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Glad I could help

[Toonstruck]

If it doesn't matter to the story, then the player doesn't necessarily need to know where the game is taking place. You don't set up an atmospheric game just by saying "Hey man, you're in New York". You do it by creating intricate landscapes or cityscapes (or whatever else) that, in a sense, 'amplify' the general feel of the game. If you're telling a gritty detective story you won't be setting it up against a Toonstruck-type backdrop.

Look at Full Throttle for example. Does it really matter where the game takes place? You just see all the sand and think: "This must be the Mojave Desert or something." It's what you show to the player that tells them where the game takes place. If you give them a glimpse of a couple of familiar monuments and stick with the architecture, then you can convince the player the game is, say, taking place in Washington D.C. without even telling them.

So yeah, as I said already, if it's not imperative to the storyline and if it won't be referenced anywhere else in the game, I don't think it's necessary for the player to know the location.

[AGS video tutorials]

In case you have access to a computer during your 'spare time at work', check out these AGS video tutorials. They've helped me a lot.

I struggled with this only a couple of hours ago and it turns out the 'fix' is actually pretty easy!

What you need to do is create a GUI label where your hotspot description will be shown and, after setting up its design and layout, enter "@OVERHOTSPOT@" (without the quotation marks) in its 'Text' field (under 'Appearance' in the GUI's properties section).

That should work. You don't really need any other code in version 3.x. There are other 'special markers' which you can read about if you search for "Editing the GUIs" in the index.

[Children of Men]

Children of Men
There Will be Blood

I second these recommendations.

I remembered a couple of other movies you might enjoy.

If you crave nostalgia etc. :
The Time Traveler's Wife.
Mr. Nobody.

If you crave psychological thriller stuff:
Brick.
[url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424136/]Hard Candy.
[url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1337057/]Rampage.

Can I ask for someone to upload it on mediafire, I can't seem to be able to get the game from ZShare. PLZ?

Same here. My download gets to 50 or so percent and then it's as if my connection broke, even though everything else is perfectly fine.

Now I feel a bit silly for not noticing LockViewFrame sooner.

Thanks a bunch, Dualnames! It works perfectly! 

Happy New Year!

[here]

The subject title probably is a bit long, but I'm not quite sure how to describe my problem.

My main, playable character is speaking with this VI character, which is basically just a screen. In normal view, this screen is turned off as the VI isn't in use. When I start a dialogue with the VI, the 'power on' animation plays - for this I used the standard LockView, Animate, UnlockView combination.

Now what I want to do is change the normal view animation frame by one so that the VI screen isn't black any more, but rather shows the VI character. I'm having trouble finding this in the manual, and searching the forum didn't help either. I'm hoping one of you might know what I'm talking about and how to help me out.

Currently, the screen stays black while I'm picking dialogue options and while the playable character speaks, which is just wrong. You can check out what I'm talking about by downloading the preview build.

Code: ags

http://www.mediafire.com/?j0qb435q4ndhdwq

I hope I was clear enough. Thanks in advance  

EDIT #1: Added screenshots so those of you who don't feel like downloading the 'game' know what I'm talking about.

Screenshot #1
Screenshot #2
Screenshot #3

EDIT #2: For anyone who might stumble upon this topic in the future, the fix is here.

It looks great, Proximity!

Definitely looking forward to playing this

Werckmeister Harmoniak, perhaps? Actually, all of Bela Tarr's films can bring out a certain emotion because all of them are so astonishingly well scored and directed.

If you want to watch something messed up, you can go with David Lynch (you probably have already).

If you want to watch something that will overwhelm you emotionally, then try Dancer in the Dark, The Fall, The Breakfast Club and especially Elephant.

There was also this one movie that made me feel a really crappy mixture of nostalgic and abused, but I seem to have blocked it out of my memory. That's a shame, I'd love to see it again.

Is it in here somewhere? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D4Ud8-jric

Sorry, journalistic habit 

[Boardwalk Empire]

Boardwalk Empire, despite only recently finishing its first season, deserves a spot here. Great cast, great writing. It's an HBO production, you can't go wrong with that.

I haven't seen it yet, but have heard mixed things about it. A lot of people seem to think it's heavy on the schtick and short on compelling drama.

If we're naming current HBO shows, I would go with In Treatment. There is something hypnotically fascinating about watching Gabriel Byrne delving incisively into the subconscious of his patients, then repeatedly fucking up his own life because he's at the complete mercy of his own irrational impulses.[/quote]
I thought the same about Boardwalk Empire after first seeing the pilot episode, but after some time I gave it another shot and it quickly grew on me. To tell you the truth, I tend to like everything with Buscemi in it, so I'm not that surprised.

I've heard about In Treatment before but I never got a chance to check it out. Consider me intrigued!

