_Madk,

I think you'll fail. I've played with compression myself, and that rabbit hole goes way, way deeper than I could have imagined. If your idea is so simple and bomb-proof as you make it sound, someone else would have done it by now - and if you're really good enough to make it work now, when nobody else in history has been able to, why aren't you already posting the completed solution here already? Or patenting it and eyeing up which island you're going to buy with the riches?

Also, if you don't have a working decompressor, you don't have anything at all. None of the compression stuff is interesting at all unless you have proof that you can decompress it too. That's why you're being mocked by some people here.

That said, I wouldn't want to discourage you from trying. This stuff is fun, and educational!

But yeah, a post about every minor issue and its resolution is a bit much. You should be able to put the whole thing together with a reasonable test case and either have it work, or understand why it doesn't, in an evening or two.

If you can still get hold of floppies, print up boxes and manuals and stuff, I think it'd be a lovely (if expensive and impractical) thing to do. Whether you'd have any people interested in it would depend on whether you can get a sufficiently excited audience, though - the game would have to be considered pretty special to make it worth someone's while shelling out on a "special" edition.

If I was doing it, I'd put a CD version of the game in the box as well, just so that people would still have access to the "full" version of the game (with audio, etc), and that people without floppy drives might consider buying it even though the floppies themselves are mostly just "prestige tokens".

It's the sort of thing that would have worked for (say) the recent updated version of Monkey Island - sell the shiny new game on a CD, but have the original on floppies in the box as well. That's a popular game with a nostalgic appeal though, so your mileage may vary.

It's a crappy, horrible game to play, but I think it's pretty foolish to think that it was only made for the sake of controversy. The dude had something to say (or rather, I think, some questions to ask), and picked exactly the right medium for it.

I'm not going to go as far as defending it as "Teh Best Game Evar Maybe!!!1oneone!!!" but if you can't see it as viable and worthwhile, and see only trash, then what does that say about your attitude to games as a medium? What, games aren't ALLOWED to explore issues like school shootings? They're somehow too trivial for that?

If there are people who think that, that's cool. But I wonder what they're doing on an indie games forum where we're supposed to be the people who appreciate the form for what it is and what it can be, and where many people consider it their job to push the boundaries.

EDIT: Also, I thought this topic would be about some game in which you play as the Combine in the Half Life universe. That shit would rock.

I suspect is problem is neither his geekiness nor his gayness. It sounds like he's going through something I had a few years back (as a straight, but defiantly geeky man) - I had friends, but I'd been single and unwillingly celibate for so long that I was willing to do pretty much anything to change myself to be someone that could be considered "acceptible" for intimacy. Bought a whole new wardrobe, tried to get into different hobbies, read books on how to fake attractiveness, all that stuff.

Didn't really work. Turned out I didn't need to change myself, just the company I keep.

Sounds like your friend just needs to get laid. To let off some steam. And after that, to find some people who like him for who he is. Long periods of loneliness can play havok with your self-image. But giving up geekiness? I don't think that's going to work for him any better than staying geeky but trying to give up being gay. Both of those things are hard-wired, and he'd be lying to himself if he turned his back on either.

3D is indeed easy to do: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9613.0 

Although frankly I've become convinced (mostly by Machinarium) that "3D" 3D (the stereoscopic nonsense) isn't the future, and "2D" 3D (the nonsense with the polygon meshes which got popular in the mid 90's) is also just a fad, and that the real, true future of games is 2D.

I for one would be amazed at an image that's offensive to everyone - there are some people with astonishingly high thresholds for offensiveness. I'm one of them, although I try to make sure I only share the particularly extreme stuff with people who I can trust to be twisted enough to appreciate it. Still, if such an image wasn't a logical impossibility (I suspect it would be), it'd be spectacular to behold.

I suspect the closest we could manage would be depicting reactions to said image, a bit like all those YouTube videos of people watching "2 Girls, 1 Cup".

Mohammed would be all like:     
Then he'd be: 
But eventually he'd be: 

I've got no suggestions for alternative themes that haven't already been suggested, but I wanted to add my voice to the crowd by saying this:

Wow - that game concept/mechanic is a bit special, isn't it? 

I have to confess to being slightly disappointed with my fellow TIGsourcers, upon reading this thread. Not angry, just disappointed...

Frankly, I was hoping/assuming that the majority of people would have been switched on enough to have heard about the South Park thing and the reasons why other creative people are showing support by creating their own depictions (or, for that matter, the older shitstorms that raged on Wikipedia and in Danish newspapers), would be educated enough about Islam to know that such images weren't always taboo, and that modern Muslims will have a wide range of reactions to this, and that a lot of people feel it's important that they not get some exception from satire and mockery. The intent is absolutely to shock and offend certain people, but the idea behind it is to prove the point that every other institution, strongly-held belief or opinion, or horrible tragedy has, at some point been the target of comedy, and that depictions of Mohammed shouldn't be exempt from that, because comedy and satire is incredibly important and serious business. It draws people together, it reduces psychological monsters and bogeymen to concepts which are easier to live with, it provides a powerful insight into our societies and ourselves, and it's considered by some to be the pinnacle of human creative endeavour. NOTHING should be sacred in comedy (except perhaps the rule that nothing is sacred). Comedy is playfulness, and as indie game types - people who have chosen to create stuff outside of the confines of the "industry", to work in a media that allows us to really speak. I sort of assumed that everyone would be on the same page with that, here of all places. It's odd to see so many pages of debate and dissent and disagreement and hand-wringing over whether it's okay to be drawing pictures of Mohammed, and so few actual pictures.

