Bing me sunshine

Well, I reviewed the first Tales of Bingwood game over at AdventureGamers. I think, actually, I really hate reviewing games which is odd because for some reason I like beta testing them, which is somewhat similar. Oh well. Perhaps its because with one you're trying to bring the game down and with the other you're trying to make it better?

Oh and don't believe Dualnames, I'm not in Spain yet!

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Well, I'm going to sort of holidays today, so well I won't be posting for a few days. But I'll return, I promise. Hopefully SSH , now somewhere in Spain, might post, so you'll have something to look at.

Well, happy next year folks.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I pre-scheduled this post... what's you're excuse for using the computer when ou should be with the family?

There should be a fun adventure carol thing up on AdventureGamers today, which I contributed to...

3.1.1 out

No sooner have I blogged on Final 3 than CJ makes it THE release, so stuff that in your stocking!

BJ Eight screenie

Grundislav has given you a Christmas present of a screenshot from BJ8!

Final Three

Well, looks like Final 2 wasn't even final enough and Final 3 of AGS 3.1.1 is out!

Oh, and this might well be post #400!

It's nearly Xmas(Mods brought them)

With what I just saw, only Mods is missing to make Christmas come.

Santa Claus Down, Mods Up!!:

Mods actually brought Christmas..and made his first completed game. Wooh. Not the one I was expecting,but well I made some no music for it so go and listen to it. The game is a first person shooter about Santa..

-Games to play:
Eye of Geltz:
Le Woltaire has just released this. A sort of an investigative game..and a mystery covered one. Well, to add more try and get yourself over 12 years old, because the game isn' the one for minorines. A planet has two sides. One dark and one light thus two civilizations, who are not familiar with each other apart from legends. So 'nough said go check it here.

Road Racer:
Ryan has finally released his driver top-down racing game apparatus. And well despite it's small, it's too small to be true, hopefully a release with more levels will make its appearance in the next months. So to quote: Are you man enough to beat this game? Ryan is.

Merry Christmas Alfred Robbins:

Well, HillBilly tried to keep it a secret. But failed miserably.
Go check this.

-Games to wait for next year:
Cadaver Heart:
Kromagnon, a newbie has promised a release of a DOTT graphic style adventure game. Yay.

-Competitions on the paper:
Almost Christmas for Mags, well 40 hours deadline has been given till we get some fun on the 25th. Another extension, for the colouring ball by Twirlly as well. Trihan has won the writting competition by the way. Who he beat is not important.

-Things to check out:
Irrelevant yes,but whatever check the SLOGANIZER.

Minor AGS Fix

CJ fixed a wee bugette in AGS 3.1.1. Final and so now Final 2 is available for d/l

Almost X-mas!!

-Things to Check Out:
Christmas Quest Trilogy are featured in Adventure Gamers. I hope you've played them already. If not, go ahead.

-Competitions on the fly:
Backgroundblitz 19 December - 4 January (Zyndicate):
Can you draw opposites? An interesting idea indeed. Hope we get some people on it fast.

Photoshop Phursday 19-26 December(rock_chick):
After winning now it's all about making your favorite celebraties make a commercial advertisment...go pick one.

Tune food contest which ends on christmas eve(Inkoddi):
Make a tune about a food?! Well, weird as hell, but well, you have to make a tune that will make Inkoddi attack the fridge.

Sprite Jam(Misj):


Well, that's definetely a cool idea Misj has come up with. Create A-Team. A team of Fantasy Warriors. Go make some will ya? The world needs saving!!

Reality on the Tube

Dave Gilbert did a brief history of RON in a presentation which you too can enjoy on YouTube. More background in the forum thread on the same.

Every adventure ever in 2 minutes

Well, maybe not all, but The Adventuress points out this cool youtube montage of adventure games.

Handy code snippet #378

Babar was just asking on Stickam how you'd set a particular inventory item to be first of your inventory window (not rearranging inv item order, but just scrolling the window to the correct point). And here we are:

function settop(this InvWindow *, InventoryItem *thing)
{
  int itemi=0;
  while (itemi < this.TopItem) {
    if (this.ItemAtIndex[itemi]==thing) {
      this.TopItem=itemi;
      return;
    }
    itemi++;
  }
}

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Well, the weather outside is frightful and the SimpleSnow module is so delightful, that at Marion's request, I updated it to work much better with higher resolutions, 32-bit colour AND AGS 3.1 so go and add a snow scene to all your games, OR ELSE!

btw, sorry for not blogging much recently!

Nothing new,we're 'bout to chew.

-Games to See?!

Murphy's Salvage:
I haven't checked this out ye, but Mods wrote some tracks, the idea sounds cool,..

