Messages

Or he's zooming in in Sattellite mode into a part that doesn't have Sattellite coverage, like the Ocean.  Try switching to Map mode and then zoom in slowly so you know you're zooming into the right area.

This is awesome.  I've been watching it for a while now, and it's just cool as hell.

Someone mentioned before that there was a problem with the blue box sotring itself on top of the pyramid at inappropriate times, so I know you're aware of the sorting problem, but here's a fun twist to it:

If you use the mouse to turn the whole game world upside-down (flip 180 vertically), ALL of the sorting is wrong (far away objects are drawn on top of close objects).  Plus, Dixie is now standing on her head... 

Perhaps the best fix for this is to prevent the mouse look from going more than 90 degrees off of the horizontal (as most First Person games do). (though you still have to deal with that blue box popping up on top of the pyramid when it shouldn't)

Also, going beneath the ground produces a similar problem.

Great fun.  Good job, both of you!

Wow, seriously.  Jozef, what's going on with DIY?

If they're dead, will you move your column to AdventureGamers or AdventureDevelopers?  Please?

No no.  It was a bit of a joke.  I was suggesting that you use the computer clock to keep the real-time thing going, but you make it a game play feature that the player has to change the computer clock to "time travel" to different points in time. (i.e. set your computer's clock to two days previous and stop a murder from having happened). 

The simple idea is that if it's a gameplay feature, it's not technically cheating, is it?

It's actually a really bad idea, because the player would have to keep quitting out of the game to change the clock.

As a real suggestion:  simply saving the date and time when the player is saving/quitting can prevent the player from changing the clock backwards, though I can't think of a way to stop the player from changing the clock forwards short of connecting to a web server.

What the ISP guys are going to do about it...



(yanked from wyr3x up the page and thus not a real entry, but surprisingly applicable)

My one crit... and this is completely nit-picking a fantastic image... the cracks on the walls and floors look a little to evenly spread out (i.e. one crack on every sidewalk tile).  It's just an example of the human mind attempting to mimic random behavior, but instead producing a very regular pattern.

There's one very simple way to stop people from cheating by changing their system clock:  make it a gameplay feature.

And I have passed the challenge.  I didn't mean to make you guys out to be the bad guys...but I did just rock your socks off.

... something must have been the trigger for its popularity.

Err... It's just a frickin' great song.  Listen to it once and you'll be singing it all day. 

Who HASN'T learned this lesson:




I didn't have the heart to finish it with the money shot I had intended...

Now that Richard Simmons has entered the world of video game voice acting.  Any plans on contacting him for work on the DTYD Special Edition? 

Love the game, by the by. 

Finally finished the book (thanks sick day!).  My (very long) thoughts:

Spoiler

I felt a bit let down by this entry in the series.  Even though it wasn't as thick (page-count-wise) as some of the previous books, it felt a lot flabbier.  The plot just wasn't as focused.  In HP5, there was this constant reminder of the nearing and growing danger in the form of dreams that were slowly escalating.  Here, it was more of a "Malfoy's up to something vague-yet-shifty!  But first... some smoochin'!"  I just didn't have the same sense of building tension that the previous entries in the series had. 

The action was all very sparse as well, with Rowling opting to explore the multiple romances instead.  Granted these romances had been building for a while and are important to the whole "love is the key to defeating Voldie" thing, but it resulted in what felt to me like a step backwards for the series.  Each book from the beginning had been getting a touch darker than the one before it, but this one wasn't dark at all until the very end.  I can't understand why the few people on the first few pages of this thread said that this one was "definitely" darker than the last few.  This book fell into a bit of a romantic comedy pattern and then couldn't seem to get out of it.  These scenes went on way too long with way too much repetition.  I mean, how many scenes had no point other than to say "Look! Hermy is getting jealous about Won-won and his new girlfriend... did you notice?  Yes?  Well, here's another scene just to make sure it's been crammed properly down your throat."  It was tiring and I felt it took away from the focus on the much more important plot of an evil-wizard trying to take over the world.

