What if you could make a gapless MP3?
http://www.compuphase.com/mp3/mp3loops.htm

Or is this "silent priming frame" something to do with Flash specifically?

Hey Tigsource, long time no see.

I'm starting a PhD in improving scripting language implementation this year, and I'm deciding the plausibility of focusing efforts on Lua.

As many of you are no doubt aware, Lua is heavily used in games ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lua-scripted_video_games - Oh look! Aquaria! Eufloria! Cortex Command! ), where the engine is written in C/C++, and a Lua interpreter is embedded in the engine to facilitate the scripting of AI, description of game data, etc.

Now, my own suspicions are that, despite Lua's interpreted nature, and therefore slow performance in comparison to C/C++, it isn't a bottleneck in the performance of games. I'd wager that the graphical demands of some games are a bigger concern, and therefore improving the performance of Lua isn't going to do much to game performance as a whole. This is also primarily based on an assumption that people are still doing number-crunching in C/C++ (for instance A* path finding), and leaving Lua to less demanding tasks, like merely saying "when bell_state = ringing, walk to door, open".

What I've come to you guys for is mainly your own thoughts and, primarily, experiences in the matter. What do you use Lua for in your games?
Have you ever found it to be a drain on how fast your game runs?
Would you start to offload more demanding tasks to Lua if it ran like a beast, since Lua is obviously much easier to write in than C/C++ for most people?
Also: which implementation of Lua do you primarily use? Luabind? The official lua release? Has anyone tried using LuaJIT with their game engine?

Cheers guys, any feedback would be much appreciated.

Still slow loading for me...
I'm kinda glad they toned down the enchantments, it makes the rare weapons a bit more special now.

Why... does this need Twitter?

Playing as a Vanquisher//Arbiter with traps is certainly a lot of fun, and reduces RSI! Throwing down multiple Flechette Traps and running away while your enemies are machine-gunned down mercilessly is awesome.

The only issue I have is with the loading times between levels. Am I the only one waiting at least 20 seconds for every loading screen, or is my PC just on its way out? I think I heard something about the devs addressing this in a patch.

Yep, not impressed.

It'd be useful if people could report the names of any "rogue" ships.
Hey v21, you should build 'mark this ship as busted' functionality into the game, and it could flag that one for removal. Then you can check for yourself if it's actually a bad ship or not.

Sad to see that my annoying-as-hell music was taken out. Good luck with licensing your new music!

Whatever operating system the universe runs on.  It hasn't crashed so far, and it's never needed a security patch.

Well, at least one that required a reboot, anyway!

I also pretended my desk was a computer desktop when I was in primary school. I was a painful nerd back then.

Being able to play demos of games for weeks.

Hey, I might be interested in coming along to this, university work permitting.

One barrier to immersion I've started to see in FPS games is the way in which objects have started to get in your way, and the poor feedback which is associated with it. This has just started happening to me in Half-Life 2, where I'm trying to fight enemies, and suddenly I start moving really slowly. I can't feel what's slowing me down, so I have to look down and work out how to actually get out of the maze of crates which have been littered around my feet. This is probably a lame rant, but in older games boxes were anchored to the floor, so you knew exactly where boxes were: you stopped moving. Now they just put up some weak resistance, coupled with a horrible scraping sound and the sudden feeling of walking through knee-deep mud. This probably isn't something which is easily solvable with current technology, but can't Freeman at least kick the littler boxes out of the road for you?

I'm known as jimmykane on here, not rubzo, sorry to be confusing, adam a.

I think adam a has pretty much said what our intentions with the game were. The majority (that is, art assets, music, puzzles, levels, sounds) of the final demo was produced in the last week, and we didn't have time to produce the kinds of puzzles we wanted, hence the hastily knocked together random puzzle generator to use in this demo of the first puzzle that would be in a longer game...

Theta: glad you enjoyed the music.

How did the zoo get so many gorillas, and how did they get so big?

I got the sun to rise, although I'm not sure entirely what the key to getting it to rise is. Maybe it'll just eventually work once you invest enough time in trying?

Lordy! Where is everyone getting the idea that I'm a man? Have you not seen these hideous breasts of mine?! *rips off her blouse*

I'm innocent!! A freak, but innocent!

Wow, this game is nails.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned any of the radio stations on http://somafm.com. My favourites are Groove Salad and Lush...

I think most games I feel nostalgic for were those games I played to death as a child, despite owning only a shareware/demo version.

One such game is Inner Space: http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm

Flying through your filesystem and collecting icons as resources, making and breaking alliances with a plethora of teams? Awesome weapons? Billions of ships to choose from? A bizarre justice system? Yes please!



Math Rescue and Word Rescue by Apogee were also amazing.

Aw, I bought two, but now Her Majesty's Customs and Excise have stolen them for the ransom of £12. 

[Xenocisms]

Lordy! Xenocisms, come out!
But guise will be my vote of the day, even though Bood_war has something against little old me!

To those of you who think I'm quiet, you try being cursed with these misshapen meat-sacks and having to live with them everyday, facing all the jeers and taunts! You've no idea what it's like! My life is a living hell, and I've no idea what I've done to deserve it! Why can't someone just love me for who I am, on the inside? *runs off crying*