TheMessiBeast

Just got Destiny TKK, was wondering if anyone is interested in playing with me (level 15 warlock right now). However, I totally understand if no one is interested though cause I'm brand new, don't understand much, and am pretty terrible at most first person shooters. But, if there's any other new people to destiny that want to play together then we should make it happen. Also, this game is really fun. I like seeing the numbers go up even though a little part of me is sad every time I have to dismantle my favourite gun cause I found one that's like 2 numbers better. I'm on PS4 and my name is TheMessiBeast.

Thanks for all of the advice everyone! I've just registered with NameCheap and now I'm getting everything sorted (hopefully I'll get a proper new template looking good by tomorrow).

Good point! Do you know if I could continue using Blogger's publishing platform if I register with Hover?

Lately I've been ramping up my blog for the upcoming world cup, and was interested in buying the domain. These days blogger/Google doesn't let you buy the domain through them anymore (a couple of years ago I bought a different domain super easily for about 10$ a year), so I have to figure out where to buy a domain. I would very much like to continue using Blogger's platform to write/publish my posts, and I'm not completely sure how to do that. Does anyone have any recommendations? Do you use a particular domain registrar? Google's support provides this quick list: EasyDNS GoDaddy.com ix web hosting 1and1 Yahoo! Small Business No-IP I'm completely clueless in regards to this, and my first impulse would be to use GoDaddy just because I've heard the name before and they seem to be running a pretty slick operation. I'll still give it a few days before deciding anything, and any advice/insight would be greatly appreciated.

I'm in Vancouver, and it looks like the Global Game Jam here happens right at the University I attend, so that's definitely something I'll be wanting to do. Thanks for letting me know about it! However I'm worried, I'm really new to making games and I don't want to waste people's time, is the Game Jam still something I can attend? I checked their FAQ and their pretty vague about it, and the last thing I want to do is drag down a team of others (or just be useless) who have the potential to make something really awesome.

The more I read from you guys, the more I realize that I basically know nothing about adventure games. I'll probably have to resort to Youtube playthroughs for some games, but hopefully by the summer I'll have played through most core adventure games (including some of the ones recommended in this thread hopefully). I also had a question which I was hoping someone here could help me out with - after recently reading James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia I was absolutely amazed at all the twists and turns the story took. So I got to thinking about how "aha! detective-discovery moments" could be implemented in games. There's one big factor to consider about this, that in the book it's almost impossible for you to reach the final conclusion before reading it. There's so much information kept from the reader until the right time (aside from slight foreshadowing), that it doesn't really translate to gameplay. In a way it's like a scripted cutscene. So my question is, are there any games which manage to successfully have that same sort of "aha! moment" without it being scripted (aka have it built into the gameplay, the user makes the discovery while playing when things click together in his/her mind)? And I don't really mean moments where you realize "Item A + Item B = Solution" but something more like actual detective work, coming to conclusions using observations, details, etc. There seem to be a lot of challenges with trying to implement that sort of moment, and maybe it's impossible to make it as powerful as it is in books. A follow up question would be: if that sort of "aha! moment" is implemented in games, how do they deal with not knowing when the player will figure out the solution? What if they figure it out too early? Was just a bit curious to see if there are limits to puzzle design right now, or if anyone has managed to give the same sort of satisfaction as actually being a detective and figuring things out. As usual, the feedback I get from you guys is truly one of a kind, so if you don't know the answer I'm still interested in reading your thoughts about it.

That looks like an amazing resource, thank you very much for sharing! The past couple of days have stalled my progress my game making progress slightly due to other commitments, but with these tutorials I'm pretty excited to get back into understanding Gamemaker better. Lately I've also been worrying about the artistic side of my work. I'm definitely no artist, and it shows from the few sprites and backgrounds I've attempted to make thus far. I feel like I lack a basic understanding/education about art, how/which colours go together, and how to make things have enough representation through simple/minimalist pixel art to make them symbolize what they're supposed to. Basically everything I've been making is pretty ugly, but I guess that's pretty standard if you're not used to visual art.

Yeah, I'm still working on learning the basics these days. I got stuck trying to figure out how to make my space ship shoot projectiles in a shooting side-scroller tutorial I'm following. So I really hope you guys aren't expecting great things from me, because while I'll eventually make my game for sure, it'll definitely be a while. And about the walking dead, I like it, but I definitely was let down a couple of times with certain aspects of the game. Often I was hoping the game would let me solve certain problems my own way. I was also frustrated in a certain part with the way the game sort of cut down on the importance of my decision making (ATTENTION WALKING DEAD EP. 1 SPOILERS, FEEL FREE TO STOP READING). It happened when I had to make a choice to save one of two characters being attacked by walking dead. One of them had a gun, so I thought to myself "save the one with the gun, and it's easier to help out the other after (i.e. pick off zombies quickly from afar)" however the game didn't really acknowledge that possibility. The other character died, and the grateful gun-wielder asked me in a somber tone how I could make the choice between saving one of them. I would've been glad to explain that it was a pragmatic decision based upon making sure the only firearm present in the scene would be safe, and hopefully useable. However, the game didn't really let me explain that (I admit, it would've been tough, because that's basically reading a single player's mind). While in the moment of the decision it was exhilarating, tense, and forced me to think quickly, after I was let down by the fact that the pragmatic reasoning I had based my decision on was completely useless. It was really sad to find out that my decision didn't lead to me being able to save them both (from what it seems, one was destined to die no matter what), and it was almost even more disappointing to not be able to communicate my reasoning when asked how I made my decision. This is an example of the sorts of things I'd like to perfect in my (theoretical) game. I want everything to matter. Even if it's simple stuff. Because in the end, that scenario in which I had to choose a character to save was really simple: both were being attacked, and one of them had a gun. However funnily enough, there's the possibility that if I had chosen the character without a gun, I would've saved him, and the gun-wielder would've finally stopped panicking and popped some caps in the zombies coming after her therefore saving both. But, I doubt that's the case (let me know if it is). Are my ambitions too high with wanting to make the player have complete power their interactions, and also having the game acknowledge which choices they're making, why, and ultimately rewarding/punishing the player with varying logical and probable reactions to various events which the player has affected? I hope that what I'm saying makes a bit of sense. All of my writings and ramblings like this tend to be put out on my unvisited blog. I'll cut down on ramblings here for everyone's sake (less pattering on for you guys to read through, more material for me to post on blog). Also, I still really like The Walking Dead despite my complaints, it's fun stuff.