Speaking of Evil Wizards, how come Voldie went on a rampage over the summer causing a bridge to break in two and other violent stuff in the world of Muggles and then as soon as the school year started he kind of... stopped doing stuff.  Hermione checked the papers every day and there were a few deaths and disappearances here and there, but nothing on that kind of scale.  The back of my book ends the blurb with "[...] as the worlds of muggle and magic start to intertwine..."  What intertwining?  All of the intertwining (or at least the majority) seems to have happened before the events of the book, that hardly warrants the word "start" in that blurb.  I felt a bit let down that this very epic-sounding promise from the back cover of the book was never fulfilled.

The ending finally got dark for all of three chapters.  Dumbledore's death had been innevitable.  And for whoever asked how everyone "knew" Dumby was going to kick it in this book, JK let out a hint on her website like a year ago that another person close to Harry would indeed die in this book again, which lead of course to a lot of internet chatter.  Of course no one was sure but... c'mon it's the old rule of storytelling.  I call it the "Rookie of the Year" rule.  When someone has a special power (like being able to pitch a super fast ball or having a super-wizard for a friend) you have to lose that special power before you face your biggest challenge (like the last inning of the playoffs or the wizard who killed your parents) so that you have to achieve your goals using your own powers and smarts.  (Though I don't think the hidden ball trick is going to help defeat Voldemort.).  And as for Snape... we'll have to wait and see, but I'm guessing we have a bit more to learn about where his loyalties lie.

And on a side note: RAB is almost certainly Sirius' brother Regalus who was a death eater until he tried to back out and was killed (possibly) 15 years before the events of HP5 when they mentioned him.  I'm guessing he (or his actions from before his death) will play an important part in 7).

Regardless of the shortfalls of this book, the very open ending definitely made me eager for the next one.  I can't wait to see how everything winds up.

[close]

Welcome to Japan! 

Worry not, a year is nothing.  And you just got there... give it some time.  You'll do great and your new home will grow on you.  Your going to make a lot of new friends and as soon as school starts, time will start flying by.

And as for your fiance, the world is a small place now.  Free internet calls, video chat, little love notes on your keitai...  And he'll come and visit you at some point(s) surely.  You've got a lot to look forward to.  Don't waste all your time looking back.

As soon as you start thinking of Osuka as home rather than a one year diversion, the sooner you'll be wondering where all the time went.

Good luck!!!

I remember reading the same thing about Planet X in a book when I was a kid, so this was a learning experience for me as well.  Turns out there was no planet X, just some faulty science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_X

And the difficulty with calling Pluto a planet has nothing to do with it's distance from the sun.  It has to do with the question of how to define a planet.  Do we have a size or mass cut-off?  A certain orbital angle?  Shape?  Chemical composition?  There are a lot of different arguments and opinions amongst astronomers:

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/59/planetdefine.html

Some people even think that the Earth and the moon should be considered a double planet, not a planet and a satellite.  Something to do with the mass ratio or something...

[Let's talk about innovation for a second. Most of the games coming out use one of the tried-and-true interface models (LucasArts or Sierra). Few attempt to add real innovation to the adventure game formula. What kind of laudable innovation have you seen coming out of the community? How important do you feel innovation in gameplay is to the amateur adventure game scene?]

Let's talk about innovation for a second.  Most of the games coming out use one of the tried-and-true interface models (LucasArts or Sierra).  Few attempt to add real innovation to the adventure game formula.  What kind of laudable innovation have you seen coming out of the community?  How important do you feel innovation in gameplay is to the amateur adventure game scene?

I think innovation is overrated.  And this is coming from somebody who just spent the summer commercializing new technologies developed at Georgia Tech...  I don't think you can innovate too much in adventure games, as far as the interface or game mechanics go, mainly because so many people associate certain elements with adventures.  In fact, I would say that no other genre is being so narrowly defined by its fans as adventure games (there's been a really good article about it recently: http://www.adventuredevelopers.com/regularfeatures.php?action=view&id=4).  As I said before, I see underground adventure games as pieces of art, and thus I'd like to see more artistic innovation.  People should not be afraid to use new, innovative graphics (the Critics Lounge people may hate me for this).  The same goes for stories.  Even reworking some older stories, especially from public domain books, would be better than the amount of repetition I'm seeing.

