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We discussed a similar idea at a team production at my university once, where the player would be in control of a species of insects that would genetically evolve during the game. It would have been cool to implement that their sensory apparatus evolved as well, and allowed for more detailed graphics and sound at later stages in the game, but looking at it from a programming and assets point of view, we decided we didn't have time for it. Still, it would have been cool, but I agree that features like those should be integrated with story and game world in a way that makes sense.

Congrats Dave, you deserve it.

Religion in games? - I think it's noteworthy that civ4 has religion, whereas none of the prequels had. From a game mechanics point of view, all the religions are equal, only the status/importance of religion in society can be changed. I think that's an interesting design choice, making the player some sort of regulating power above religion, whereas in the real world religion seems to often follow its own authority.

Also, PeaceMaker, recently released, deals with religion in an interesting way. Play it, if you haven't, to find out.Ã, 

And perhaps a healthy dose of Forgotten Realms religion (clerics and their 'alignments')might bring in a historical perspective on how computer games deal with religion.

Just some suggestions, in case you're still freaking out.

China is great. The languages are difficult though, and you can't just buy a map and get lost, which is my preferred style of travel, because reading the chinese street signs will take forever if you don't know the language. But you should definately go there if you get the chance, or you might miss out on irresistible holiday snap opportunities


me with beijing elephant

Any given constellation of molecules that constitutes the state of affairs at a moment in our time has (time==infinite) possibilities of reoccuring at some later point, even if time is never reversed or frozen. So there's no need for time travel or pausing time, just sit back and wait for the molecules to rearrange themselves properly again. With infinite time, the same situation is bound to occur again, including the particular constellation of molecules that make up you. Just remember, patience is a virtue...

Maybe your device could be fixed if instead of freezing time it made a time-loop of a certain interval, or traversed the same interval in forward and reverse alternately. So the friction between molecules would be there, just in cycles or in reverse. If the interval was very short, time would still seem perfectly frozen.

Hm, "Avoid the Pitfalls of Everyday Life"

At the beginning you'd select your character and his flaws, bad habits and tendencies, like:
* tendency to fall asleep anywhere
* get in irrational arguments
* hurt oneself while looking at girls in traffic
* get too drunk
* smoke too much
* being clumsy and dropping expensive stuff
* kleptomania
* making loud noises
* becoming infuriated
... and so on

and then you'd take that person for a sidescroll down the street and try to tackle the 'opponents' (being factors that triggered these unwanted reactions).Ã,  Think it might be pretty fun.

First of all, great topic!

Maybe also take a look at the Game Innovation Database

The goal of the GIDb is to classify and record every innovation in the entire history of computer and videogames. Because we could never complete this daunting task alone, we have made the GIDb an open wiki, allowing anyone to easily add innovation entries for the benefit of everyone who cares about the history, study, and practice of game innovation.

The intention might be good, but so far this site is pretty awkward....they list Dune 2 but not Dune,Ã,  even though the first game must be credited for being more innovative, and they list half a dozen James Bond games, though none of them are particularly innovative.

I think the idea is to credit games for the specific innovative feature they have introduced, so Dune 2 is credited for being the "*first* real-time strategy game for pc" and some other innovations. I haven't played the first Dune game, but maybe it wasn't real-time?

What is the process involved in turning offline game into an online one? Is it Java/flash based or what?

I think you code plugins (Browser Helper Objects/DLLs/Active X controls) for the different browser types, that are then made available for download - much like you have to download an adobe, flash or java plugin for your browser in order to view pdf's, flash or java content. I guess the plugins are independent of each other (so ags wouldn't have to use a flash plugin), but that they use the same browser-specific interfaces.

This WikiPedia article explains Browser Helper Objects and provides links to code examples and a guide to building them with Visual Studio 2005. Sure looks complicated...

