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I enjoyed the game a lot. I have a soft spot for cyberpunk, I must admit, and even though the intrinsic puzzle-told story itself didn't really motivate me to go on playing

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What was I supposed to do again? Uhm...repair the...door?

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, the universe behind all that made it worth the while, your writing is pretty neat.

I also tip my hat to you for

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- Inbox full of spam emails
- Retrofuturistic cyberspace
- Synthetic food & cutlery

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By the way, I also subscribe to tzachs' spoiler list, mainly because

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The food processor behaved in such a strange way that I had to start the game over again to be able to finish it. I guess I broke it when I stuffed in the trophy first, synthesized a new plastic tray, activated the virus and then put the iron grille in - or something like that. Anyway, after what I did all the metal I had put in was lost forever.

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Great little game, and I hope to see more of your shocking endeavours in using AGS for building non-non-adventure games!

I know you're on the road again, but hopefully you will see this in:

The Future.

Happy birthday, Sebi, and three buckets of jellied shoe to go.

Al mismo tiempo en la galaxia sombrero!

I am happy to proclaim: The Future is now! Thank you for the birthday greetings everyone. Especially Calin, I'm really glad that somebody finally recognizes my daily efforts in staving off death.

While I think the article devalues artists to a degree, I believe artists undercutting each other- especially at DA- to be
a much bigger potential problem.
For instance,- and I see this all the time there- is an employer will advertise a $50 commission, then
artists will come into the thread undercutting each others prices. "Hey I can do that for $20" kinda thing.
The guy can afford $50, why screw each other over for a chance to get the job?

Yep, that's more or less what I wanted to say. As long as the situation is like this - an artist has to feel lucky if he gets work - there will always be people undercutting each other and working below their value just to work at all.

And to prevent the biggest AGS project of all times, created by 6000 freelance slaves from all over the world:

I agree that capitalism does adjust the value of labour and goods, but I doubt that this really works with "art" (whatever that may be). I agree that if you need somebody to get a job done, then you will pay him accordingly, not more and not less than what his work is worth - but if you want to hire somebody who is passionate about his work, who identifies with a project and who wants to use all his artistic potential to inspire people...how much should you pay them? 

There's such a big crowd of highly talented people out there who don't have any idea what their work is worth - add that to the people who live in countries with emerging economies, who are equally qualified and motivated but can charge much less, and you've got the downside of global networking - I've been working on a freelance basis on lots of projects, and there were lots of people who did (obviously, because their clients always gave them excellent grades and recommendations) great work for almost no money. How could I possibly work for $2 an hour? But once there is a huge crowd of people trying to "get a foot in the door", this is what you get.

Well, not that this would be an attitude that completely outrages me, but I am not sure why people would want to work with anybody on that basis. Sure, Indie developers, stay afloat, be able to take on bigger projects with reasonable budget planning - but why the heck does that guy make games? Why doesn't he just sell used cars or build supermarkets, own a coal mine, buy NASDAQ shares or cook really unhealthy food and sell it to people way too expensive?

The sad thing about this business model is not that it's unethical or unfair, it's that it's all over a - basically - creative business. I really want to play games that have been created out of a desire to use to the medium to give the player an experience he has not had before, or to tell a story that can not be told with any other medium, or simply to make more games [(c) Ben Chandler], but not out of a desire to make money only.

And you may regard me as hopelessly naive now, but I completely agree with the second article. That's a person I would like to work with. And I wouldn't even mind to be exploited by that kind of person, haha. Well. I guess the happy fun fantasy dream island of video games is not what it used to be back then when the people were sitting around stoned in Atari's headquarters, trying to come up with a worthy sequel for Pong...Which does not seem like a valid business model as well, of course.

But one more thing, since it has been mentioned quite a lot: The "If both parties agree, how can it be exploitation" argument is just not valid in a globalized economical system. Read "The Grapes of Wrath". There will always be someone to work cheaper, unless everybody capable of this work agrees on a certain minimum and refuses to work for less. There can be no agreement, though, since different currencies and geographical situations alone set advantages and disadvantages, and there can be no communication either, because anybody with talent and the necessary equipment can provide the work, completely independent of all external factors.

Since there is no "minimum wage" for freelance artists/writers/musicians, and those are (mostly) people who are passionate about their work, there is lots of space for exploitation on part of the client.

Wow, this is fantastic! The flight sequences run really, really slow on my old 1,6 Ghz laptop using WINE on Linux (*cough*), but, surviving out of pure luck or coincidence it is playable nevertheless, and the jump&run parts run very smoothly, great work on the programming. Good luck for the competition!

Burton McWinstwater became a famous circus artist and toured the world, showing his famous tricks.

