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What I am not happy about is consumer behaviour. I see many people moaning about subscription services, "always online" games and day-0 DLCs, but in the end they keep buying them.

I like to think that the disconnect between what people are saying, and what people are doing, is more of a result of the silent majority not caring.
While there are definitely hypocrites out there. I just think it makes more sense that most of the people who are complaining (like us), are just a vocal minority.

My justification for this way of thinking is that people like us are customers, and we want to be treated as such. We get games we actually want to play.
But the vast majority of people are simply consumers, and are happy to just consume. They'll buy all of the latest popular games on a Steam sale and never play any of them, choosing instead to scroll on TikTok for four hours straight.

I'm sure almost everyone here has heard about it by now, but I'll sum it up for those that don't.

It's basically a petition to the EU to pass a rule where players must be given the means to play a live-service after their permanent closure. Whether that's through an end-of-life update (like modern arcade games already do), the tools to run your own private server (saving people the task to reverse engineer the code to make their own tools), or some other way (I can't think of any other way though).

The petition has already met the threshold to be considered, but whether or not they reject it because of bots or something, has yet to be seen.


Personally, I think the initiative is a good thing and I hope it passes. 
I don't like live-services, and their temporariness is baked into their design, so anyone who does like them, should already understand and appreciate that those servers are going to be permanently closed one day.
But there's no reason for the vast majority of them to give you the message "Can't connect to server." After the servers close down. Especially when a lot of them are mostly single-player experiences anyway.

That's a pretty awesome tool you've made. 

I hope you do eventually disentangle it from your website, because it'd be brilliant to have an offline version.
Still, this is great. Thanks for sharing it. 

Very sad. But inevitable. 

I'm seeing this kind of stuff happen to more and more websites recently. At least now I know why they always become random gambling sites. It always did strike me as being particularly random.

As forum members may rightly be suspicious of strange links by unknown posters, I will say that it looks legit. If it hasn't been edited after this reply, the link is to a Google Form (using Google's own URL-shortener) survey about a real adventure game in development:

As someone who has already filled in the survey.
I feel really dumb for not being more wary, and not saying anything about it being safe. 

Then again, I do have an extension that blocks websites from running any scripts unless I say so. It makes it a pain to browse the web, but it does make it safer.

Still, thank you Snarky. 

Check the DateTime api: https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/DateTime.html
You can compare if the current date/time is past a due date and quit to desktop.


- Alan

Of course if you do that, people will easily be able to circumvent your copy-protection by just changing their internal clock.

My best recommendation is to just make sure you give it to beta testers you trust. Maybe throw in a unique serial-number graphic of some kind on the main menu, so you can uniquely identify each beta tester's copy, so if there is a leak, you'll know who did it. (Nothing is a better deterrent than removing someone's anonymity.)
Maybe also throw in a keyword that has to be input whenever the game is booted, so if it is distributed, that has to be sent along with it (you'd be amazed at how often people neglect to include a simple text file to get around something like that).

Or you could just shrug it off, and see it as free advertising. After all, if they like your unfinished version, they might buy the completed version. And if they don't, then they probably never would have bought it in the first place.

Wait, what if you press the keyboard key corresponding to the empty dialog option?

I get the feeling it'd be possible to sequence skip with that. So perhaps that should also be disabled if the dialog option has no text.

I've encountered a similar issue whenever I use a colour with the following values: R:255 G:0 B:255 Alpha:0
I think it's a problem caused by the magic-pink being used to force transparency conflicting with the actual transparency.

I personally make sure all of the transparency in the sprite isn't magenta whenever I use actual alpha transparency. I usually use white, black, grey or something like that. To do that, I just put in a background layer with the follow values: R:128 G:128 B:128 Alpha:1 and then combine the layers, use the magic wand to select the transparent area, and delete it. (There's probably a better way though.)

Hello!

I'm planning out the introduction credits and cut-scene for my game. Before I go too far down Beginner Lane, I wondered if anyone had any guidance or tips on how to (or not to) code scenes like these?

(There will be other cut-scenes beyond these, so I'm hoping to avoid learning something useful later on and redoing everything!)

Thank you for any insight in advance!

In terms of coding, just make sure to use the StartCutscene and EndCutscene functions so players can skip them.
Other than that, there's nothing else you need to worry in the coding-realm. As long as it works, it should be fine. Just make sure everything is where you want it to be at the end of the cutscene.

