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Umm.... Can anyone put me up in their tent?

I had something similar in the works a while back where a verb coin type thing would appear and allow you to draw gestures within this GUI. I was working on it picking up angles of movement for general gestures and also speed, so that some puzzles may include throwing a ball or something and require speed and angle.

My main purpose of doing this was to have it like the firefox mouse gestures where "right click and drag" in various directions would perform simple actions such as look at or pick up emminating around the start point, which would be the hotspot...


This project however never progressed. I'm thinking of doing something using the drop down menu module but mixing it with a verb coin style and using context sensitive user actions, such as a window having open window and a candle having light or blow out.

http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/

It's not done yet, but he's posted a screen. I'm sure it's going to be good.

Edit: I suppose this could have gone in Adventure Talk It's late and I'm tired so piffle

Not sure if this is the right place to post stuff like this, although not sure. best bet is to try messaging the game author.

Having puzzles which make no sense can turn me off a game for good, and even when making a game it can turn me off. When makign Piratess I made many mistakes because I had no idea what I was doign with it and was makign it all up as I went along. It is because of this my puzzles made little to no sense. Here's a litte GTD of my own to help out some peeps.

I find the best way of designing puzzles is to always have a good solid plot, that way you know what the player will be working there way to.

1) I generally start with my plot outline.

2) Next I split it into areas of interest, such as rooms. I choose these areas so that the end of the area will allow you to progress onto a new location or something, sometimes an area may be several rooms long but all integrated. In MI2 the first area is Scabb Island.

3) Each area should have some final goal such as in MI2 you need to remove the Largo Embargo.

4) I then go about splitting this goal into as many logical steps or sub-goals as I can, this was achieved very nicely in MI2 by getting a shopping list from the Voodoo Lady (sorry if this ruins anything for those who haven't played it but I chose a game that probably everyone has played). This required you to gather a few items each item had it's own puzzle to solve. These tasks should be brief without detail.

5) I then pad these tasks out using the available locations. If I needed a boot and my locations were a lake, forest and a museum I'd think that the boot could be fished out of the lake, but that would require a fishing rod, so to get the fishing rod I could make it from a twig in the forest and so on...

6) Continue to evolve from here until you are happy.

Some tips that help me and can help you:

1) I don't care how secret your game is or how much you want everything to be your own work, truth is that your idea will not be 100% unique anyway and you are making this game for people to play and enjoy, so consult with someone. Find someone you can trust or believe to be helpful and get them to read over some of your stuff, get them to critique it and see if things are logical. What I usually do is speak with a housemate, someone who has no experience in adventure games. I ask them perhaps something along the lines of "if there was a locked door and you had no way of getting through it but you need to, what would you do". Chances are they might say just kick down the door, which in itself could be a better alternative than just leaving it unlocked, perhaps the user has to kick it three times for it to give way, perhaps first you need to put on some shoes first or something.

2) With the door example you could also attempt the following, make a huge list of items that can be used to open a door; credit card, key, key card, boot, axe, wood worms. Just think of everything. Then perhaps try to link some of these items that could be logically gathered in your available locations. In an earlier example I used the lcoations a forest, a lake and a museum. The forest could have wood worms or even an axe if there is a lumberjack. The lake could hold the boot and so on.

3) Remember it is an adventure game and the idea generally is to be an adventure, so people should be exploring around. Looking for items everywhere and picking up everything, so there may be a chance that some random items that may not have seemed logical in real life. As long as it makes sense with in your story. Comdedy games are great for this, in MI you get a staple remover, although it has no real use it's funny because you would never expect to see that... but it could be used within a puzzle.

Anyway hope some people find this helpful.

Can't you go to the channels option and do something with the individual colour layers to get the wheat as a mask or something. Never done it myself but I remember reading something about that sometime.

Something about creating an alpha channel as well springs to mind.

I think us Barcelona crew need to start formulating some travel arangement. If all else fails we can have Barcelonittens

Thankfully there has been no-one close to me to have ever had anything terrible happen to them. I remember when I was little my dad's appendix burst and he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance, that really upset me and I can't imagine what anything like losing my dad would be like, and I know from my experience of that how much we truly care about the people we love and keep close to us and for that I feel deeply sorry for you.

Now he has one item of fiction he can hunt down some plutoneum... but he has to avoid jack bauer at all costs.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4645309646&rd=1

Pretty neat actually.

Hey Mark, Just got round to playing it and it is looking super-mega impressive. Everything is perfect Indy down to a T. This should keep fans sated for at least another 4 years, and I'm sure all the feedback is a lot of enthusiasm to keep you motivated.

All I have left to say now is keep up the good work and I look forward to the real game and would love to see more tutorials on your site.

If you need a mirror for the downloads I can help with that, not sure how miez.com is responding to all the downloading.

So we can expect the full game at mittens this year right

so if it is a lot, and you're 10% there is that just the demo or the full game?

Also, downlaoded, will play when I have had sleep

i think ntl have a hate site somewhere run by people who despise them. something like www.ntlhell.com maybe

I just try to think of something that fits. If I'm naming some 7ft tall African guy i'm hardly going to call him 'Prudence', as the same if I were naming a girl in 17th century france 'Honey'.

I usually base things around stereotypes, or if a character resembles a friend in any way I give them my friends name. I think a name definatly has some affect on the story, but as long is it feels comfortable and believable.

In my suoer-hero game the lead character was known as Justice Man, mainly for the fact I wanted something as cliche as possible, the name still could change which is the great thing, I may go with Captain Justice. In Piratess it was near enough up until a month before finish that the lead character went by a different name altogether.

Also, in-case anyone has any interest Disco and I just booked our tickets to barcelona

You may wanna check out somewhere like direct 2 drive where you pay to download games, but I think they only do new releases.

Apart from that you can pick up the MI bounty pack which has the first three games I believe for around $30.

[sarcasm]I disagree, LucasArts make plenty of high quality star wars games we all love and enjoy so much that they make more and more and more...[/sarcasm]

The dark side of gaming is one many believe to be un-natural

I am very very impressed with the trailer and it's making me look forward to the game a lot. I do agree that the voice acting is poorley done for such a highly rated game, but I still have high hopes.

Voh - I definatly agree I HATE the idea of episodic releases and it's about the only reason I haven't touched bone yet, *sigh*.

Unfortunalty I have to say that "coc lov" was the first thing i saw. I really urge you t change the way it lays out, but if it's a year book I assume only CVOLC people would be looking at it and would know what it is.

Wow, this sounds interesting, not sure how it is goign to work.

Taking a look now, will report back ASAP

EDIT: Wow this is awesome, it took a moment to work it out but it seems great. For people who are interested:

Draw all the individual body parts using the current images so you know basic sizes and shapes. Load the images into the application. The apply each one to the bone structure under the different areas. Then just click the "save walkcycle"... nice and simple!