It's been mentioned a few times already, but Louie has got to be the best, instant-classic (or cult classic) comedy on TV right now. More than perhaps any other show on TV, it feels like one person's vision, a unique comic sensibility that is as strong as Larry David's in Curb Your Enthusiasm, but much more humane and melancholy.

I gave Louie a chance a month or two ago, back when the internet was constantly going on about Louis C.K.'s comedic genius. It didn't sit quite right with me. I see the appeal in it, I do, but it just isn't my type of show (if that makes any sense). Curb Your Enthusiasm, on the other hand, I love to catch up on every now and then.

I have to admit that few sci-fi TV shows do it for me. [...] I gave up on Lost, Fringe, Supernatural, Heroes etc. within a few episodes (and in some cases less).

Same here for Lost, Fringe and Heroes. I also understand why someone would give up on Supernatural, I'm tempted to do the same, but the brotherly moments Sam and Dean share often remind me of my brother and myself so that's kind of why I keep coming back to the show.

The last live-action sci-fi show I pretty wholeheartedly enjoyed was The Middleman, which was firmly tongue-in-cheek. But even that was more of a guilty pleasure than a show of genuine greatness. That leaves The Venture Bros., which is unapologetically awesome, but again a comedy first and foremost.

I haven't seen The Middleman (I'll check it out, though), but I whole-heartedly agree with you on The Venture Bros.. It's my favourite Adult Swim show, along with Metalocalypse.

Yes, a promising adaptation, but when your season is only three episodes, one that is straight-up bad (the second one) is not an impressive hit rate.

That's a good point...

I would still rather watch Justified or Terriers on FX, and among shows I don't watch I would be more interested in getting into Breaking Bad.

I've seen the first few episodes of Justified and I thought it was pretty good. I have no idea what's stopping me from watching more, I should get back to that show. I've read about Terriers and it sounded interesting, but it also reminded me a bit of Psych (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) because of the whole buddy detectives angle.

I know a lot of people love it, but I couldn't stand it. At least in the first episode, all the comedy just seemed to be based on the stereotypes of the characters, like a very tired sitcom dressed up to seem modern (see also: My Name Is Earl). Maybe I'm missing something; it does sometimes take a while to get on a new show's comedy wavelength.

Anyway, in response I would offer Community.

I know what you mean, I might be experiencing the same with Louie.

I tried Community, liked it, then gave up on it after a while because I grew tired of Chevy Chase. Perhaps the show has gotten better, I should try and get back on track.

It's almost axiomatic to me that a procedural cannot be a classic, because they're so formulaic. I agree that Laurie has created a great character, but the constraints of the form makes it impossible for anything really meaningful to happen to that character.

Another good point. People will think back to House, that's for sure, but the show itself can't bring us anything new or refreshing other than a not-so-average doctor.

I see. Well, that makes sense, though I don't see how hard it could have been to just link to the GIP thread. I have to take the blame either way. I'm new so I didn't really think of checking the GIP forum for a thread on the game. Sorry, lilinuyasha.

I've played the game and I'm not entirely sure what to say. Is this your first game? If it is a training game, then I understand why it felt like it was a rushed job. If not, then...

It's... not good. I might be blunt here, but I'm also going to give you as much constructive criticism as I can.

Super Drug Adventure 2011 is an impatient game to say the least. It's obvious that the developer wanted to deliver a product, not necessarily a game, as soon as possible and if that isn't the case then this title is in dire need of polishing.

It's all too convenient to use an LSD-centric storyline as an explanation for much of the game's 'borrowed' backgrounds, glitchy character sprites and, by extension, buggy scripting and clipping problems. It wouldn't be as obvious if the prime example for the dev's hastiness wasn't the bed at the very beginning of the game - the player can pick up the same key from the bed an infinite amount of times and walking behind the bed makes it look like the character is walking on the bed itself.

Later on, Super Drug Adventure 2011 seems to pick itself up and for a brief moment you might feel like playing an adventure game. Unfortunately, these moments are ruined by uninspired and sometimes even downright crass dialogue. But all is not that bad. One bright spot in the mess that is the game's writing would, in my opinion, be the conversation with the trimmed bush.

As the nonsensical story comes to a close, so does, in a near proportional relation, the player's will to play Super Drug Adventure 2011 diminish. It's an (not necessarily aesthetically) ugly mixture of poor writing, misguided art direction and clumsy scripting. But even though Super Drug Adventure 2011 might not be a showcase of skill, it definitely shows an astonishing will to create despite the inability to do it properly.

So all is not that bad. All this (and every other game) needs is some more time spent on it ironing out the bugs, making sense out of nonsense and generally just turning it into a proper videogame.

Hope I helped. Sorry if I was too hard.

Being a 'potential customer', I'd like to know more about the game before I download it. Post some information on the game, what it's about and what it features; put up a screenshot or two. It can't be that hard, can it?

