Messages

As an artist trapped in an engineer's body, AGS has been the yin to my yang, the butter to my bread, the Google to my Chrome, and the blue cup to my unquenchable thirst for hot stimulants. It may have contributed to my mild insomnia though.

Played a bit of this last night. I suspected the centerlink girl was not a native speaker.

Yes, we only talk like that when there are foreigners about. The tourist board insists we maintain the image. In real life none of us would dream of drinking or swearing or making offensive remarks about women, I assure you. Now, where was I? Ah yes.. G'day dinkum chunder! Streuth I'm worried about Darleen!

1) retro
2) humour
3) challenging yet rewarding (nostalgia a bonus)
4) good plot = good adventure game
5) interactivity in moderation
6) part Mexican folklore and part film noir, or space
7) the end

My work involves drilling boreholes at various sites for geotechnical data (i.e. dirt). I don't drill the boreholes btw - we engage local shit kickers for that! Anyway, I recently undertook an unusual job on top of a mountain to collect some geotechnical rock data (and some dirt). I won't go into details but we had to drill near some existing infrastructure to determine foundation conditions for proposed upgrades. Going into the job half blind does not help, and to date we have only completed half the work. Our drill rig could not access one particular location near the infrastructure. Today I was showing the boss some of the photos of the horrible site to ponder our next move. A virtual tour of the site would have been ideal, and could be achieved using AGS!

........But, why stop there? Why not throw in a puzzle - get the drill rig to the hotspot! Now, it's a game! 

I've always wanted to see Tim Allen play Captain Disaster!

What about Rob Brydon as Captain D? He'll do a better job with the accent. Tim Allen will just sound like Buzz Lightyear.

Egads! Why, it's that wascally wabbit! Back to edumacate us once again!

I'm a fan of Pixel Hunt!

This is really good stuff! Love the guitar solo! And the fabulous Noa on vocals!

Andail, Stupot+
It's an absolute disgrace that you haven't finished Grim Fandango! For shame!
Completing that game should be compulsory for joining the AGS community. In fact I'm sure there was a question in the entrance exam that required extensive knowledge of that game in its entirety.

Did you try turning it off and on again?

Well done CW!

That would have been my guess. I have not played Friday the 13th, but I recognised the god awful graphics / colour scheme from one of the AVGN's earlier videos.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1raUvGNbZFg

The coordinate should be (320, 480) I.e. middle pixel at character's feet.

Beautiful

I agree with Viking about some percussion around the end of the track.

Just out of curiosity, what music genre is your specialty? Can you do jazz?

[Sleuth]

Nice one, Baron!
One of 7390 stories, and counting!

My first taste of computer game development was in the 90's using GW-BASIC.  I created many amateurish games including ‘Great Escape', an adventure game without the luxury of pointing and clicking (as GW-BASIC didn't support a mouse) but rather with the unique experience of key-tapping numbers and letters to interact with inventory and hotspots!



Along came the year 2000. The future had arrived! And I could download AGS (version 2.07). I played Demo Quest and was blown away! I knew what I had to do. That weekend we took a trip to the country and stopped in at my aunt's holiday caravan site, which we fondly called The Block. I took a few happy snaps, bung ‘em into AGS, added a few puzzles, a jazzy sound track, and Bob's your aunty! My first AGS game! A masterpiece which I simply called The Block. I didn't bother releasing the game though.

By coincidence, a few years later, a reality home renovation show called The Block appeared on Australian TV. I was gutted! The bastards obviously stole my brilliant game title and used it for their own mediocre purposes!



The following year I dabbled with a detective adventure called Sleuth, but AGS 2.07 was a bit buggy (as was my scripting I suspect), and I abandoned the project. I'm currently in the process of reviving this one.

In 2004, I started another game based loosely on a girl I was into (but she just wanted to be friends).  My hopes were to finish the game and give it to her as a present (the game that is). I never finished it, and that's probably for the best. I won't work on this one again (too many painful memories) but I will show you this scene of her on the toilet.



In 2005 I started an odd project involving a crude stick figure on a black and white background. Thus the rather obvious name Chalkman was born. It was a bit of an experimental joke game at this stage. There was no plot, just drawing the world, the city, and creating the infamous cube maze. I abandoned this project, I suppose due to a lack of vision or inspiration. I was still using AGS 2.07, which was getting tedious to use, and that could be another contributing reason. I also met my future wife later that year. Hmm…

The next 5 years were inactive. However, in 2009, while on holiday, I discovered Yahtzee's Trilby / John DeFoe games and was TOTALLY blown away! I rediscovered my purpose in life: TO MAKE GAMES!

Nearly a year later, in 2010, I knew I'd procrastinated long enough. I finally downloaded the latest AGS, got a strong cup of coffee, and recommenced production of Chalkman. A lot of it was sort of made up as I went, but it was thrilling, artistic freedom! The pieces of the puzzle were coming together, albeit a few mashed together into place. I became excited as vague ideas became... less vague. And a sort of plot emerged. There was even an antagonist, which I literally just threw in at the end. Yes, it gets weird. It's definitely not your average adventure game. But I'm proud I can say I finished it!



After releasing Chalkman (Feb 2013) I thought I should probably pay more attention to my heavily pregnant wife. But fuelled by adrenalin and coffee from just completing my first game, I couldn't resist re-making The Block in AGS 3.2.1. It only took two weeks to complete! What a rush! Better than sex (which I wasn't getting much of anyway).



I hadn't been involved with the forums at all prior to releasing these games other than searching for technical advice. So although I've known about AGS for some time now, I've only just recently discovered the forums so to speak. All this has coincided with the birth of my daughter (aka monkey425) who is now 9 months old and gaining speed! AGS can be a time consuming and somewhat guilty pleasure, but as Baron and co. have stated, family comes first.

In Australia, farting is a social expectation. Not only do you get to keep your testicles, but are congratulated with a chummy pat on the bum and invited to share a cold one.

[CHALKMAN]

Here's my first game from 2013..

CHALKMAN

 

 


Features:
* Poorly executed plot
* Abysmal graphics
* Unoriginal music
* Confusing puzzles

Actually, on second thought..
DON'T NOMINATE THIS GAME!


Nominate this instead..

SHITTY QUEST

 

 

Consider for:
* Best short game
* Best non-player character (Lazy Guy)
* Best Voice Work
* Best Dialogue Writing

Happy gaming!

Best Aiden Lovekamp impression

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=48737.0

New Years was fairly uneventful in downtown Beijing last night. Just after 12 midnight I could hear a few lonely fireworks going on in the distance, and some guy on the street coughing up half a lung. That was it. But I know the Chinese are saving the fireworks for Chinese New Year. I experienced it once in 2012 and you have to see it to believe it! All night fireworks! Everywhere! For several days! It's complete chaos!

I just recently experienced this real-life room escape game in Beijing. A group of six of us participated. There are different levels of difficulty and some idiot in our team decided we were clever enough for the difficult level. We were led to the first room where we spent 10 minutes faffing about before the lights were turned off, forcing us to continue with flashlights. All the clues were in Chinese, and I can't read Chinese. The others in our group could read Chinese, however they are amateurs and lacked the worldly experience I have of playing these sort of games on computer. We finally managed to escape the room when our one hour was up and we exited through the gift shop.

Happy New Year!

I'm currently stuck in a foreign country that has no YouTube or anything comprehensible on local TV for about a month so I have no excuse not to work on this game. Progress has been harsh but fair. Anticipate release early next year. 

Phew! Thank God for that!