In terms of "good habits", I'd recommend keeping them short. If they have to be really long, try to intersperse it with a set of dialog options every now and again to keep the player invested (I think Ron Gilbert had a rule of thumb where it was something like cutscenes couldn't go on for longer than a minute without giving some sort of gameplay, although don't quote me on that). Of course if it's an emotional scene, just let it breathe.
And always remember the golden rule. Never make into a cutscene what could instead be made into gameplay. It's more fun to do than to watch.

What I don't get: don't all traditional human artists train on existing art? I imagine that art teachers will show a bunch of Picasso paintings to their students and tell them "Now do something similar" and people will look at the pictures and copy parts of it or only concepts into new paintings. Heck, even the old masters learned by just copying other paintings.
Why is it different here?

Good question. And the answer will depend on who you ask.

Some people will say there isn't a difference.
Others will say the difference is that a human can never remember anything perfectly, let alone recreate it perfectly, so when a human trains from something, it introduces biological imperfections.

For me though, I say the difference is awareness. If you understand how GenAI works, you realize it's isn't learning anything. Now don't get me wrong, there's a chance that what they've developed could be used as a small part for a proper AI that is capable of learning from other artwork. But as of right now, it's just a glorified filter that takes a lot of input data. Just get it to generate "trailer screenshot", and look at the perfect "recreation" of actual screenshots from popular movies that came out at the time of the original training data.
I'm not kidding about it being a glorfied filter either. If GenAI is learning, and is comparable to the way humans learn to make art, then what is the difference between GenAI and the nearest-neighbour scaling algorithm, other than the quantity of data that's being input?

It's hard to explain, because as humans, we have a tendency to see something that's imitating life, and believe that life is imitating it. As an example, now that we've invented computers, there's a surprising amount of people who believe we live in a simulation, simply because they don't fully comprehend that we made computers to simulate life, not the other way around.

As a non-pixel artist (or a least a very rudimentary one), does supposedly "good" AI pixel art still look weird to pro pixel artists? I mean, apart from the usual extra fingers and melting hair, AI pixel art looks somewhat...off to me. Is it because of AI's weakness with shadows and contrast (that flat 50-50 light/dark style inherent to AI), or is it something else? Palette choices? Pixel placement?

I'm far from a pro, but it looks off to me too. For me it's usually the pixel placement. They always place pixels in spots that no one ever would, unless they just scaled down a picture using nearest-neighbour.

Backwards compatibility has been a very important part of the development of AGS. It's only recently that the various developers (there's quite a few who work on the engine) have been considering removing some of the backwards compatibility in order to make the engine function better and be easier to maintain.

Dropping backwards compatibility has been suggested from the start. The problem with this project was that there were people who wanted to have a fully backwards compatible engine capable of running old games (because it was important for other systems), and those who wanted to drop compatibility completely. The ones who were writing backwards compatible engine were more active in practice, and when I joined the project I did not realize this whole issue, so went along with their chosen route, and kept backwards compatibility for way too long. This had a large negative impact on the development.

Then, I double checked that "quite a few" means "many". No, we are not "quite a few" developers, we are very few. There's literally couple of people who work more or less persistently (at least for the last several years), and then maybe 2-3 more that contribute periodically. The people changed over time, but these numbers remained same. The list of people working on AGS credits over 40 people, but majority of them have made couple of contributions over the years and never returned again.

Thank you for the detailed reply, I really do appreciate it. 
Also sorry about getting that information wrong. 

I cannot tell which exactly manual is not working, since you did not mention that, but the online manual is available here:
https://adventuregamestudio.github.io/ags-manual/

This one (the one that the sticky on the Beginner's board points to): https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/manual/
I didn't realize there was another manual out there.

So does that mean some of these games are available on Steam, or even the Google play store? Have adventure games made the move to mobile devices?

Yep, yep, and yep. 

What's more, I was in my mid-twenties. I had a bad attitude, bad temper, and a really unsavory sense of humor. I said a lot of dicey, not-so-nice things to a few people on here, and made a lot of really cringe remarks.

Don't worry about it. I doubt anyone but you, remembers or cares. Everyone here tends to let bygones be bygones, and I've yet to see anyone hold a grudge.
As long as you're humble, disagreements tend to blow over without any issues. And hey, it's not like you got banned, so clearly nothing you did was that bad.
Besides, you should see some of the stuff I've said over the years. 

