1. Fictitious character (based on a combination of Andy Milonakis and Little Willy) that personifies the spamming and the bad and infantile language. A characteristic of his language is the frequent use of exclamation marks mixed with 1's.
2. A song by Mods from the AGS Opera.
The role model of Andy Penis; Andy Milonakis.
ANNIE
(OneThinkingGirl) One of the few female AGS-members. Creator of Artitude and the
Background Blitz, both of which are popular graphical activities.
With her constant presence on the irc-channel, Annie is the unofficial sentinel
of the #ags.
A characteristic of Annie is her frequent use of smileys, in particular ._. and
^_^.
ASCII
(The American Standard Code for Information Interchange) A code that reffers to
the keyboard characters. ASCII-art is when pictures are made entirerly out of letters,
digits and punctuation marks.
AVATAR B BACKGROUND
BLOSTRUP, CATO BUMP C CJ CHROSHAW, BEN CROW'S NEST, THE D DEAD-END DEBATE COMPETITIONS, THE DEMO QUEST DNA E ERGOS, THE
EXCLAMATION MARK EZBOARDS
F FEURSTEIN, ERIC FLAME
FRANKLAND, JOHN FUNTASY G GAC GLOBAL VARIABLES GOOF GREEN, RICHARD
GUI
GUZZO, SHAWN
HAY, ADAM
HOTLINE HYPE I INSTA-GAME INTERFACE J JONES, CHRIS K KIKME
KING'S QUEST VGA L
LASSI QUEST LEKSUTIN, COURTLAND LENS-FLARE
LEET SPEAK
LITTLE WILLY
LJUNGQVIST, PETTER
LOOP
LOVEGROVE, MARK
LUCASARTS M MAGS MACPHERSON, DANIEL G
MIDI N NIGEL MANNING SMITH NIGHT OF THE HERMIT, THE N00B O OBJECT P PALETTE
PHOTOSHOP PHOTOSHOP PHRIDAY
PLEURGHBURGH Q QUANDARYLAND R RESOLUTION ROGER RON S SANTIAGARRO SLOTTE, ANDREAS
SPAM SPRITE-JAM SQUALMAN STAVRAPOLOUS, TELEMACHUS
STICKY T TALKIE TEXT INTERFACE TITLES TOPIC U UNDERDOGS, THE VERB COIN VISY W WALK BEHIND WALKING-CYCLE WALKTHROUGH WIEDMAN, CHRISTOPHER X None Y YAHTZEE Z None
An avatar is a symbol or picture that represents a real person in a virtual environment.
For instance, all who post in the AGS-forums can have a personal picture next to their
nickname. This picture should be chosen with care, as much of the first impression is based
on the graphical representation.
The base image for a room. An AGS game designer places the interactive objects
and hotspots upon the background.
BLOMKVIST, CHRISTIAN
(Chrille) AGS-veteran, behind the AGS-award grand slam title Pleurghburg, Dark ages.
Also creator of the Calsoon-series, as well as several promising demos.
One of the most productive game-creators within the AGS-community, which becomes evident
after a visit at his company Gaspop Software .
(Esseb) AGS-veteran, creator of the non-adventurous game Perpetrator.
1. The first object in the sprite manager of the demo-game. Has become a common
term within the AGS-community, primarily because of the fact that beginners
often fail in changing the graphic of a desired object, and thus keep getting
the picture of a blue cup.
2. The Blue Cup trophy is the prize for winning the annual AGS-awards.
3. An IRC-bot on #ags. Referred to as a good-looking woman.
To bump; to reply to a post in order to keep the thread active - i.e put it on
the top of the discussion-board again.
Short for comments and criticism, which is given and recieved at the Critics Lounge.
CHEUNG, GILBERT
(Gilbert, Gilbot V7000a) AGS-veteran, possibly the first member of the community
after Chris Jones. Has provided technical support ever since.
See Jones, Chris.
See Yahtzee.
A site with information about adventuregames and their
creators, as well as previews and articles. Maintained by Trumgottist.
The player has reached a DE when no actions whatsoever can carry
the game forth, and the game-progess is helplessly halted.
