fromlostdays

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, there's apparently a community of awesome people who are setting up achievements for all kinds of retro games. The achievements are tracked live through the website. Search RetroAchievements. It's pretty freaking fantastic, and surprisingly easy. In RA at least, the achievements pop up in game as you get them. In case you are wondering, you just sign up for the site, go to the RA menu, scroll to achievements and put in your log in.

I can't speak for everyone but what's unique about this game is the main character. He's quirky, startling, honest and even pitiable enough not only to keep me playing, but to click around just to see what he has to say about shit. haha. Would make a really good touch game on a tablet for sure. But, if you aren't going to focus on some deep combat mechanics or weighty decisions, you do need to have a deeper story than the guy plays an online game. The story could take place inside the game... inside the game... mind you, but it needs to be fully fleshed out, where ever it is. Watching the main character observe and interact with the environment and people Plus a good story arc = win. Is he going to be dynamic? Like will he learn some kind of lesson and change his ways, maybe reunite with his family? Or is he going to be the same loner person in the end? What events drive this conclusion? That kind of stuff. Even deeper question: this online world... is it true escapism, like is it high fantasy wherein he pretends to be someone else to escape his life...... OR is he attracted to the game because it REMINDS him of his real life, but in this virtual world he's just more equipped to deal with these situations emotionally? Like does he go there to figure himself out. A lot of good places you could take this one. Other questions to explore: How low can he really go? He seems pretty low in the beginning, unable to find employment or socialize, but can it get worse for him? What would drive that? What would it look like? Is there a warning there for people? Is being more social really the only positive resolution for someone like him, or is there some kind of way he can start putting his personality to work for him in productive ways? Etc. Anyway, just my two cents. Obviously those are rhetorical questions. And no problem. It actually sounds fun. :) It just occurred to me, and I'm not sure if it occurred to you, but so far it looks like you're making a modern day Catcher in the Rye.

Sorry about the late reply. I tried copying down a transcript of what was accessible that evening (in terms of dialogue and text) and having the game open and MS Word crashed my comp and I lost it. Since then its been holiday busy. If you have a transcript of all the text (I'm not sure how you're going about making the game) send me whatever you want and I'll proof it all and provide suggestions (for what they are worth). My only beef with this is it would be a huge spoiler. I'm going out on limb here, but it seems like what you need is for someone else to hammer out the details while you progress further into making the game. But it may be early for that. That's what beta testing is for. :D If I'm understanding correctly, you're looking for suggestions now as to not the make the same mistakes throughout the game? I'd say don't worry about that and keep cranking. I can help with the grammar stuff (believe it or not I do it for a living) and like the apartment building looked a little weird toward the roof, but other than that, its good man. You should totally finish and hash that stuff out later.

I konked out early, but I'd be happy to go over it again and give you more details this evening, and examples of what I mean. Do you want to discuss this somewhere that's not a public forum? By the way, if you ever want or need someone to proof the text, I'd be happy to.

Whistles. You hit the nail on the head without realizing it. Funny what doesn't occur to you. I installed the latest 64 bit 7zip and it opens now. We're full steam ahead. The roommate and I just played until I got an error saying it failed to load an ogg file... right after I plugged in my headset and was ready to rock. Dude, I'm dying laughing. I'd play this game. Was actually excited to play IS with my new gear haha. Stuff you did well: natural dialogue outlines the main character well, humor and build up. Plus it looks surprisingly good. You did the art? Also, you baited me into clicking stuff that I didn't think you had planned for, IE the graffiti, and I was pleasantly surprised that you had planned for it. My roommate is already quoting three lines, but I won't spoil. On the con side of that, some of the dialogue is too literal, and some minor grammar stuff. It needs revision. Prepare for more willy nilly clicks. Like I tried to go up the road instead of going home. You could add a line at the edge of the map, something sullen like "There's nothing for me that way." The number one appeal thus far is seeing this character react to things, people and the environment. More of that, and A plus.

I use 7zip. Yeah, its the oddest thing. It recognizes the file extension, puts the 7z icon on it, but when I try to open it I get the error "Cannot open (path to file: file name) as an archive." I saw this behavior a while ago, actually when I downloaded some PSX games. Some unzipped some would spit the same error. I'd like to give it go, maybe just the regular RAR will work? Should 7zip handle the rar5? if not, I could totally download winrar.

I get an error saying I can't open it as an archive. Any ideas?

