Messages

Guys, I can't make the deadline, sorry.
Starting to work again with split shifts!!$#>&%!!

Good luck to all!

Hi guys,

as a follower of AGS life for the last 10 years of my life, a gamer and a poor talented game-maker, I am inclined to say some words.

Although the idea of earning money with games is reasonable and makes all the sense in the world, I am afraid that things are going just a little too fast in the community. CJ is not around any-more, future development of the engine isn't 100% clear at this moment and that relates to the games portability. Have a look at sites that support free-lancer game-makers and see what they are doing and the way they do it. People are earning money but the  games quality is higher than AGS average quality. And the best games get the money as the low ranked ones are quickly forgotten. Those sites have thousands of people ranking them, you get points when you rank someone's game.

Also, in my opinion, the AGS community has been here thanks to some fortunate gathering of specific people. And because it is free.
Those people are the creator, thank you; the moderators, fantastic; the tech guys, back-bone; the quality game-makers, there are some, not fair to name them; the people that "live" here;
Again, all this work and talent has one common link that is a powerful one: it's all done without any monetary compensation.

The Bake sale was great and its purpose a noble one. But money was asked and doing it so puts the AGS community, the engine and the game makers on a completely different level. The market.
Even if people were asked only for 1,5$, it's still money. And regarding to that, if you want to charge somebody, do it well, the minimum should have been 5$. 14 games for that kind of money is telling people that they will probably find 1,2 games that are worthy...
Sorry for being this way but that's what I think.
I hate to name people and as a rule I never comment a game that I didn't like, but IMO only Ben304 would have make it well in a site like Kongregate, for example. There's a game on the bundle that I wouldn't play for free, sorry. That's what me and thousands of gamers do, the offer is gigantic, so if the quality of the game doesn't reach the minimum you just skip to the next one.
Also, I've noticed that the way modern gamers see adventure games is a bit different from ours (meaning people that played the classics back when they were produced), it's common to have mixed genres in the same game (rpg-puzzle-adventure-platform)...

As I said, before you engage on this summerbatch project, take a look outside AGS. See what people are playing this days, what is the trend, what are the most popular games and why.

As I see things, if you're going to make a game commercial, anything less than what Dave Gilbert is doing with his projects isn't enough. Ask him if he could make a game on his free time until May that could be successful and I believe he would say no.
When planning on selling a game you have to raise the quality bar and you know it.
Have you consider joining efforts and make one really good game?

There's more than 7,000 members here. I'd say 2,000 are faithful and will buy the summerbatch bundle regardless of the quality of the games, but the word spreads fast. Getting into the market is a tricky thing and people expect a lot when they're paying money... I would hate to see this community  badly-spoken on the net.
We have a name on the cyber-space, when people find out they're talking with a Agser they have respect.

Well, the text is long enough, and I know that some people will hate me for judging their work but I'll be here to explain my point of view.
Bare in mind that money is not evil but can and will change things around.
The priority of this community should be the engine and its portability and to ensure that the people doing it are getting all the support they can have. And that may include server money and/or even paying the coders to do it.

Chef Ramsay Goes to Europe - The Movie?

Icey, it's not Khris's point of view. It's the community point of view towards games that aren't tested.
Please DO read what everybody writes about your conduct and try to learn something from it.

You kind of always try to work-around your way every time you screw it up. It doesn't work, STOP. And THINK.

Portuguese saying: Don't make excuses, avoid them!

Here's a tip from somebody that makes loads of mistakes when writing in English: add a dictionary for your browser, I use Firefox but all others should have it too.

Karens, those are some impressive screens you're showing. Good work.
Don't let anybody say otherwise or that you can't make it on AGS, just do it. The amount of work you're putting in this project is something to be admired.
Good luck, pick your own time to do it and release it when it feels right to you.

Paper Boy?

That's clearly "The Bride of Bjorn", a 80's erotic movie about...Bjorn...And his bride.

I had a two minute long farting sequence tonight. My wife kicked me out of bed and it didn't help me when I told her that it could be a ghost...Or several ghosts.

I decline the theory that farts and ghosts are related.

[Ghost & Ponch,]

Ghost & Ponch, thanks guys, but it's all made with CS5 standard shapes, the composition is mine, of course.
It's the only way I could find to finish this game in time. That and the opportunity to "study" the puppet wrap tool on characters, I'm finding it amazing!
I'm building all rooms with shapes and/or vector shapes to cut some time. Then I add some textures from CS5.

