Rado

I stand corrected - I totally forgot about that. Of course, Black Cat is a noble exception and an example to follow. I'm very glad that we are in agreement.

It's fantastic, Mr. "I'm in the credits"! First, it just looks great, like a 2-disc special edition of a major motion picture. There's a soundtrack CD (that's basically a Sega CD version of Another World but without the game, just the audio ), a nice little documentary with Eric and Jean-Francois, an all new color painting by Chahi himself, plus, what gets me hot most, a booklet full of sketches, unused backgrounds and storyboards for cutscenes that never were. Had the comic gone ahead, some of these deleted scenes would have been incorporated. Great stuff all around, well worth the price.

At this point it seems purely academic, but it seems we're thinking along the same lines. Of course, a real danger exists, that the player will completely mess the story up. I believe that would be one of the tasks of the hypothethical engine you're mentioning, yes? To make sure that won't happen...?

Torment was pretty close, though at heart it wasn't much more than an advanced Choose Your Own Adventure book (most non-linear games that focus on story are, but that's a different discussion). Back to Fable and the overall problem. One thing that could be done is flagging ALL the items with: a) Category: "weapon, romance gift, a present, clothes" and so on. There is a risk of breaking the game, but done right, I'm sure it could work. Moral value: "if given to (x) raise singular respect by (Z), raise global respect by (Z-2), lower karma by (Y)/ if given to (y) lower singular respect by (X)". I believe such system would be a nice compromise between a simulation and scripted events.

Actually I had similar problem with this part of the game that completely took me out of the big "make your own morality" premise. The goal of the first "mission" is to get a present for your sister, right? And along the way, you need to give a teddy bear back to a certain girl to get a coin in exchange that will allow you to buy said present, yes? Of course, the first thing I did after finding the bear was to (metaphorically) screw the girl that lost her toy and bring the cuddly fucker to my sister as a present. Obviously, no dice, it didn't work, and I thought to myself "Sir Peter, you're dirty liar!".

I believe such mechanic would be flawed - the only difference between this and a designer's philosphy is that you would have more people judging you based on THEIR OWN idea of right and wrong. My answer is micromanagement. The game shouldn't judge one's actions wholesale, but it's obvious that when you kill a girl's husband, she will revile you. Let every character, or even community, be your judge independently.

And the winner is... RENDERWARE! Vimes, what I think hapenned here is that: a) Mod groups are mostly amateurs, people hoping to break into industry or even on a team just for shit and giggles. Whatever their ideas are (and those are often retarded/unrealistic/the opposite of innovative, like "A living world the size of US! Go to work, date a girl, use a toilet!" or "You can be hit in every limb, get drunk and use drugs! Innovative!", not to mention "A mod based on a shitty TV series/anime! Give us a cookie!"), they either fall apart due to the lack of a sensible team structure and time, or as a result of being drafted into an actual company. Not everybody can be Josh Sawyer, who - even though he has an actual job as a lead designer - is willing to spend his time on an ambitious mod (which probably will be put on hold anyway as Sawyer's duties catch up with him). Licensing an engine for commercial use is still expensive. Hence, publishers can't really fuck around and are forced to put out more clones of tried and tested games.

Unfortunately, it is. Eric is very protective of the IP (and after Heart of the Alien, who can blame him) and without his involvement the deal is off. Officially, it's dead and buried, but I'm hoping that once Eric is done with his new game (and I reach a higher profile), the project can be revived. Now, brkl, the first page is not only a different art style, but also a different story. My goal was to adapt the game's plot into a high budget blockbuster on paper with fleshed out characters and deeper description of the world. It was a story of redemption actually, with Lester starting out as a bit of an ass-hole and only changing through his relationship with the alien... and Adeline, a brand new character. Eric decided though, that the sketchiness of the original game is actually an element that has to be preserved. No dialogue, less detail and giving way to reader's imagination was the way to go. So, while the first version was the same story told differently, the second approach, conceived after much nail-bitting and doubts, was to tell a DIFFERENT story, but in the same way [it was told in the game]. Hence the new main character and more expressive style.

The Shadow gives.

See? I don't even know what register is. To be honest, I've never been properly teached. All my knowledge comes from playing Maniac Mansion on C64 with a dictionary by my side. Police Quest was the next step. Amiga Action helped, movies with subtitles did, comics, even original scripts and novels later on. I tend to read a lot in English - we don't have Gamasutra here - and memorize phrases for future use. In other words, I believe I can communicate in English pretty good, but I honestly have no idea what I'm doing and why I say/write things the way I do. I just "feel" that a certain way is the correct one and run with it. It works during conversations, but really brings my self-confidence down a notch when I try to write a design document or a script in English.

I conceal my faults with fancy sentence structure. I sound formal and polite but most of the time have no idea what I'm saying.

Hence the . It seems important to add that due to my limited English skills I'm not sure if you eating a curiously named pie is a good thing or not ...

