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Just a very simple suggestion that might be easy to implement and probably useful to many people: When adding a new dialog option in the dialog editor, it shouldn't be added at the bottom of the list, but either at the top of the list or at the penultimate position.

Why do I suggest that? Well, when working with dialogs, you will be adding or removing options sometimes, but the last option will (for almost all conventional adventure games) always stay the "Goodbye" option. When you're adding things after it, it will move up and not be the last option anymore, and then you have to copy and paste all the stuff.

Of course, there is a workaround for that (just adding a dozen empty options and making the "Goodbye" the, say, 14th one), but it would be more elegant that way. And what would be even more elegant: Drag and Drop dialog options. But that's probably too much to ask.

Happy birthday Ali, who very narrowly avoided being an April's fool! And to Dave Gilbert, who did the same thing without even blinking his wadget eye! And to strazer, who is reliably blinking his two eyes every 1,4 seconds.

I love how kaputtnik gave a perfect answer to the original question in Harg's very first post while barely touching the trends stuff and Harg gets all worked up because he hadn't thought of that and didn't like it and proceeds to make up stuff about kaputtnik talking about something else.

That guy has some serious ego problems.

I know kaputtnik needs a psychiatrist or something. 
You keep promoting your music like spam, you know that!!

Dualnames, you know I hate music.

On topic: Thanks  to khris for pointing that out. I felt like I was contributing something really nice and useful here. When reading the response I felt like the string harmonics had already begun to spread their sentimental mood, the camera had already started to zoom out to a scenic view of the town and everybody had learned his valuable lesson - and then suddenly the movie all of a sudden starts over again.

I'll never try that Disney "be yourself" bullshit again, seriously, that was the last time.

And Harg: Be yourself, and make Cosmos Quest 4 the best Cosmos Quest ever!

All that google optimization stuff is - in my opinion - not in any way an indicator of popularity. Using google analytics and its keyword search tool might give you some information about how popular search terms are at a certain point in time on a certain server - but I guess popularity should be measured in real feedback. If somebody with an unbiased opinion tells you he liked the game, that's the most important thing you can get. He took the time to comment and to tell you he liked it. Everybody can google up something, and it does not mean a thing.

If 300 people google "cosmos quest walkthrough", does that mean the game is too hard? If 5000 people google "cosmos quest" because there has been an article on some blog that this game was an example of bad adventure games in general, and they wanted to have a look at it just to see if it really that bad, does that mean your game is popular?

I think you should concentrate on creating something that is meaningful and important to you, and not get caught up in some irrelevant popularity search engine hocus pocus. Yup. And call your next game "free porn".

Well... then happy belated birthday Haddas and zyndicate  8)
march 28th is my fav. day too


And happy bday Greenboy!

Do I read 30? That wasn't a 30 before! Does that mean...happy belated birthday? Or does it mean...holes in the time and space continuum?

The author of that quiz seems to be quite fond of the word "out".

I am offended by movies/games/time based media in general that is spoon-feeding me its "message". Also, I don't want to know by looks or clothing (leather jackets, cigarettes, eye patches, stupid hats) who are the good and who are the bad guys. In fact, I don't want good or bad guys at all, I want individuals torn between right and wrong and caught up in a confusing society that made them what they are. Everything else will offend me.

Oh, and while I am at it: I don't want stereotypical women, and by that I mean neither stereotypically sexy nor stereotypically strong and brave. Oh, and to emancipate a bit further: I also don't want stereotypical men. And I don't want stereotypical kids, got it? Yes. And, come to think of it, the only game that probably won't offend me is a game where you play Josef Stalin solving pornographic crossword puzzles and every once in a while have to shoot your current assistant in a minigame.

No, that's not true. But I'd play that! 

Happy birthday to visy, the guy who made Lassi Quest!

Hey there! Maybe sprout or Deep Chalk might also be of interest to you, they are closest to what you call "interactive illustrations".

[Discordance]

The Holy Crunchy Salsa!

P.S. Discordance, All of the requirements are met even before starting the game, I demand bonus points and a foot rub (I understand if you don't approve of the bonus points)  

Oh-oh! But wasn't it a chunky salsa that has been demanded? I agree that chunky salsa will in most cases also be a little crunchy at least - but your foot rub is in danger!

Learn about Gary and the weird dream he woke up in.
Can you save the would and be back fo supper?

I am so downloading this! Saving the would (especially within if-clauses) rocks!

[can't take my electronic scrap away from me]

My girlfriend can make me cook, clean, wash up, shop, eat things I normally wouldn't in restaurants I normally wouldn't enter, sometimes even listen to music or watch movies I normally wouldn't - but she can't take my electronic scrap away from me, no sir! And I swear, and may you all be my witnesses, that one day I'll build something really useful from it.

