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I don't consider it wasted time, I learnt a lot from it, but I also don't feel comfortable showcasing incomplete project work as part of a portfolio.

What.

Man everyone who knows me knows that I pretty much agree with a lot of the free distribution stuff but in a different sense. I've worked on a lot of game projects where I have composed full soundtracks completely free of charge, because if I believe in something I am willing to put my time and effort into it, to make it see the light of day. This is also because I am really passionate about what I do and the music I make and I don't NEED a paycheck to keep the motivation up.

In the same respect however I can't continue to do this forever and time is quickly running out. I need some kind of income and at the moment it is coming from nowhere. But also all these charity projects I have done, have almost never seen the light of day which has left me with 1000's of wasted hours and no portfolio work to really show for it. I'm a sitting duck bashing my face off the brick wall thanks to my kindhearted CHARITY NATURE WAYS.

It's alright for some who can pull these projects together and actually release them but for the lowly composer I'm left at the mercy of the creator of the game and for the most part, game creators are shitheads who can't finish they damn projects.

Since the recent copyright debate has focused on the medium of recorded music, only one solution has been widely discussed. Musicians will make money the way they currently make most of their money anyway: they will play live shows. Since it is impossible to make a copy of a live experience, let alone distribute copies of that experience in a free fashion, musicians will be able to make adequate livings without copyright. And, if you place this means of making a living on the reliability and productivity spectrums discussed earlier, it measures quite well: musicians are paid ahead of time (at the ticket booth) for doing immediate, productive work (rendering a live performance on stage). Also, the amount of money made from a live performance is tightly correlated with how many people benefit from that performance (in other words, how many people are in the audience).

Also this is kind of bullshit because "musicians" is a general term and in an idealistic world sure we will all do LIVE SHOWS but what about those of us musicians who are still musicians but don't aspire to be a ROCK BAND. My GOAL in life is to create soundtracks for games/films. Where is my money going to come from in the post-copyright world when I don't perform live shows of my game soundtracks. See the above CHARITY WORK paragraph.

However, this particular post-copyright "solution" leaves most other creators out in the cold. Programmers and book writers cannot give live performances, at least not performances that will sell many tickets. The same goes, in general, for painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists. During the recent copyright debate, a catch-all solution has been proposed for non-musicians: donations. These creators will supposedly eke out livings post-copyright with the online equivalent of the tip jars commonly used by bar and street performers. Of course, the online equivalents will work better, since an online audience can be so much bigger than a bar or street audience (if just 1% of 1,000,000 visitors give a $1 donation, we have already started approaching a livable income for a year).

Again, in ideal world sure but people are cheap and don't like to give out what little money they have. Sure there are those of us who will pay for things that we use and enjoy. In a world where pirating movies is free and easy I am the guy who still goes out and buys DVD's but it's not going to last for long and when everything is free nobody will think to "donate" or over time, as copyright is dying, the donation rule of thumb will die out too.

If we do not depend on selling copies to survive, then all of our efforts at copy control become pointless. This means no more "All rights reserved" or even "Some rights reserved." This means no more FBI warnings. This means no more DRM or hardware dongles. This means no more "Please insert the original CD-ROM to continue." On the other side of the fence, this means no more cracking and no more warez. This means no more hiding in P2P networks and no more RIAA lawsuits. So much effort and energy has been wasted---one side trying to enforce copy controls, and the other side trying to work around those controls.

We can leave all of this behind us when we move to free distribution. And, using the schemes that I have described, or countless other schemes that others may propose, it is possible to make a living as a creator in a world of free distribution.

So in the way this sounds fantastic and makes a lot of sense, it is also completely idealistic and would not function well at all. Not to mention that a lot of companies whole existance is based off copyright and the current amount of money they make from this shit.

Companies are not going to be so willing to just say SURE FUCK MONEY LET'S GIVE SHIT AWAY FOR FREE AND STRUGGLE BY ON AN AMBLE LIVING, when the current system rakes them in millions/billions each year.

In an ideal world though...

EDIT:

Just adding in, in regards to the simple life. I don't drive a car myself, and I feel pretty strongly about this but I would never be so obnoxious and arrogant as to tell other people that they should not drive cars. I understand that people need to travel long distances for their work and even family life and that cars make this a lot easier. You can't blame PEOPLE for that. I personally don't need to drive a car so I don't and I feel good about myself for doing this but I wont be that guy that walks around feeling smug about himself trying to make other people bad for contributing to the oil crisis.

I'm also, slowly trying to make the change to vegetarianism as a personal choice. I've eaten meat for years and although disagreeing with it, have pawned it off as "well they're gonna cut the meat and shelf it anyway... may as well not waste it." I don't think this is so acceptable anymore so I'm trying to make the change FOR MYSELF.

But yeah FUCK I would never be this guy. I hate those fuckers who make their kids grow up the same way they do. Force their kids to be vegetarian and bike everywhere. That guy is gonna give his kid issues and his kid will turn out like some prudent fag and hate him for it the rest of his like. (maybe?)

On a lighter note, it is really cool that this guy has taken the necessary steps to do this and actually be a good human being, not fucking up the planet like the rest of us. If only I had the willpower right. I'm working on it.

Looking forward to it.

Hey how is this coming along? It looks really sweet.

