Messages

Spoiler

Yep you do. Use the book on the bookshelf that constitutes a separate hotspot. It's on the left edge of the bookshelf.

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If you have further trouble accomplishing that (I know I did),

Spoiler

To keep the closet open, use the rope on the book.

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Happy Technobirthday, Technocrat!

[the log of the AGS Awards Ceremony 2012]

Here's a log of the awards ceremony for anyone who missed it and wishes to read it
the log of the AGS Awards Ceremony 2012

The Awards are over, but #ags on irc.agsarchives.com will be open every day, so everybody who enjoyed the nice company don't hesitate to drop by sometime.

Spoiler

My first ending was refusing to ally with Metromind, it was the worst ending in an adventure game ever. I just died and nothing else happened.

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Whoa, I really disagree, I thought it was a cool, emotionally strong ending. I was quite happy about it being included.
And obviously I strongly approve of all the optional missable stuff in the game.

It's my biggest talent and one of my biggest passions. It's one of the most enabling, empowering, liberating and just enjoyable things in my life. It's the best way to express myself that I know. It allows me to enable myself to fulfill my other sacred desires and dreams, pertaining first and foremost to gamemaking. Do I need to give more reasons?..

I hope they don't make you into a real man in the army because I'd terribly miss you being the little bitch you are <3

Having said that, I will terribly miss you either way and if it was in my power I'd abolish the military and the government for doing that to you. I hope they disqualify you for everything and send back home earlier.

Anyway, I'll be waiting for your return like for blowjobs! Take care, bro.

Bought, started playing. Absolutely bloody superb so far. Graphics, music, writing are all nothing short of awesome. Seriously, this is a rare treat, I must say I expected it to be much less great. I bow to the developers.

Adorably silly

Well there's also #lazyandsleepy on irc.lazyandsleepy.org ^_^

Regarding AGS IRC server, something is wrong with IPs and DNS. Connecting to irc.dasjoe.de works too.

Cheers for everybody who bought and will buy the summerbatch!
In case someone likes PISS soundtrack and thinks I (and my indie dev cause) deserve some additional support, you may proceed to buy the music from http://qptainnemo.bandcamp.com/album/piss or just get it for free if you think you've paid enough for the bundle.

Oh dear. Definitely didn't see that one coming.
I can certainly understand the appeal of Black Sect. For years I'd been haunted by its curious feel, obscurity and excellent pixel art. Until somebody kindly made a fan translation.
Now I know what it is and I have played it to the very end out of curiousity.
So - "a great game"?
Seriously?
As I said I completely understand the interest, it was one of the most intriguing games to me for years. But a great game? Really?
I wouldn't say it's a bad game. Because that wouldn't be helpful to describe its nature at all. I wouldn't say it's not interesting. Or not appealing. Or not fun. I especially wouldn't say it's not unusual. In fact that's the root of its problems. That game is an experiment and as such it's most definitely a failed one. I have no idea how one could call its ridiculous sadistic design good let alone great. So if you could explain such a high opinion of that game I'd be grateful I suppose.

So let's just say I respectfully disagree very much with your judgement regarding the original game.

Now with that out of the way I'm certainly glad to see that I'm not the only person ever who was interested in it. And I'm definitely curious to see your reworked version.
Having played a bit of it, I must say I like most of your improvements. It's definitely much more smooth and less tedious to play. You left certain tiny hotspots in but at least you made them more visible. I liked the puzzle improvements that I've spotted so far. Also "searching" is the only extra action that I miss from the original. I think more adventure games should experiment with it. However as pretty much everything else it wasn't used well at all in the original Black Sect so I think just adding it up to what you can do with the use action was reasonable on your part as well.
All the sound effects you put in are absolutely wonderful. Great job with that. Your music is much better than the orignal soundtrack as well! A bit curious where did you get all these sweet sound effects.
It'd be really nice if the smooth transitions of different daytime lighting were there instead of it changing only upon changing player's location, but it's hardly trivial to add so I understand you not wanting to bother with it.
Also this game could do with a bit more detailed hint system methinks.

All in all, your version plays so much nicer than the original it almost feels like a parody of some sort. Well done.

[NEVER]

It NEVER gets awkward with Pablo.

Pablo knows how to treat ladies. Well, sort of. At least he doesn't set them on fire or anything sick like that.

Pablo is quite charming and polite person. You can totally stand him for more than 3 minutes.

Ok.

Is anyone advocating moving to GPL even if we keep the project separate from ScummVM?

Whether the main fork of AGS is GPLed or not would change very little, but I do believe that in the given circumstances GPL would provide healthier developing atmosphere because any decisions made by the Official Elite Dev Team would have less severe impacts and would be easier to fix in case anything goes awry as well as would reduce the need to struggle forever over doubtful decisions, simplify experimentation, let be closer to the community (which everybody holds in high regard here, right?) and many other things.
And I'm not even talking about all the useful GPLed code that will be available to freely use with AGS, that benefit should be rather obvious.

[your]

According to GNU, plugins are considered derivative works, or part of the same software. Either way, the GPL would require plugins to be GPL.

Well. FSF are being a bit vague and contradictory on it. For instance:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#FSWithNFLibs
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs

Valve has very little to no documentation of the API as of this writing that is publicly available.

Docs don't equal API itself. The only relevant thing here is the API's own license and whether Valve allow you to expose code that interacts with it or not.
It'd be rather strange if they forbade you specifically that though.

If anyone wants to link to the Steamworks API license and prove me wrong, I wouldn't mind opening the source to AGSteam.

Why does anybody have to check if your claim has any grounds or not? You're simply admitting that it doesn't if you ask that.

Btw even if what you say about Steamworks licensing is true, isn't it strikingly obvious that GPL programs can dynamically link to any proprietary dlls so if AGS was under GPL there'd be no problem at all with that a closed source ags plugin would exist that provides the necessary steam interactions?

The Steamworks API is currently very restrictive in its licensing. To release an open-source AGSteam plugin would be to either break the license of the Steamworks API (and thereby infringe on the copyright of Valve)

Would you kindly link to the aforementioned license?

Personally I loved it: Haunting and moody. Thanks for sharing it!

Glad to hear it. Thanks for your kind words. *bows*