MusicallyInspired

That was great! Lol I love when the title comes in and the III is unceremoniously thrown to the floor and doesn't make it to the center of the screen like the words. And then it just stays there lol. That's hilarious. Also, I edited your post and embedded the video instead of just linking to it. For anyone interested, you only have to add "[media]" tags to video links and they'll mostly work and embed right in your posts.

Ahhhhhh wish I was able to have backed.

Banned? Lol that's too bad. A lot of people enjoyed it. The biggest issues people had were of the wire, knot, and shoe puzzles. I loved those. They frustrated me while I was trying to figure out how they worked, but that doesn't mean they're bad and it doesn't mean I didn't like them. Some people thought Act 1 was way too easy and Act 2 was way too hard. One person even said that there's a special place in hell for the person who designed the wiring puzzles. They weren't even that bad! Some people just freak out over that stuff. I was very surprised and happy to see that DF wasn't afraid of including them, though. It got people drawing on paper again! :) I didn't draw myself, but I did make a spreadsheet for the shoe puzzle.

Just finished Broken Age. Both acts. Right from the start. I purposely started over to experience the entire game in one sitting (well, not one sitting, but one playthrough with both acts in context). That's more like it, Tim. I wouldn't say quite up to Day of the Tentacle or other Golden Era game standards, but much much closer this time. I was scratching my head on a few occasions and when I was worried the game was over it carried on for even a little while longer than I expected it to. MORE of that, please! I was hoping for more locations than what we'd seen in Act 1, but judging by the content of the documentary, it's just great to see the thing finished at all. Not only that it feels done and polished too, not unfinished. I would have said backing the game was worth it anyway even if I didn't enjoy the final product, but I'm even happy with the content this time around (Act 2). It's obvious what he considers "harder" puzzles are just logic puzzles, but it did stretch it out and not in an un-entertaining way. I was DOING stuff and I had to do MORE stuff just to GET other stuff. I was busy and I wasn't bored once. This satiated my process-of-elimination mind well. It was great. I liked the pacing as well. When I got stuck for more than a while I switched characters and started again where I had left off stuck before and I made progress. It really does work to break up the game, loosen your mind and freshen things up again. A lot of characters and places unfortunately only had one function, but a few of them had more than one and that was very welcome. I didn't feel like I was done with one area as soon as I got there. I just wish there was a little more to the ending. More of an epilogue. It really felt like it needed one after all the work I'd felt like I put in...which is a very good sign. On the one hand, underwhelming endings aren't very satisfying, but again considering that I felt like I put in a lot of work for a bit of a lackluster reward, that shows that I was enjoying myself and wanted a great payoff. Ultimately, the short ending isn't really THAT bad and it just shows that I cared about the experience. It's certainly no Curse of Monkey Island or KQ7 ending at least. I wish I could get stuck for weeks again like the old days, but there's no sense in waiting for those days to return. It's a new age and games like that aren't successful anymore so I can't expect it. But this is the closest I've seen Tim come. Just wish the whole game was more like that. Good job. *clap* Note: This is all a gameplay review. I won't comment on the storytelling as much. It was enjoyable and I didn't think anything was "too stupid" or "on the nose" or "overdone" or "not explained or delivered well enough". Mostly because I don't care as much as others do. I was looking to have a good time playing the game and that's what I had. The story didn't do anything to detract that from me and wasn't too absent either. Good stuff. This proves to me that Tim is still capable of making a good GAME, not just a good STORY, even if it still could have been a bit better in my eyes. That's what I was most interested in with this project and was very pleased to actually find more than a simple shred or trace of it.

Aw and here I thought I finally had one over on Blocky! Lol. Oh well. I bow to your greater ingenuity and inquisitive mind. :)

I remember "backstage" from SQ2, but not SQ3 for sure. Either way, it is already known on ScummVM. Oh well. Weird too because I was just looking at that page last week and it didn't click. I must have just absentmindedly equated it with SQ2 because of the similar activation phrase.

