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I wanted Count Chocula, but damn it's hard to find a good picture of Count Chocula checking his mail...

[s]

For your consideration:  "Nomination Reform"

Having a panel has already been discussed, and I, for one, believe it to be a good idea.  The panels would have to be carefully chosen (I say panels because I think having separate panels for graphics, gameplay, documentation, etc... within reason... might be a good idea).  Any AGSers on the panels would have to disqualify their own games from that year, obviously. I would also suggest grabbing some non-AGS community people to join the panels.  Perhaps some people from the adventure game journalism area, like Jozef Purdes at DIY Games who makes the "Independent Adventuring" feature.

Now, the big problem here is that you have a small number of people who are responsible for playing a huge number of games...  The way they handle this at most big awards shows (like the Oscars) is to limit the entries by requiring the people responsible (developer(s)) to submit their product (game) to the categories for which they believe they have a reasonable chance of winning.  This submission may be a simple Email or PM from the developer with the game name and the categories he/she wishes to enter the game into, or it may be more complicated, like a web form including a paragraph on why the game deserves to win [insert category name here].

Regarding Panelists:[/i]

Pros:
    -eliminates the "Only the most five most popular games were nominated for every category" issue.

Cons:
    -That's a lot of games to consider...
        Possible solutions:
            -Required Submissions
            -Create 'No' and 'Maybe' piles based on a cursory examination.
            -Choose the panelists at the beginning of the year, allowing them a head start.
    -Possibility of bias
    -Possibility of hurt feelings and resentment
        Possible solutions:
            -Anonymous panelists

           

Regarding required submissions:[/i]

Pros:
    -Limits the number of games a panelist has to look at.
    -No massive list of every game produced in the last year is required.

Cons:
    -Looking at the bundle of submissions may still be a large undertaking for a small group of panelists.  Certainly more difficult and time consuming than tallying the community's nominations.
    -Some developers may miss the note about needing to submit their games and some worthy games may be missed.
        Possible solution:
            -Allow year-round submissions



These are just the few ideas that sprang to mind when I read this thread.  Feel free to add to them, subtract from them, or just completely ignore them. 

I'm really impressed with your concept for the game.  I like the graphical style a lot. And the music rocks.  Did you make the music?

I played just a little bit and found two bugs:

Spoiler

1)  Mousing over the open desk drawer makes the plant appear.
B) When I discovered the body the game crashed, the error pointed to line 270 in the script for Room 2.  Apparently you have a character in there that it is unable to display.  I couldn't get this error to repeat though, so you may have to do some things in certain orders to be unlucky enough for it to happen...

[close]

As far as the interface goes, I like the idea, but it's painfully slow.  I like that things fade in as you mouse around the "touch" cursor, but after you click on them do they have to fade in really slowly AGAIN?  This makes the game take forever.

I have three suggestions:

A) Speed up the initial (black and white) fade in just a tad, and the second (color) fade in a lot.
2) Allow the player to click on the black and white version of the object to "solidify" it before it has finished fading in.  (yeah, that'll have problems with the wait cursor and all, but you can code it)
iii) When you mouse over something with the touch cursor and it starts fading in, don't make it vanish if I mouse out, leave it in the partially faded in state.

I'd say that suggestion number A is needed more than the others, but number iii would definitely be cool (and easy to implement).

ETA:
Also, I'd be careful about the "pixel hunting as a gameplay feature" you've got going.  Pixel hunting is usually not a good mark in my book for any game, but if there is absolutely zero hint as to where you should be pixel hunting... well that's just dangerous.

Without adding an annoyingly labeled list, my suggestions are to make the mouseover areas for the objects large and easy to hit, or add an item that you find early in the game that can help you out.  Like some sort of echo-location device or something... I dunno... you're the designer...

"Un-surprisingly". If that is a real word.

It's not.  I'd suggest "not surprisingly."

The art is fabulous, though.  I'd love to see the animation...

with a general theme of 'out of the box' thinking when solving puzzles.

As long as "out of the box" doesn't equal "illogical" it sounds good.

As far as the UI goes: Go with the one you like best.  I think games generally come out better if the designer is making something he/she would like playing.  You can't put that extra bit of love into your game if you don't enjoy playing it yourself.

Personally, I'm a streamlined kind of guy.  I like things to be easy with as few clicks as possible.  I feel that solving the puzzles should be hard, not getting around the interface...

Ok,  I'm right with Potch on this one.  Anyone figured this out?

Indeed this program is just as benign as SETI@home and probably more useful (I mean, c'mon...).

There are lots of programs out there that harness the wasted CPU cycles of volunteers' computers to get through some massive calculations in a cheap and fast way.  I'm personally a part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (With the lovely acronym GIMPS).  Searching for new gigantic primes is really useful for... well... err... if you find one you get money.  The largest prime known to man was recently (just a few days ago) found by some lucky guy running this program at home.  I've been running the program for three years now and haven't found anything yet.  Someday, though... someday...

Ok, my real (read: non-attempting-to-make-fun-of-someone) response to this topic:

I don't get up on too many soapboxes.  I'm not a terribly argumentative person, and I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at admitting that I'm wrong when I am.  I wouldn't know though.  It hasn't happened yet.  I'll let you know if it does. 

The one thing I will argue about is gay rights.  And it's a big issue in America right now.  I just haven't heard one good reason that we're going out of our way to deny rights and equal treatment to gay couples.  Yet we're doing it, and doing it actively and publicly.  It really makes me angry, and I won't say anymore about it.  But there you have it.  The one thing that always manages to pull me onto a soapbox.

"realizing"

... oh... err... nevermind

Hehe, well, you want to come to Japan and teach English? Then get used to teaching and using American English, 'cause that's all they want...