Actually, I think AGS would be very attractive to many Flash game developers if only it had a browser plugin and export for web options. I've just gotten a license for the Unity 3d-engine, and it can export games as both windows and mac executables, as well as for web (yeah - non-simplistic 3d games in your browser!), so I guess it could work for AGS too. But I guess it's alot of work to modify the engine for this... And perhaps web export isn't a high priority for the existing ags community, although I personally think it wuold be a logical next step - even at the risk of attracting people who would use it for non-adventure game development.

First of all, great topic!

Maybe also take a look at the Game Innovation Database

The goal of the GIDb is to classify and record every innovation in the entire history of computer and videogames. Because we could never complete this daunting task alone, we have made the GIDb an open wiki, allowing anyone to easily add innovation entries for the benefit of everyone who cares about the history, study, and practice of game innovation.

I also agree with Rui that 'unique' is a difficult category. Can't think of any entirely unique games actually. Most of them seem to rely on at least some previously achieved design consensus. So I'll be quite content with 'innovation' or 'originality'.

Cool application - also try the quiz they link to:

http://www.ecofoot.org/

My result was: "IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.9 PLANETS."

Guess I'll have to change my ways.Ã, 

The thing about violence in games is that you never see the downside or the after effects.

I thought about doing a 1st person shooter once, that would take violence and gore levels to their extremes. On kills, enemies wouldn't simply fall to the ground, but literally explode in cascades of gore, that splattered and stuck to the player 'camera', like this:



There would then be a control dedicated to wiping gore from the screen (or the 1st person goggles or whatever), like this:



Gore obscuring the FOV would set a natural limit to the amount of killing in the game, since half the time the player wouldn't be able to see a thing, missing enemies while frantically wiping the blood from his eyes and face. So the more violent the player, the more he (or she) would have to wipe. And the more gore, the less actual killings.

All anyone could ever ask for, right?

I finally finished a new and improved version of the 3rd World Farmer game!!

We were invited on national radio about the release, so about one million people heard about the game, and it's become fairly popular. The game is being used in economics, game design and geography classes in universities in us, canada and australia, so I'm quite happy. The new version is hosted at (www.arcadetown.com) as well as Danish Broadcasting Corporation game blog (www.dr.dk/spil).

Direct link to ArcadeTown version

This version has a lot of new features, and it addresses a lot of the ideas and critique we got on the earlier versions, including some from AGSers, I believe.

Check it out

Tom Waits is the man. 

His best album? Some years ago I would've said Rain Dogs, or Frank's Wild Years, depending on mood and context. Now I'm not so sure. He seems to get more rage, the older he gets. I'm really looking forward to his next album. I wish he would do some Dylan Thomas. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light".

Hey Newton,

Site looks good - nothing that bugs me about it, so I don't have much critique, just wanted to say the first cartoon with the migrant fox from denmark really made me smile Sweden is a nice place, and the housing is cheap, that's why danes move there - we're not really after the sheep, i promise.Ã,  :

Well then I suggest that YOU and ME start doing something and not wait for God to do it.

I agree with Nacho

I agree with this, Nikolas, and would like to raise the question: What is the best way to go about 'doing something'? We know there's more to do than any of us can solve, thinking of MrColossal's picture, and being who we are. Even if each of us 'sold all his earthly possessions' and donated everything to charity, chances are our limited contribution would be swept away by the next african civil war. We know we can make limited donations to charity, try to influence politicians and public opinions, but are there any better ways of eliminating inhumane living conditions?

I'm posing this as an open question, since I think it's one of the great challenges of our time and something we should set a lot of brilliant minds to. How do we go about it?Ã, 

Try this, although be warned, I might be completely wrong

It's basically a loop:
You add allÃ,  the squares of the differences between achieved and average scores and divide the result by the number of observations. Then you get the square-root of the result...

I think... someone please help us out here...

EDIT: ehm, right

Thanks 2ma2

Thanks  The prize is overwhelming, and next year it will be even bigger when the contest is opened to all nordic countries and more sponsors are attracted. Btw. I think I'll be making an English version of the game sometime soon.

Yes, most scandinavians understand either danish, swedish or bokmål norwegian - three very similar languages, if you can read one, you can read the others. The conference language was english, though, since people from all over the world attended