Messages

Have you tried

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pouring wine more than once? Like, say, three times?

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If you have, and you're just wondering

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how to open the compartment: look at the loose ring on the barrel again. Break off a piece and use it to open the compartment.

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I understand the arguments that a one-click interface works because most interactions are obvious, but at the same time I think it dictates that the level of depth suggested at by a more complicated interface is provided by something else - getting virtually no inventory and barely any conversation options I felt a bit cheated by this and that I was more of a spectator than anything else.

I agree to some extent -- this is absolutely a game that could win a little on adding more interaction. But I still think that can be done without sacrificing the one-click interface.

Yes, it would be interesting to have more inventory items (with actual uses), more dialog options, and so on, and so on. But more interaction options is not the way to go. I really don't believe that the interaction of the game improves one bit just because you have the option to select whether you want to pick up a man or talk to him (or, it would if picking up the man actually was possible, but it very rarely is).

More dialog options, more inventory items and things like that would add to the game if done right. But I don't see how more cursor modes would.

It will be one of the two big things that I'll try to improve in the next one (the other one being that I felt that the 'correct' choice was always too obvious - I think that a game concept like this one would benefit from a good deal more moral ambiguity than there is in this game).

I agree. It's great to have several paths, but it was very easy to pick the correct path.

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The first path I tried -- which seemed like the obvious path to pick -- was going for the transmitter, then leaving the gun, and then NOT tell Rathburn that I was done before I had actually solved the mystery. When Chisholm escaped to the bridge, it wasn't too difficult to figure out what I had to do to stop him. I was also never hostile towards Ted, because I saw no reason to. I didn't find all clues first time around, but still, Chisholm was arrested, everybody on board survived, and the relationship was saved. So while I was happy for Leo's sake, I really felt like the best ending was also the easiest one to end up with.

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Now, IF, for instance,

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you had the choice of shooting Chisholm or not, and if you didn't, he would at a later point in the game kill Averie...

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Or something like that. If you had a couple of pathforks where doing what feels right would have terrible concequences, it would have been a more interesting game.

I'd tossed around ideas for sequels and prequels starring Leo, but I hadn't really liked any of them

Let me say, I think that it's great that you don't make another game about Leo. I liked him, but he's an average person, and it wouldn't be very credible if he started stumbling into mystery after mystery. Had he been a detective or a knight or a paranormal investigator or a psychic who foresees politicians dying or something, he would have experiences like this all the time, but few plotlines feel worse than average college students who by sheer coincidence manages to stumble across one gigantic mystery plot after another. One time is very interesting, but more than that isn't very believable.

Right now, though, I want to try something different. One idea is a game similar in structure to this one, except that the storyline junction points will usually be puzzles

Ooh, I like it.

My other idea is a game where you play as a guy who lives in the bad side of town. [...] My problem with this one is that it doesn't really sound great so far - there really isn't much to that description; it's missing something, and I can't figure out what it is.

I guess that depends on what you do with the game. The plot you describe is very loose and could end up as a masterpiece or on the trash heap, but it needs lots of fine-tuning to become a great game idea. I think you have what it takes, but there are many pitfalls to avoid.

But would I play it? Yeah, at least for a while.

So both your ideas sound interesting -- I would say the first idea sounds best so far, but maybe that's because that one is a tiny bit more developed than the other.

Where's the amulet i've looked all over it's gone!

What do you mean? Where are you in the game?

The only part of the game where I remember that the amulet matters, it is

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hanging in the hand of Jesus Christ.

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Okay I got into the appartment BUT

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I can't search through anything.  Even when I get my partner to distract the guy, the game keeps telling me that I can't risk being seen.  What am I supposed to do?

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Vague hint:

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You don't have the time to search through drawers or solve strange puzzle boxes. You do, however, have the time to snatch one item while Bianchi is looking the other way.

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Additional semi-vague hint:

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If only you had an item that allowed you to come back here later, when Bianchi wasn't here, you would have the time to go through his stuff more thoroughly.

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Plain solution:

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Get the keys.

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Just a thought if you want a tidier code:

Instead of going through the trouble of writing

Code: ags

        Mouse.Mode = 3; 
        ProcessClick(mouse.x,mouse.y, mouse.Mode);
        Mouse.Mode = 2;

I think it would be easier to just use

Code: ags

        ProcessClick(mouse.x,mouse.y, 3);
        Mouse.Mode = 2;

The same simplification can be done other places in your script. No need to set value A to value B, use value A in a function and then reset value A when you can just use value B in the function in the first place.