Good luck with your projects. It should hopefully be possible to bring them out of limbo, although if you encounter any issues importing them to the latest version, I'd recommend installing a bunch of older versions, and importing it between each version one step at a time.
Backwards compatibility has been a very important part of the development of AGS. It's only recently that the various developers (there's quite a few who work on the engine) have been considering removing some of the backwards compatibility in order to make the engine function better and be easier to maintain.

Reading the FAQ, it almost seems as though you're free to use them without crediting them, so long as it's used as part of a much greater work (for example, the music is in the background like a normal game rather than a core element like Guitar Hero).

But I'd add a credit, just to be safe. 

Nice to meet you too. 

Yahtzee... I remember him. He was never really around here much, if I remember correctly. Come to think of it, I don't remember what he was so famous for either... I might have played one of his games. Guess I'll have to check out his YouTube channel.

The games he's famous for, is 5 Days a Stranger and its sequels. I've not played them either.
I think he was also the one who made the first episode of Reality On The Norm, although I could be wrong about that.

lol I remember the "Make Your Game" button. I hadn't noticed it was gone. Does AGS still have the Christmas Day easter egg at least?

I have no idea. I've never loaded up AGS at Christmas. 

Wadjet Eye Games... That rings a bell. I don't remember which member here was affiliated with that though.

I'm pretty sure it's Dave Gilbert. But don't quote me on that. I'm terrible at remembering names.
Also, there's quite a lot of commercially released games made with AGS now. We get a few every year from all sorts of people. 

Anyway, I tried reading up on AGS's development over the years in the manual, but it looks like it's not working?... Or is that just me?

Huh, you're right. The manual isn't working. One of us should probably report that.
None the less, you should be able to read the manual that comes with the editor.

Also I'm surprised no one else has responded here yet.
Maybe they just thought my explanation was good enough. 
Speaking of which, I forgot to add that support for AGS games was also added to ScummVM not so long ago.

Was hoping someone would be kind enough to give me the low-down on everything that has happened with AGS in the last two decades?

Let's see...

• A collective series of games called "Reality On The Norm" was made (but is now mostly forgotten).
• Yahtzee got grumpy with the community and left, then became a successful Youtuber.
• The "Make your game" joke button was removed.
• Chris Jones decided he had better things to do in his life than support a game engine, so made it open source.
• Crimson Wizard decided he didn't have better things to do in his life than support a game engine, and has been working on it ever since.
• A member called Icey came onto the forum with really bad spelling and big dreams to make a massive JRPG, so everyone made fun of him, thus spawning Oceanspirit Dennis.
• Icey actually became competent, but then left to pursue other things
• The Ben Jorden and the Blackwell games were finished.
• Wadjet Eye Games was formed, and exclusively makes and publishes adventure games made with AGS.
• We finally got our act together with the AGS Awards.

And... I think that's all of the important parts.

...and it just occurred to me, some of those people may very well have passed away by now...

Yep. 
I don't know who was around back then (I certainly wasn't), but I assume you know about Larry Vales.    Well, the creator of that game series passed away a few years ago. 

You can also just make your own fonts.
It might seem hard, but it's actually quite easy. Just long winded.
There should be a few font editors here on the AGS forums. I remember using one called Radiant FontEdit, but I think the more commonly used one now is the WFN Font Editor.

Welcome to the forum Zwiffer.
The guy selling fine leather jackets is to your left. If you want to know more about Loom, ask the guy to your right. 

But in all seriousness, I look forward to seeing what you make. If you're going for a SCI0/SCI1 style, does that mean you're planning on using a text parser?

Did you record all the lines yourself? That's pretty insane! 

Pretty much yeah. Kind of.
My brother helped a little by recording nearly 200 lines for me. (He voices three characters. Mostly minor roles.)
But the other 9800 lines were done by me. 

I hope people don't mind my poor attempts at doing a female voice. 

[help]

With the help of artificial intelligence, it is indeed possible to create real masterpieces. You have to keep up with the times. And use everything to the maximum to achieve your goals.

With the help of genAI, then yes... it should indeed be possible to create a masterpiece.
The problem is, the people who are capable of making a masterpiece are the same people who would almost certainly never use genAI to aid their development process.

You ever notice how the best art, is always the stuff that's harder to make? A good example would be stop-motion vs CGI.
It's almost as though the more difficult it is to make something, the more effort people put into making it.