When it comes to game mechanics, though, the game I mentioned a few times already, Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment, shows one way to innovation.  It is simply a series of minigames and a trade simulator, with strong adventure elements.  Jane Jensen's BeTrapped! is also very innovative, adding adventure elements to Minesweeper game mechanics.  It seems to me that in the future we'll see many more games from other genres, which would have enough adventure elements to be considered adventure games.  So instead of improving traditional adventure games, other genres will be transformed into adventures.

In this respect, the underground scene plays a huge role.  Innovation is largely gone from large commercial products, and so if we'll see any significant change, it will come from the bottom up.

Do you have any game-making aspirations of your own?  (If you've made a game previously and I just don't know about it, chalk it up to my piss poor research department.)

Sorry; you won't find anything made by me.  I did a few short games in ZX Spectrum, and the only larger project there was to make a Monopoly clone.  I'm currently thinking about trying my luck with AGS, but so far haven't gotten to use the software, as I just finished the story, and currently keep busy with the graphics.  I am hopeful I'll release it before the Universe collapses unto itself again.

Any clue as to what we can expect to find in your game, whenever it may be released?

It takes place in an alternate past, but it could just as well take place elsewhere.  At the heart of the story is a person with a dilemma: whether to stubbornly keep destroying other people's lives for the greater truth (possibly an unattainable ideal), or whether to give up, and save those he loves.

I must admit that my main problem with writing this story is that I tend to be a little verbose, as you may have noticed, and I also love to quote people from the books I've read.  The first version of my script was choke-full of quotes from Thoreau, Emerson and Muir.  I took some of them out, but it still will be a game I'd want to play, so others may be disappointed.

As for when it will be released, I've got absolutely no idea.  I'm learning as I'm going, and after I finish the backgrounds, I'll have to learn character drawing and animation, before even trying to power up AGS.

Where would you like to see the amateur adventure scene in five years?

Just where it is now, with fresh blood.  I'd like to see the best current amateur developers to have their games in the local Best Buy five years from now.  Others should be able to release commercial independent games, and those who just started would be the veterans, training a new generation of adventure developers.

How long do you see yourself continuing the Independent Adventuring feature?

At least as long as there is nobody who'd do it better, or until I marry, and my wife confiscates my computer   So far, I've had too much fun to stop writing.

Before I open the thread for comments and discussion, say something clever and profound to finish the interview.

Now this is by far the most difficult question I've gotten.  Please bear in mind that I'm too sober to think of something really good.

Amateur adventures are art, and their authors are true artists.  As such, I don't feel comfortable with criticizing any of them; I'm trying to merely report what's going on, and to point out those art pieces that I liked.  I'm very happy to be able to contribute to the independent adventuring scene, and I hope that five, ten years from now, we'll still be all here.  Some of us creating new games, others reporting, and all of us enjoying them.

Thank you for your time, Jozef.

Jozef will receive any questions or shameless flattery you may have for him now.

[Jozef Purdes has never released a game. He's not a frequent poster to the message board. He has never even used AGS. Nevertheless, he is a well known and important figure among the AGS community. Jozef is the author of the relentlessly thorough Independent Adventuring column over at DIY games. In his monthly column Jozef does his best to play and review EVERY independent adventure game released. It's a daunting and unenviable task, but nevertheless, Jozef continues to deliver.Seeing as how he has turned a critical eye to more AGS games than just about anyone, I knew that he would have some excellent insights on amateur adventure game development. I was lucky enough to bump into him at the Bloody Towel and have a fabulous confabulation over some baconburgers. I wanted to hear his thoughts on common flaws in amateur adventures but got sidetracked on some other subjects first.]

Twelve Interviews is a series of discussions with AGS community members.  The goal of this new feature, apart from learning a bit more about the interviewee, is to discuss some issues involved with AGS game development to help and to inspire other community members.

After reading the interview, feel free to post any related questions or comments that you may have for the interviewee.  Any comments, questions, or suggestions on this feature may be PMed to me here.


