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That's interesting. I never heard of those. What is also interesting is that 90% of underground adventure games seem to never make it to any major adventure gaming forums and they exist only within communities dedicated to specific engines.

You make a good point there! I hadn't heard of them either. I only found them as I specifically went looking for them, and those are the only two that I found, and both student projects. There must be similar projects out there, yet it's quite surprising that the usual adventure haunts haven't been abuzz with news of them.

You know, it wouldn't be that difficult for someone to make an 'adventure game' library that could be easily ported to work in multiple engines that support c++ (or whatever language you use).  For example, it wouldn't be a big deal to design the framework for a gui designer much like AGS's that allows you to call up and use your designs along with responding to mouse clicks.

That's a fascinating idea ProgZ, can you elaborate? Are there any examples of existing projects? Not that my poor coding skills would amount to anything like that in a million years, but i'd be interested to find out more about the kind of thing you're talking about. It sounds like creating an 'adventure game' plugin for a near feature-complete Engine, or building some sort of developer interface for an Engine that's more bare bones (just modules of graphics, sound etc). I may have misunderstood though.

Let's continue with engines comparisons.

Yes let's! These examples are a feast for the eyes=)

[Idea]

I'm so glad I didn't have time to attempt the underground station I had in mind. Even the imagined version in my head was nowhere near as impressive as Sookie's=O

Wow! Woah, that will teach me to have my gamma up to high at home. Checked it at work today and I can barely see it.

Yeah, it's very dark on my iMac, but looks really good on my iPod?? There's a lot of impressive fine detail in there that gets overlooked when you can't see it=( Nice entry though, well done!

Idea - Mad
Atmosphere - SookieSock
Design - oraxon
Composition - Mad
Functionality - Mad
Technique - Mad

A very high calibre of entries everyone; you don't make it easy do you?;-)

My thoughts are with you and your family Snake. Just know that you are not alone.

My uncle died of cancer and my sister's father in law too. It's a horrible, painful way to lose someone. Losing my uncle was hard because I saw him change from the happy, strong man I knew as a child, but I cherish the good times I had with him. There will be good days and bad, all you can do is be thankful for the time you had together.

Bravo Darth, well said: this is General Discussion after all and if Grim wants to talk about it, why shouldn't he?

I for one am thankful he started this thread. Yes, it's painful to be reminded of events like these, but I don't think that we should simply bury them so long as we treat them with due care and respect. I think that's exactly what Grim has done: I don't see that he's being callous or sensationalist like those bloody tabloids. He's started a valid discussion that has deep and far-reaching questions - many of which I still cannot answer myself - and has succeeded in bringing this particular story to our friends around the world who may not have known about it.

Yes, it's been talked about before, and will continue to be whenever people feel the need. If people think they've heard it all before and don't want to talk about it, then don't. But don't shout down others who do. All Grim was asking for in his original post - and i'm sorry I missed it Grim - was for people to spare a thought for little James. I have no connection to James other than being human and feeling horrified at the circumstances of his death. Grim wasn't suggesting that James' death is any more 'important' than the terrible events taking place in Japan - he simply highlighted a case which had moved him personally - and I agree with Dual: we're not equally affected by these events; how can we be? Our experiences and relationship to the people involved will always play their part, and it's not right simply to go by numbers. Just because something happened years ago or on the other side of the world, doesn't mean that we can't care.

I'm doing one.

Yay!=D

Fantastic entries everyone, well done!

Nice background Snath and welcome to the forums. Maybe post it in the Critics Lounge too to get some more detailed feedback?

In general doubt you can make something like an adventure game with the public Source tools.

I don't know about that. I'm sure i've heard of the Source Engine being used for all kinds of genres for which it wasn't intended. A quick Google and here's a couple of, admittedly old, 3D adventure game examples made with the Source Engine:

Shantytown

Weekday Warrior

Here's a Video of Weekday Warrior (although the interface looks a bit clunky)

I don't have HL2 installed right now so i'm not sure how traditional point n' click they are. Also, i've never gotten around to learning Source so can't comment on how easy it is to make point n' click style games with it.