Dead-ends are generally impopular, since the game can be unnecessarily difficult
to win, and any attempts to solve it will be a waste of time. Dead-ends occured
primarilly in Sierra-games (several of the Police Quest games can go on long
after a specific puzzle, but are yet impossible to beat if the puzzle in
question is not solved properly), and are very rare in e.g. Lucas-art games, if
they exist at all. See also WALKING DEAD
Annual contest held in May/June, based on debating. No winners have been announced yet,
as - according to forum custom - each contest is cancelled before the first round is over.
The sample game that comes with AGS
Development from Nordic Affiliates; A big but not very active
association for game-makers who live in the nordic countries.
Award ceremony parallell to the ordinary AGS-awards, but with a
conciderably less serious profile. The Ergos deal with awards in categories like
"Newbie of the year" and "Most annoying game delay", etc.
The last ergos were held by Barcik, who also - uncannily - won the "Newbie of the year"-
category.
The overuse of exclamation marks became infamous after certain, less eloquent, members of
the first newbie wave. Also appears in Mods' song "Andy Penis" as well as in Goldmund's
poetic masterpiece "World war one", both in which the relation to 1:s is made obvious.
World War one
Your guts undone
Exclamation mark one.
Or easy-boards; used by AGS before the change to YaBB. Needed contributions to stay
pop-up-free, for which - among others - Volmel was known as a generous supporter.
Much of what AGS stands for was founded during the time at EZ-board, and to be called
veteran, a member should have experienced these days.
(MrColossal, Eric) AGS-veteran behind numerous art-tutorials, all to be found at
the Internet-site "Kafka's Coffee". Creator of the mini-game "6-Days Assassin".
To flame; to insult or offend someone, mainly because of this person spamming or acting leet.
(Kandyman, Candyman Cometh) AGS-veteran. Creator of Little Johnny Evil. Part of the very
early community, but now mysteriously absent since his appearence in Mittens 2002.
Curiousity fact: John is a cousin to Sarah (or Rhuharb Celestial, which was her
nickname as one of the first female members of the board.), who in turn was girlfriend
of the highly renowned Ben Chroshaw, AKA Yahtzee. As John is Australian, and Ben British,
it is all an odd coincidence.
A comedy in a fantasy-setting.
The Greek AGS Community. Famous for being the first company formed
on the basis of nationality. Members include: Helm, Spyros, and The Butcher.
Responsible for games such as The Book of Spells series, SOL, and Robert
Redford Saves The Day.
Winner of the "most nonsensical word" contest in 2001. Assumably an interjection or an invective.
Also see "Poobungie".
A type of variable used in AGS that is transfered across room scripts and global
scripts.
GLOBAL SCRIPT
The main script that contains all initialisation, interface, character, and
inventory functions
A logical and often anachronistic mistake in a game. Can be
unintentional, due to faulty scripting, but can sometimes be necessary to make
the game progress in the desired direction
(LasNaranjas) AGS-veteran. Strong political profile and acclaimed debater. Released
the art-house parody game Novo Mestro, which is said to be pretty much like
German expressionist cinema, except for the cinema part. Or the Germans.
Graphical User Interface; all interface systems that are based on graphics, in
contrast to text based interfaces.
(Rodekill) AGS-veteran, creator of the Rodekill-games. While the Rodekill series
was rather ordinary, a small cult emerged around the concept and the character itself.
HAHN, ANTHONY
(Cornjob) AGS-veteran, winner of the "lifetime achievement"-award 2002. Involved
in the production of numerous popular games, and probably the most credited
member of the AGS-community. Also behind the legendary project "Run hot", which
has been elected the most annoying game-delay ever.
(Dark Stalkey, DS) AGS-veteran, creator of The Journey Home.
The AGS file tranfer server managed by Chrille. The Hotline server used to be a
place you could upload/download games and chat to other AGS users in the
community.
To hype; to raise the expectations of something (e.g a not
yet released game), or advertise in an excessive manner.
Invented by MrColossal and Sylpher, I-G consists of pre-made
packs of backgrounds and characters, designed to help beginners to make
experimental games.
The method of control in an adventure game. Interfaces can range from text-based
interfaces, such as Zork, to Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), such as
contempory Sierra and LucasArts games.