And about the "girlfriend doesn't want me to get old computer to play DOS games" argument: Can she say no to something as cute as this? It has a mouse button that will make a little mouse jump out of the case!

What is it about girlfriends that prevents them seeing the beauty of a box full of miscellaneous cables and old computer parts?

Not a bad idea. Though I have this girlfriend thing here that made me get rid of all my computer-junk half a year ago. That's 2 boxes of golden rubbish. Anyway, I'm not sure she'd appreciate it.

The little universe keeps expanding...Congratulations on releasing! And stay away from the mead, kids!

Who not simply get an old notebook cheap off your favourite second hand platform and make it your DOS and Win95 gaming tool? I got a P133 Toshiba as a present one day, it serves all my DOS gaming needs, also in terms of authenticity.

I understand what you mean: It's just very motivating to have exactly that toy you imagined to play with. But on the other hand, I am big fan of "getting equipment that matches your skills", just to reward yourself if you are making progress. If you start with very basic equipment and get something else once you feel you've really explored all the possibilities of it and then go for a new one, learning is just more fun. In my opinion at least.

But, as I said, if you can spare the money and feel like getting the one that just looks or feels best to you, that's probably the way to go. There is really not much difference between, let's say, the Korg Keycontrol series and a very cheap E-MU or M-Audio or something in that line. Although it seems that both E-MU and M-audio (some years ago the cheapest and most basic equipment possible) have really improved in quality.

About the "learning hand coordination". This depends on what you want to achieve. You certainly won't be able to learn classical piano that way, it is just to specific and too frustrating to learn on your own. If you want to learn the "solo entertainer" approach (chords with the left hand, melody with the right hand), you can figure that out on your own with tutorials and stuff from the internet, or maybe a book.

If you want to learn how to play your synthesizer with two hands, you can easily do that on your own. The most simple pattern can sound great with a good synthesizer sound and a good feel for rhythm on part of the player, and most synth players only have one hand on the keyboard and the other one on their 32² control knobs anyway.

One very important piece of advice: Don't go for the fancy sliders and knobs. If you are a beginner at audio editing and composition, what could you possibly want to trigger? Filters, envelopes? Consider: how many of these are you going to manipulate in realtime at once?

If you only compose and don't do live stuff, a keyboard with one slider, two potis, pitch and mod wheel will do the trick. Also: 61 keys for a beginner? Starting out with a 25er be just fine I suppose, since you probably can't use your left and right hand at once and will rather be playing and recording bass registers and melodies seperately. It's much nicer though having a big keyboard with lots of knobs for playing around with your favourite synthesizer, that's for sure, but you should consider if it is worth the money.

If you want to learn basic keyboard or piano hand coordination, go for a 49 key keyboard, this will cover all you need. Useful hint: To further save money, get a cheap old MIDI enabled keyboard (maybe even an Atari, Amiga or C64 one = style bonus +6000) off your favourite second hand dealer or internet platform and a MIDI to USB adapter (they start at about 5 Euro).

Hope this is useful to you - if you are lucky, maybe you can even get a nice little hardware synth with MIDI output. Or, if you are more comfortable playing guitar, get a MIDI guitar, they come really cheap (Yamaha EZ-EG for example). Or how about that one: http://www.tonleiter.com/toneladder/Econcept.html ?

Ooh, that guy is really in for trouble. I can already feel it.

Glad you survived the incident. I had a similar experience some time ago. After an exhausting five hours of composing, I finally saved the mixdown of the funkiest piece of music in the universe and set it to run on loop mode. The first three loops went alright, but then my computer started to have serious problems handling the unlimited funk capacity.

After five loops, it broke. Hewlett Packard sent me a replacement unit within five days and apologized that their computers just weren't built to take such amounts of funk and - in what I conisder a very honest act - advised me to get an IBM because they could withstand even heavy space funk.

If you have an IBM personal computer, play this on infinite loop: http://www.box.net/shared/j7g0vacyml
If not, please be careful.

My experience with shooters is very limited at best, but I still have to say: My definition of being "good" at a game does not really have anything to do with the place in the table or the amount of things, animals or people wasted. If I manage to get a new experience out of it, I'm satisfied. In my opinion, jumping from a roof with a molotov cocktail in your hand and setting a shotgun guy who is hiding in a well on fire is much more rewarding than winning by being said shotgun guy.

Oh, and Stu: I think Dualnames is referring to the Football Club United of Manchester. They have their good days and kill off most of their opponents, but sometimes there's also some "fire in the hole". *cough* 

Ben without Sebastian -What happened 

Oh, I spent those 48 hours sleeping. They didn't want to wake me up, so Calin took the good ole guitar and recorded the music himself.

You have a name, you open a bar that matches your image: happy fun times for all! I think it will work just fine, the old "gamer" stereotype is really outdated by now. You still sitting in your dungeon, hacking the day away? Anachronism, shame on you!