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See, I have to stay out of this debate as I've taken multiple philosophy of the environment and sociology of the environment courses that defend animal rights logically and all these attacks on PETA are logically ridiculous, but so defensive and angry it would only create a rift.   I mean, I'd get angry, they'd get angry and nothing would get solved.

All I ask is for God's sake please read some Peter Singer with an open mind.  He argues that there is no logical defense for eating meat or testing animals and does so very well--in fact, the only arguments against him that I have read grossly misrepresent his argument.  Or if you're more into comedy, watch some David Cross, who more or less makes the same argument, only in reverse, for satirical reasons.

Myself, I have nothing against the ethical culling of animals any more than I have against the ethical culling of people.  People are animals after all, and in higher population than most animals.  Or, if you're into the "they're less intelligent therefore we can eat them" camp, say "retarded children" instead.  Or Terry Shaivo.  Or soldiers, since they've actually agreed to go into some situation where they could be killed.

Arg, I'm using argument shorthand now, which always leads to misinterpretation.  I'll just say this:

I believe in women's rights and the equivalent treatment of women, and yet I objectify the female body.  The way I do so I believe is ethically indefensible, so I feel bad for it and work to overcome such exploitation, at least in situations where it makes people uncomfortable or conform to an unfair expectation.

I believe in animal rights and that eating them/experimenting on them is *at this point in history* ethically indefensible considering the various non-animal alternatives in every field.  I am not 100% vegetarian, however and eat some meat.  I don't try to defend it ethically, I just find it difficult to do given the cost of some non-meat substitutes and my skill with vegetables.

Sometimes we do things that are ethically indefensable.  Don't try to pretend you can get by with bombast and ad hominum attacks (look it up, though be sure to spell it correctly, because I probably didn't).  Ethics is a process of self development, and in our society you can't be perfect--but you can at least work towards more consistency.

BLAH BLAH BLAH, I shouldn't even be in this one, voop.

Now come on, how unprofessional can you get.  Radiant said this:

Unfortunately, due to the advances made in computer technology over the last twenty years, such classic games no longer run on the modern computer.
Does anybody actually have problems running AGI games?

I call bullshit. All AGI games run perfectly fine on all modern PCs, and with the several free interpreters available they also run perfectly fine on Macs, Linuxes and Gameboys. Even getting KQ5/6 to run isn't all that hard.

Which is true.  He used a word you didn't like, but he was being truthful.

One thing I had trouble with over this whole silly debate is semantics.  Radiant wanted your team to admit that they didn't make this game *because* the old game didn't run anymore.  It's obvious that Radiant is right, since A) You can run KQ3 on a modern computer and B) There are hundreds of games that might not work on a modern computer.  Obviously you had to have picked KQ3 for some other reason.  After all, both bits of your team had started with their own port.  Neither team started by polling the adventure game community for what they wanted and to act as is you made the game based on public need (

Unfortunately, due to the advances made in computer technology over the last twenty years, such classic games no longer run on the modern computer. It was with this in mind that Infamous Adventures decided to remake this game

)is simply not true.  Another word for making a press release statement that is not true is "bullshit."  There's nothing wrong with remaking an awesome game like KQ3 because it was an interesting and fun game, Radiant just wanted you to say so.  Is that so beyond your capacity to do without turning to whinging sarcasm?

Radiant also said:

It's honest to say that KQ3v has fewer music tracks than some games because of a conscious decision on style. It's dishonest to say that it has a lot more music tracks than the original.

I don't know if his claim is accurate since I didn't see your team respond to it with anything other than ad hominem attacks, but it's not all that damning a claim.  You could just respond with dignity and say either "Yeah, I guess we didn't see it that way, we'll think about changing the press release to be more accurate" or "actually, here's the count, we've got 5 more songs than the original, here's the link"

He also claims you should have eliminated more bugs than you did and you suggested that AGDI had just as many bugs.  The response was basically "well I didn't say those exact words"  --but the words you said could certainly be interpreted that way.

At no point did Radiant insult your team or call you names, just wanted you to use more honest language.  That's not an attack, it's a natural human inclination.  Instead, members of the team accuse him of being in an "ivory tower" (which makes no sense in context) and accuse him of not having made anything (an untrue statement and a wild ad hominem attack).

Boy do I not want to make a critique of your game now, good job bullying the community.  I know you'll call me names if I do, which I don't want to recieve.  I was going to wait for the voicepack, but if I have any complaints, the whole team will jump down my throat and villify me, so I guess I won't bother.  You already have enough fans without paying attention to legitimate critiques, right?

