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[Time Masters]

It was Time Masters (aka Les Maîtres du Temps) Based on Stephan Wul's The Orphan from Perdide

Looks great and it's on Play with artwork and English subs for a not too shabby £9.99 - yoink - another one added to my collection=D

Continuez gameboy..

One of the best sci-fi movie ever made by man kind. (After Blade Runner of Course  ).

I have no idea what that is and I want to see it too so hurry up with the answers people! How could I have missed what is clearly a masterpiece?!

Happy birthday Tabata

I hadn't heard this song before so I claim blissful ignorance of any classic status it might have..but I like your cover.

You say some of the timing is off but the words seemed to fall on the right notes to me. But what do I know.

I did find your voice came in a bit strong at the start over the gentle finger picking, but I didn't know what to expect so this didn't seem as harsh on subsequent listens. There were a couple of stilted chords at the beginning, a bit twangy, but once you got into it it was very smooth.

I don't care much for the Sinead O'Connor version at all, the organ(?) was a bit overdone. I prefer the solo guitar style you've done. In fact, unlike the gentle laid back meandering of your version, some of Sinead's lines were a bit forced and rushed to meet the chord changes. I liked the Ralph McTell version, it was pacier and more folk-like instrumentally(?) but like Tabata I love your voice *ahem* and would gladly buy your album(??).

Until then: http://www.thethoughtradar.com/blog/?cat=33

Suffice to say I didn't make the deadline (surprise surprise!), but this wasn't another of my now infamous ideas that never left my head. I did start something, despite not being able to start until friday, and I actually got a lot further than I expected. But it's unfinished and I can only keep up my day job whilst sleep-deprived for so long..

The real victory for me though has been finally making my first proper attempt at using AGS. I knew it already, but I have say, wow what an awesome piece of software *gushes* There was virtually no learning curve with the scripting and every time I had a question I found the answer in the manual, in densming's videos, or on the boards. It's been a joy to work with and I will definitely fire it up again this week. I'm not 100% happy with the game i've started - it's chock full of plot holes - so i'll either rework it or see if I can't come up with something else, either for MAGS, or just to satisfy my creative urges.

Kudos to everyone who got an entry in - and I'm looking forward to Chicky's game when it's finished!! - what a bumper bundle of gamey goodness!=D

Last night's Livestream of Ben Jordan has me all fired up again - dare I say I might attempt this.

   Entries may have cut scenes, menus or limited controlled sequences outside the main room.

What about cut scenes/controlled sequences inside the room, like transitions to show the passage of time? Might just go with a simple fade in/out stating the time though (now where did I see that..)

Nice one Dually!=D

P.S. I see Chicky's scribbles more as black tentacles of death pouring from her (his) eyes..in reverse

Last night was fantastic, definitely worth staying up for. Thanks for the insights and the superb voice acting;-)

Around 10pm is usually when i'm in my creative stride, perhaps you are too

Unfortunately it is a bit of an odd time for those of us living on future time (aka GMT)=S I've already hit my 'wall' for the evening, but i've somehow managed to miss every single one of these Livestream thingies you kids are doing these days (sorry!), so I feel obliged to at least try to make this one.

I'll fuel myself with coffee and another play through of Case 1 to while away the next 45 mins. Don't expect me to be very coherent at that time in the morning though, i'll probably just watch.

Eeek!

Don't blame me for giving away our only light source..you should be grateful..I saved our sorry ass..well, for all of two minutes=S

Think fast!!

[> Inventory]

Aarghh why did no-one check the gun was loaded??

> Inventory

You are carrying an empty wallet, a mobile phone (blocked), a chewed piece of gum, a car key, a level 9 id card, two dismembered hands, an unlit torch, a jacket, a stapler, pens, a note, blu-tac, and an empty handgun

Set the alarm on the mobile phone to 1 minute from now, stuff the mobile phone inside the second dismembered hand (presumably the fresher, more squishy one) and throw it across the room. Might as well stick the gum in there too - hopefully this 'thing' will choke and die on it.

While the thing is busy munching on the musical hand, leg it!!

[>inventory]

>inventory

You have an empty wallet, a mobile phone (blocked), a chewed piece of gum, a car key, a level 9 id card, and a dismembered hand

>Take bone
>Take drapes
>Combine bone with drapes to make (unlit) torch
>take jacket
>go down

(Fantastic )

EDIT: @stupot Aha! I'm not the only one concerned about the impending darkness..