Well I must say that knowing that the money was going to children in hospitals made me buy the bundle.
There's nothing more sad than a sick child. Starving kids in Africa would be a good target as well.

If a bake sale was raised for improving AGS (new server, coders, etc...) I would of course buy it. But as it was said before, it wouldn't be so popular to people outside AGS.

Any bake sale destined to raise money for political reasons would be ignored by me.

MAGS Competition - The Pub

Armando Diamond is a detective who has fallen in disgrace due to countless years of heavy drinking. He also caught siflis from a hooker named Gina.

On a normal day, while wandering around town for a drink, Armando found more than a pub! Gangsters were doing some "cleaning-up" inside and he was about to get in trouble...

I farted and it turned into a demon but it was actually my ex-wife.

True story.

Do you believe farts are related to demons? Can you prove that? That would explain the windy trace ghosts leave when hoovering around the house...

The Girl With the Golden Behind?

I would love a couple of days extended, I am entering the competition and I know I said I'd post screens but I got sidetracked...

Getting the first game right now! Good job guys!
I'll have a busy week-end!

[Chicky & Ascovel]

Chicky & Ascovel my drawing style being compared with Hergé is a honour to me, thank you very much! But the intention wasn't to show a Nazi Tintin...

It's probably the hair that gives him that TinTin look, with the curl in front. Of course TinTin didn't have the 5 o'clock shadow...

As for the moral dilemma and freedom of choice it may be likely that if the character didn't follow orders tat he would end up before a firing squad, which would probably bring a quick end to the game.

I think so as well, and the fact that TinTin is so popular this days with the movie and all. And one day I'll avoid photoshop lightning once and for all! 8)

Moral dilemma: yup, that's what I think. But WHAM has a point, too.

Let's say that the main character is...tired?   I actually did some army time and you kind of rest if you shift your body like that, only slightly, I admit that it looks a bit unnatural.

Anyway, thanks for your comments. As for moral dilemma, I did some search on the subject, and I came up with a solution that may vary from what you're saying. Meaning that I'll "force" players to do some nasty stuff. I find the subject very serious and hard to deal, but when you belong to a army you have to do what you were told. You've been trained for it, brain-washed for it and you end up doing things as a immediate response to your superior orders. A notion builds up in your head that not obeying orders is the worst option you can have.
Saying this, I understand what you mean, although the choices given to the player are part of the narrative making it pretty linear, I hope that the story can overcome this linearity. If I have the talent to do it, that's a different story but it's the way I imagined this game.

Well, just because I've offered myself Photoshop CS5 and have been playing around with the puppet warp feature (fantastic stuff!) and smart objects, I've decided to enter MAGS for the first time! I Will supply some ingame screens tonight.

Regarding the never-ending Icey story, I believe that enough has been said. He's acting like a child and children should be dealt like ones.
This new event/entry that he started sounds like a big mess. And even if based on the Mags rules he could initiate some kind of debate regarding his authorisation to enter, I believe that he was banned for a while.
How long should he banned for? Until he starts posting like a responsible person, that acknowledges his past behaviour and makes a effort on improving himself. It will be clear for all of us when that time comes.

His friends should, in my opinion, make a new entry if they want to participate.  

[Not paying VAT will set you free!]

Yes, and I'll start a movement right now, challenging all adventure game makers to go underground, use secret codes and fake names, like I can be Miguel and not miguel and sell onions!

Not paying VAT will set you free!


PS: somebody is calling my phone as I write...foreign number...a knock on my door...I got to go!

[Khris and RickJ,]

Khris and RickJ, thanks for the explanation, I would not believe this was so serious.
You see, in my country, laws are never well made so that lawyers can bend and find work around ways to ignore them or use them depending on the side they are defending.

I mean, published contents that are copyright owned is what the internet is all about, imagine the www containing only official brand sites or government sites...it would be like a supermarket where you can't bargain!
I recently played this browser game called The Curfew, in the game the gov controls the internet (and everything else!) but there's this hackers that place virtual tags that you can access through your mobile camera thus allowing you to get underground content, in other words, black market!

I guess that with every over controlled society a underground equivalent rises...