Of course. :)

It takes some getting used to. But really it's kind of easier once you grasp object oriented programming. Demaking games is certainly more possible now. As is remaking them. I'm already considering creating a KQ1VGA based on AGDI's graphics and KQ1SCI's code....just for kicks. :)

So over at the SCIProgramming website, troflip (author of SCI Companion) has been working on a enw SCI decompiler which will decompile scripts with 99% accuracy from any SCI game up to SCI1.1. His new feature will be build into a new version of SCI Companion he's currently developing which will allow us to finally create SCI1.1 games. Which is just awesome. He's been decompiling various Sierra game sources at request and SQ3 was one of them. Cloudee, the maintainer and founder of SCIProgramming.com discovered a new (it's not actually new :( ) secret in Space Quest 3 that was not previously known before, to my knowledge. So, just type in "backstage pass" and then type "qa" and this screen pops up allowing you to warp to any of the game areas without debug mode. I have a feeling this new decompiler will open up more secrets that weren't previously known before for many Sierra games... EDIT: So, yeah, not actually new. Already documented. http://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/SCI/Debug_Modes#Game_Specific:_Space_Quest_3

That's true, really. Can't copy Owens. it just comes out sounding like he's being copied. Maybe something in a new direction and original take.

Nice!!

A list of all the lines were probably generated in a script for the recording studio. Many unneeded ones may have been caught but it's not unreasonable that some of them were overlooked and slipped in. Left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing etc...

So, that line on the Xenon streets is triggered by interacting with the gear and the gear flap on the Sequel Police ship (they both give the same message). However, I can't figure out exactly how to trigger it. It's under specific circumstances but I'm not sure what they are because the code is so obfuscated. There's a code block that checks something between two values and if their bits don't both equal 1 then Roger gets into the ship. But I have no idea what it's comparing. It's obviously some simple method of obtaining a certain result, I just have no idea what it is. return & global114[(/ param1 16)] (>> $8000 (% param1 16)) "global114" is some global variable that is used in a couple other areas of the main script, but I can't decode what it's supposed to represent. But the line is clearly triggered (from what I can tell) by trying to use the gear or the flap while something else is or isn't going on... EDIT: Ok, so it's not that. Ignore that mess. All it does it check if there's a script running on the gear or the gear flap of the ship and if there isn't Roger gets in. But it doesn't seem like it's possible to run a script on either of those props. Troflip on the SCI boards suggested it might just have been defensive coding just in case it might have happened somehow...but it doesn't seem to be possible. Another oddity.

There's a Python reference in Longbow too? I knew of the one in Camelot, but not Longbow...that's awesome. Christy must have been quite the Python fan lol.

Which Space Quest Collection is this? One of the old ones or the 2006 Vivendi released one? It is possible with every version of an SCI game (excluding extremely old KQ4 and LSL2 copies) to drop files in the game folder and patch it. If it's not working something else is wrong. Probably with folder mounting/redirecting issues. If it runs in DOSBox then it's the DOS version. At this point you're better of using Collector's installers from Sierra Help Pages to install a fresh copy of the game as it'll set everything up in order for you where patch files will work.

Or heck, just omit the patchdir line altogether.

How are tou running it? Do you have shortcuts set up (aka do you click something and the game just goes) or do you launch dosbox manually and run from its command prompt (lots of typing)?

Should just be able to drop the HEP file into the SQ4 folder. I just tried it. The time cheat works, but the blue frog line still isn't processed. Every interaction triggers the warp menu instead. It just was plain removed. But we can soon fix that with the possibilities of SCI Companion 3. :)

It should just be a matter of dropping the 531.hep file into the game folder if you're playing the CD version (from the collections) or dropping the script.531 file into the game folder if you're playing the disk version. Can you post the contents of your RESOURCE.CFG file?

:( Confirmation from someone in-the-know: So that rules it out completely. Only hope left is NRS's patched version...