-Competitions on the fly:

Photoshop Cross Dressers (11-18 Domino):
Domino rue the day almost, by deciding for a few minutes that now that he has won Progzmax comp, the competition has really fallen in decline. At least he is honest..

Animation See Santa?!(9-23 Twirlly):
Can you make Santa do stuff? Not kinky stuff..

Geraduatuza's Background Blitz - Nov.25 - Dec.07 - Trapped -
Zyndicate's as usual blow-mind entry was won, but abstaubers and Babar's inspired could have done it as well..




Pslim Gender Bender Sprite Jam just got Misjed.
Apparently Misj won..space boy got a duke sprite and a second place and somebody got third place..oh yeah Hoffmeier. With a trilby sprite.


-Things to Check Out:
Well, Greece is burning as we speak, but well it appears that the critics lounge has been overrun by one man..anyway..check this coolish song by Moody Blues. And this blog, might seem of interest to you...if you need a blast from the past..

3.1.1 Final

CJ's moved on to the "Final" pre-release of AGS 3.1.1, ready for release in a few days. AGS just keeps getting better!

Ivy Indieviews

Erin has posted the first of three indie developer interviews that she did to other developers while at a Montreal conference thingy.

Your wish is CJ's command

AGS 3.1.1 is nearly done, but get your suggestions for the next version in to the wishlist thread.

Don't let it die!

You, yes you. Get off your lazy buttocks and go and write something for the writing competition. Last one there's a big pansy.

Ben Made It Happen

Another Colourwise pack bites the dust:

Along with Ghost's Retro Level Pack, Bicilottis's Clever Hacks, it appears that someone that didn't belong to the team, gave colourwise the boost it needed. It looks, it feels and damn it plays amazing..so here's a small story level packed boost by Ben304.

Google trawl

A couple more things I found on google:

• Yahoo Glue on AGS
• What makes an adventure game great?

View on what's new.

-Games to see:

Thorak and Steve Episode 101: The Hunt Begins:

Well, this just came out, so what's the story? Well, remember the MAGS about Stone Age. Good. Now add a very intelligent homo sapiens called Thorak and Steve , a barely involved ape(in brain terms). It's a comedy setting game, with coolish music, voice acting, and verbcoin interface.


-Games about to come:

-Testgaemia? Yep.

A test game by Anomaly, with 3d graphics, which is actually pretty good looking. It's very weird that it is his first AGS game, but anyway. The game will be 10 roomed.


-Competitions On The Fly:

Sprite Jam Gender Bender:(Pslim):
It appears that there's a lot of interest. Even someone made Boobin Threadbare..cracked me up.

Background Blitz 25/11 - 7/12(Geratuaza):
Well, the host has decided a trapped theme. All you have to do is make a room, that will depict that feeling.

Coloring Ball(Twirly) 4/12 -15/12:
Twirly after beating Akatosh's paddle, and Ghost on the last competition (hosted by Blue), is now hosting this coloring ball. Theme: Presents!!

Abstauber's animation(Also won by Twirly(she's on a winning streak):
It appears that Twirly can't stop winning boys. After all boys mostly win those. I'm glad to see a girl win to be honest. Go twirly!!

Musical Competition -Retro NES Style(Dkh):
Definitely a theme I would pick. Dkh has decided to allow entries only if he can hear the sweet sound of NES blips.

-Things to Check out:

Rick J found a very useful thing, that makes me feel less a man, but well, whatever..Ghost appears more of a woman than I am so that is comforting. Go check Site Gender Analyzer.

Apparently a 46% said that they got the wrong gender. My profile is manly, my blog is womanly, my posts are manly, what am I?

AGS 3.1.1 RC2

CJ put up AGS 3.1.1 RC2 yesterday, which fixed a number of the issues with new features.

JABDTD

Just Adventure have reviewed Ben There Dan That in their unique style and throw in some passing praise for Fountain of Youth, too. BTDT gets a B rating overall.

Sinister and Strange

Jonas Kyratzes, who wrote The Museum of Broken Memories has got a new quasi-adventure out called The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge. Not AGS, but you may wish to check it out.

Ivy Converges on Release

Well, thanks to his busyness with Emerald City Confidential, Dave Gilbert has announced that he's hired Erin 'Ivy' Robinson to manage the getting of Blackwell Convergence out the door. He's also given an interview about ECC, so check out the latest Wadjet Eye updates.

Prizes can make you less miserable, crook!

-Are you less miserable?

It appears that Chris Tolworthy is on the final 10 days, separating him from releasing Les Miserables. It appears that yesterday, he fixed a lot of stuff on the game. If you haven't figure this out, this game is taking you inside the book. Yeah, the famous book. It appears that Tolworthy is planning on making us play every book we loved. Next is Dante's Divine Comedy.