I do agree with EHCB though when he says you can turn pretty much anything into an adventure game with a little ingenuity. I see no reason why you can't pick an existing engine like Source or *shameless plug* Unity and make it work for you. Someone, somewhere will have done half the work for you anyway;-) Don't get me wrong: i'm all for lowering the accessibility barrier and I *don't* subscribe to the idea that drag and drop game creation has to be dumbed down and lacking in features - and why should it? Everyone has imagination and everyone should be able to turn that into games if they want to. It doesn't have to be the antithesis of scripting, you can have both, it's just all in the way you present it. I'm always on the look out for that kind of visual creation software for games and software development in general as it's an approach that really interests me - I think it's a wonderful idea to free the designer in all of us - but the lack of such a program for 3D Adventure Games shouldn't hold you back.

I'd be very interested to see if you do settle on an existing engine and try to make an adventure game with it. I wish you every success. As for myself, when I get my other projects out of the way, i'll probably return to Unity and do just that. For the most part, you can do a lot of work just in the visual editor, including GUIs (although it's easier if you script them), and when it does come to scripting, the language isn't that hard and there's lots of people in the forum and UnityAnswers boards willing to help out. Things like point n' click in 3D, inventory systems, dialog boxes, have already been done, so there shouldn't be too much to overcome.

I'm glad you started this thread, it's been a great read so far, lots of good examples.

Lol@Atelier

Genius=D

This is pretty disappointing. Even if the description didn't smack of soul-destroying capitalist ideals and the one measly screenshot did justify the price, the whole approach is just wrong.

For starters, there have to be better ways to present your product than chucking it on a site like this. The whole thing is ugly and clunky. Personally I don't have much time for any domains ending in 'z' like they're so coolz but I guess someone must use it (odd how all the most popular items in the Software category are by the same developer..) There's not even a profile of this developer or a link to *their* site (not that I would expect them to have bothered making one). I mean, at least grab some hosting, add one of the many shopping cart modules and write a proper sales pitch with screenshots.

I gave the demo a go for the hell of it and, while I don't judge games on graphics alone, it's quite clear that no love has been put into this. The buildings in the town are just quick boxes with names slapped on. Where's the visual cues, the subtlety, the 'showing not telling'?? Also no effort has been made to hide the edge of the map: the road just disappears into blueness=O

That and the various stats you're supposed to monitor are all accessed by buttons (and ugly grey defaults at that) and they give read outs like 'Your mood is 10', 'the time is 21' and so on. Why the arbitrary numbers? I have a mood of 10? Is that a good feeling? Anyway, who has the patience to click buttons all day just to see what their health is? Please tell me you've seen HUD indicators in at least one other game..

Even the easy stuff has been overlooked - why is the Use cursor just an arrow? Why are the hotspots so fiddly? Why is the 'how to play' just a splurge of text? Why not rename the default AGS folder and give the game a proper icon? There's a walking animation in the game so clearly time has been spent on this, but why not give it the love it deserves? For the love of CJ, why?!

I love sim games like the Sims, Sim City and Theme Hospital etc (ahh nostalgic moment..), and would especially like to see attempts done with AGS, but this is just heart-breaking to see. It's not a terrible game, I can overlook the graphics, and some thought has gone into the gameplay (well I assume so from the description, I didn't actually play long enough to have a hang over or go to church - what fun), but this isn't ready for commercial release yet. I suggest you start a Games in Production thread and take it from there. This could be great if you're willing to put the effort in.

So what can you do in this game?

Get a job and go to work!

Rent flats!

Gee, thanks, I really should do that more..

EDIT: I would gladly pay $30 for pictures of Mods' friends cats=P

Mine arrived today too!

The rest of the household are soooo jealous right now=D

Thanks guys!

Lol! Those are great examples guys=D

Last year my girlfriend and I went as the band Sparks (myself as the keyboard player, her as the singer.)
Year before we were Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers (BEFORE the film came out, yes, we ARE the coolest.)
Year before thaaaaaaat I was Rorschach from Watchmen (again, before the film came out.)
And the year before that me and Jake had a competition to see who could do the best Two-face (again, before Dark Knight came out, but I'm pretty sure everyone knew who I was anyway.)