Julia Brewership got more beautiful each year and went on to marry the king of the world, killing six.

Artie Huckle got himself a brand new shotgun, just like the one he had lost in the sewers.

Flobbo & The Non-Foods hit the billboard charts on #3 with their masterpiece "Good grief-a ding dong!".

Roddy didn't return to Arizona ever again.


THE END.

Argh, come on! Host the contest, now - anyone participating? I'm in!

Haha. Oh my, even if I most likely won't participate here, I'd like to express my sincere thanks to you, Vince, for leading me to this image:



I'm sure I'd finish that game much quicker than that godforsaken book, it's been gathering dust on my shelf for years. I mean, I feel like I'm too old for readin Hesse now anyway...Lost all of the rebellious spirit of youth and even got a day job (TM) by now! Anyway, anyone up for a pretentious game? I'll gladly provide unnecessarily complex story outline and overbearing dialogue.

I'd rather go with the super edgy and ultra manly "Six bears and one raccoon were harmed during the production of this game."

I must admit: I am shocked.

You promise something one week, and the next week you actually do it. This...this is outrageous! And the game now has actual bears, wow.

Also, I quite enjoy your graphics on the screenshots you have posted up to now, they look not only very functional but really nice.

She needs a bit more of a fake sexy pose, I'd say. Resting her hand on her hip, slightly lifting her pretty head, something like that. For future walkcycles: A somewhat awkwardly shaking villain booty is a must.

Well, and smoking is a very common habit to attach to bad guys, but I wouldn't go for it in her case. She's too much of a New Age girl for that.

Is this a sort of a Don Quijote type of thing -  for that given example, Quijote walks into a bar and looks like a handsome, buffed, young knight in shining armour and saves a lady from a rude customer, you have limited, all heroic actions you can take.
Then you play as Sancho and you see Quijote is limping into the bar with a pot on his head and he gets into a fight between a pimp and a prostitute and you have to try to fix everything you just did as Quijote (like calm down people, offer money to avoid a fight, beg for mercy, formulate a story so Quijote stays alive etc.)
...I'm not really contributing to the discussion.  

But...you are contributing! This is exactly how I imagine these game mechanics to actually be fun, and it's not overly pretentious. It helps flesh out the characters (playing as Don Quijote necessarily gives you a much better idea of his surreal misconception of things, playing as Sancho makes it all too clear what kind of enemies our brave knight is fighting and what kind of heroic deeds he is really doing).

Although this is probably not a very "new" gameplay feature, but more of an extension of, let's say, Maniac Mansion, where you get to play multiple characters with different abilities (if in a very limited way) and then have to figure out how to make use of them. Any other way of implementing this, for example having the player go through the same scene twice from different points of view requires very good writing and timing, in my opinion.

I have! He's talking about a phone!

Also: Copyright infringement can be punished with house arrest up to one week, Icey. And no dessert!

You could check out Drupal with the file access plugin. It's a little fiddly to set up, but once you've got it running, it's a very stable, customizable and good looking solution.

You can define different user groups and allow them access to certain files or file groups. Don't be put off by its complexity, installation is easy, customization takes a bit of time but is worth the pain in the end, I guess.

Plus she's bloody good looking, especially for a german.

Huh? She looks like the average German school girl to me. The only thing that distinguishes her from those is her adorable fake British accent, and probably the choice of make up. And the fame, oh, the fame!

A-happy a-birthday, a-bicilotti!

I think it is very important to mention that 6000 years in the future, OSD through a terminal breakdown of wikipedia and the burning of Webster's dictionary of abbreviations by a horde of cyberpunk Alexandrians becomes the only legitimate form of on-screen-display in the whole of Eurasia and the Venus colonies.

Fit that into your storyline, please. And don't even try to attach ambiguous sexuality to it, because this is hardware talk.

P.S. If you are looking for a German who could deliver a hilariously manly Texan girly voice, you've got my number.

This...is actually a game? Not only a jack-in-the-box installer that breaks my computer and then makes fun of me for not wearing a towel?

Great!

Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid.

Wow, that must have been a lot of work to get that animation from your source material, haha. I suggest you try capturing on a brightly lit white wall (I guess most people have access to one of these).

The signal is not as accurate as on a professional green screen, of course, and you might run into some problems with hands and face, but since you will be changing resolution and colours later on anyway, this might just be the solution for you. Put on dark clothes, light up the background uniformly (or as good as you can) and then capture; it will be much easier for you.

Your garden furniture green screen probably won't give you any good results unless you get a really good source of light, it's too dark and reflects too much diffuse light.

edit: For further information, Chicky says the same thing in other words one post below, haha.