Hey this is looking to shape up pretty sweet. I'd be interested to play it when it's finished.

I honestly think the first two Broken Sword games tick all the boxes for what makes awesome puzzles. From start to finish. Also the worst "puzzle ever" was the general Library/Sewers area at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I never even made it past that area, even with a walkthrough.

Sounds good pal.

Oh man that's CrAzY.

I don't know if it is image compression or what, but everything looks really blurry?

Aside from that, style is pretty neat!

[Story]

Hey that's fine if it's true but up until just then we have to take your word for it because the Story section of your post seems pretty specific in that he tasks himself with the self-sacrificing rescue of a disappearing alien who he only just met (despite the fact a disappearing alien would not be the STRANGEST thing.)

[edit by darth]

Megabump.

I wont usually follow a game past page 1 because I think by that point it is either caught up in some kind of promotional topic drama or ********** *********, but I guess I felt the need to post on this one, it looks sweet as hell.

What kind of timeframe are you tacking on for the completion of this game? I know it's impossible to give numbers but this year? next year? I'm always thrown off by these ambitious projects that never see the light of day and I'm excited to see how this one turns out so I'll be keeping a close eye on it I guess. Keep us updated.

edit by darth - I'm not a cuss-word natzi or anything but jeeze!  take it down a notch!

I don't think I have posted here yet so HERE I GO:

I'm pretty impressed with what you guys are doing with this game. Usually I'll lurk and see these ambitious projects pop-up and eventually they go nowhere and disappear. It's great to see that after all this time this project is still frontpage material and going strong at 18 pages.

It's not often I actually get excited over the release of an AGS game but I've been really looking forward to this one for a while. Although I also don't expect to see it finished for a while, I want to say keep up the good work.

[SAVE HER]

Now it's Eric's job to rescue her, no matter what the cost.

No way!

I mean I appreciate this game is not trying to be a masterpiece of modern gaming literature but please pull a better one than that. Guy meets random person who mysteriously disappears with no foul play apparent yet HE MUST SAVE HER NO MATTER WHAT THE COST.

That's a crazy concept at best and I mean, you can have sweet-ass 3D rendered screens with great gameplay but I'm not going to touch it with a barge pole unless there is something that trumps the atrocious storyline like supremely awesome puzzle play.

On a lighter note however, because I don't want to be a dick about something that LOOKS good: You're screens are looking pretty sweet. I'm not a fan of the homecook 3D rendering, it always feels blocky and badly polished but you know, it looks as good as it can and is definitely on par with if not better than a lot of the old PS1 output.

I almost didn't come into this topic because I am the kind of guy that will judge a book by it's cover and judge a game by it's title. FALLEN LEGEND is a really bad title. It sounds like the generic output game name of some GAME NAME TITLE GENERATOR and it could have been anything.

It was a nice surprise though, to find that you have very very nice backdrops and an actual interesting sounding story. I was expecting "jaded fantasy hero must once again save the kingdom." Period isn't really an issue but you have chosen a very nice aesthetic for the game.

The character sprite feels like it clashes a little with the backdrops but that's just me being picky about shit because it does look very nice.

Looking forward to it anyway. I'll definitely give it a shot but BIG GRIPE: Bad name.

No love for Ben Jordan or The Apprenctice series... No Love for Blackwell.

I pooh-pooh your list!

Of course there is love for blackwell... http://digg.com/gaming_news/An_Interview_with_Dave_Gilbert

I'd like to finish off by saying that the games I included in my top 10 are my PERSONAL top 10, which is why it is biased and includes every single yahtzee game in one entry.

You are aware, I hope, that both 1213 and Art of Theft are written by Yahtzee as well?

Yeah I know, but they are clever and well done and fun so that's why I included them. That and the fact he is paying me massive amounts of money to pimp his games.

Has anybody actually tried contacting this guy yet? His email is plastered across every page gms@mosw.com so if nobody has done so I will contact him and demand that he remove all AGS games within a certain time period or we will take legal action against him.

Hi, This is not really an interesting topic but I just felt like notifying anybody who might be interested in reading this. I write articles for another independant gaming site and I felt like directing a few of the misguided game makers over here to AGS so I came up with this: http://www.gamingw.net/view/70310/Adventure+Game+Studio

If you want to help more people hear about AGS you can also digg the article as soon as digg comes back online by going here if you feel like it: http://digg.com/pc_games/Adventure_Game_Studio_and_the_Best_of_AGS

I'd like to finish off by saying that the games I included in my top 10 are my PERSONAL top 10, which is why it is biased and includes every single yahtzee game in one entry. I haven't played every AGS game ever so I'm sorry if I missed you game out and your game is fantastic, it's not like it was done by public vote.

Anyway I know I'm not really an AGS regular but I hope I've done the community and the maker justice.

I think that perhaps we can turn this into a more discussion based topic if everybody else shared their own personal Top 10 AGS games. So what are your guys opinions?

EDIT: I am also being pressured into mentioning that Hillbilly Burger Bastards is the greatest AGS game ever and that I am a dumb person for missing it out of the article that I actually wrote a few days ago before I even know of the existance of the game. Either way, this post is not about anything other than Hillbilly Burger Bastards...

The music in this is awesome.  :

Hoooooly shit, that looks really good.