audiodane

That's certainly one way to do it. Designing a system is subject to the designers themselves. Bottom-up designers like to get the minute details working (interface details, item interaction, etc) and then "build outward" to a more complete solution. Top-down designers like to get the overall system architected (overall world map, background graphics, puzzle outlines, storyboards, etc) and then fill in the details. Both approaches have pros and cons, and many design teams are usually made up with both types of people, as well as both visionaries and implementers, questioners and doers, arti

I've never designed a game, but I did stay at a holiday inn express last night -- so my thoughts are that there are probably some elements that are global, some regional, and some specific. In other words, there will be some refinements that permiate through the entire game (like how a character picks something up), some that may be more regional (such as how a particular item is interacted with), and some specific (such as how a particular puzzle is interacted with, clickable regions, order-of-operations, etc). Therefore it is likely that some fixes and improvements are made as the game is

Ahhhh, well that makes a lot more sense now, thank you. Will the final game have both spoken and text options? I expect conversation between two characters in text modes will be difficult to manage without overlapping texts.. ? I can't imagine all the tiny details that crop up that you have to deal with.. ..dane

I don't know if it's been said already, but I find it odd that "eye"ing something, for instance, while walking around, that the resulting description that pops up follows Ace around. Is it just me or should pop-up dialog be fixed on the screen? I also think it can be difficult to read at times. I like pop up dialog though, can't quiet identify why. Throwback to traditional adventure styles? Can't decide whether or not the game should pause while the dialog is displayed.. That would be TRUE throwback to nostalgia. At the same time, we used to use that fact to help figure out time-sensit

I expect a lot has been learned about even "simple" updates to the KS with this alpha release. I don't think it should squelch the amount of information flow, but I do think future releases will better manage expectations. At the same time, you never know how hundreds of people are going to interact with something until you release it the first time. How many ways can you solve a puzzle, how many divergent steps can you take from the author's intended gameplay? It sounds like the first days of the alpha have provided *TONS* of input both to the PR team and the code team. And that's the goa

Awesome.. I was hoping you'd say that, but completely understand the reasoning if you hadn't. I can't imagine what it takes to do what you need to do for such cross platform support. I am sure the engine promises much, but it likely still takes a lot to ensure the game itself can support what the engine offers. I'm glad you're already thinking about profiling. And I hope my retired work laptop (that is now our primary family laptop) is up to the task when all is done. Believe me I know about state machines! I'm an FPGA designer -- a hardware programmer -- and many of m

Whew.. finally finished the demo! It took digging out the docking station for my laptop to use the DVI interface, digging out a DVI to HDMI cable from the garage, getting Windows to properly recognize the TV as an HD desktop, and running it there. (That said, it looks pretty sweet in 1080p on my 50" Panasonic Plasma!) Took me multiple tries.. And I also finally figured out save and load. For some reason, I kept reading CTRL-S and L .. I finanally figured that SHIFT-S and L worked.. Going back through the thread, I realize this was being written all along! Du-OH. Loading has iss

Hi all. I'm glad I thought to come here. Just did by chance. I like all the conversation going on here about the alpha release. It's helped me through a few bugs already.. I'll try to add only useful information. First most basic question; are we going to see refinements to the demo as things progress, or is the demo a "completely different build" and as effort is made on the primary game, the demo will remain the release we see today? Also, FWIW, I have a laptop trying to run the demo and have some issues.. It's by no means a "gamer" laptop, but I don't think by any means that