I've got it, I'll check it out, but I'd really like to know what I'm up against before I open up this 'mystery package'.

Like Chicky said, you should be able to import your sprite characters into Toon Boom Studio and apply the image to the bone structure for animation. I'm not a 100% sure because I've never used Toon Boom Studio, but it would be silly if the software wouldn't be able to do it.

Now the only problem you might encounter is that Toon Boom Studio can't work with bitmaps. In Flash, you had to convert bitmaps into vector shapes in order to animate a character or just work with the image in general. A quick search around YouTube should help you find a tutorial on how to deal with that.

Don't expect an amazingly well looking animation, though. It might be fluid, but the pixels will stretch (as they are vectors) and depending on how pixelated your characters are it will only get worse.

[right now]

poltergeist listed a lot of great shows from the last decade, but like veryweirdguy I wanted to focus on stuff from 2010. The best TV shows right now.

Sorry, should have paid more attention while reading your posts.

Here's a 'filtered' list, then:

Definite future classics - Boardwalk Empire, The Office, Doctor Who.
Boardwalk Empire, despite only recently finishing its first season, deserves a spot here. Great cast, great writing. It's an HBO production, you can't go wrong with that.

The Office is a classic already. It's consistently funny (99% of the time) and I always look forward to seeing a new episode. It might be jumping the shark with Carell's departure at the end of this season, but that's still some way out in the future.

Doctor Who. I know, it already is a classic, but seeing as Matt Smith took over as the new Doctor after Tennant's brilliant run in the shoes of the character, and did it unexpectedly well, I'm listing this series (with the eleventh Doctor) as a definite future classic. Also, I'm crushing hard on Karen Gillan, but that's not the point.

Potential classics - Californication, Sherlock, Misfits, Sons of Anarchy, Modern Family, House.
Californication is amazing, it really is, and it should be a definite future classic. Why is it listed here, then? I honestly have no idea, but for some strange reason I can only see it as a 'cult clasic'. Somehow I don't see people taking it seriously for what it is, most of them only watch it because its about Fox Mulder and sex with Fox Mulder.

Sherlock might be a series of TV movies, but it's still a series. Benedict Cumberbatch is an amazing Sherlock Holmes even though he might not look the part, but it's this air of creepy surrounding him that makes the character more interesting. The storyline behind this Sherlock is full of twists and turns so I've set my expectations high for the next season.

Misfits is nothing short of brilliant. It's the gritty British take on superheroes and I love every second of it. The second season lived up to the expectations built up by the first, but the writing still isn't consistent enough. The good news is you only get one bad episode per season. The bad news is that the bad episodes are really, really cheesy.

Sons of Anarchy, like I said last time, it's a great show, but the third season left much to be desired.

Modern Family is gunning for greatness here. It's extremely entertaining, but I'd wait for the third season before calling it a classic.

House is kind-of a classic already, but I fear that's only because Hugh Laurie is acting in it. To tell you the truth, it's getting kind of old and uneventful, so hopefully they'll either pick up the pace or pull the plug before its too late.

Not quite there yet - Nikita, Supernatural, The Walking Dead.
Maggie Q is a great Nikita. I don't remember much about the first show, but this one is keeping me interested and I'm looking forward to seeing what they have planned for the season finale. It's in the "not quite there yet" category because it's literally not quite there - the show is still in the middle of its first season. But it does show promise.

Supernatural jumped the shark with the start of season 6. I guess it kind of went downhill from there. If you're sticking to seasons 1-5 then it's a definite potential classic.

The Walking Dead had a great pilot episode, but there are more bad episodes than there are good ones. Spread that out over the six episodes from its first season and you can see why its only redeeming quality right now are the zombies.

Just no - The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.
This could have been very good (not great) but it quickly grew stale and old. It's more of a "thanks for trying" thing, now.

This is brilliant! It may be short and nonsensical, but the dialogue is kills!

Great work, I don't think I'd ever be able to make as much sense out of a bunch of nonsense as you did! Definitely looking forward to more of your work!

You can produce quality NES-esque tunes with FamiTracker. It might look complicated, but once you sink your teeth in it and record a couple of silly melodies you'll find that it's actually not that tough of a nut to crack.

In case you're looking for some more... realistic... check out Acoustica Mixcraft. People call it 'GarageBand for Windows'. I don't know if that's an appropriate comparison, I've never used GarageBand, but it is very intuitive and offers an impressive amount of virtual instruments and effects. Mixcraft unfortunately isn't free, but it's not useless either. In its trial form you should be able to render your creations as .mp3s, though saving the project itself isn't possible.

That's all I can think of right now. There's more out there, I'm sure of it, you just have to know what to look for. Search keywords such as "tracker" and "sequencer" should help you out.