-The Knobbly Crook is back in black:
While AC-DC have nothing to do with the game, the bloodiest and most disgusting ags game seems to be resurrected today. There's even a demo game with one room, but it still looks good, and well, I think we might play this one day.You play as a simple paper farmer who realizes he has a power. Something that has to do with the rock, paper, scissors theme , has a big part in the Knobbly Crook.


-Competitions on the fly:

Musical Feud(Phema):
As nobody would expect it, not that dkh doesn't really deserve it, DKH has won the first prize. Runner up was Thomas Regin , considered as a winner by me, sorry for that, and third place was taken by Funkmast(the man who composed for Besieged).

Sprite Jam Gender Bender(Pslim):

Well, if you want a booby prize like this, you better hurry. Can you draw a sprite so manly that it looks like a woman?



Fortnightly Writing Competition(rock chick):

"Okay the theme is Vivid memory or memories, basically the restriction is the memory or memories need to be real in the story." appears to be the theme as rock chick said, well, go take your pen and write something,sonny.

Wierd web stuff

Here's a couple of nearly-adventures from the web:

Pragaras: a flash game where you explore someone's dystopic wierdness

The Lake: another Lovecraftian game, simple but spooky.

Not so wierd: Gamastura do a retrospective on The Last Express

Stockton Sixth Form College

Yes, a wierd post title, but my little spies at google analytics tell me that ONE visit to my site was referred from Stockton Sixth Form College, and I'm very intrigued. Anyone can shed some light, please comment!

View To Kill

-Competitions On The McFly:
Well, definetely a lot of movement here.

• Pilf has announced the winners of the Sprite Jam -Seasons. Pslim made it happen. Ghost was a runner up, and Ben304 just made it.

That's the award!
That's the Entry!

• Blue's Coloring Ball, definetely caught fire, with Geratuatuza posting a worm's based entry. Definetely one of the best I've seen.
  

• Photoshop Contest by Obi has been won by Progz, who re-claimed his trophy. Abstauber's disgusting entry luckily didn't make it. Progzmax started a new competition right away. What if Chuck Norris could beat Bruce Lee.. appears to be the theme of the competition..sort of.
  

• Abstauber's Animation Contest, appears not to be won by Blue by default. Twirly entered the competition..and she's wild..and all.
  

What are you playing, and what you should play:
Well, it seems that some coolish games are out.

Besieged or how to get out of a castle..
Baron and Yarooze have it made it and Funkmast wrote a music for that. And even before Christmas. If you enjoy medieval sort of games, like Damsel, you'll definetely get a crash with this one. A shovel was never this fun. Give it a try, will you!



Vic Wreckles's Halloween Costume
That might save your life, as how many time's have you found yourself without a costume on Halloween?

Time to learn what you should have done!!

The only one stopping you is yourself.




Barn Runner 5: Forever Friday..part 2.
I've finished this yesterday. I must say that as the Barn Runner games get more, I get merrier. I'm having trouble saying something that's not my opinion on this game, so mind that. Well, the puzzles seem to be more logical than part 1, as playing you'll get the feeling that puzzles are made in section logic, which is great, you finish the game sort of faster than part 1, but it feels more and more of an interactive movie. There's a long cutscene at the end, which looks cool. Mostly, the game has good animations, but I've to agree that Harry needs a proper walkcycle, or at least one that looks better. As for the story, well chaos has erupted, but you're there to save the day. The game has two playable characters, Harry and Prick. Weird is that when you get the one, most puzzles are based on the other.

Man vs Fish vs Nightwatch

Well, Cheerio's Man vs Fish won the November 2008 MAGS battle, beating out Buckethead's decent Nightwatch effort.

Cheerio's choice of theme for December is Real World/Holiday World and bicilotti has already promised to enter, so if you don't want that colourwise Italian winning the Christmassy-themed MAGS by default then go and start your own one NOW!

Pick Poll Postmortem

Well, Damsel came top with 18 votes and then came Barn Runner 5/2 with 10 votes. Dr Lutz and Odot Tamat On also did respectably and all the choices got at least 2 votes, so no-one needs to feel completely rejected!

So, Damsel is this month's pick (you can also see Leon's review of it on this blog) and I'll keep Barn Runner in mind for the future. Thanks for your input folks and if people complain now, I'll blame you.

Lovecraft: is that like the love boat?

Lemmy and Binky of the pneumatic nurse AGS game-in-production The Forgotten Element have released a 3D game as part of TIGSource's Lovecraft competition. Carrion Re-Animating lets you raise the dead and have lots of zombie fun, although its not very adventure-y. You can't have everything!