Previous Twelve Interviews:

Twelve Interviews #1: Kinoko

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Jozef Purdes has never released a game.  He's not a frequent poster to the message board.  He has never even used AGS.  Nevertheless, he is a well known and important figure among the AGS community.  Jozef is the author of the relentlessly thorough Independent Adventuring column over at DIY games.  In his monthly column Jozef does his best to play and review EVERY independent adventure game released.  It's a daunting and unenviable task, but nevertheless, Jozef continues to deliver. Seeing as how he has turned a critical eye to more AGS games than just about anyone, I knew that he would have some excellent insights on amateur adventure game development.  I was lucky enough to bump into him at the Bloody Towel and have a fabulous confabulation over some baconburgers.  I wanted to hear his thoughts on common flaws in amateur adventures but got sidetracked on some other subjects first.

The following is a transcript of our discussion:


First off, tell us a bit about yourself.

I was born slightly over 29 years ago in Bratislava, Slovakia.  Came to the US in 1995, went through college in New Jersey, where I then stayed for another four years working as an investment analyst.  Last August, I moved to Atlanta, where I entered the MBA program.  I've got one more year to go, and then I hope to find a job in the business incubation area.

As far as my gaming past goes, I started out with the Zinclair ZX Spectrum.  After two years or so, I got a bootleg tape full of interactive fiction; my first exposure to adventures. I got exposed to PCs as part of my part-time work in Slovakia.  They were PC 286 computers, and my first game, Crystals of Arborea, I was hooked, spending nights mainly with strategies at that time, especially Warlords and Civilization.  I went through the usual Monkey Island series and Sierra adventures, but got really hooked only after I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.  Since then, I've been gaming all the time, but stayed almost exclusively with adventure games, puzzles and turn based strategies.

How long have you been involved in gaming journalism?

I started writing for my abandonware site in 1997.  I later abandoned it, and in 2000 I started writing reviews for Epinions.com.  I soon became an Expert in gaming, which on the site was a function for the top reviewers in each category.  They served as a buffer between other reviewers and the site management, and to advise new members (the function later transformed into two, Top Reviewer and Adviser, which I retained till I stopped writing).  In 2002, me and a few of the top reviewers from Epinions created Netjak.com, where I'm still writing, even though not as much as before.  In early 2004, the editor of DIYGames has asked me to join the site, and since then I've been writing the monthly columns and the occassional reviews when I found some extra time.

How important, in your estimation, is objective evaluation (that is to say, reviewing a game based on its merits and not on one's own biases as a gamer) to mainstream gaming journalism?

I think that objectivity is overrated. Especially if I read five reviews of the same game, I don't want to read the game description over and over again.  Instead, I'm much more in favor of consistency.  There are simply game reviewers who have been consistently rating games for years now, and even if I don't share their tastes, their score and review can tell me more about how much I'd like the game than any consistent review.  The most notable example here is Tom Chick, the writer for Quarter to Three and most recently Computer Games.  He dislikes some genres that I like and vice versa, but having played some of the games and compared them against his reviews, I know what to expect now, whenever I read one of his game reviews, because he's been so consistent over the years.

How about non-mainstream or specialized journalism such as DIYgames?

I'd like to see more objectivity here.  Not for the sake of objectivity, but I think the non-mainstream media is skewed too much towards the subjective.  The problem I'm seeing here is that the media have too few dedicated reviewers.  Even DIYGames, which is relatively well staffed, is struggling with the amount of games that are flowing in.  As a result, we all are free to select from an enormous number of games to review, and we naturally gravitate to the best or most appealing ones, so we consistently rate between 3 and 5 stars, out of 5.  While we may be right in our rating, the review selection is not representative of the independent scene.

Can bias be blamed for the fairly consistent low scores garnered by adventure games in mainstream reviews, or are the games of today that still follow the tried-and-true adventure game formula just not as good as they used to be?

That's difficult to say.  I'd say that adventures are being misunderstood by magazine editors, and they are being assigned to the wrong people.  As I understand it, console adventures are mainly platformers with adventure elements, and so if a fan of such games gets a PC adventure to review, he or she may be disappointed.  I consider myself to be a fairly hardcore adventurer, and it reflects on my ratings: I rated games like Salammbo and Journey to the Center of the Earth very highly, much higher than the average, while games like Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon and Wanted received quite low ratings, due to their simplicity, interface and non-adventure elements. 

