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Holy heck! It's almost like a two-episode combo!

As luck would have it, I replayed Fate of Atlantis just the other week, as well -- and agree about the Atlantis part. It's downright depressive: the color scheme, the music, navigating back and forth and back again between the samey rooms, all while dodging the nazis... What it was was one long key puzzle, which is my least favorite thing in adventure games (though, strangely enough, getting the stone keys' arrangement right was fun). Granted, in a game about an archeologist there's obviously going to be a lot of exploring to be done in dark depressive places -- but I liked the action and human interactions so much more.
Same reason why City was probably my last encounter with the Arkham franchise. It's just so dreary -- and so brown. And you can never just waltz in through the front door. No, you go round the back and sneak in through the basement window. And just when you think your caution gave you some advantage -- someone pulls a barrel of V out of their ass and kicks your butt. Paraphrasing the famous catchphrase -- "I'M BUTTMAN!" And those underground ruins... and sewers... Ugh... I love Batman -- but I guess I'll stick to the comics.
I guess what ultimately ruined "tomb raiding" for me was Far Cry 3 -- which was an insanely fun game as long as it let me play outdoors. But there's this dude that holds your friend captive and he'll let him go only if you get him this one thing from the ruins... and then this other thing... and another... "Oh, thanks! But I changed my mind and decided to kill you and your friend."
So now I stick to colorful games with lots of human interactions and dialogue -- such as Hotline Miami

Thank you! And happy birthday to fellow Bloomsday birthday boy Wogoat!

If I remember correctly, you've discussed impostor syndrome only recently, around ep. 70 or so. This podcast was a nice follow-up. Other than the basic question of "when are you ready?", the issue of specialisation vs. expanding and experimenting is one that's on my mind a lot. I dabble in so many things at once that I don't have the kind of time -- or maybe the ability to focus -- to really master one. I'm ok-ish, and willing to experiment, too look for new ways expression -- but as soon as the thought of going commercial pops up in my head, I freeze in panic. I briefly considered fully fleshing out and extending my current project in order to go commercial. I applied myself to animations to give them more polish, improved my background style... But then I decided the background art is just not good enough, no matter how hard I try. And then, eventually, the complexity -- and clunkiness -- of the code made me think it's just too much to handle. No matter how much I try, it won't be perfect -- and not because I'm a bad coder, but because I'm trying to do something AGS doesn't allow. I love my project, and I'm having tons of fun with it, adding new things as I go along to make it even better -- but I keep thinking it's just not good ENOUGH for a commercial product. I might also be fully consciously shooting myself in the foot with my artistic choices, such as the 16 color palette -- which puts certain limitations on me that I end up resenting. Not to mention I'd probably have a heart attack if a player/buyer reported a game-crashing bug.

As for "thingamajig" -- The first time I heard the word was from my Australian friend, so I actually thought it might be Australian slang.

And Francisco, I sent you that pm prior to listening to the podcast. Didn't think you'd actually remember. Nevertheless, what I said in the message still stands

Oops, my bad! I've spent most the past 15 hours typing away, so at some point I stopped even watching the screen. Anyway, thanks for fishing it out. Edited my message, too, in case Cat were to copy the original.

"The third installment of the darkly comedic series about Moss -- the universe's most accidentally lucky field agent -- sends him on his most dangerous mission yet. Visitor 3 is bigger, better, funnier -- and scarier. There's lots of green blood, pink goo, black tentacles and other terrifying appendages -- and a head in a jar that's not only quite friendly, but also not at all fazed by its current situation."

Oh yeah, and "Knockin' on Baldur's Gate"!

That's not Ben, that's Slash from Cups'n'Hammers!

Visitor 3! Played it, loved it the the most of the Visitor trilogy. Another one that You might want to take a look at is The Knobbly Crook -- I haven't played that one yet, so I can't say anything about it (other than that it has insanely gorgeous graphics!).

Resident demonologist, at your service, Grundislav! Beelzebub is actually an intentional misspelling. See, Baal Zebul -- Hebrew for "Lord of the Underworld" -- was a deity that was deemed a competition to the emerging cult of Jahweh. So, in order to discredit the deity, they called him "Baal Zevuv" -- lord of the flies.

As for replaying old games -- I don't do that very often. Too many games to play (old and new), too little time. BUT I did replay both Little Big Adventure games last year -- and I got Sam & Max, Monkey Island and Fate of Atlantis on GOG the other week. Funny thing: right around this time 20 years ago was the first time I played Indy -- and it's one game that I've re-played the most, a couple dozen of times. Mainly because, as a newb to the wonders of PC gaming, I wasn't aware of this miraculous thing called "SAVEGAME" -- and so, for about a month or so, I started the game from scratch every single day

Good topic! I was actually going to ask about how AGS-ers go about promoting their games, how they format their messages, etc. I did reach out to a bunch of people when I released Gray, but I got no response whatsoever. Zilch. Nada. That's pretty much the case for most of my attempts at self-promotion -- and I draw comics and write prose, too -- so it was pretty disheartening. So for Monty -- which is a smaller game, but still a fun little thing, I think -- I didn't even bother writing anyone -- and surely enough, outside AGS, Following Freeware and Elum's Przygodoskop.pl there's pretty much no trace of the game. But I've put way too much effort into Magenta to just leave it like that. And strangely enough, while my conscious efforts at pimping my works tend to go unnoticed, I guess the karma generated by the action goes SOMEWHERE, and Gray did get a few reviews and got featured a few times -- and I do consider myself incredibly lucky. So yeah, I might try and send a few e-mails around -- and try not be all like "Oh, that's not going anywhere...". I'll send one to you, too, Ben

Also: I GOT MENTIONED ON THE PODCAST! WOOHOOOO!!!

