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[French Toast like my daddy taught me*]

Great idea for a thread, allow me to treat you to two recipes

French Toast like my daddy taught me*

You will need:

• Eggs
• Milk
• Slices of bread
• Granulated Sugar (Caster Sugar works too)

How to

• Heat a frying pan over a medium heat. Add some oil or butter.
• Break the eggs into a mixing bowl, add milk and whisk with a fork
• Dip a slice of bread in the eggy mixture until both sides are covered.
• Fry the soggy bread in the pan until golden brown.
• Remove from the heat and sprinkle (read: smother) with sugar on both sides
• Repeat for all the other slices of bread and enjoy

*I know it's not proper french toast but I've never bothered to look up the actual recipe

Saps

You will need:

• Bread
• Milk
• Margarine
• Sugar

How to

• Spread margarine on both sides of a few slices of bread
• Sprinkle both sides with sugar and cut into squares
• Put the bread squares in a microwaveable bowl and pour some milk on top
• Microwave for 30 seconds to a minute then enjoy the gooey sugary goodness

I like games that include physical interactions like this. The Dream Machine had a section where you rifled through a box of books by dragging them aside with the mouse. I do find mouse-clicks quite cumbersome for something like this though. What about a key press (space)?

My interpretation of your example above is that the player would need to click the mouse at certain intervals, not too quickly and not too far apart, to make the main character monkey-swing along the pipe. This reminds me a bit of those mini games where you have to hit a key while a moving target is within two bounds.

I'm not a fan of GUI's breaking the immersion so would suggest the mechanic is taught through the character animations. What about a combination of two keys to cause the character to 'swing' and grab the pipe hand over hand. The key press could initiate the swing or be timed to coincide with the grab. Perhaps a fumble animation could teach the player that they're pressing too quickly or sweating profusely when they're about to lose their grip because of moving two slowly.

To draw all this to a close I wrote a feature article about how I'm using the graphics you guys helped to refine to combine random sprites in the game:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/office-management-101/features/random-isometric-character-generation

Just saw your article on IndieDB myself and came back to post it here Really interesting approach.

Loving the graphics. Reminds me a lot of one of my all time favourites, Theme Hospital

Not to derail the topic but how does registering a name work (in the UK)? Do you have to register a company (sole trader for example) and be selling something or is it possible to claim/protect a name for freeware products? Is this separate to trademarking a name?

My two cents: "Segerbäck Studios"

Coming up with passwords is a pain.

In the past I've been guilty of being a bit lazy with my password choices, using favourite words and so on. I now use a password manager (1Password) but it's only since the announcement about Heartbleed that I've started using the strong password generation feature so I at least feel a bit safer. As I use apps for most social networks and can alternatively log in via 1Password itself, only having to remember the master password is a plus.

I think it's prudent to update our passwords in light of this, but not all at once since, as was said, it's useless if the websites haven't yet updated themselves. I'm at least taking a look at the certificates now and trying to educate my family about this (thanks for being considerate and posting about it here too). I'm trying not to panic my family too much when I tell them they've been at risk for at least two years..

Powerlaces exist, in as much as there was this Kickstarter ages ago. I didn't keep up with it though so not sure what's happening with it now.

I'd be more inclined to believe it if they kept falling over. It's just too clean cut to be real. A shaky, noisy YouTube video would be a lot more convincing than the slick all-star marketing promo on show here. If it hasn't happened already, it'll be revealed as a viral marketing ploy for something decidedly less impressive.

Thank you so much everyone! Glad you like the pictures:-D

PM sent, hope it's of some use

Good luck!

It sounds like a massive undertaking so I can understand your feeling burnt out, however I too hope this isn't goodbye completely. Take some 'me' time to recharge your batteries and feel good about what you've achieved. As you can see, your efforts are greatly appreciated. I hope we'll still see you on the forums:)

@Mods Haha thanks and you're very welcome, sorry I couldn't stay. Next time, promise!

@Trampoline Thank you! It's a gorgeous hotel, we were very lucky to find it=D

Back again after another long hiatus but this time I have a genuine excuse!

On 1st February I married my partner of thirteen years. It was a wonderful day and still seems unreal even now. It was very much a DIY wedding and we went with a literary theme. We spent a lot of time crafting all the details, it was a real labour of love over the last year.

We've already put some images in a public gallery so I don't mind sharing the link here for anyone interested in that kind of thing. (All images copyright Laura Calderwood Photography):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/starsandrainbows/sets/72157641363378373/

Since I've been full of wedding talk all year, if anyone is planning their own wedding and would like a sounding board, feel free to drop me a PM (and good luck wih your plans!)

Nice seeing the progress on this, it's come a long way.

The shadow in he latest image isn't going to work unless your building is one dimensional. It's also too angular and crisp given that it should be falling on the mountain (how far away is the mountain?) and grass. At the moment the shadow looks like a part of the building rather than being cast by it.

I would suggest making it softer and using a darker tone of the colours in the scene (shadows are not black, or grey). Also think about the building as a 3D shape. The roof overhangs the wall so that would cast a shadow also. Remember there can be more than one shadow and they can overlap. Work out where your light source is so that the shadows fall the right way - given you've gone for top left it will either be towards us or towards the mountain.

Looks very impressive and very slick presentation all round! I haven't used Unity for three years - wow, that long? - but just watching the Adventure Creator tutorial videos brings back lots of fond memories. Very reasonable price point too especially considering it works with Unity free. When the time's right for me to pick up Unity again, i'll definitely give this a whirl:)

I still play games on cassette

Nice walking around with your voices whispering in my head *ahem*

No big deal, but for some reason all the episodes are listed as published 1st Jan 2001 in the iPhone Podcasts app.. maybe the pubDate in the XML file?

Wow, seriously impressive, very distinctive entries from everyone! Congrats to everyone who took part 

I plan to play them all this weekend so I'm glad I haven't missed the deadline! Ending on Sunday is okay by me

Meanwhile, my own game is going to be retooled as a MAGS game. By some incredible coincidence, my OROW game has the exact same theme as this month's MAGS contest. Weird, right?

Afraid I'm going to have to do likewise, sorry to let you all down Among the pathetic excuses I can offer up are extra hours at work, wedding stuff, lack of Internet.. Yeah, pathetic!

I like what I've done with my idea so far so will try to release it this month either way. Excited to see so many of you racing past the finishing post - look forward to playing all the entries

I'm surprised that this seems to be such an issue.

I haven't entered something like this for a long time so feel free to shout me down, but I perhaps naively assumed that making a game in a week meant making almost everything from scratch.

I say *almost*  everything because I expected royalty free audio would be allowed (and necessary for the likes of me), however I realise that's contradictory and I'm not going to be precious about it. I've blown my own sound effects into a microphone before..

Either way, I thought the point of these things was to make a game in the short time demanded, regardless of how the assets are acquired.

I plan to roll my own (and risk causing blindness to players) but I have no problem submitting an entry alongside someone who uses royalty free assets - the 'winner' in my mind is everyone who completes a game they feel proud of, and a game is more than a collection of assets.

I have no issue with a theme if some find this helpful. I will shoehorn my idea in either way.

Whatever the decision - and cat already made one anyway - I'll stand by it. No-one is forced to enter after all.

Back on topic, I'm tentatively planning to enter this - and we all know how unreliable I am! - so I'm preparing as much of the idea in my head as I can this week.

Good luck to all involved.