Screw it. After my screed, I don't have time to draw a picture of my own, so here's my depiction of him. He's about to tuck into some tasty bacon:

 


 

Heya,

I'm interested in dabbling in a bit of Flash. I've not done any for the best part of a decade, so I'm basically sufficiently rusty that I can be considered a beginner all over again. Can anyone recommend the best tutorials for getting me quickly up to speed again? Also, any other libraries or reference guides I might find useful?

Cheers 

I'm not sure you can claim that the Lib. Dems and Tories are historically enemies.

That wasn't in my lifetime, and I'm embarrassingly ropey about the history of former prime ministers, so I stand corrected. That said, the Tories are a right-wing party and the Lib Dems are left, so they're polar opposites in many areas of policy (although it seems these days they share a little bit more common ground due to all 3 main parties edging towards the centre). For as long as I can remember they've never passed up an opportunity to attack each other, though. Actually, to be more specific, the Lib Dems have enjoyed attacking the Tories, and the Tories have done their best to ignore the Lib Dems entirely in an attempt to create the impression that they're irrelevant and that the UK is a two-party system.

So there is no room for disappointment within democracy, huh?  People always harp on before an election about how if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. Well I did bloody vote, so I can damn well complain! 

Heh, yes I missed that option. You can indeed complain, in fact complaining is a national pastime Ultimately though, complaining is pretty much option 3 out of the ones I presented, although of course you get to choose how bitter or sanguine you feel about it so you don't have to take it to Teabagger extremes if you don't want to. I suppose my point was that (aside from the overt racism and bigotry), the main thing that seems to drive the Teabaggers is a feeling that they were somehow cheated out of the result they wanted because there weren't enough other people in the country who think the same way they do.

I just remembered an option 4 though, if you happen to not be a resident of the country in which the election took place:

4 - Don't visit there. Deny that country's economy the money you spend on tourism.

It's a slightly crap gesture, admittedly, but it's something. There are a few countries on my list that I won't visit because I'm disappointed that their populace votes for particularly draconian governments (but which otherwise would be a nice place to visit).

I'm not sure I've got a proper handle on what your game idea/design actually is (although it sounds cool), but it seems appropriate to point out (or gently remind) that games don't attempt to be realistic simulations of Real Life. The shortcuts, cheats, approximations, smoke & mirrors and outright fantasies are what makes games more fun than real life. Wanting to simulate something realistically is a kinda noble goal in itself but eventually you'll be faced with a choice between making a realistic (but dull) scientific simulation, or an unrealistic (but fun) game.

I suspect one of the reasons why the Lib Dems formed a coalition with the Tories rather than Labour (despite being historically enemies with completely opposing viewpoints) is that the Tories got more votes than anyone else. For a party whose central tenet is switching the voting system to Proportional Representation to side with Labour (who got fewer votes than the Tories) in order to try to construct a governing coalition party made from the losers in the last election would just make them look like idiots and hypoctrites, and completely undermine what the Lib Dems have been striving for all this time.

Of course, you can still make the argument that the Lib Dems are hypocrites for siding with their traditional enemies, the Tories, but I think it's a much weaker argument given how willing the Tories have been to form a full coalition government (rather than a minority government with some agreed-upon "favours" from the Lib Dems, which would have robbed the Lib Dems of any real power). The manifesto of the coalition is a mish-mash of policies in which the Conservatives have had to concede a lot of points in favour of a more liberal bias (and vice-versa), had to give seats in the cabinet to Lib Dem ministers, and had to agree on a referendum on Alternative Vote (which from what I understand is sort of "Proportional Representation Lite").

Ultimately, if you're pissed off about the outcome of the election, you only have a few options:

1 - To rail against democracy itself, and wish for a new system of choosing governments
2 - To support democracy by rail against the skewed "first past the post" system (in which case, as a de-facto Lib Dem supporter, you should accept that this is the closest thing possible to a positive outcome in this election - it's not radical political change but it's a step in that direction)
3 - To rail against your fellow citizens for having different opinions to you, and for outnumbering you. They have a word for those people in America - they're called "Teabaggers".

The UK labour party is like what people would call "conservative" in many other countries. I don't know much about their conservatives except for Margaret Thatcher

That's pretty much all you need to know. The PR is just that: a gloss of "hope" and "change" on top of the same old party. They're going to take a lot of delight and pleasure out of dismantling pretty much every system designed to help the poor and down-on-their-luck people whilst rewarding the multimillionaires. They'll privatise anything which isn't nailed down.