In fact, if you look at Gamerankings, you'll see that many adventure games are highly rated by adventure-reviewing sources, while more mainstream media rates them lower.  Good examples of this are in particular Journey to the Center of the Earth, and A Quiet Weekend in Capri.  More than bias, I think that the mainstream media simply don't have any adventure-dedicated reviewers anymore.

Quite frankly, I didn't think of looking at game journalism before, so these are only my opinions, based on absolutely no facts, so take them with a grain of salt.

Lets move on to your Independent Adventuring feature.  What made you want to take on the daunting task of playing and reviewing every amateur adventure game released?

I appreciate art, and I see amateur adventures as art.  Nobody can agree on a definition of art in gaming, but for my purpose, it's a game that has been created by a real developer, not by marketing consultants.  And even though there are quite a few titles that I wish I haven't played, others more than offset this.

But to be entirely honest, it wasn't my idea.  Greg Micek, the editor of DIYGames, has come with the idea, and I told him I'd try to do it, but I wasn't too enthusiastic until I wrote the first column and realized how much fun it's been to play all the games.

Do you enjoy it?  I mean... there are so many! ... Aren't there some real stinkers out there?

You're right; there are quite a few poor games.  Still, there are so many great games that I can live with the relatively fewer stinkers.  Also, I tend to give a lot of benefit of the doubt to people, so the worse games don't hurt too much

Any recent or classic favorites, AGS or otherwise?

Most recently, I fell in love with Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment.  I'm also very fond of games that are slightly out of the ordinary.  For example, SSH's Princess Marian series is one of my favorites, because of its very unique and cute personality.  Last year, some of the games I enjoyed the most had either very unique graphics, such as Biwa of Blood, or great humor, like Who Killed Bambi?.  And while I enjoyed larger games, such as titles by Pinhead Studios or the Ben Jordan series a lot, there's so many of those that after a while they tend to blur together.

Do you feel that the underground adventure game scene is important?

I think it's very important!  For some reasons.  First of all, it proves that game genres can never die.  In the days before Dreamcatcher (and even now), the vast majority of adventure creation activity takes place with independent developers.  As a result, commercial adventures are always pushed a step further in their development, to justify their price in the face of free competition.  Consequently, the overall quality of adventure games is higher than it would have been otherwise.  Second, the underground adventure scene is quite important to me.  I really don't like any action games, and with such titles dominating the store shelves, without independent adventures I'd have nothing to do.  And finally, just look how much creativity is being allowed, thanks to AGS and other engines.  I grew up primarily with books, and I never dreamed of self-publishing or reading self-published stories.  Even today, we don't see too many of them.  Yet, lots of people are coming up with their own stories, and an entire vision of a world where the stories take place. With so much creativity going on, I can only expect computer gaming in general to greatly benefit in the future.

Compared to the other amateur adventure game engines and communities, what are your thoughts on AGS and its community?

Now this is a difficult question.  I have never tried to create anything with any adventure engine, so I can't comment on the AGS software.  However, considering the number of games released every month, I can imagine it's easy to use.

As far as the community goes, I believe that AGS is the only significant underground adventuring community.  There are others I visit, especially the Adventure Developers and Adventure Gamers forums, most of the activity takes place on AGS, especially after The Crow's Nest closed.  That said, however, I found the AGS community to become too entrenched.  There are very few new people joining, who actually contribute on the boards for the long run.  While things like the Mittens show that the community is very close, I'm also afraid that the community is becoming a little exclusive.

Concerning amateur adventures, how important are the different aspects of the game (graphics, sound, story, programming, gameplay, etc)?

That's difficult to say.  Obviously, story is very important, but I found that my favorite games are those with a unique personality.  This is usually a result of unique graphics and writing.  But I wouldn't be too worried about what's more important.  Instead, I personally focus on things that hurt the game.  The most visible problem tends to be poor grammar, but in the long term, I find lack of originality to be the biggest problem.  I don't think we need another haunted house or a mystery detective; Ben Jordan should be enough.  Chances are I'll remember the original story, not its clone.

