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The spoiler tag

Spoiler

does not work anymore.

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We can use

Spoiler

instead, but it messes up a lot of old posts, where the spoilers are now in plain view.

Edit: Thanks, AGA!

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Oh my! This looks really good! One can tell that you're an artist, and it looks like your comics experience pays off a great deal when it comes to how to make the scenes look nice. It will be interesting to see if you can make puzzles and interaction to match. I'll certainly play your proof-of-concept when you're ready. Best of luck with your production!

And welcome to us, by the way! This is a friendly place to be.

Most likely we don't know exactly what we're getting into and are here to let our sister tell us. I guess we will either be told or something has gone wrong and we'll be presented with problems as we go along.

There are plenty of fan games in the database already, so by all means go nuts1    Seriously, though, I guess there is the risk of getting a stern message from the copyright holders, but generally, if you don't make money from it, it will be fine. Alternate timeline stories or prequels may be the safest bet, though.

I've had plenty of fun playing Space Quest Prequels, Star Wars universe games, crazy crossover games mixing characters from different franchises and even made my own silly little Batman tribute game. Not to mention the long Maniac Mansion Mania series.

Now, a fan game like this may be liked by like-minded fans, or it may start discussion if you break lore, as you say, but you need to be prepared that fan games using ripped graphics or music generally will be rated lower than original games. As long as you make games for the fun of it, that shouldn't be a problem, I guess. I'm mentally prepared that when enough people have rated my Batman game, I will end up with one or two cups. 

So, what type of fan game are you making?

>Say [sister's name], it's [my name].

A variation of what CW said above: From how you describe it, perhaps you can make it look like you're in a dialog by having a GUI or clickable objects that look identical to the dialog options. Then when he drinks the water, these goes invisible and you start the real dialog script. (That's a "fake it" solution, I don't have the coding chops to suggest anything like Khris or CW.)

Hmmm...the list of games a member has worked on in their profile page is now sorted alphabetically instead of by date. I don't know if this is a conscious design choice or coincidence. Personally, I liked having the newest entry on top.

Oh, I'm terribly sorry. This is simply me remembering wrong who was making the music (which I liked). Probably another of the MAGS entries had Eric Matyas' music. But credit should go where credit is due, of course.   

>Hum/whistle the theme from (the Finnish tango) Satumaa, then wonder what made you think of that.

[John Lost His Key Chapter 1 and 2]

The database has an entry called John Lost His Key Chapter 1 and 2, but now, only chapter one is available. Does anyone have chapter two? It's also known as "Johnny lost his key" (while chapter one has "John").

Edit: Got it from TMD. Thanks!

Would it work if you made both objects characters and had the one follow the other, perhaps? I believe follow_exactly is what is most commonly used for shadows and the like, so it may work in this case, too.

>Remember what you have been told about this forest. Check gas gauge.

[Outdoors]

From a MAGS back in 2004 with the theme Outdoors:
Smiley's Quest 2 is at https://archive.org/details/smileys-quest-2
The Mushroom Man is at https://archive.org/details/the-mushroom-man

Beard Beverage is at http://www.mediafire.com/download/omxlvccckvy39dz/BeardGame.rar This is a short and cute game about a guy who wants a beard.
As far as I can see, The Marvellous Birthday of Princess Marian (or Princess Marian III) isn't in the database. But it's at https://archive.org/details/princess-marian-3 This series is very cute and charming.

Do I have to set up a variable for what just happened, then tell the room to check for it and immediately run the exit dialog if true? The player can look at that thing whenever they want after that without any dialog, so there has to be a way for the game to know to only trigger the exit dialog this one time.

Yes, that should work. If you make a "leave" hotspot, you could check for a bool variable. The extra coding will be to save which room the player is currently in when looking at the painting later on, to make sure he's returned to the correct room. So perhaps you are better off with your other suggestion.

The bigger question would be if there's a simpler way to do that kind of insert without switching to another room, like opening a full screen gui? Like if I want the player to look at a painting and be able to click on different hotspots on it up close to display info, can that be done with a gui or are hotspots only a room thing?

You can put clickable buttons on a GUI, which work like hotspots do (like the "quit" and "play" in the quit GUI). This will have the benefit of not having to leave and return to the room, just making the GUI visible or not.

I'm not a very good coder, so I'm sure there are lots of other solutions as well. You could probably solve it by making several objects visible, too. That could be useful if, say, you wanted the painting background, but wanted the player to be able to magically take the apple Eve is holding in the painting.

>Stop at 'Ol Roger'o get a surprise for your sister. Check date on newspaper.

Oh, I guess we just went past it. Pity. Nevermind came out in 1991, so we can perhaps use this to further pinpoint when this is. The car and the cassette tape may be old, though.

Wow, and two of my favourite developers are judges this time around. (Iain Milne and Gugames.) While I'll miss games made by them, I guess chances are I'll agree completely with the end result. Best of luck to newwaveburritos and other AGS-ers who decide to join!

Looking and sounding good, guys! As for repercussions by posting something on these pages, the chances are that it will fly well below the radar of even most people on-site. I mean, we have a game here called **** in Trump's Bed. I would love to play a game such as the one you're making, at least. Sounds very interesting.

I can't find it right now, but not too long ago someone posted a link to an article about how prospective buyers browse on Steam and other online stores (and emails for sales and other campaigns), emphasizing the importance of capsule art and other visual assets.

I think maybe you're thinking of the video Babar posted (third post) in this thread?

>Admire interior of the car and turn on the radio.

I guess what I ideally want from a puzzle is a sense that this puzzle had to be here (and the solution had to be what it is), that it could only be in this game, and that it's just a little bit different from any puzzle I've seen before. And since ukz art games are so distinctive in other ways, I'm disappointed when the puzzles are, IMO, relatively uninspired.

I get your point. If the problem or the solution is organic with the context, setting and/or the character, this may be achieved. I agree totally. But then again, one puzzle which you disliked, I think qualifies to these terms. It could only be in this game. I'm thinking of

Spoiler

simulating a fake giant attack on the container.

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Perhaps it would feel better if the hero could hear them say something like

Spoiler

"we're safe in here. Nothing short of a Giant attack can break these walls.

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