That's really interesting. I recently got the vita walking dead bundle (which is slowing down any game-making progress I was hoping to make these days) and played through the first episode and realized that telltale does almost everything I was hoping to implement in my own game as well (meaningful dialogue, puzzles and interacting with the environment, good writing) . It was a little depressing, especially because all those mechanics are used extremely well and now I'm feeling like my game will just be an inferior copy of telltale's work. However about studying adventure games, I think in order to properly make a game which is enjoyable I need to really understand how puzzles are constructed. See how games point you towards what you need to do, how much they guide you, and in what ways that aren't too obvious. Because of this, I guess that studying a broad range probably would give me the best understanding. However considering how much stuff I have to play which is of high quality, I feel like I'll never even be able to truly scratch the surface of adventure games and their history (regardless of quality).

I've been looking for a way to play this on my Mac considering I hear so much about it on IT, but I still haven't found any solutions! I'm really starting to think I might have to re-install parallels and get it going through Windows. Also, thank you all for the suggestions, I'll be checking them all out as I keep chipping away at my list of winter games.

Hmm, feel like I'm the opposite, having a set of people expecting something from you works well to motivate me. Also, I posted mostly because I wanted advice/stories as a true beginner to game making. A small update - I've realized that I need to do some more "studying" of old (and some new) adventure games. I'm playing through The Last Express, first two monkey island games, as well as Gone Home and Device 6. Any suggestions on other games which I could play through? I recently found a post by Derek Yu (creator of Spelunky) which is basically a fantastic tutorial for beginners. As for the art/aesthetic/graphics, some useful suggestions about keeping it simple. From the start I wanted to have it be minimalist, crisp, pixelated. I really like the way games like Fez and Hyper Light Drifter use colours to really bring their games "to life", but my game will be an incredibly more constrained and more familiar modern day setting (so I don't really know how much I could really play around with color). Also, recently thinking about all the environment and its objects which I want to make properly interactive (with the player but also with other objects) is starting to scare me.

Yeah, I've been using an older version thus far and seeing as I'm at such a basic level it's more than enough for now. Perhaps after getting familiar and making a few projects in gamemaker making the leap to 2D Unity won't be so difficult? Not sure about that though, and I feel like it's a far ways away.

Well, one of the main reasons I haven't gone with AGS is that I use a Mac currently, and I recently got rid of Parallels so AGS is a no-go right now. I also think you're definitely right Twig about getting started asap. I've been planning and writing just about everything these days, so that as soon as I begin to get the hang of making the game I don't get stuck due to any sort of creative block. As for Unity, I tried it out, and it seemed so impossibly difficult to me that I closed it in about 15 seconds flat. I tried looking around at tutorials and other resources, but I felt that it would ultimately be simpler and faster for me to get a game going in Gamemaker (especially considering the scope of my game is fairly simple). More and more I'm wondering about whether or not I want an inventory within my game, because while I definitely want it to have aspects which are reminiscent and directly taken from point and click adventure games, I also want to make something much more character and dialogue driven. Rather than inventory interactions being important to puzzles, I'm hoping that environmental interaction (ex. click on fan sitting on a desk to turn it on which pushes a ball into the bucket) can fill that hole alongside deeper and reactive character interaction. The reasoning behind this is because that's the one thing I have some experience with (writing), and while this sounds ambitious, I'd like to have my game be about having multiple characters, each with their goals, personalities, and varying interactions with the player. I'm hoping that if I can pull off the dialogue and writing well enough (with enough dynamism to make it feel like something more than scripted solutions), the simple art and basic mechanical aspects will be overlooked/accepted. All of you guys' feedback is super awesome! Also, people should definitely post what they're working on!

Hey guys, I recently had a big realization that I was tired of playing consuming so many games, and not creating anything myself. Therefore, I have decided I'm going to make a video game. While I've definitely thought and written plenty about games, their mechanics, and what makes them fun to play, I know absolutely nothing about actually making games. Right now I'm just learning the absolute basics with Gamemaker and its various tutorials (I'm also starting to learn basic coding through codeacademy.com), and while it's fun, I'm beginning to realize how daunting of a task I've undertaken. I've already got a very concrete idea of what type of game I'm going to make (point-and-click adventure with an emphasis on dialogue and characters), however being so new at all of this I wanted to know if anyone has advice, tips, or general wisdom they'd like to share. What are your experiences with gamemaker, or making games in general? Any resources which you found useful/interesting when making your own game? Share anything and everything which could be interesting and helpful.

Hey guys, I just got a PS4 recently and I'm completely new to PSN. Feel free to add me, I'll probably be playing AC4, Resogun, or FIFA! PSN ID: TheMessiBeast