Having played so many amateur adventures, you must have spotted a multitude of common flaws that even the most experienced amateur developers drop into their games.  Lets discuss some flaws in each aspect of the game's production:  What are a few common missteps that you see regarding a game's story?  How can these flaws be avoided?

As I said, the one flaw I tend to pick up really quickly is grammar.  This is not as much a problem with experienced game developers, but even a single typo can stand out.  That's just me, though.

Probably the biggest design problem that I'm seeing is the lack of explanations.  Sometimes, the authors have the entire setting in their heads, and they make assumptions that they don't communicate to the player.  This, in turn, makes some puzzles or actions appear illogical.  This has killed very many adventures for me.

But at the end, most seasoned adventure developers have their game mechanics pretty well covered.  I just wish they added a little more emotion to the story, to make it more engaging to the player.  Very often, even in otherwise great games I feel absolutely no attachment to the main character.  Maybe it's just me, but in those cases I feel like the developers created a game they thought the gamers would like to see, and not the one they wanted to create.

What common mistakes do you see regarding a games graphics?

There are two, both having to do with the character animation: characters facing the wrong direction, and poor perspective.  In the former, I see way too often that the characters seem to walk sideways.  As far as perspective goes, sometimes the character size doesn't seem to change appropriately, according to their location.  I guess both problems are connected with the AGS editor, so I wouldn't know how to fix them.

Discuss a few commonly-recurring flaws that you've noticed regarding a game's sound.  How can these flaws be avoided?

There's only one thing that irritates me: full mp3s, which inflate the overall file size.  Other than that, I only have a problem with music I recognize.  That's not inherently wrong, but sometimes the music clashes with the setting.  I don't mind listening to "We Don't Need Another Hero" and "Eye of the Tiger" in Supergirl; in fact, the music selection was appropriate.  However, if I heard "Chariots of Fire" while exploring a haunted mansion, I'd be very unhappy.

What about the gameplay design?  Where do you commonly see mistakes and how can they be avoided?

There's only one flaw I can mention here: action or timed sequences.  Avoiding this problem is easy: avoid adding them into your games.  I don't mind what anybody else says, I'll be always whining about them.  But to be fair, sometimes they work, such as in the Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment, where they were very easy.

And finally, the game's interface.  Discuss a few commonly-recurring flaws that you've noticed in this area.

One problem I'm seeing, especially with new developers or people who want to use intricate interface graphics are very large cursors, which you don't know where they point.  This can be avoided very easily; some games added a bright pixel on each cursor, indicating where it points.

What about programming?  How often do you see minor bugs?  How much do they affect your opinion of a game?  What about major bugs?

I don't see too many major bugs.  In fact, I'm very happy to say that I haven't seen a game-ending bug for a long time.  However, I wish people would be more careful when flagging non-recurring things.  Sometimes even very good games allow for the came conversation to take place over and over again.

I think more scientists should bide their time and double check research before announcing something.  It's not like they were sitting on the cure for cancer, here.

A hacker made them go public with the discovery.  Which, to me is just dumb.  If a scientist hasn't come forward with information it's probably because they're working to verify it and don't want to announce incorrect findings...

I'm not sure the validity of this news portal, but:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25031

My probably useless and definitely late thoughts:

Alone in the Night:
Excellent graphics.  The story was a bit silly, but the production values were excellent.  Nothing exciting and new (except the excellent - if slow moving - main character) but it covered all the bases of your standard adventure game, and covered them all well.  It was a well made and polished adventure game and it is clear why this game won.  I loved the "slow camera man" comment after the vertical pan.

Another:
Very short and very easy, but sharp graphics.  I would have loved to see more and for it to have a bit of a story.

Baghdad:
I loved Baghdad and was laughing out loud at several points during the game.  There wasn't a whole lot there, but it was altogether an enjoyable little joke game.

Balloon Face:
Terribly funny.  "MY CLARITY OF MIND IS UNMATCHED!!!"  Even though the dialog was hilarious through out, I did get a little bit bored wading through so much of it.  (Though that is a terribly hypocritical thing to say having delivered a 15 minute cutscene in my game...  )  I'm not sure that this game deserved the puzzle award, but the writing award was an easy pick here.