BAM!

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Ok, you got me good...    Damn, gotta quit trying to be such a smart ass.  It's much easier to be a dumb ass --  less fact checking involved.

But the American English thing is true...  All the Brits and Aussies around here complain about having to write color and not colour, etc.  We just tell them they need to practice their "real English" and not that outdated "Queen's English" crap.

What's that dark thing by the podium thingee, though?

Also, the lighting is, well, weird. Consider where it could be coming from, and it seems odd

I believe that's a phone.  And I second the lighting thing.  I'd rework the shadows a bit so that they're all coming from a more believable lightsource (usually not a wall  )

And sorry about the black lines on the tablecloths comment...  now that I'm on my laptop I don't see any.  Weird.  I'm going to have to give my desktop monitor a checkup.  Great revision...  keep up the good work.  Oh... I also suggest changing the color of the cieling.  Something lighter than the walls.

Since someone else has brought it up, horrendous spelling is one of them.

Uhh... It's "realize" and "no one."

Sorry, couldn't help myself.  Remember... affectionate...

So, should it be "Le Kitchen" or "La Cuisine"?

No, it should definitely stay "Le Kitchen."  It's way better for a comedy game like this.

Ohh, I love largo's violin player idea!  It would take some extra animating, but it'd probably be worth it.

And if I may nitpick, you could blur the frontmost table a bit. Gives it more depth sense. I'm just in love with special effects...

Yeah, I've seen largo use this effect in some of the screenshots for his own game.  It does look pretty cool, but my concern is any walk-behinds.  Walking behind an object that blurs into the walkable area might look a little weird.  I'm sure largo has found a way to make it look good in his game.

I'd generally just stay away from blurring unless it's used effectively throughout your game, just to stay consistant in your art style.

Keep up the good work. 

Edited to add:

Also, I'd do a bit of shading on the walls, and not make the line on the corners black.

Some of the curvy lines on your tablecloths are black and some are gray.  The gray look better.

Very few table cloths go all the way to the ground, most let the tables show a little bit of leg.
Finally... and I wouldn't change this if you're pretty far into making your game... but your art style doesn't necessitate that huge resolution, dropping it down to 640x480 or even 320x240 will save you file size, make your drawing look less empty, require less detail, require less work, and also hide a number of blemishes and mistakes.  Of course, that's totally your call.  You'd have to pretty much start from scratch art-wise.

I work everyday teaching English to little Japanese kids who view me as more of a jungle gym than a teacher (I know this is about hobbies, but this is too fun to be thought of as a job).  When I have periods off, I'm working on my AGS game, or browsing these forums for tips and, very rarely, posting.  I used to use my free periods to work on my website (Flash programming is another hobby) http://www.omahatookinawa.com but for the last month, all of my creative juices have been poured into AGS, so I haven't updated it in quite some time.

As for this strange "outside" place that Alec speaks of.  I have discovered it ever since I moved to this sunny beautiful island of Okinawa.  I go to the beach when I can, and last week I started surfing lessons.

Oh, yeah, and there's that whole girlfriend thing that takes up some time, too...

Adding to what Scummbuddy said:
It seems a little bit weird to me that there is one bombed-out building (not talking about the buildings in the red backdrop [which I love by the way] just the three in the foreground) and the other two in pristine condition.  Not even a window broken.  (Not that there are many to be broken).  Also, we should see a little evidence of what was once inside that shell of a building (inner walls, a desk, a staircase [ooh, staircases to nowhere are creepy...]).

Very nice background.  I especially love the backdrop.  It looks like the world is on fire.  Very apocalyptic.

Yeah, I know Mona Lisa is Italian but wasn't Leonardo Da Vinci french? If he wasn't then how come the Mona Lisa painting is in Paris? I may have heard of that before but seem to forgot about it.

He's Italian.  The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre in Paris because the owners of the Louvre bought it and put it on display there.  Not all paintings need to stay in the counry from which they originated.

As for the pic.  Great sense of depth.  I love the table in front.  But you definitely should jazz the place up a bit.  I second the motion for a maroon carpet.  How about a decorative running board along the floor and ceiling.  I would also put a bit of a decorative pattern on the carpet, probably in gold.  But nothing too distracting, you don't want the floor drawing the eyes too much, maybe just an edging decoration.  I also think the boombox should go.  If this was a fancy place, they would have a built in sound system.  It just looks a little odd.  If you need it for a puzzle or something, at least off set it from the other table,  I'd move it closer to the host's podium.

As for the Mona Lisa, I don't really see a problem with it being there just because the artist was italian.  I mean, if the owner were really going for the full french experience, he wouldn't have written the slightly comical "Le Kitchen" over the kitchen door.  It would be the proper French: "La Cuisine"

Like CJ said, you can create your own save and load GUIs and then change the places in your code where it calls the default S/L GUIs to calling your homebrewed versions.

The Greek AGS Community has an example of all the code you need for your own simple GUIs at http://atticwindow.adventuredevelopers.com/tutorials.php?id=1

You can create these examples and then replace the background pics and generally spruce them up to your liking.

Hope this helps!

Katamari Damashii Rocks!  No game out there like it.  Can't wait for the sequel.

On topic (though not an adventure game):  I've had dreams where there are these arrows, and they tell me how I should move my feet, and I can't stop or I'll die.

Then I woke up and realized I needed to quit playing Dance Dance Revolution.

Orlando Bloom? God, no! Make Johhny Depp Simon instead!

Johnny Depp simply makes any movie better, IMO.


Edit:

In light of the current casting climate, my movie has recieved the following overhaul

Hey, if the movie sucked, but the game was great...