Hey congratulations, haven't used Yahoo services in yonks but that sounds like a positive development. It's good to get your name and your writing out there. I hope to see more of your work.

Your article was interesting but very short I found. It seems to stop midway through when really I was expecting more. On the definition of casual / hardcore classifications, it's a fuzzy line in my opinion, but i'd probably go for our investment in game(s) - which is not necessarily an investment of time, but instead going deeper into the mechanics as you suggested, or the story or any other facet. I suppose creating fanart and cosplay could be considered hardcore because of the emotional involvement with the game.

I would call myself a casual gamer now, and by that I don't mean that I play simple coffee break games. I think that's a poor definition. I just don't invest as much time in games as I used to and not many titles can hold my interest now. I still engage deeply with the right game, but I don't follow the charts like I once did. I've stepped off to the side for a breather.

My tastes have changed too. Although i've never been what I would call 'hardcore', there was a time where I invested a lot of time and effort in games. StarCraft, Command & Conquer, Sonic, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Tombraider..were my staples. Now though i'm completely turned off by most of the new releases. The shooters all look so samey and generic to me now.

Instead i'm really into adventure games and indie titles, particularly anything niche and retro. The independent scene is breath of fresh air compared to the mainstream offerings. Admittedly, I only 'discovered' adventure games four years ago when I went to uni and researched the old classics, but the experience has been thrilling. Even here on the boards, there's more care and detail in many of the games than can be found in many commercial games. All that talk about trying to successfully implement story in games is a bit late: adventure games figured that out years ago in my opinion.

I think casual/hardcore transcends genres. I'm playing Mass Effect 2 right now and thoroughly enjoying it. Yes, it's a shooter, but it also has a lot of the adventure stylings I love. It's fantastic and i've actually finished it, but i'm replaying it to get a better ending, do all the side missions and get all the trophies. I see my involvement with it bordering on hardcore, not because I can play at suicidal difficulty levels (I really can't!) or for all the extras i'm collecting, but because i'm very emotionally involved with the game. The writing is some of the best i've seen and i'm quite attached to several of the characters. It's a game I feel compelled to play time and again.

It's a difficult one to pin down this. My thoughts above are rather contradictory to be honest. I can only suggest it's a combination of factors.

What do you mean when you said you were a bit more led by the hand than you would like? Do you mean that there's a lot of handholding that guides the player throughout the demo?

Hi, sorry for the late reply. Yeah, that's what I meant, not that it's a bad thing though. Also, it's probably a bit of an unfair comment as this is the introduction so some handholding is to be expected.

Really, really enjoyed the demo and look forward to seeing more!!=D

Very nice!! The graphics are very easy on the eye and the music paces the game well. I like the animated cursors and character animations especially. There were a couple of small grammatical errors and I was a bit more led by the hand than I would like, but overall it's looking really impressive. Today's the day of the competition deadline I think, were you able to enter?

Woo! Downloading..

=D

I think this is a brilliant idea - I hope we have this every year.

I started a game for MAGS a couple of months back that i've been planning to finish so this is more incentive to try. I aim to have something playable at least.

In the meantime, here's a couple of screenies from yet another unfinished MAGS I started in July last year. I don't really plan to finish it but I did suffer through a hard drive failure to get it this far so it should at least be seen by someone;-) The theme was about a scientific breakthrough changing the course of humanity. My idea was about a scientist who discovers the cure for a disease that has been decimating the poorest of the population, only to have the company he works for seize all his research and peddle it out to the highest bidder while his daughter lies dying..heh

P.S. I know the character sprite has an ugly outline..what was I thinking?!

[very]

That's an incredibly useful mini-tutorial Ben! :o

Thank you very much for taking the time to break it down like this - There's lots of very useful tips in the there (I always wondered how to get the 'warm glow look' i've seen in other games).

One to bookmark;-)

Very nice! Good work on the historically-accurate conversation options;-)

Wow, this looks gorgeous=D Everything shown so far is very cohesive and well thought out.

Well done, I look forward to the end result.

That was absolutely brilliant. It's cute and hilarious=D

I know Ryan did all the techie work bringing it together but you get a real sense that the game was 'made by' Cassie.

I love this kind of stuff - I really think that game creation should be accessible to everyone and i'm always interested to see tools that make that easy like Scratch and Kodu. Not that his UGAGS engine is such a tool - I haven't actually found out much about it - but I think he leans in that direction.

It was a nice distraction that has me feeling uncommonly warm and fuzzy inside.