Sorry for clogging up this thread with side-talk.

BTW, I liked typing in incantations in KQ3, liked the danger of it.  It doesn't sound as if your QA team was that much into the game, missing game-crippling bugs.  I think myself I could have tried a few more methods of spell-casting than the couple you mention, it being such an essential part of the game.  I can think of several mini-game-like versions in my head, but perhaps you tried them all.  I don't blame your QA team for the bugs or for that (again your team turned on your betatesters in another message), since you always have the power to check for bugs yourself or ask them to really try harder.  My games are buggy as well, but I'm willing to take responsibility for that--I just get tired after a while and release anyway, so I understand the impulse.  Anyway, sorry for contributing to the silly debate, but that "zing" comment really got to me.

I guess I could probably have added another checkbox in my masturbation schedule.

I'm really sure they have the same color-depth, because I got the new frames with copying the old ones and editing them. So it would be really strange if they had not the same color-depth

Actually I would not be at all surprised if they did have a different colour depth.  I have had this problem many times when I open a file in photoshop (for example) do a few edits without adding any more levels of transparancy and save it again--it often comes out with a lot more colours unless I force the colour depth via the overhead menu.  It happens quite frequently.  Since it worked with pcx, I suspect that your problem is that the program you are using uses better colour ordering with pcx than with png or bmp.

Anyone who says only "old people" like the labels should read the other posts in this thread.  I mean, if you're going to make an absurd claim, at least do it BEFORE it is debunked.

Myself, I think doing it to demo CDs is kind of pointless.  I am opposed to labeling in that the labels usually target anything "risque" like homosexuality or politics to the same degree that they target truly offensive material like Eminem's songs about stabbing gay people.  In the case of the parental advisory, however, it doesn't seem that offensive, and may be useful depending on how you market your work.

That said, I do support GE labelling for food, but am generally against it for labelling Jews and Homosexuals.  I do think people aught to label conservatives, maybe with a "Thanks for Global Warming, moron" safety tag or a "Probably has 3 Mistresses" sort of thing.

Its like the Canadian gun registry, do you think the people who are intending to commit crimes are going to register their guns?Political Corectiness is stupid,

Same with getting a driver's licence.  Do you think criminals are going to get a liscence when they're just going to use it to steal cars?  That's why I think we should get rid of driver's licences altogether, since with them, only criminals will drive cars.  I mean, cars are only marginally more dangerous than guns, at least in Canada where they are regulated.

I mean, it's not as if some ranger or police officer is going to see some poacher with guns and ask for their registry and find they don't have one and then use that as evidence in court.  Using evidence in court?  Puh-leeeeze.

The toughest part, I believe, would be spriting the band (assuming you want to go in that direction).  I don't know if anyone here is going to want to help you (or have time to do so) or not, but the idea could be done very simply.

You could do a traditional music video but as an adventure game puzzle.  Like there's the typical sierra gui but with sprites related to the band instead of King Graham, and a hand icon comes down opening a chest.  One of the band members in sprite form walks over and opens the chest and the typical sierra text-box comes up stating "You found a guitar" -- then the "points" bit on the GUI goes up by say 10.
Maybe they could reproduce typical puzzles but related to a band, like bribing a bouncer with something appropriately humorous.

Also, make sure you animate one of the band members falling to his or her death, since that's common to the classic Sierra adventures.  That or falling off stairs and then landing in a daze with stars circling around the guy's head.

I'm no sprite artist, but if you find one (there are sites with professionals, though they will probably ask to be paid) or you do the sprites yourself, you might want to try out SSH's "walkcycle" generator to make animation easier.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=26501.0

And if the artist was to read that people doubt his ability to draw that lifelike, he/she should take it as a compliment.

Lifelike drawing is a learned skill, and it's not uncommon.  I remember the Vernon Art Gallery had an exhibit of this stuff, but with more interesting subject matter (IMHO).

When people tell me my juggling is fake, I don't take it as a compliment because I find their comments ignorant and I find people who make comments about my art without first knowing the peramaters of what is possible rude.  Sure they may be blown away by what I did and think "there's gotta be a trick", or they may think I'm some kind of "born juggler," but that doesn't make me feel as good as someone who really appreciates the practice it takes as a skill.  Someone who goes "Boy, I bet I could do that--if I practiced as much as you have!  Nice work!"  <- refreshing.