I majored in BigBox in college and minored in creative writing. But no one in my life speaks Bigbox so I've forgotten most of what I learned.

I'll bite. Not because I think its practical, but because I think its cool. I'll let you know how it goes. This is the guy who spent like weeks trying to teach Windows Vista to recognize my southern drawl. Errr... Nevermind. Solution file? I can follow instructions but I'm leery of installing stuff I don't understand.

I can't open the link at work, but is this legit? I remember a while ago someone said this exact thing and it turned out to be some college kids final project. He redid I think the intro, and that's it.

In other words, yes, share away. There will be official channels for it soon as well within LaunchBox, and its going to be amazing.

Try the rocketlauncher forums. You'll be surprised.

I agree with the general point you're making but its not only affecting emulators. LaunchBox is not an emulator. I shouldn't have to choose between controllers my OS supposedly supports and the programs I use. If it was as simple as the second controller didn't function in non-game non-MS programs, I could see them putting it off. But having a second controller is blocking me from opening my own programs. This is using the not exactly cheap official microsoft wireless dongle, mind you. They should fix it. It isn't a problem with 360 controllers, so it shouldn't take much revenue to clear up whatever issue they implemented. Sorry, I'm a bit bitter. SentiBrad would probably be happy to know I'm going to give the DS4s another go this weekend. I sincerely hope they work, as I'm ready to move on from the issue of controllers.

This would explain it. I'm using a probably super old mess bios pack, and MAME 171 doesn't seem to want to have much to do with it. I'll work on getting a 171 set, which should prove a pain as I'm shitlisted on PD. I don't keep my MAME roms in my MAME directory, any confirmation that this isn't problematic for the bios files?

Without context, I'm not sure whether to blame you, the dog, or the owner. :D Glad its not worse, though.

That is cool, but I'll never forgive myself for the 6 or so months I tried to learn C+ and build a game in both unity and unreal. I never even came close, but the process of learning it took some of the magic out of video games for me. I don't think everyone would have that reaction, but seeing a little bit about how its done made me more critical about the games I play. True story. :(

In this mess folder I made subfolders for each system I wanted to add. These subfolders match the system shortnames. Will MAME default to these locations? My problem was that inside the MAME 171 UI, there's an option to set Rompath, but not path to bios. So is folders named after the bios the default? Or do you have to manually set the path in the ini under this: "Core Search Path Options" I really appreciate the input.

Thanks for trying, lordmonkus, and reaffirming that I'm not crazy. Seems like this would be big news. I have an old version of RA specifically for the MESS core, and tonight I'll see if it'll run the Sharp. If I recall, the limiting factor was always odd file extensions on the older/comp systems and the core itself being suprisingly not versatile in that regard, but I think my X68000 are bin. If it does, I'll try to figure out why. At any rate, I'll hit you up later with the results.

I am with you on the skipping MESS part, but this MAME/MESS integration, I think, is worth looking into. There just doesn't seem to be any documentation on how to set it up. The same can be said about the newest MAME RA core which I understand should also support Mess systems now.

I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but I recently learned that MAME absorbed MESS. Tonight I wanted to sit down and get MAME 171 running, and maybe also the latest RA MAME core which I also hear will emulate MESS systems. The problem: I can't find any documentation on how to set this up. So my questions Does the new MAME require a set of MESS Bios? If so where to put them? If not... what? (I tried putting them into the roms folder in the mame directory, doesn't see them there) Same question for the RA MAME core. Any other tweaks needed to get these working? Thanks! PS, my final question: What is the plural form of Bios?

Even after the update, connecting 2 Xbox One controllers wirelessly to windows freezes up LaunchBox. I wasn't going to post about it here, because LaunchBox isn't the only thing that's affected. Has to be a windows issue, or something. If I have two controllers plugged in and try and open LaunchBox, nothing happens. Then, If I take the batteries out of one of the controllers, LaunchBox immediately pops open. Anyone able to connect 2 Wireless Xbox One controllers with no problems?

Thanks for pooling all this info, man.

Not necessary, niche really. But I extract to a flash drive, for instance, to save the rewrites (I leave the games I play the most extracted). I also was reading that you can turn extra RAM into temporary storage and extract there. Personally, I don't think I'd go that far. Still, the feature is a good one to have, thanks for that!

Dude awesome! So does it extract the rom to a directory we can choose? does it leave there, or can we have LB autodelete the extracted version?

That's awesome! I want to ask a bunch of questions, but I'll test it later as well.