Topics

1

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Chainsaw Monday

« on: February 25, 2019, 06:33:08 AM »

I've made a short documentary on Chainsaw Monday, the Major Layoffs at Sierra On-Line which happened 20 years ago, on February 22nd, 1999 in Oakhurst, CA and ultimately destroyed the company, albeit slowly and needing another set of layoffs in 2004 to finish off the job! Anyway, its good to remember Sierra... And, its good to know why you shouldn't let somebody else buy out your company, especially if they're fraudulently fiddling with the business statements!

2

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / The Digitization Of Sierra Classics Initiative (TDOSCI)

« on: February 05, 2017, 12:56:53 PM »

http://tdosci.weebly.com -- I thought you guys might be interested in my website, it's been my pet project for a while. It's goal is bringing Sierra Classics (such as the Laura Bow, Aces and Hoyle games) to GOG.com for affordable prices using their 'Community Wishlist' feature and the help of the Sierra Community, instead of them being only on eBay for sometimes two to three figure amounts. This is done by having box art of titles not yet on GOG (supplied by Sierra Chest) with a click-through link to it's GOG Wishlist page.

The problem I could have with a project like this, though, is bringing a steady stream of traffic to the website. It's a one-time use sort of thing for a user, primarily because the site isn't prone to new content or regular updates. I see the usage being: 1) You go to the site. 2) You vote for the games via GOG Wishlist. 3) Optionally, social sharing... Then that's it, basically, you never return. To cover this, I'm looking to partner with other Sierra Sites. As in, have banners on each other's links page or something else feasible and free for both parties.

3

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / The ImagiNation Network (INN) - The Little Red Funhouse

« on: January 15, 2017, 07:50:03 PM »

'The Little Red Funhouse' was part of The ImagiNation Network's Map as an 'expansion pack' you'd have to purchase from Sierra. As far as I can tell from Sierra Resources, it had two 'expansions' which would be loaded from the folders 'SCHOOL' (Bright Star School) and 'DWSchool' (Dim Wit School). I'm wondering if any INN Members have these in order to create a complete INN v2.4?

4

Everything-Else / Neverwinter Nights v2.22 (AOL)

« on: September 21, 2016, 12:25:46 PM »

Neverwinter Nights, part of the Gold Box Games was developed by Stormfront Studios, SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.), and TSR (TSR, Inc.) for AOL (America On-Line) between 1991 and 1997 as what is credited as the first multiplayer online role-playing game to display graphics. AOL closed the servers for the game down in '97 after disagreements with Stormfront, SSI and TSR when their contract ended.

I'm interested in doing something similar to the INN Revival Project with Neverwinter Nights, there's an Offline Version of the game available thanks to reverse engineering near the start of this millennium. What I'm looking for is v2.22 of the ONLINE game, the files that would have been used to connect to AOL, so I can dig around in the files and see if this is even possible.

5

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / FanFiction

« on: July 06, 2016, 08:02:51 AM »

I'm dissatisfied by the lack of FanFiction for major Sierra Franchises (Leisure Suit Larry, King's Quest, Police Quest, etc.) on FanFiction or Archive of Our Own (Seems to be the better place generally: Cleaner and sleeker, easier to navigate and read, etc.), I'm all about user-generated fiction about their favourite TV Shows, Movies, Books or Video Games, and I'm disappointed in the lack of it for Sierra games. Maybe one day I'll make a crossover with Larry from LSL and King Graham from KQ...

6

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / No-Shirt Developers (Fresh Start Post)

« on: July 05, 2016, 08:02:13 AM »

I'm quite new at SCI Programming. Not AGI or SCI as a whole, I've played most of the Self-Published Sierra Lineup (Not including ones made by external developers and published by Sierra).

"No-Shirt Developers" is going to be my first SCI Project, it's meant to be a homage to the style and feel of a Leisure Suit Larry game whilst being somewhat original as well... Full of jokes and meaningless side adventures that just add to the fun, and lots of ways to expire. I'm hoping it'll actually be a finalized game, but yet, I'm only experienced in writing and scripting, so more important things like art or music are going to be difficult for me.

The focus of NSD are the SCIProgramming Forums and four main characters in the form of habitual posters to said Forum. These characters are real posters which have silly nicknames instead: "Comfy-Shirt Kawa", "Inspector Gumby", "Troll Flip" (Troflip) and "The Collector". Before I go on to discuss more about the game I'm looking to get permission from the aforementioned members to use them in a video game basically about the SCIProgramming Community in a fun, comedic way.

7

Forum Support and Suggestions / SCIProgramming Logo.

« on: July 05, 2016, 06:51:15 AM »

Just a little thing, I think it'd make the site look a lot more professional(?) and just visually more attractive to have a logo instead of "SCIProgramming.com" in the top left of the site. Something like "SCIProgramming.com" could then be an Alt for if the image wouldn't load.

8

SCI Development Tools / SCI0 / SCI1 Sounds to MIDI?

« on: July 01, 2016, 03:29:16 PM »

I've tried SoundBox, which doesn't export to MIDI. Is there a modern program I can use to do this?