If you never have more than one available mouse mode, I would suggest that you put them all in the same kind of interaction to make the whole thing easier. I've been fiddling with a similar concept myself, and my on_mouse_click() function looks a little bit like this:

Code: ags

function on_mouse_click(MouseButton button) {
  // called when a mouse button is clicked. button is either LEFT or RIGHT
  if (IsGamePaused() == 1) {
    // GAME IS PAUSED:
    // Nothing happens when the mouse button is clicked
  }
  else if (button == eMouseLeft) {
    // LEFT BUTTON IS CLICKED:

    // In my game it is theoretically impossible to select other
    // mouse modes than "Interact", but just in case I need
    // other mouse modes, e.g. for minigames, or there's
    // a bug somewhere, I check it to be certain.

    if (mouse.Mode == eModeInteract) {

      // Next: Check if the mouse cursor is in a location where
      // the "Interact" mode is AVAILABLE.

      if (IsInteractionAvailable(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeInteract) == 1) {

        // If it is, interact with whatever is here.

        ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeInteract);
      }
      else {

        // If we can't interact with anything here:
        // walk to this location

        ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, eModeWalkto);
      }
    }
    else {

      // If the cursor mode for some bizarre reason
      // is NOT Interact, then do whatever the cursor
      // wants to do.

      ProcessClick(mouse.x, mouse.y, mouse.Mode);
    }
  }
  // Here you put commands for what to do if the player
  // presses right button or uses mouse wheel. For
  // instance, if you want to examine things with the
  // right button. Just make sure to REMOVE the default
  // "flip through cursors with right button" function,
  // as there aren't any cursors to flip through here
}

Then I put ALL available interactions in the game in the "Interact" mode, regardless of what they do: using something, picking it up, talking to it, fighting it, mooning it or whatever else you may have in your game. When the player enters the start room, I set the cursor mode to Interact, and I have disabled all other cursor modes (not that it really matters, since I have disabled right button rotation and I have no GUI buttons anywhere to change cursor mode). Now, whenever I'm mousing over a hotspot, object or character, I will perform the only available interaction with them when I click the mouse button. If there's nothing there, I will simply walk to that location instead.

I'm aware that one drawback of this solution is that the cursor image won't change, but that's just because I haven't coded it yet; not because it's not possible to implement. I'm pretty confident that it is.

Congratulations on three cups!

Just a thought... LunaVorax says on the game site that this game should have had a sequel. If you decide to make another game based on the same universe and are short on ideas, I would love to see either a sequel or maybe even preferrably a prequel, where

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Leanna

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is the playable character. I think she's one of the most interesting characters in the whole game, and yet we learn so very little about her. I just know that she's bound to have a very interesting backstory... And I really hope to get to know what it is.

(And yes, I'm fully aware that would be more a spin-off than a sequel, but...)

... uh... But I just told you exactly which buttons to press!

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THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT.
THE GALLEON.
THE ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ATLANTIC.

No specific order.

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That was why I linked to the solution... But to repeat it:

Vague hint:

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What was St. Anthony a patron of?

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More directly:

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Lost items. So press the buttons that represent lost items.

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Blatant telling-it-straight-out:

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Press these four buttons: The Fountain of Youth, the Ark of the Covenant, the island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (Atlantis) and the Galleon of the Salton Sea.

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When importing, do you use "set upper left pixel to transparent" or whatever it's called?

Just a quick reminder that the contest ends in two days and a little less than ten hours.

DanielH: How awful! Losing lots of work is always terrible (especially since you lost many things far more important than this little contest). You have my sympathy.

Does anyone have a hint on how to unlock

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confessing about pride?

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The commentary was excellent all the way through. The "final thoughts" commentary piece was suddenly aborted at a very unpleasant time, but I assume that is a calculated scheme and not a bug? :-)

One thing that fascinated me maybe a little too much when thinking about it, was

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Bianchi's display cabinet: It had items from all the locations Ben has been to except for Smailholm. Apparently that's not a big problem since the amulet is the only item they miss, but we know that a Knight was present in Smailholm, so...

And speaking of Jones: I'm still not convinced he's evil. I think his biggest plot twist is yet to come.

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Talking about next game, unless I miss something down the line, where there supposed to 9 games instead of 8?

To quote Ben Jordan's homepage:

Originally, yes, I had planned to make 9 games. However, when I started thinking of what "major" events to put in what games, I realized one game would have been very weak story-wise, so it was scrapped. Trust me when I say you aren't missing out on anything.

What's the correct URL to the RSS feed?

I started subscribing to http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/gamesrss.php at some point last year. But around May this year, that RSS feed went dead.

After a while I started wondering why there hadn't been new games in a while, so I checked the website and found that apparently, the RSS feed had a new URL: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/gamesrss.php . Okay, I started subscribing to that.

In July, starting with "FluxWorld" July 9th, suddenly every game came in on the www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk feed again, and none on the www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk feed. So the dead feed was now alive, and the other feed was now dead.