Well I hope the Lib. Dems sort out this ridiculous digital economy act

One of the nice things (at least in speeches and on paper) is that the coalition seems to want to turn back the clock on the atrocities against civil liberties enacted under the Labour government. I sincerely hope that includes the Digital Economy Act, but given how massively for it the Tories were (and how massively against it the Lib Dems were) we're going to see some fireworks before that one gets resolved.

You know, I always wonder why people hate the Tories so much. As a student I always thought Labour / Lib Dem was the way to go, but having got a job, paying taxes and thinking about the economy... the Tories seem to make more sense (at least to me).

...

I guess this time round I thought the most pressing concern for the country was the economy and that the Conservative plans for it were the least bad of the three major parties.

I'm interested... How old are you? Do you remember the '80s? My memory of it is a country being systematically dismantled, thousands of families' incomes destroyed, in order to better serve the wellbeing of corporations and stockbrokers. I remember riots and strikes and my parents going prematurely grey trying (and failing) just to keep up with mortagage payments on the house we lived in.

Also: I'm interested in which specific Tory policies you thought would be best for the economy (by which I guess we mean dealing with the defecit). You're right in saying that it would be a difficult job for any incoming government, but when I was listening, basically ALL of the parties had NOTHING to say about what would be cut, and when, so it seemed pretty impossible to judge any one party's policy to be better than any others.

Disclaimer: I know politics can be an inflammatory issue, and I'm not trying to start an argument. I'm just curious as to how people come by political opinions which differ from mine.

I think if you skipped step 1 of your cleaning process, the other steps might not be necessary ...

My point exactly. Unless you've spilt your drink into your keyboard, leave it the hell alone. Maybe turn it upside-down and shake it once in a while, but that's it. The keyboard I use in my dayjob was old, dirty and second-hand when I got it in 2005 and still works a treat. But then, the management frowns on us getting drunk in the office, which probably helps.

Yeah, I'm British. No, it ain't convincing, at least to a Brit (although I fully concede that it might be close enough for people from other countries to be fooled). Yeah, I still think you're awesome for making that video.

I was going to comment on the accent, until I read the rest of the thread. Now I guess I'm still going to comment on it. No, you don't sound English. You sound like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. Sorry, dude.

Also: eat the banana if you want to, but you are clearly a man who gets what the Internets are for, so have a gold star.

Also: I agree with moi. As well as designing one of the most iconic creatures in cinema, H. R. Giger's other work is astonishingly brilliant and beautiful, and if anyone doesn't know who he is and what he's about, I recommend that you educate yourself right now, because your life will be better for it.

What Oddball said pretty much hit the nail on the head. It's a coalition, in which the Liberal Democrats should hopefully curb some of the scarier Tory tendencies. The agreement on policy seems to be a mish-mash of Conservative manifesto stuff that the Lib Dems did/didn't allow, and the Lib Dem manifesto stuff that the Tories did/didn't allow. The parties involved certainly have more differences than they share similarities, but the overall result might well be (well, frankly, HAS to be, given the difficulties the UK faces) something which works.

We're in for an interesting ride. The most interesting election in my lifetime, at least. Collectively speaking, we got what we voted for, and now we get to see exactly what that looks like.

I was coding on my laptop, and then I decided to vacuum the keyboard because it was too dusty.

I'm like you, I've had to go through the dust bag.

This is not how you clean keyboards. What you do is:

1 - Spill Jack Daniels and Coke into the keyboard.
2 - Take the keyboard to the sink in the bathroom, pop out all the keys with a screwdriver, and then try to clean/dry the whole think with the judicious application of moist toilet roll.
3 - Put all the keys back in, and marvel that it still works
4 - Get confused that "n" and "m" keep coming out the wrong way round, before you realise you put those keys back wrong, and switch them back
5 - A week or so later, get frustrated that the shift and tab keys are still woefully sticky, and buy a new keyboard.

True story. Done that twice, now.

I bought my first PS2 (in fact my first console of any sort since the Megadrive) sometime after the XBox 360 came out. Bought a half-dozen of what I considered (via reviews and word-of-mouth) to be the "classics" on that platform (Katamari Damacy, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus), GTA: Vice City and, later, the first couple of Guitar Hero games, and had a blast.

On the 360 I tend to buy maybe 4 or 5 of the "major" releases in a year, usually ones I've anticipated, which I tend to get quite soon after they come out. I only bother completing 1 or 2 of those per year. I'm quite spend-happy on XBLA games and PC-based indie games, though - usually I have no idea how long any given XBLA game or indie game have been out when I buy them, I just pick them up on impulse if I hear about them and they sound interesting.

I can't think of any games set in Ireland, in any form.

Wasn't Clive Barker's Undying set in various periods of Irish history? Although admittedly that was more a horror game than anything attempting actual historic-ness.