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I bought Full Throttle not too long ago... I got it in a multipack of various LucasArts games (that is still in stores at least in the UK) including Sam & Max, The Dig and Grim Fandango for about £20... pretty amazing value, even though I already had GF

Still, abandonware is definitely illegal... There's an intellectual property issue that basically means that if companies don't 'try' to prevent abandonware on their products then they can be exploited by anyone... This means someone could sell a product based on their original work. This is why they all cooperate with some IP company, I can't remember the name...

Actually I believe it's the licence to play the game thats the issue... as far as I'm aware, downloading the game isn't illegal, but playing the game without a licence from the developer (either by buying the game in the shop or from a direct licencing agreement) IS illegal. It's not that developers don't want people playing their old games, and more recently it's become viable for devs to distribute their old games themselves and grant licences this way over the internet, such as Codemasters who I believe are doing this kind of thing, and closer to home (i.e. adventure games) companies such as Revolution Software (with Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky - both available from their website).

Hopefully more companies will follow suit, so they won't have to worry so much about appearing to be overprotective over their works, and still get it out to the people who they want to have it... the gamers.

Okay, I don't wanna offend anyone here, but gravyflood, I can't help but disagree that AGS games are 'better' than commercial ones because they have to enrich the gameplay to compensate for graphics and sound.

When you really think about what you're saying, you're saying that gameplay outranks graphics and sound in terms of importance, which I very much agree with... however you seem to imply that the gameplay is better BECAUSE the graphics and sound take a back seat. Sure, a game that had better gameplay than a commercial game with worse graphics and sound would be better, but you have to understand that having a large team to make a game like most commercial developers means that they can have gameplay too... it's not mutually exclusive.

For a game to have worse graphics and sound than another and still to beat it means that it MUST have better gameplay, and commercial dev teams are still trying to accomplish this too.

Sure, enriching gameplay to compensate is one thing, but there is nothing to say that many of these commercial adventures COULD be drastically improved upon, and certainly not by smaller teams of part time developers.

The important fact here is that just because we can't wow players with sound and graphics doesn't make us any more likely to succeed in enriching gameplay.

As I said, I don't mean to offend anyone, and I'm quite positive that some AGS games are and will be better than commercial ones, but just having worse artistic values doesn't make the gameplay better.

* eVOLVE bows... Great features though Chris, we're alll impressed!

BS3 does play much like the previous ones, with an excellent atmosphere as far as I remember I got to play it for a preview I wrote for Boomtown.net at E3 and I've got an appointment to get an in depth look again at its progress at ECTS, so you'll get a decent preview from Boomtown too

Okay, little bug... with the regions light level thing. If you change the number in any region (lets use 1 as an example here though) then hit the up arrow to check out region 2, then go back to 1, it'll be your changed number. THEN if you go back up to 2 and back to 1 it'll have reverted to 100% again... strange, no?

Generally, selling well means raking in more money than it cost to make and distribute, much like most other industries

Anachronox was a flop even though it was a really superb game (imho) because it didn't sell enough to make enough of a profit for it to be a worthy investment for the games publisher.

Equally, films like Fight Club, even though most agree it's a fantastic movie, was a flop because it didn't make enough money to equal the 63 million budget it cost. Of course overall it probably made money, due to DVD/Video sales and various other additions. Unforutnately though, in the games industry it just comes down to how many copies it sells when it's put on the shelves.

From what I've tested (a few limited areas) it works exactly as I'd hoped Now there are gonna be some excellent effects here >

Nice one CJ!

I was considering a more commercial approach to my game, and I doubt that anyone, if offered a publisher would turn it down, because for one you'll get your game out to even more people. Of course that's unlikely for this genre anyway, but what I had planned was to release a cut down version (no voices) online, because of the massive filesize it's heading towards already, and release a CD version with extras and voices, much like m0ds is planning for Kinky Island if I'm not mistaken...?

Glad others feel the same way Scotch, you got exactly the way I feel it should look... Doing it that way, you can simulate specially coloured lights in certain areas that don't completely turn an object a certain colour (mainly because of radiosity)...

That probably made no sense either, but yeah, just look at scotch's nice tint colour diagram

Tnx Pumaman for the effort

I like the B&W interface I was at Lionhead and was directly asked about the interface, and that was something that I had some input in Check the manual for my name in the creds if you wanna give me an ego boost too...

Back to the top though, the problem will cross genre games is that you're limiting your audience if you cross them too much... Take a game that mixed lots of adventure elements with a FPS game or something... if you were a fan of both genres it might be the perfect game for you... if you didn't like adventures, even if the FPS portion was incredible, you may not get it, and equally vice versa for adventure fans...

Okay, here's a weird question... one that won't come as a surprise if you've read the topic:

Who here is using colour tinting with regions? And if you don't mind me asking, what for?

I'm inquisitive because the feature I 'would' have used it for is no longer viable because of the way it works, and although I don't want to use it for the sake of it, maybe someone elses use would inspire me into making my game better using it

Cheers...

Games Journalist... basically I write news, reviews, previews (mainly for PS2 games) of all the latest stuff, sometimes getting to go around the place to various games developers etc. (most recently I was invited to the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe HQ for an online trial of a new game, damn they know how to treat people well)... plus I get to go all expenses paid to events like ECTS and E3...

Also, I'm doing paid voice acting work whenever I can... also I'm creating cinematics and writing the screenplay for an upcoming 3rd person action game.. kind of a sci fi Resident Evil, but based a lot more on instant action.

And that's my lot...

Hey, I just had a quick test of the new engine and found what I believe to be a bug with the new version (at least it never happened with other versions). When going through a dialogue thing and you get it to 'run script' it'll go and run the script, then when it comes back it won't continue where it left off, but will return to giving you the dialogue choice. This means that since two of my dialogues have a run-script in the 'leave conversation' choice, it does the script, then returns back to the choice rather than continuing through and doing the 'stop' command.

Does that make sense?

Yes, I couldn't think of anything better, and yet I wanted to do 'something'



Next time on the MSPaint Game we've got a top secret incredibly high budgeted ultimate government facility...'s toilet.

Woohooo!!! I WON! (sweet prizes too):

http://www.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=1275

Spoiler

What closer to the same size as a sign is there, than another sign?

[close]

Sweet Zine... I especially liked the previews too > Although that may be purely because I've got my game pimped a bit

Nice work!

Tnx I think it'll be freeware... I don't really consider that I should charge people for it... Then again, that doesn't rule out a cheap CD version available with extra goodies onboard or something, incase the full version is too large (including voices) to get everything from.

Well, thanks for all the great comments, peeps... As I'm sure you're all aware, it's things like those that keep us all enthused and ensure we carry on with our projects

I've just ripped all of the demo specific stuff out of the game (end screen etc.) and have put in some new stuff... we're now mid Act 2 As for how many acts, I'm not sure, but we're talking about over 6... not sure how many I'll split the end bits into.

Hey peeps, thought I'd let you guys know of my latest article for Boomtown.net in which I decided to focus on adventure games, and more specifically independent games like the type we're all making here...

If you're interested in a read, it's here:

http://www.boomtown.net/en_uk/articles/art.view.php?id=1145

Oh, and don't be scared to post a comment there