And since July 27th, starting with "Crash! Evade! Destroy!", BOTH feeds have been working. Of course, now that I subscribe to both of them because I have no idea which of them really is the active one, that means I recieve all reports on new games two times.

It's not very important, so don't cancel any trips to France to fix it (have a splendid Mittens, by the way), but having two RSS feeds that sometimes fulfill each other and other times give the same information two times strikes me as somewhat odd, and I would love to be able to stop subscribing to one of them without that making me lose information.

can some one plzz tell me how to open that box in that guys house am reli confused

plzzz

This has been very thorougly explained earlier in this thread.

I need a hint on how to grab the amulet. I'm running out of ideas.

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Remember that in the Ben Jordan games, you can "touch"/"feel"/"interact with" your inventory items.

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If you use your hand icon on the plumber's outfit, you find a new item.

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A really nice game, like expected from Grundislav. The voices was great (as soon as I figured out how to turn on subtitles -- apparently, I'm so blind that a gigantic "Settings" button isn't enough for me to see it), the music is the best game music I've heard in a long, long time.

And the story is superb, especially if one has played all previous games. Predictable at times, but still... exceptionally funny, exceptionally sad.

A few BJ-special gameplay techniques still confuse me after all these games... I still look for solutions for a long time in the wrong places because I forget that it's possible to touch / interact with the items in my inventory, and I still don't see why on earth we need TWO different dialogue cursors (when is small-talk ever useful?).

But that's okay: I don't play Ben Jordan games for the sake of awesome GUIs, I play Ben Jordan games because I have grown to really like the character of Ben Jordan, along with Simon, Alice, Percy and the rest of Ben Jordan's universe. And this is the clearly strongest Ben Jordan-game storywise so far, and the use of music, graphics and voice-acting stresses the story in a superb way. A game well worth playing, and a must-play for Ben Jordan fans all over the globe.

I really liked this game. The multiple-ending thing is nice and very realistically done, as it feels as if the choices you make really make a difference.

Also, mostly this game actually makes it pretty clear what choices you have, which is a huge plus in my book. I remember I really liked that Ben Jordan Case 3 had several endings, but it annoyed the heck out of me to try figuring out where in the game I had to do something different to get the other ending, and I'm not sure I would have seen it at all without the "Hints and tips" thread. In this game it's more obvious: You are given the choice to go on or come back. You are given the choice of taking an item or leaving it there. You are given the choice of giving up an item or keeping it. After playing through this one time, you're stuck with the feeling "Wonder what would have happened if I had done that part differently"... And that alone offers tons of replay value. Also, the events that take place in the various endings seem pretty realistic, as whatever would not have been affected by your choices still happens.

And since everybody compares this to 7 Days a Skeptic, a game I really liked, I feel like pointing out that there's one thing in particular that annoyed the heck out of me in 7DaS which I'm very happy that The Vacuum does differently:

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In The Vacuum, you can't die. There's no zombie corpse walking around to try and get you: Your choices affects the outcome, but at no point in the game do you have to face a "Game Over" screen and go back to the last time you saved.

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Haven't played it since beta 5, but I'm really looking forward to it.

How?!

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I got the option "Confession" when I used the dialogue on him after seeing the confession stand. I assumed it was enough to have seen the confession stand (off the screen to the right from where the Cardinal is standing) to get that response, but maybe you also have to enter it and perhaps even try talking to the grate to discover that nobody's inside.

Anyhow, if you play around with the confession stand a little (the door is on the right), the option "confession" should appear the next time you use the question mark talk cursor on Cardinal.

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how did you get in Biachi's office

First time you need to enter Bianchi's office:

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Ask the cardinal to give a confession.
Before confessing, put tape recorder (from actors' wardrobe) on shelf in confession stand.
Press "record".
Confess to something.
Ask the cardinal to give another confession.
Press play, and leave while he's listening.
Read the nametags next to the doors to find out which office is Bianchi's.

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Second time you need to enter Bianchi's office:

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Talk to Simon and Alice. Have them do performance art for the guard. I suggest trying all other options first, though, they're hilarious.

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EDIT: Ah, at that point of the game, you just need the first one.

I am tied up what do I do, I am right at the end of the game?

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Use loose ring on barrel to cut your ropes

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I don't know exactly what happened to Dmitry or not (I just said that in the worst case scenario, there could be a rock-removing bug in the game), but IF the situation is that the rock needed to progress in the game disappears at some point if you don't do everything in the correct order so that you can't even finish the game, I would call that a bug, yes..

If the situation is something completely different, e.g. that the rock moves around in the game and is placed on random places depending on progress in the game or that I misunderstood Dmitry somehow (which could happen), feel free to ignore my stupid rambling. But IF an object needed to progress in the game disappears so that the game is impossible to finish ... that's a bug.