In reality, I just practice a lot and what they probably saw was nowhere near my toughest trick.  It hurts for people to just drop all the hard work I did and focus only on their disbelief--especially when it's not that impressive a trick--just a saleable one that people enjoy.

This guy's art is just for sale.  It could be faked, but why bother.  Half the sketch artists on the street could do half the level in about half an hour--this guys is much more precise, but 48 hours is plenty of time for someone who really has mastered the techniques and practices them constantly.  If he did fake, it could be easily found out by the first person to get back their print--and then there'd be all the arguments, or the court cases and his business would suffer.

I would like to see more "interesting" artwork myself, despite the hours of intensive work this type of stuff could take, but I appreciate we all have to make a living, and at least he isn't making ads for tobacco companies.  There are a lot of worse kinds of art.

If you want a photo-realistic drawing of your friend's wedding, go for it.

That's what happens when you get too popular.

You want to keep your popularity low, so you don't extend your bandwidth and end up with a net-famine.

Of course, there is still the problem of net-corporate ownership and flame wars, but if you keep your profile low by being uninteresting as I do, you can keep going for a bit longer.

Just don't get a net-elephant.

Watch this guy, a real skilled award-winning juggler creating his new act... inside a giant cone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDAf_lg9Xs&search=cone%20juggling

Hey, of course he deserves your respect.  It's not as if becoming president is all about having a dedicated "liberal" press, powerful financial backers, the support of your dad who was the president AND the head of the secret service.  That's the kind of stuff that would happen in Soviet Russia!

Bush personally fought an army of terrorist ninjas on rollerblades riding manta-rays led by Kerry, flying straight into the undersea white-house with his arms tied behind his back and lime (the stone kind) being rubbed in his eyes by his jealous brother.  Remember, Dubya came up in this world FROM NOTHING, literally a zygote, and he had to win the election without even getting the popular vote.  That's hard.

And he did it all with a learning disability!  Not even Ronald Regan can say that.  Of course, he's dead, but that doesn't detract from the president's achievement.  After all, only he could have done it, not just any warm body capable/incapable of handling talking points could do it.  Like, my friend's hispanic--that never would have flown.

lo-res man, lo-res man, lo-res man.

Don't you know that colour is the international sign of er... unfreedom?

Everyone wearing the same drab colours and everything looking identical, say drab green is the international symbol of a military-industrial com--I mean freedom.

Of course, you couldn't say this about the US, where everyone wears colourful costumes and dances in the street at night during one or two hollidays a year.

Of course, their flag has three colours, while ours only has two.  And white isn't a colour--so, that makes it more like 3-1.  Except one of their colours is white.  I think we can agree at least our flag isn't Lybia's.  I mean green?  That's  the colour of fascis--I mean freedom.  Hey look! Boat!

I realize that but the remote is rather long and based on where the analog extension locks in it would be sticking out the top of the controller.  I'd much rather just see another company make a decent remote design for it then have to buy a shell anyway.

Uh, you do know the controller is designed with unique functionality that the shape is specifically built for and that all the early testers were almost instantly won over?

(and also This industry insider)

I guess you probably do know this, since I can't imagine someone commenting on the Wii otherwise--I just think commenting on the poor design of the controller when that is the system's prime feature (and one that has blown away every tester) is a little silly.

Plus, the attachment clearly doesn't come out of the top of the controller, but the bottom (unless I misread you, which wouldn't be the first time).

I mean, it's another plastic consumer item that is going to help kill off our future generations or at least lend to 3rd world kids living in landfills, but at least they'll have some good games to play.

Well, I guess we'll wait and see then.  If the Wii is an economic disaster, Big Brother, you win, you're vindicated.  If not, you're wrong.

Endless speculation is so tedious, though.

By the way, Duke Nukem Forever will suck.  And I say that based on absolutely nothing.

Hey cats and kittens.

Well, I've been working at a new job setting up a store called "Mountain Eqipment Co-op" --basically the largest co-op chain for outdoor goods in Canada.  It's an interesting company in that they do make an attempt to produce environmental and social stability, but still end up (these days) sourcing most of their products from third-world sweatshops.

Over the last few weeks, we've had multiple people come in to our store and say that we were the most organized opening store in Canada, and more organized than most stores already open.  I'm part of the 4 person team that got national chain-wide attention for our surprisingly well-set up backstock--before the store was even open!

But then, I was late, not once, but twice, each by about 5 minutes.  Despite me being on contract, despite our credentials, I was fired today, the sole reason stated being those two days lateness (and 1 day I missed due to a family emergency, on their approval (I didn't even ask to have it off)).

