's going to be worth it.

Yeah, the quit isn't a huge deal-breaking issue.  I just love the simplicity of the game, yet the difficulty that comes out of the simplicity.

Edit: side conversation taken to IM

Really awesome stuff here!  It's fantastic in style and execution.  The puzzles start out really easy and ramp up nicely.  The cutscenes look great.  I especially love the simplistic interface!  It's a very dizzying game.  I really really love it.  I'll play more later.

I had two problems/suggestions: 1) There's no way (that I can see) to quit the game from within.  The quit option just takes you back to the title screen  If you're running in full screen, you can't get out unless you Alt-X or Alt-Tab.  and 2) I wish there was some way to know how close I was to finishing one of the missions/planets.

All around an awesome job.  Beautiful!

Australia's nice and all but I miss ... everything.

(She means me.)

Congrats, and welcome to the papa club!  Hello baby, bye bye sleep!

Don't worry.  You'll get over all the weird feelings.  You've got seven or eight months to prepare yourself mentally for fatherhood.  Any doubts that you have left on B-Day will be quickly forgotten when you see the squishy purple face of your amniotic-fluid-covered kid.

Congratulations, friend!

This argument has happened many times on these forums, Dan.  No one is forcing you to buy a commercial game.  You don't need it.  Thus, charging for it is completely up to them.  Of course, if they didn't put the time and effort into it to make the game worth what they charge, no one's going to buy it anyways.

So, if someone is willing to put in extra work and spend some cash of their own to make a game that might be considered commercial quality, you shouldn't be angry that they're asking for compensation.  If you don't think it's worth the money, just don't buy it.

And people use freeware to make commercial products all the time.  There's no sense in re-inventing the wheel if a guy down the block is giving them away for free, no matter what kind of car you're putting it on, freeware or commercial... and also I really need to work on my analogy skills.