And for everyone wondering what the connection between bunnies and Easter is - Grundy's right, it is a symbol borrowed from the pagans. But there's more. Pliny, who lived around the same time that Jesus did, believed bunnies to be hermaphrodites -- and, as such, able to self-impregnate. No coitus + babies = immaculate conception!

Oh yeah, that one looks great. I actually knew what game you were talking about, saw some gameplay footage and the imagery and the style was very memorable -- but if you'd randomly mention the title without further detail, I wouldn't have a clue. At best, I'd confuse it with Tir Na Nog or some other exotic/weird sounding title.

Here's a new one for you, Fitz!

Episode 65

I'm yet to listen to the new one, as it's my first time online since Thursday -- but you guys really helped me through the hell of the first night after the surgery. I could barely sleep from the pain, nausea and cold shivers -- so I had a LOT of time I think I zoned out a few times, too.

BTW, another topic suggestion: games and girlfriends! There's a thread about it in the forums already about being a husband/father and making/playing games between changing diapers or in those latenight hours when everyone's gone to bed -- but that hardly exhaust the topic. My girlfriend does frown upon my time-absorbing hobbies sometimes, but she's really supportive of my creative side. She even made me a little figurine of Gray. Plus, she IS my official Muse, the inspiration for Magenta. She truly lived up to the superhero status, by the way: it was her that nursed me back to semi-health over the past weekend.
It'd also be a great opportunity to talk about your favorite gamedev couple -- the Williamses!

I'm re-listening one of the old ones every week when you guys take a break from recording, and right now I'm at episode 16, I think. I just hope that one and those up to ep 20 aren't particularly funny. Because laughing will be kinda hard -- if not life-threatening -- with my abs stitched

You guys brought up the topic of the pot in the podcast yourselves -- and it wasn't the weed, it was the OTHER pot Then again, Francisco's constant giggling is suspiciously similar to symptoms of cannabis use. The only thing missing is paranoia -- along the lines of "David Cage is sabotaging the action adventure genre!", etc.

Oh wait...!

And yeah, Calypso, don't listen to him. He'll tell you all the things he likes in games, you'll do a game with all of that in it -- along with everything he and Grundislav agree is bad game design -- and he'll never play that game

Might do a little BCT marathon, myself, when I get out of surgery and have to lie there for a couple of hours before I go home.

A very interesting episode of our favorite podcast (or should I say potcast, Ben?). Damn progress! Case in point: I've grown to really hate the first background for Magenta -- which I was PROUD OF when I first made it. But I've experienced the opposite, too -- thinking I wouldn't be able to top some old artwork. This one I still, seven years later, I consider my best. But I do see flaws in it and room for progress. I've actually looked through some old doodles of mine -- as a part of this thing on fb where you post your old drawing for five consecutive days -- and it was inspiring how much I got right as a kid, despite some obvious flaws, and how much I've developed since.

Yamipanda, that made my day

Also, Inspector Wadjet sounds like an idea for a Blackwell spin-off! Go go Wadjet Eye!

I want this.

Sadly, it doesn't seem like there's going to be one anytime soon. E-ink reader's -- oh yes! But why in the world would Amazon add a keyboard to it so that you could use it for writing? Who would ever want that? As usual, you can count on crafty post-Soviet folks to hack the thing and turn it into a little typewriter -- but it's still far from perfect. I'm afraid we'll see bionic eyes go on sale sooner than we'll get a proper eye-friendly e-ink tablet. Oh well...

(and keeping my fingers crossed that this installment contains an interview with a certain someone!) >

Wouldn't count on in the upcoming episode, either. Given the recent premiere of A Golden Wake, they're pretty much bound to invite Grundislav.

Oh, wait...



Good episode, indeed. I'm having a hard time taking up big projects these days. Gray took me 2 years and 3 months -- and while it didn't feel that long in retrospect, it is a crazy amount of time to plan into the future. So I've only done little things since -- both of them for MAGS. I do enjoy the process, though. Still doing all the things by myself, so when I'm bored with animating, I just skip to writing dialogue or scripting. Same with comics. The one thing I somehow lost passion for is writing prose -- the ideas are there, oh so many ideas, but I'm paralyzed by the thought of just sitting there STARING AT THE SCREEN for hours, tapping away. I wish there were a way to make it feel more organic. Not pen and paper, I'm too chaotic and I want to be able to rewrite things without making too much of a mess. So I'm sitting and waiting for an e-ink typewriter.

Ah, there it is! I thought our suggestions of who to invite next made you realize it's time to axe the podcast! But your silence on the matter speaks volumes

I meant more like 1999-2000 retro -- because I knew a few from that time, mostly thanks to Game One, the French game channel that we got on our cable back in the day .