Messages

1

Competitions & Activities / Re: MAGS Discussion - How to get more participation

« on: 16 Apr 2018, 17:59 »

I usually read the mags-threads but never join for the simple reason that I can't make a game on my own. So for me, teaming up could help.
But in my view the initiative for projects, mags and non-mags, lies with the artists. Requests from scripters or designers for artists never lead anywhere that I can see. Requests from artists for scripting or music are instantly succesful however; that's my impression at least.

Another reason for fear of joining is indeed the fact that so many mags-projects don't get finished. I have spent some time on games that never got released. That is not really encouraging...
Maybe a longer period (2 months?) could help increasing the chance a project gets finished?

2

Beginners' Technical Questions / Re: How do I make events only happen once

« on: 07 Apr 2018, 19:13 »

True. But op's problem had to do with getting multipe pieces of coal. If player loses it you may want to be able to get another piece. If not, then indeed GameDoOnceOnly is the best option.
In both cases creating a new variable is not needed.

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Beginners' Technical Questions / Re: How do I make events only happen once

« on: 07 Apr 2018, 14:07 »

The variable that tells if the player has a piece of coal already exists in AGS. There's no need to create another one.
if player.HasInventory(iCoal) {}

4

Completed Game Announcements / Re: Gateway Remake

« on: 16 Mar 2018, 20:34 »

Good catch. Apparently nobody tried to give something to the student before.
Problem is indeed the misspelling. I had corrected the spelling but broke the link to the function by doing that (at least I assume that's what happened several years ago).

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Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Re: Which horror adventure game is your favourite?

« on: 17 Nov 2017, 19:58 »

Though i am not really fond of first person perpective in adventures. Nor of 3d world in adventures.

First person is not an issue for me; I like 1st and 3rd person perspective both.
I strongly dislike 3d when combined with 3rd person view, but with scratches I was really immersed in the game.

BTW I also like Dark Fall, but it's also 1st person, though not 3d I think (that's 'Dark Fall' not 'Darkfall').
Thinking of it, I don't know that many horror adventure games that are 3rd person.

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Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Re: Which horror adventure game is your favourite?

« on: 17 Nov 2017, 19:33 »

Favorite is probably GK2, but I hardly classify that one as horror so I go for Scratches.
Anyone played it?

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Adventure Related Talk & Chat / Re: To Steam or not to Steam

« on: 06 Aug 2017, 11:10 »

There is a list of games you can run without steam client on steam wiki http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

On that page it says: making them effectively Launcher-free once installed.
If that means you have to be online and/or have steam running when installing the games, that's still a problem
I suppose it could be argued that this is not a rights management thing, but it is restrictive in a way it shouldn't.

Steam, and the way developers and publishers (and players) have embraced it is the reason I stopped buying games completely.

8

Completed Game Announcements / Re: Gateway Remake

« on: 02 Aug 2017, 21:00 »

UPDATE:
Version 1.1 is now available. It has new gui graphics by Arcangelo Bonaparte and some bugfixes, including the one that was reported where you can get more points than the maximum of 1500.
See screenshots in the first post.

9

Recruitment / Re: Offer your services! (2016/2017)

« on: 30 Jul 2017, 14:52 »

Hi all,

I like to team up with someone (or join a team) in order to make a freeware, non-steam adventure game. I have made two remakes, Black Sect and Gateway and a RON game, Night and Day. And helped out with scripting, puzzles and music for a couple of other games, see my profile for examples.

I specifically enjoy puzzle design and scripting but can also help with story and music.
Style or genre is not really important to me, as long as we're going to make the most of it.

Let me know (pm) if you have any questions.
Thanks

10

AGS Games in Production / Re: The Clockwork Labyrinth - about half finished

« on: 22 Apr 2017, 13:57 »

Enjoyed adventure island a lot, so looking forward to this!

This is something I've wanted to try to do for a long while, but I was deterred by the AGS limit on active rooms.  However, another AGS programmer gave me the idea of using the multiple backgrounds for rooms, which enlarges the number of available screens fivefold.

I didn't even know there's a limit on active rooms (what's an active room?). How many rooms is the limit then?

11

Beginners' Technical Questions / Re: gui label displays text twice [solved]

« on: 09 Apr 2017, 13:14 »

Yes, it had outlinestyle set to 'useoutlinefont'. Changed it to none and now it's ok.
Thanks

12

Beginners' Technical Questions / gui label displays text twice

« on: 09 Apr 2017, 11:40 »

On the quit gui, I have a label with the text 'Are you sure you want to quit?'. The text is white (textcolornumber = 15) and the font is fairly large.
In the editor it looks as I expect. But when I run the game, it shows the white text, but also the same text in a small Black font.
The same happens with the gui's for save etc.

This is the Gateway remake that is already released, but against the gui backgound it's hardly noticeable. Actually I never noticed.
But now Arcangelo Bonaparte made new gui's with a plain metallic background and the effect is very obvious.

