The Drunken Lizard Pub

...has anyone played this? I got my hands on it just a few days ago and am absolutely LOVING it....I feel so guilty mentioning this in this forum, especially while I am still grinding through Book II for the umpteenth time!!

googitty wrote:especially while I am still grinding through Book II for the umpteenth time!!

What? You're at umpteenth already?

Damn... .

But I'll have to look into this game . . . Venetica. Based on the screenshots given at their website, it doesn't look bad at all; is there a story? Well, I'll find out. I only looked at the website really, really quickly.

Oh, and their website is quite nicely done... not that this is any indication of what the game itself is like; just saying... .

Thanks for cluing me in, Goog.

...well, there actually is a decent storyline. At the risk of ruining it for you, you play Scarlett, who is Death's daughter. ...and the maps are pretty big, too....it sort of reminds me of another Fable-type game, only the emphasis on good/bad actions does not seem to be as high.

If this ever gets a native Linux client then I'm all over it. Generally I have a policy of no native Linux client, no purchase, though I occessionally make exceptions for games I know work with wine and I absolutely must have (e.g. Gothic games, Risen, all the Sam & Max and Monkey Island games from Telltale Games). Hopefully Runesoft ports this someday as they have done for many of the games by Deck13. Like other Deck13 games this uses the OGRE engine for 3D graphics which is cross-platform by nature. Runesoft generally ports to Mac first so I would imagine a Mac port is more likely and would happen a lot sooner, but maybe there will be a Linux port too a couple of years down the line.

Goog:
I was about to go and download the demo, just now, but then I sort of recalled that I thought maybe I already did, so I looked in my Downloads folder, and... well... there it is!

So, just now I copied it onto my flash drive and so all I have to do now is move it over to my PC, unzip it and play it.

...That is, of course, if I can unzip it without WinZip, which has expired by now. (I suppose maybe I should pay the $30 for the software . . . unless someone on these forums has a suggestion as to a better piece of software, especially if it's less expensive or even free.)

Really . . . archiving software should be free. And Windows is supposed to come with archiving software, I'm pretty sure I remember being able to unzip files under XP.

Oh, wait... that means I can just move it over to Boot Camp and unzip it before moving it to my PC. Okay, problem solved... I think.

EDIT:
By the way, Googitty: Your avatar is hilarious. I like it very much.

Why, thank you!!

....btw, just finished the game and it has a twist at the end that I absolutely did not expect. I think I owe this one another play through to return the favor.

Evnissyen wrote:Goog:
...That is, of course, if I can unzip it without WinZip, which has expired by now. (I suppose maybe I should pay the $30 for the software . . . unless someone on these forums has a suggestion as to a better piece of software, especially if it's less expensive or even free.)

Really . . . archiving software should be free. And Windows is supposed to come with archiving software, I'm pretty sure I remember being able to unzip files under XP.

Download 7-Zip. It's free and IMHO better that any zip/unzip product out there. It also handles other compression formats.


Hmmm, Looks like I need to learn more about how to use the quote response.

Thanks, Diesalot, I just downloaded it; I'll check it out soon.

Glad to see it handles RAR files, too.

Downloaded the demo last night. And I recommend 7-zip as well. Great app.

Looked around a bit but didn't see an English demo. Do they not have an English demo out yet, or am I just missing something?

I'm not quite certain....my version is English, that much I know. But I have a hard copy.....

For what it's worth: my very superficial reaction to Venetica, based on a very quick look, and despite the fact that I don't understand the language (well, maybe I understand a few words, but I've retained almost none of my German)...

(+) It seems like a great deal of attention was paid to the story (well, the dialog anyhow), although, of course: not knowing what they're saying is quite crippling, as far as giving this a fair assessment (hence the parentheses). But for what it's worth: lots of dialog, in my mind, at least suggests good things.

+ I like that she begins the game with a poker instead of a traditional weapon. Very nice touch.

- Clumsy gameplay (mouse-keyboard combination is awkward)

(-) I feel like I'm controlling a life-size doll, but I know, I know this is the style, so I suppose I shouldn't really complain, hence the parentheses, but still: it has a distancing effect, it's a little 'too cute' for my taste and therefore would prevent me from really becoming engrossed, from really immersing myself in the story . . . were I able to understand what they're saying, of course. But . . . I'm sure to many people the 'cuteness' should/must be appealing.

However, the Prince Charming and Princess Buttercup thing really is a little too cute, and cliché, for me, especially when he dies saving her, argh!

Too bad I can't demo it in English... .

Dies a Lot wrote:Download 7-Zip. It's free and IMHO better that any zip/unzip product out there. It also handles other compression formats.

For free compression software, I'd suggest IZArc with TugZip coming a close second. They can handle virtually all compression formats (including .ace which 7-Zip can't). They don't have the (IMHO revolting) pink highlighting 7-zip uses either.

If you're prepared to pay, then WinRAR is well worth considering in my view, as it has the most usable UI, top performance (IZArc's weak point it is sluggish in comparison) and flexible licensing terms (for personal use, you pay once and can copy it to any computer you use). WinZip used to be worth having (I picked it up at around version 8.0) but doesn't seem to have progressed much since (their archive support doesn't include .ace either).

As for Venetica, their website looks to be a Flash-based abomination (with no standard HTML fallback) making it unusable to those who don't or won't (like me, for security/privacy reasons) install the plugin. Is it available in English at all?

Take a look at PeaZIP, with ACE support!

Or UniExtract if you're looking for for extraction only...

AstralWanderer wrote:As for Venetica, their website looks to be a Flash-based abomination (with no standard HTML fallback)

True. Also: search engines search for text. Flash doesn't provide it for them, so flash content can't be cataloged.

After taking a look at the source code, I did a quick websearch on some of the text on the Venetica site, and found nothing leading to the original site, only to second-party sites describing the product. (Granted I only looked at the first search page, but... the source site should be at the very top of the list, or at the very least on the first page.)

In source code: any files that're linked, by php, to the page you're looking at should show up when you pull up the source code. The code didn't show any actual referable text.

So... while it's technically inefficient: at least it looks pretty, and if you can get lots of second-party sites to push your product and offer the necessary text as well... problem solved, I suppose, except for that pesky problem of the person doing the websearch not being referred directly to the parent site.