Dance Til You Drop:
A hilarious tribute to a great man.  Graphics were awesome.  I guessed the author correctly because only ProgZmax could have sprited that much in a week and still had time to make an entertaining game.  My gripes were with the waaay too difficult to navigate inventory and the questionable cursor hotspots.

Gladiator Quest:
I loved the readme and found it a necessary read in order to play the game.  The fighting was great.  The best part of this game, in my opinion, was that each Champion fighter had his own distinct fighting style, and learning this fighting style from the trainer was important for forming your battle strategies.  Amazing scripting there.  Well done!  And thank god for the wuss patch!

Hiyah:
Great art, but some fairly illogical puzzles.  I didn't like that I had to stand in a specific place in order to use a certain object.  It seemed that a bit of time could have made this into a much better game.

In Limbo:
The game crashed for me when I was to go to heaven.  Good GUI and fairly good graphics, but not a lot here.  Seems like a good starting point for a very good game though.

I Think:
I guessed the author correctly here as well thanks to the adeptly crafted horror atmosphere.  The ripped graphics left something to be desired though and quite often made me laugh and lose my sense of immersion, which in turn took away from the atmosphere.  Good voice effects.

Sammy Sperm:
Fantastic voice acting, but not much of a game around it.  Funny concept and a satisfying climax.  (Bah dum ching)

Sheet:
I think this could really be fleshed out into a great game rather than a simple dialog puzzle.  Allowing the doodle to get inked, which gives him some more freedom and possible actions...  Then he can get colored, which gives him even more actions... then get a walking animation...  Then he could get... rendered in 3D?  Whatever, it could turn into a fun and novel game with some fun and innovative puzzles.

The Find:
I loved the Dig, and so loved the direction that this game was moving.  Good graphics.  But the puzzles were a bit weak.  I would have liked to see more.  It was fun.

I really enjoyed taking part in the One Room One Week contest.  It allowed me to explore a fun and different idea that I had floating around in my head without it dominating more than a week of my time.  I hope we have more of these contests, because I think they are an excellent way to practice scripting or explore fun new gameplay innovation and test out your ideas on the community.

Thanks again!  Expect a polished release of Anna in the next couple of weeks!

Wow, thanks for the kind words and the votes everybody.  I wasn't sure how well Anna would go over since it's not the standard game that every one is used to.  Congratulations also to AJA for the tie.

A few responses:

Only complaint would be that, as smart the puzzles were, it was very apparent that they were 'puzzles' puzzles, which sorta killed the suspension of disbelief.

Haha, I totally agree.  If I were playing this game, not having made it, I would think 'What kind of idiot engineer designed a computer using a tower of Hanoi puzzle and a lights-out-style virus remover?' I blame that on the lack of time spent on design and planning.  I had the idea for the pseudo-3D and the basic story, but my puzzle design consisted of "...and there will be puzzles."     They were fun to program though!

Great scripting and a fantastic visual style. I thought the philosophical dialog was rather weak, and forcing the pacing (no text skip) very cruel. I liked the twist at the end.

You can skip text when Hero is shown in the room.  It's only the text that is laid over a GUI that can't be skipped.  This is due to the way I implemented it in combination with a lack of planning and time.  This will be fixed for the official release.

Speaking of which, I'm polishing the game up for a full release.  Any comments and suggestions welcome via PM.

I did want to do a full runthrough of comments for all the games, but I've just returned from a long trip and I've got to sleep for 16 hours now.  I'll get to them eventually.

Thanks again!

Kinoko,

Just got back from my trip around Japan.  First stop was Shizuoka and the place is beautiful.  I didn't get into your town, spent most of my time in and around Gotenba, but I can tell it's going to be a comfortable place to live.

I went through the same thing you're going through exactly one year ago.  I got real stressed out at the Tokyo orientation, started thinking that I wouldn't be able to do it... but here I am planning on spending the rest of my life and raising a family here.

Good luck, check in with us when you get some internet time, and don't be afraid of making mistakes.  People loooooove lauging at the stupid foriegners.  Great way to make friends.