INVENTORY
Collection of usable items gathered during the course of an adventure game
(CJ) Creator of the AGS-engine and leader of everything that has to with the
AGS-community.
Also Hosamov; to this date one of the most infamous newbies of the community.
With apparent lies, excessive posting and various violations of the forum-policies,
Kikme has earned few sympathies within the AGS.
A windows remake of Sierra's classic game King's Quest, featuring VGA graphics.
The sequel, Kings Quest 2 VGA, was released winter 2002. Both games are very
popular and considered the absolute elite of AGS-games.
(2ma2) AGS-veteran, head of Intoxicated little bunny and creator of "Permanent daylight"
and "Who killed Kenny Rogers?" as well as several demos, among them the platform game
"Platformius", featuring ground-breaking scripting.
Pressumably the very first game created with CJ:s engine, which was called AC back then.
Created by Visy and Yannis.
(Leksutin, C-Lex, C) AGS-veteran and strong profile despite the lack of produced games.
Often referred to as "the hitman", or other terms related to violence and bad-ass attitude,
but still known as a considerate and sensible character.
A lighting-effect that imitates the optical phenomenon that occurs when
directing a camera into a bright light. The frequent use of lens-flare in order
to quickly make a picture look professional has made it a term for
amateurishness.
LEET
To be leet, to act in an immature and annoying manner, often by using leet speak.
Most members of counterstrike clans are leet.
In a more tolerant view, a leet person can be someone who is proficient with the internet
jargong, i.e. chatting fast, using many smileys and abbreviations, etc.
The technique of writing text without using the proper letters. The technique is
mainly used by people who are to write forbidden words, and who thereby can
avoid automatical language censors. There are many types of leet speak, from
rather obvious replacements to intricate cyphers.
Example: 7l-ll$ l$ @ I)lc7l()/\//-\ry (This is a dictionary).
LITTLE GRYPHON MASTER
(LilGryphMaster, LGM) AGS-veteran, frequently portrayed in AGS-shows and operas, with a highly
comedian profile.
Mythical character whose existence is debated. Appeared early autumn 2001 with
intrusive, aggresive and numerous posts, similar to Andy Penis (Also predated
Andy Penis). Possibly created by Phil Reed, creator of the Lary Vales series.
Quotes: "What kind of ass-crap is this crap anyway?" and "you make me pee".
(Andail) The author of this dictionary.
1. A series of pictures that together make an animation. Loops are often
constructed so that the last picture resembles to the first, so that the series
of picture can be run repeatedly.
2. A part of a script that repeats itself a given number of times. Loops should
be handled with care, as they will crash the system if set to go on forever.
(Mods) AGS-veteran. Short personal game-record despite constant activity.
Producer of the sountracks in several popular games. Involved in Screen 7,
Adventuredeveloper, the AGD-Zine and the Mittens orginisation.
Company that creates adventuregames. The makers of games like Monkey Island,
Indiana Jones and Sam and Max.
LURK
To lurk, to observe the forum without interacting, in order to
acquire a desired level of knowledge and experience before starting to write
post.
A lurker is someone who has not yet taken the step from observing to conversing.
Monthly contest where the competitors create short games under special given
conditions regarding plot, interface, game-size etc. Originally held by
DGmacphee, currently administrated by Magintz.
MATTGOBLE
AGS-member who administers a website that contains all released AGS-games as
well as several tutorials and useful tips.
(DGMachphee) AGS-veteran, founder of the AGS-academy, the AGS-awards (The Rogers) and
the MAGS (later administered by Magintz). Also creator of Ultimerr and Stickmen.
A music format that uses pre-defined instruments on the computer's sound-card,
and which therefore requires very little memory. AGS lets all midi-files be
included in the exe-file.
MIRC
Program that lets people communicate in real time. AGS has a channel called
#ags.
MITTENS
Annual real-life meeting for adventure-game-creators. The 2002 mittens took
place in England and was organised by Mods, whereas the 2003 edition was held
in Sweden, near Gothenburg, and was arranged by Andail. Mittens 2004 is planned
to be held in USA, and will thus be the first non-european.
The official Mittens-site.
MODERATOR
Members of the community that monitor and administer the forum boards. A moderator
can move, edit or remove threads and posts that in some way are not suitable or
that directly abuse the forum policy.