Yes, you're right. I am awesome.

Yep, you are most definitely awesome. I bow to your awesomeness..

I don't do fancy dress, but I'm reluctantly being dragged along to a fancy dress party next weekend. The geek in me wants to go as something game-y and I have an idea in mind that I'll post in this thread if it comes to fruition.

I'm more interested in hearing about, and seeing embarrassing pictures of, other folks fancy dress costumes. Any takers? Doesn't have to be fancy dress, maybe you just like to dress up..I won't tell anyone;-)

Unity is brilliant, I used it for my dissertation (now that was a bad game.. *shudders* ). If I wasn't working on other projects, i'd probably start fiddling around in Unity again.

I agree with most of what the others said: it's not a bad game and there's lots of potential there. I think your last post shows that - you have lots of ideas for things (and lovely art btw) so you're limited only by your imagination and willingness to improve it.

I think the controls are the main issue really, jumping just isn't very smooth and I personally found it very hard to pull off the jump up wall and dash. I would be jumping up a wall, holding the right arrow, then press dash to fly off to the left and break the wall but if I was too slow (which I am, generally!) to take my finger off the right key I would fall short and miss the ledge on the other side. I agree, being able to change direction in mid-air would help a lot, but also what about zig-zag jumping up walls? so jumping at a wall and pressing jump again bounces you off it, then repeat on the other side all the way up?

Spitting didn't seem very effective (maybe I ran out of spit??) but I like the idea and being able to hide from enemies is a nice twist. Maybe have the eye piece change colour to reflect your health (if it did, I didn't notice, sorry). Overall the graphics are lovely, and can only get better with more colourful pickups and signposting.

I hope you keep working on this, it has a lot of potential=)

By the way, the source files have just been uploaded.

Awesome!! I got the jist of Wyz's original source so will see what I can make of this.

Yay finally got the MP4 downloaded, thanks Abstauber=D Re the youtube thing: seems you need someone who has an old Director account to be able to upload longer than 15 mins, it's no good switching now. I'd offer to host but I don't have my own server so not sure what restrictions my host would put on it..the whole server thing is a bit of a black hole to me i'm afraid. If Peder can host it on his own server, great, i'll be sure to donate.

Congratulations!!

Well done both of you, this was a really tough one to call and i'm glad to see that was reflected in the votes, they're both really good entries. You should both be very proud of yourselves=D

Haha, Sughly that's fantastic, I loved that film=D

EDIT: Friday already?! Gah! This one never evolved beyond an idea=( I'll have to (dis)gracefully bow out, sorry.

Excellent entries everyone!

Brilliant ceremony and my thanks to everyone who made the magic happen. Definitely want to see something like this again next year, if not before as a regular IRC hangout (with a different background).

No bunnies were harmed in the making of this production. Theo tho..

Far too late for the actual ceremony, but thought i'd mess around trying to create a character (my first!) anyway. Here's what I got so far. Only 3 frames so it's a bit jerky - it's much smoother in AGS tho - and the up/down views are horrible as I can't draw animals face on. Can't draw them from the side either but you know..


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2219326/ein.chr

Less than an hour to go folks!!

Yeah looks buggered - it's almost 3pm here (GMT) so it's 6 hours away..

Welcome to the forums TonyJ (and csaboo). Both good points I think Tony, although I personally haven't gotten beyond my initial ideas in all my time on the boards so I haven't had hands-on experience with the manual/plugins much. Maybe you should repost on one of the other boards and get a discussion going? Not sure which, maybe Adventure-related Talk and Chat or General Discussion. Probably wise to have a search for existing topics first though.

Sounds like you've already made a lot of progress, I look forward to seeing your finished game.

The AGS Awards are tonight at 21:00 GMT, why not stop by on IRC or using the interactive game version Dualnames and Wyz made?=)

That makes me feel sick=S