Ah, I did not know that. Incidentally, troflip (author of SCI Companion that I mentioned earlier) was kind enough to provide the source for SQ4 and SQ5 courtesy of his (in progress) SCI script decompiler. HE said it's not complete yet and some portions are still in asm and not all of it is included, but it should be much easier to get a grasp at what is going on in the time pod room. I've looked over it already. The frog instance is there just like it is viewed in SCI Viewer, but it contains a method called DoVerb that seems to have something to do with time codes (so what you say makes sense here, BlockMaster. The shoulder, the blue frog, and the time code menu are all connected). Other than that, the frog instance is never used anywhere. I don't even know if it has to be used anywhere or not. Having worked on SCI0 fangames, I know that to use instances you have to declare them and then specifically use them in the code somewhere. It might be the kind of thing where the game automatically looks for these kinds of instances for icon interaction responses without needing to use them like an SCI0 parser game does. I'll dig into it more and see what I can see... Here they are for your perusal! I recommend viewing the files in Notepad++ and changing the Language syntax highlighting to C++ (even though it isn't, it's close enough). The files are all renamed to .TXT, but if they were to be decompiled with SCI Companion and worked with and recompiled, they would be .SC files. A lot of the code is full of unnamed variables and procedures that are given names like "global112" etc, because he hasn't been able to get the original names out of the compiled script as they no longer exist. However, he mentioned he might be able to get most of them by another means. Anyway, lots of unnamed variables. EDIT: I see now that the frog instance isn't even initialized while the other instances are. That's probably what NRS added in his version. Which means that the blue frogs line should exist in his version. I'm going to do some tests with it. EDIT 2: I just tried using Roger's left shoulder with the hand in the Time Pod in NRS's patched game, but it doesn't do anything. Am I missing something? SQ4Source.zip SQ5Source.zip

The Time-O-Matic menu? Is that the copy protection?

Incidentally, troflip, author of SCI Companion (a tool used to create SCI0 games), is making an update to his tool so that we will finally be able to make VGA SCI games! ALSO, he's working hard on a decompiler which will allow us to examine SQ4's or any SCI game (up to SCI1.1) scripts so we can discover just how to trigger this event. Or even re-enable it if it's not already. :) :) http://sciprogramming.com/community for more details.

OKAY So I've been scouring the game's resource files with SCI Viewer. I discovered something a little extra, though not at all helpful to actually get this thing triggered (at least not yet). I looked at the disassembled script, the messages resource, and the heap resource for the Time Pod room. According to the heap file, this is the frog's instance: instance frog of Sq4Feature { x = $0 y = $0 z = $0 heading = $0 noun = $0 modNum = $ffff ; -1 nsTop = $b7 ; 183, setMark nsLeft = $1b ; 27, mode nsBottom = $bd ; 189, open nsRight = $3e ; 62, '>', replay sightAngle = $6789 ; 26505 actions = $0 onMeCheck = $6789 ; 26505 approachX = $0 approachY = $0 approachDist = $0 _approachVerbs = $0 lookStr = $25 ; 37, '%', message doVerb() } Notice the nsTop, nsLeft, nsBottom, and nsRight values. Being familiar with SCI0 code conventions, these are values for a bounding box on the screen. In this case it seems to be for a click event. Here's a picture of the area the bounding box encloses, which happens to be Roger's left shoulder when sitting in the Time Pod, which makes sense given the content of the message itself: So what interaction is it? At first glance it seems to definitely not be use, look, or talk as none of those trigger it. Indeed, looking, using, or talking to Roger's shoulders yields generic responses for the entire pod. No inventory object I've tried works either. Everything else is greyed out (lick, smell, walk). At first I thought that Blocky here was correct and that it was probably an interaction for one of the greyed out icons. Yet, in the heap resource the message is tied to an identifier called "lookStr" (presumably "Look String"), which logically would mean that it is only triggered by looking at it. But it obviously isn't. This leads me to believe that it only triggers under certain circumstances. So what are those circumstances? I thought it might be illuminating to boot up the beta version of SQ4 and see if I can somehow find a way to trigger it. Unfortunately, the Blue Frog line isn't in the beta version. However, it is in the disk versions. Sadly, the debug mode was removed from all SCI1+ final releases. I'm going to continue to dig into the script and heap files, though, and see if I can spot some condition under which it triggers.

I felt that way about Curse of Monkey Island, actually.