Any idea why this happens?
thanks

13

Hints & Tips / Re: Gateway

« on: 28 Mar 2017, 20:49 »

Nice! Sent a pm.

14

Hints & Tips / Re: Gateway

« on: 24 Mar 2017, 22:28 »

Apart from the time issues I would like to mention that the Button and Control Panel design could need a slight pepup which is not much work at all...

Do you mean the graphics, or how it works? (I can't draw at all. That's why I made something using original graphics).

Another thing to mention is that the game runs interestingly slow compared to other AGS games on my computer.
When I change location the music starts to stutter sliglty and it needs two seconds to enter the new room...

Hmm, that doesn't happen on my laptop.
Does anyone have an idea what could cause that?

Again, thanks for the feedback.

15

Hints & Tips / Re: Gateway

« on: 23 Mar 2017, 22:09 »

I think the best solution still would be to build up an internal clock and a button that makes 30 minute jumps.

The implications of that are huge though. It would mean time not only advances when the player completes a task (as it is now) but also when the wait button is used. Also you can miss scenes if you use it at the wrong time.
Now the timeflow is strictly controlled. For instance all actions needed to finish a mission add up to around 8 hours, so when a mission is finished it will be evening and you have a chance to visit the Blue Hell if you missed doing that earlier.
Allowing the player to randomly wait will disrupt the timeflow in a way that requires a total redesign of the game.

BTW if you left the game for coffee while in the crate, the time should have moved on after the wait. Didn't that happen?
I agree that this is probably not a game for a 15 min lunchbreak, and it is not designed to be.

You are the first to mention this, so I would like to know if anyone else had problems with this (during testing this didn't come up as an issue).

Thanks for your input. Hope the rest of the game works better for you.

[Add spoiler tag]

16

Hints & Tips / Re: Gateway

« on: 22 Mar 2017, 16:59 »

The mainy problem I see with game play is all the "wait puzzles" for now.

Yes, that's something I was in two minds about. I wanted to remove the whole time management aspect of the game from the remake. In the original. like you said, you had to type 'wait' very often. And if you missed something, you had to wait till the next day to see if you got another chance. But removing it completely would make the game very linear, and I liked the non-linear feel of the original.

So now time only moves after specific player actions, but to keep it somewhat non-linear you can be asked if you want to wait. This happens if you leave a room where you know something is scheduled. "Do you want to wait for xxx?" If you choose yes, the game jumps to that event. So in my view there's no actual waiting there. If you choose no, you can do other things first and come back later. This is the case in the conference rooms and Blue Hell bar.

But then there are also situations where you actually have to wait for something to happen. My idea was that players will easily fill up the time with clicking on things and reading the responses and not be aware of the waiting, it's only +/- 10 seconds usually. But I'm sorry apparently that slowed you down.
This is most prevalent in the Aleph 4 section, after that you should be fine for most of the game.
BTW, in the crate

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

the waiting time is 12 seconds. Did you really perceive that as quite a long time? I assumed the first 5 seconds or so would be used up with just realizing you are in the crate and checking for any hotspots, so the real waiting time would be 7 secs.

Maybe I should make that shorter.

[Add spoiler tag]

17

Hints & Tips / Re: Gateway

« on: 20 Mar 2017, 17:11 »

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

You have to wait at the clearing until you hear the Mutzers coming and then go behind the boulder.

Is that where you are now?

[Add spoiler tag]

18

Completed Game Announcements / Re: Gateway Remake

« on: 13 Mar 2017, 22:49 »

It runs fine in wine on the iMac.
Congratulations on finishing this. It must have been quite the task!

Thanks. Good to know cause I don't have a mac.
Yes, I quite underestimated the amount of work on this one. It's much bigger than Black Sect.

@Monsieur OUXX:

Add spoiler tag for Hidden:

That's strange. It's like that in the original game, but it looks wrong indeed.

19

Completed Game Announcements / Re: Gateway Remake

« on: 05 Mar 2017, 11:30 »

The game is 16-bit and apparently on some newer systems thats a problem when trying full screen. My laptop is 1.5 years old and gives no problems though.
I became aware of this a few weeks ago, but when switching to 32-bit AGS asks me to reimport all graphics so I gave up on that idea.
I started this project about 5 years ago, and at that time it was not a problem, as far asI know.

However, I did a quick test this morning and it looks like it works without all the reimporting, but I have to play the game through in full to be sure (I'm afraid some fonts might give problems).
If all works ok, I'll post a new 32-bit version soon. I can't test the full screen properly though, cause it already works fine on my laptop.

In the mean time: if anyone finds something that could be corrected in a next version, let me know.

20

Beginners' Technical Questions / Re: text in label displays differently on different systems

« on: 01 Mar 2017, 21:49 »

Ok, I think I'll leave it for this game, but next time I may have a look at automatic text splitting.
thanks