And I say you're a douche. Internet myth my butt, I actually played Syndicate and sat through the credits, thank you very much. Also, note that I only meant Syndicate, not other early Bullfrog games like Populous or previously mentioned PowerMonger. Finally, had you spent MORE than 3 seconds researching it, we would not have a feud on our hands now

To: People bringing up Syndicate Subject: BEWARE! Apart from being the head honcho of Bullfrog, Molyneux had little to do with it. And say what you will, that Emily Dickinson game demo Sir Pete did with his crew was pretty impressive design-wise. (plus: why no one ever mentions PowerMonger?)

Hi! I've actually been here for some time, but still need to accumulate posts in order to be able to start threads with uber cool exclusive content! So, my name is Radek and I love you all very, very much. Kisses.

Hey, Mr. Dusk fellow, do you come with multiple endings? Multiple endings are fun. Please come with multiple endings. --Yours, Finn Madrox. EDIT: Dear Mr. Dusk, I need to stress that my question is NOT about your forked penis. --Love, Finn Madrox.

Play Fahrenheit. Stop after each segment. Fire it up again one month later. Think what works in that approach and what doesn't. Come up with ways to fix what doesn't and you may get your answer. One thing you'll find: season finale sucks.

Kolzig linked to the Hotel Dusk trailer, which can also be seen . The fact it was mostly overlooked (or at least no one bothered to comment) made me a sad panda, since this is obviously the most exciting thing since the sun. Or slice bread, though I find THAT overhyped.

"Shadow..." is a prequel, as stated bu Mr. Ueda here. It should probably be said, that at one point during development, the connection was a little bit more direct:

Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster, finally stumbled upon something I can't restrain myself from discussing, and this place seems to be THE place. For some reason, I can't make new threads - God knows I tried and even bothered a Mod about it - so I apologise for taking my business here. So, without further ado, here are my recent findings: 1) Videos taken by me: Dull as hell, but hey, it is what it is: This one is more exciting, but I screwed up while recording. Ekhm. Also, a nice screenshot: More info may be forthcoming IF Frederick Raynal decides to reply to my e-mail and IF he won't mind me sharing his insight. 2) A fascinating peak into what could have been: http://www.bozocircus.free.fr/e_fb2.php Discuss. Please. PRETTY please with a cherry on top.

Be careful what you wish for To be honest, the game is bizarre. Graphically, for example, it’s a generic GBA platformer #2981, with the original Conrad sprite thrown in, as the Flashback meets Rayman screenshot below proves: I’m pretty sure Conrad’s sprite is a placeholder anyway. Gameplay itself is like a distilled version of Flashback. You know how at the beginning, first person shooters were all about finding keycards and collecting power-ups? And then, such details as plot started to appear in subsequent games, a motivation for the hero, fleshed out characters and so on. Also, the surroundings were becoming less abstract with game space trying to imitate an actual living space. With Flashback and Flashback GBA it’s the opposite. Whereas in the first one everything at least pretended to make sense, here it’s just mazes filled with two kinds of items: keycards and batteries, which are basically keycards anyway (you use them to power up switches that let you operate elevators). The plot is also rather spotty, with an NPC appearing once every three or more levels to tell you why you are doing what you’re doing. To be fair, some cutscenes may be missing, but even that wouldn’t help matters much if one takes the senseless level design into account (well, it’s fine, but absolutely unconvincing in relation to the narrative). What’s also weird, is that while the plot follows from Fade 2 Black, the levels seem to be based on the original Flashback (in terms of theme, not layout). You start off on a jungle planet, then travel to New Eden (a space port similar to New Washington), fix a reactor, battle with the police and the Running Man guys in a city, to finally land on the Morph homeworld and blow it up. Death Tower seems to be the only thing that’s missing. One thing I’ll give them, though, is that it plays right. It’s hard to forgive the developers for screwing up gunplay (check out the video to see what I mean), but Condrad controls exactly as he’s supposed to. And hey, it’s Flashback. It’s Adeline. It deserves a closer look Who do you mean, Dear Sir? On thing I’ll say, I have a very old e-mail address for Raynal – it’s possible he’ll never get my message, and if even if he will, a little Idle Thumbs star power wouldn’t hurt, so if you want to take it on, I won’t stop you. On the Flashback 2 front, however, something fantastic may be coming my way, assuming the developer will manage to find that thing on his Amiga. If he does, and is cool with me sharing, I’ll surely do so. And by the way, I strongly recommend checking out his site (the one with FB2 info) – it has many cool things, like the scan of the Flashback comic, the French commercial, and all the cutscenes from Fade 2 Black (excluding the alternate ending for some reason). You can also find some stuff on his older site, for example, this: http://www.bozo3000.free.fr/material/delphine/tddiable/f_tdfra.htm. While the game was cancelled, it packs some impressive technology.

Here's why the ambiguity of my post sucks Both of these were official. The first two links are for some kind of a GBA sequel that Adeline was making for Delphine right before both companies folded. As I mentioned on YouTube, a beta exists with almost all of the content, but a severely untested gameplay. The second project was an original Flashback 2, being made on the heels of the first one, with Conrad manning some kind of an Evangelion armour As is said by the animator, it was scrapped in favor of a heroic fantasy title (that never got off ground either), and then ressurected, albeit in a vastly different form, for Fade 2 Black. Hope all is clear now. And thanks for the info about posting.