So, now I'm out looking for a job, and as such, my game, Edge of Reality is going to be slowed down.  I'm stating that here rather than the "games in progress" thread because it's more of a general personal issue.  It sucks that days before opening, I can just be laid off, and because I haven't been with them for more than 3 months, they don't even need a reason, at least in this province.  They're even opening a week early because of our good work.

Typical.

If you've had similar experiences, feel free to post them here--it might make me feel better.  If not, well, enjoy yourselves anyway, I've got some applications to fill out.

Apart from my own death, I only have one interest.

SOCIALISM!

ER.... I mean, AGS.

No, I mean juggling.  This is not my favourite kind, but people who like to see what technical skill can be involved (and see some mind-blowing tricks) should check out these two clips from the WJF:
(edit for formatting)

5-7 balls

3 - 7 clubs (or pins, I suppose, if you're like that

I don't think he was cheating, no one really believed that he'd made it, it seemed more like a joke than an entry to me.  I didn't think he was entering, at least... 

I believed it. I stared in awe at the sprite, as it was one of the best Sprite Jam entries I'd ever seen. What a shock it was to see it was faked.

While Contra is a widely recognized game, I cannot appreciate that this was meant as a joke as these are ADVENTURE forums, and it's foolish to think that a sprite from Contra will be immediately recognized. If the sprite had been from Space Quest, it might have been acceptable...

Oh my God.  He wasn't talking about the Contra sprite, but about Sponge-bob Squarepants.  He states this above (though I place the quote below):

Quote from: Glacies Akumayo on Today at 15:54
I don't think he was cheating, no one really believed that he'd made it, it seemed more like a joke than an entry to me.  I didn't think he was entering, at least...  Undecided

Call me stupid, but I did belive it was a good entry. A bit 90's arcade, like BigBrother said, but I though the guy was just a fan with a gifted eye/hand.

I was talking about Corey's entry in the sprite jam before this one

Not to offend, but the level of misquoting was driving me nuts. 

Continue, I believe the consensus was that using contra sprites are good, trophies are bad, sprite jam should be cancelled forever in case someone ever cheats and replaced with an "I love bspeers" contest.

Or something like that - what an odd expression.

My fiance who does not play games and abhors adventures (she was wounded permenantly by KQ6 walking deads) loved the feel of this game.  She still won't play it, but will admire from afar.

I liked it quite a bit from afar as well.  The storytelling is excellent, the animation is surprising, and it manages to be funny and disturbing at the same time.  Which really isn't that big of a feat when I think of my favourite bits of comedy.  But there is a truly experemental short-film feel to the whole thing that is immensely rewarding.

The bad, however, is very bad:

Few interaction messages (has already been mentioned by others) : More of these would not only help flesh out the atmosphere, but would help provide clues where logical guesswork fails.

Poor puzzle design:  Some good puzzles, I like the combination of various bits to solve one puzzle, but in general, little thought has gone into how the player might think, or potentially logical solutions.  Rather, if a lot of thought has gone in, it doesn't show.  For example, there is only one way to get past the dog puzzle (that shouldn't be a spoiler, it's pretty obvious you have to do *something*), but you get at least 3 items that would potentially work (one item does exactly the thing you wanted to do, just in a different context).  There is little logic for how the solution designed actually would work, and while that would be okay in an especially silly game, this game just does not set the tone.
There is also a bottle you need early on and the method you use to get it feels out of character--this again would work well if I felt a cartoonish tone had been established--despite the cartoon drawings, the rest of the tone is very dark.  It's okay to mix tones, but here I found I just ended up solving the puzzle through random clicking.  Even in the cartoon world I didn't see that particular solution working.

Dialogue : Largely missing, as has already been pointed out.  You set up some facinating characters, but they have little to say, and almost nothing useful to the player.

Overall, the writing was great, atmosphere was powerful, and I loved the combination of live acting and cartoons, even the mix of art styles in some rooms.  The last scene was indeed shocking--I expected a shock, and was fooled nonetheless.  There is a fascinating and original plot here and I want to play future episodes .  I anticipate some of the other problems being solved, so I won't rag on them--hopefully we'll see and be able to have longer conversations with the existant characters.

Nicely done, and impressive.

Remember, Jesus died and returned from the dead so that we may eat chocolate eggs scattered by a giant sentient rabbit.

So eat up, it's uh... religious, or pagan, or something.

I myself will eat a muffin, symbolizing world peace.  And apples.