MOOREFIELD, JESSIE
(Evenwolf) AGS-veteran, joined the community in the first "newbie-wave" in early autumn
2001. Soon became well-known for his diplomatic personality, that helped soothing the
sometimes fiery atmosphere that characterized the community at this time.
MP3
Compressed sound format, about ten times smaller than wave, but still
considerably bigger than midi-files. MP3 are not included in the exe-files of
AGS-games, but are built in a vox-file.
What most laymen consider the best adventure game ever.
Fictitious character that symbolises attributes like prudishness and
conservatism.
A popular game created by Roy Lazarovitch. One of the first full-length games
with voices.
NIHILISM
An avant-garde game by Captian Mostly, famous for lacking a discernible plot or
even ending.
Also Newbie; a newcomer, who in addition to merely being a beginner also acts in
an annoyingly ignorant and nonchalant way.
An object is a mobile part of a room (i.e not a part of the background or a
character).
OPERA, THE AGS
Project that lets people make songs about AGS. The project was probably
initiated by Goldmund and Helm, and is maintained by Mods (on the
screen7-server), who also has contributed with most of the songs. The ags-opera
is not competitative, and all contributions are welcome.
Collection of the operas.
OPERATOR
Person in an IRC-channel with administrative functions.
OUT-LINING
To mark the outer edge of something, often in purpose to reproduce an image,
or/and to make it cartoonized.
Colour-scale that holds the available colours for a computer program. Managing
the palette is a very important doing for creators of 256-colours games, since
the low amount of colours need to be wisely portioned on background, characters,
inventory etc. A high-colour game (or 16-bit) does not need this kind of
attention.
PASANEN, TERO
(Pessi, P3ss1) AGS-veteran, considered one of the absolute top artists in the AGS-
community. No game history, and generally a very low activity on the boards.
A popular program for creating graphics. Handles layers and numerous filters, as
well as both vector and pixel graphics.
Activity/contest based on humourous pictures made in Photoshop after certain
themes set before each "round". Not originally AGS-oriented.
The winner of the Best-Game-nomination of the 2001 AGS-awards. With over 120
screens, Pleurghburgh is one of the longest AGS-games ever made.
POINT AND CLICK
Interface based on the mouse cursor (in contrast to e.g text interface). Virtually
all AGS-games are based on point and click.
POLLS
Some messageboards have topics that are designed as polls, by which people can
vote by checking a box.
Nonsensical word. Negative and derogatory expletive; wider range of usage than Gamutlobster,
but usually takes the form of an interjection.
Example: ""Poobungies! I just dropped my wallet into the bottomless abyss!"
Website that contains many adventuregames.
REED, PHIL
(Simple, The Octompus) Creator of the Larry Vales series.
AGS originally handled 320x200 respectively 640x400 pixels, and many a controversy
was about which one to prefer. The newer versions of AGS handle much higher resolutions,
although it requires much work and talent to actually make use of such high amounts of pixels.
1. Roger Wilco is the main character in Space Quest, and has become an important
term within the AGS. He is also the default character in the AGS-engine, and
therefore often featured in games made by beginners.
2. A IRC-bot on #ags
3. The Rogers, another name for the ordinary AGS-awards.
(Reality On the Norm) A project where people create games based on a specific
setting, the city Reality, and where each game follows the plot of the previous
one, thus making a new chapter to the original story. The project was initiated
in early 2001 by a group of AGS-members, among them Gravityy, Bspeers and
Yahtzee (who also released the first game). There are now more than twenty
RON-games released.
ROOM
A screen in AGS. Not necessarily a room in the conventional meaning.
ROOMEDIT
The executable file to the DOS-version of AGS is named Roomedit.
Infamous ex-member of the AGS-community who spread fundamentalistical messages
and bible-quotes.
SCALE
To resize an image or a part of an image. Can be difficult to do without
changing the amount of colours.
SCENE
Background image in AGS, before it is saved as a room file.
SCREEN-DUMP
To save the image that the monitor shows at a certain moment to an image-file.
SCREEN-SHOT
A picture of a game, movie etc. as it is like while playing it.
SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND, THE
1. By many considered to be the flagship of all adventuregames. Created by
LucasArts.
2. Historical thread on the EZ-boards, known to be the longest one ever.
Was constantly revived as new theories regarding - primarily - the mysterious
ending of the second game appeared.
SHAREWARE
A marketing strategy where commercial programs are available free for a limited
period of time, or/and by a low fee.
SIERRA
Company that created the first adventuregames. Sierra is behind games like Kings
Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Quest for Glory.
SIGNATURE
The static area below an ordinary message-board-post that can include personal
messages, quotes, pictures etc.
(Ghormak) AGS-veteran and creator of the cult classic Moose Wars.
(Spyros) AGS-veteran, creator of The book of spells-series, the Hugo House of Horror-remake,
Wet and Little Willy's dart game. Constantly active on the technical forum, where he has
provided technical support since the dawn of AGS.
Noun: Messages that are sent randomly and in big quantities just to get attention and advertise.
Verb: To post or send plenty of messages in order to get attention or to annoy people.
A community-member who spams can look forward to a quick excommunication.
SPRITE
Pictures that are loaded in the sprite-manager. Sprites are every picture in a
game that is not a background.
A session where a group of people creates sprites (but more often any kind of
picture or scene) under given conditions regarding theme, size and colour-depth.
Can be done in real-time (e.g on IRC), which has the advantage of letting every
participator using the same amount of time. The weekly sprite-jams are open to
everybody and the rules are set by the winner of the previous session.
1. Member and game-creator of the AGS-community known for his low age.
2. Song by Mods.
(Helm) AGS-veteran, creator of The crown of gold, SOL and the highly narrative
Snail Quest-series. Spokesman of GAC.
A thread that is - because of its importance - positioned on the top of a
messageboard by a moderator.
Games that use real voices for the dialogs are often called talkies.
TECHNICAL FORUM, THE
The messageboard that handles technical question concerning AGS.
Interface based on commands that are typed and interpreted by a text parser.
Common in early Sierra-games, whereas AGS-games that use text based interfaces are rare.
Rode Quest is the only attempt to use this interface so far within the AGS.
THREAD
A thread - or a topic - is a branch of the messageboard that contains a chain of
posts. The initial post usually sets the topic of the whole thread, where the
following posts are replies to the first one.
The leading underground company in the adventure games business. Creates re-makes of Sierra-titles with
remarkably professional results. The head developers of Tierra have since their very first
production chosen to stay anonymous.
A title indicates a special possition within the community, and is shown under
the user-name. The available titles are currently: Member, Moderator (displayed
only in the forum where the person is moderator), Mittens Crew (given to those
who have attended a Mittens meeting), Mittens Veteran (attended two meetings),
Mittens '02 (Attended only the first meeting), and Respect my authority (Chris Jones' title).
Earlier, the boards had several titles that were acquired after a certain number
of posts. This feature has however been disabled, since it resulted in people
posting solely for the purpose of acquring new titles.
Another name for thread.
Very extensive community and website dedicated to adventuregaming.
Point and click interface based on a small area of icons that appears after a
click on a specific hot-spot, object etc.
Creator of what is generally considered the very first game with CJ:s engine
(then called AC); Lassi Quest.
A mask that is painted on a background, to define where parts of the background
should cover the character.
WALKABLE AREA
A mask that is painted on a background, to define where a character should be
able to walk.
A series of pictures that while being animated shows a character walking.
WALKING DEAD
The character is a WD when the game can be played but not won.
This can be the effect of not having solved certain puzzles correctly in an
earlier stage of the game, or solved them in an incorrect order. See also
DEAD-END
The solution of a game, written to help people who get stuck.
WAREZ
The name of commercial games that have been made available free by pirates. The
use and distribution of warez is illegal.
WAVE
Un-compressed sound format. Not very suitable for AGS-games because of its size.
Wave-files are not included in the exe-file, but is built in a vox-file.
(Unilin) AGS-member, most known for his low activity on the boards, but constant
presence at the IRC-channel.
1. One of the first AGS-members who created a full-length game. Also known for
his spectacular parting from the community.
2. To do a Yahtzee; to leave a community by no apparent reason, often in a
pompous or bitter-sweet manner.