9

Forum Support and Suggestions / Things that bug me

« on: November 17, 2015, 02:15:33 PM »

Here's things that bug me on the forums which could be changed:

• When you finish a post, instead of taking you back to the last page of the topic (where your reply to the topic would be), it instead takes you back to an overview of the topics in the current sub-board, or sometimes back to the root of the forums... Which both seem to be equally as annoying, because sometimes I want to re-check my reply for spelling mistakes or read over it a final time, or look back over replies previous to mine.
• The 'Insert Code' feature doesn't word wrap, meaning that if I did a large paragraph in code form (which some pieces of code actually are), it would be one line with a vertical scrollbar, which in my opinion is obnoxiously annoying, because it makes the code difficult to read (ignoring the fact it might be a paragraph) and I more often than not have to copy code like that to an external program (such as Notepad++) which supports Word Wrapping.
• When I try and post an image such as a direct gyazo link in the image section, it just shows the whole thing scaled and doesn't show a smaller version that fits into the post area. Another annoying thing is that large images break the formatting because it makes the whole post have a vertical scrollbar which means that text then reaches the extent of the scrollbar and not the visible area. It'd be a lot cooler if you could click on an image and it'd show it fullscreen.

10

SCI Development Tools / Sierra Viewer (SV.EXE)

« on: November 16, 2015, 08:21:33 PM »

Since the information in the tools section is vague, I thought I'd ask here. Who made Sierra Viewer (SV.EXE)? I'm kind of looking to get my hands on the source code, so I can write an improved version which is capable of reading LSCI (Large SCI / On-Line SCI), which is something that the current version of SV.EXE seems incapable of doing. I'd love this to be my pet project, but the information in the tools section doesn't give any leads to who developed it.

11

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / No-Shirt Developer(s)

« on: November 15, 2015, 10:57:19 AM »

As some of you might be able to tell... I'm quite new at SCI Programming. Not AGI or SCI as a whole, I've played most of the Self-Published Sierra Lineup (Not including ones made by external developers and published by Sierra). I've played with SCI Studio and SCI Companion before, years ago and I did even have an account on the forum... But I believe I deleted that to avoid embarrassment (All the questions I asked that were meaningless), and for a fresh start in the future (now).

"No-Shirt Developer(s)" (I haven't yet chose whether it'll be Developer, or Developers, thus the bracket there) will be my first game I'll be making with the help of SCI Companion... It's meant to be a homage to the style and feel of a Leisure Suit Larry game whilst being somewhat original as well... Full of jokes and meaningless side adventures that just add to the fun, and lots of ways to die. I'm hoping it'll actually be a finalized game, but yet, I'm only experienced in writing and scripting, so more important things like art or music are going to be difficult for me; Especially since EGA / VGA Art is something that needs to be learned from scratch. "No-Shirt Developer(s)" is also a vague reference to Kawa's "Comfy Shirt Kawa 4".

So... I'd love to have any suggestions for how I'd do art or music in Sierra Style, and more importantly without buying software to help me out. Also, I'd love offers of help, although as a Game Developer, I understand that I'll probably not get that kind of help until I have some kind of thing to show... Like a Game Design Document, or a rough prototype available.

12

Everything-Else / Thank you, MusicallyInspired!

« on: November 14, 2015, 04:21:12 PM »

Thank you... For being the one that made the "SCI Development Tools" Sub-Board reach the current year within the post count. That Sub-Board will never again be parallel with the real year again. I hope you all enjoy the screenshot I took of the mega rare event, because something like this, on a forum like this... An event like this is one that is VERY RARE!!! 

13

Forum Support and Suggestions / Suggested New Boards

« on: November 14, 2015, 04:53:42 AM »

After taking a long look at the current boards on SCIProgramming.com, I thought I'd give some suggestions for extra boards that could be added, which would expand the range of things that can be done. As right now, it seems as if some things are a bit confusing, such as, where to post certain things that do not really meet the criteria of the current board(s) that exist. Here are my ideas:

SCI Programming:
"The SCI Lounge" (For discussing SCI Titles and / or Projects, for getting suggestions on how you can improve your SCI Resource(s) (Such as art, music, scripts, writing, etc.) and / or SCI Game(s), and for finding people to join your SCI Project(s) in "Key Areas" (such as art design, music design, scripting, writing, etc.); Topics in The SCI Lounge are distinguishable by a tag in square brackets at the start of the subject in block capitals: [DISCUSSION], [CRITIQUE] or [RECRUITMENT]. (Such as [DISCUSSION] Phantasmagoria Hidden Files))

AGI Programming:
"The AGI Lounge" (For discussing AGI Titles and / or Projects, for getting suggestions on how you can improve your AGI Resource(s) (Such as art, music, scripts, writing, etc.) and / or AGI Game(s), and for finding people to join your AGI Project(s) in "Key Areas" (such as art design, music design, scripting, writing, etc.); Topics in The AGI Lounge are distinguishable by a tag in square brackets at the start of the subject in block capitals: [DISCUSSION], [CRITIQUE] or [RECRUITMENT]. (Such as [CRITIQUE] Kings Quest III-Style Sprites))

General and Everything-Else: (Suggested Changes)
"The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff" becomes "The Games Room" (This seems like a much better name, since topics that fit either "The SCI Lounge" or "The AGI Lounge" would probably be moved into them to allow them to be found easier.)
"Everything-Else" becomes "Everything Else" (Just because it bugs me!)

14

SCI Development Tools / INN - LSCIDump

« on: November 11, 2015, 11:29:52 PM »

I extracted resources from INN  (ImagiNation Network), and most of them I don't need or care about. But my whole aim with this was extracting the music so I could convert them into MIDI Files and learn to play some of them. I've already tried some of the Sound.*** files in Soundbox, which I think was something could you add to SCIStudio and the temperamental SCIStudio VGA (4 / 3.+), but it won't play them because they're not SCI0 Format. What do you suggest?